Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Our dear Heavenly Father, we have gathered here in your house today with an expectation there's something wonderful and beautiful and significant about you and that you want to share that with us.
You want, want us to go home today a little bit different than when we came in.
So we pray that your spirit would be at work as only he can pray that you would find us in the innermost place of our soul and you would whisper grace, mercy and love and we would sense the divine reality.
We would have a hope and a faith for living next week that inspires us and causes us to be beautiful people in a broken world.
And I ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Lord called Jonah. He was a prophet and he said, go to Nineveh.
And Jonah said, no, I'm not going.
And he bought a ticket and got on a boat and tried to sail the opposite way of Nineveh to Tarshish.
But God met him on the sea and the sailors cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah.
And they said, why has this trouble come upon us?
And Jonah said, I'm a prophet and I'm running from God and I'm too dangerous to be around, so if you want to save your life, throw me over.
And they did.
And God by his creative genius had prepared a sea creature and that sea creature swallowed. Jonah was reading again this week about arrogant skeptics and how they mocked the book of Jonah.
And I remembered when I was a 15 year old boy.
And NASA launched an Apollo rocket and it carried a crew of men into orbit around the Earth.
And then at the right time, they launched toward the moon and the Apollo rocket went and circled the moon and then a lunar lander came out of the Apollo module and they actually descended onto the surface of the moon.
And our buddy from Ohio, Neil Armstrong, God blessed him, climbed down a little ladder and bounced around on the moon a little bit.
Anybody here remember it?
Picked up a little dust and rocks, got back on the lunar lander, flew up to the Apollo module, reconnected, they flew back to the Earth.
And by the great mathematicians at NASA, they entered, they re entered the Earth's atmosphere and didn't blow up like the asteroid.
And they hit the water just about exactly where they were supposed to. And there were boats ready and picked them up.
If people with our bonehead ideas and our potential to make mistakes can do that, then surely God can make a creature that could carry Jonah for three days and spit them out on the shore. Church.
I don't find it. I don't find it. Unbelievable.
But Jonah tells us his experience in the great sea creature.
He said, the waters closed in over me to take my life.
The deep surrounded me.
Seaweed was around my head at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever.
Yet you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord, my God.
When my life was fading away, then I remembered the Lord.
Jonah reached his absolute limit.
He was physically exhausted and emotionally broken.
And he said, I reached the point that I knew I was done.
I felt myself passing, passing out.
He said, but in that moment I thought I was dying.
He said, the last thought I had before I thought I was going to die was I remembered the Lord.
Church, when you are at the end of yourself, when you can't take one more step forward, when you do not know how to proceed, ah, there is a beautiful thing.
You can take your attention off yourself and you can remember the Lord.
I read this week that some people actually believe that Jonah did drowned and that he was carried in the great creature three days dead. And God resurrected him when the creature spit him out on the shore.
And Jesus used this when he said, as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the well.
The son of man will be three days and three days in the heart of the earth.
So these people believe that as Jesus was in the tomb dead for three days, Jonah was actually in the whale dead for three days.
I only bring that up so I can speak to some of you.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: Ah.
[00:07:28] Speaker A: Who? Something has died in you.
Ah, it's hard to put your finger on, but you know, there used to be something alive in you that you can't sense and feel anymore.
Is there someone who can hear me this morning?
There used to be something vibrant, something beautiful, something full of hope, something that made you look forward to tomorrow.
But you got swallowed and life took you down.
It rolled you over a couple of times and you reached the point where that beauty and that hope and that sense of well being that once thrived in you, it died.
Church, can you hear this?
You're not hopeless.
No matter what creature has swallowed you, you are not hopeless.
No matter what has died in you, there is a hope. And that hope is in remembering the Lord.
The way to find new life, the way to have your soul reignited, the way to breathe in the life and the wonder of God is by taking your eyes off your own disasters and doing exactly what Jonah did and remembering the Lord.
[00:09:17] Speaker B: Ah,
[00:09:20] Speaker A: you are not beyond the saving grace of Jesus Christ.
Say, Doc, but you don't know What I did.
You don't. You don't. You don't know the compromises I made.
I don't know that there's any way of ever making us right.
If you feel that, then open your heart to this.
The saving grace of Jesus Christ says to you today, where sin did abound, grace did much more abound. Do you hear this?
Whatever the wrong was, whatever the ugliness was, whatever the sin was, it's less than the grace of God.
And he says to you, my grace is sufficient.
Whatever it is that that happened to your soul that left you with that empty feeling.
The grace of God is greater than that issue.
Jonah passed out, but he passed out in hope because he remembered the Lord.
[00:10:39] Speaker B: Ah.
Ah.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: I asked myself, when Jonah said he remembered the Lord, what actually came to his mind when he came to that very end and he thought, I'm taking my last breath, and he remembered the Lord, what was it that came into his mind?
I can't believe it was a vague idea about deity.
I can't believe it was the hollow definition of God as a higher power.
I have to believe that when Jonah remembered the Lord, he remembered some very specific and concrete things.
Otherwise he wouldn't have had hope.
Church.
Ah.
What is it that I want you to think when I ask you to remember the Lord?
Let me share it with you again. I'm going to read this to you so many times, it's going to start sounding familiar to you.
God has. When I remember the Lord, this is what I want to think.
God has all life, glory, goodness, blessedness in and of Himself, and is alone in and unto Himself all sufficient, not standing in need of any creatures which he has made, nor deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting his own glory in by, unto, and upon them.
He is alone the foundation of all being of whom through whom and to whom are all things, and has most sovereign dominion over them, to do by them, for them, or upon them, whatsoever He Himself pleases.
In his sight. All things are open and manifest.
His knowledge is infinite, infallible, independent upon the creature.
So as nothing to him is contingent or uncertain.
He is the most Holy in all his counsels, in all his works, and in all his commands to him is due from angels and men, and every other creature, whatever worship, service or obedience is, he is pleased to require of them.
When we think of God, when we remember the Lord, we have to put tangible things with that.
When you remember the Lord, if the best you can do is remember the nature of Jesus Christ, that everywhere He Went. He helped people. Everywhere he went, he healed people. Everywhere. Everywhere he went, he forgave people. When you remember the Lord, you have to remember something concrete. Just a nebulous idea of God won't help you.
Are you hearing me? Church?
When Jonah remembered the Lord, he remembered the qualities, the virtues, the perfections, the beauties and the wonders of the divine nature.
And even though he was in an absolutely hopeless place, remembering these beauties and qualities and virtues of God gave him hope.
And he thought to himself, if God is this kind of being, then surely, then surely there's hope.
I want you to notice that that Jonah took his view off of himself and put it on God.
I found a song that sounds to me like something Jonah might have sung himself.
And going to play it for you this morning.
[00:15:09] Speaker B: Sleeping on a question, battle by my side Counting bad decision and trying not to cry I burned a lot of bridges, some words I can't take back.
Staring at the rampage a life I never planned When I ran out of excuses the night it got real quiet it's when I finally listen to the truth I've been denying.
I met God at a rock bottom when I had nothing left the world had stopped calling Was all by myself.
The dirt and the broken down on my knees, man got it right rock bottom you didn't give up on me Thought I was too far gone, too ashamed to be restored but mercy met me right there on that cold concrete floor didn't ask me for perfection oh, bring up where I'd been.
You just said, girl, I love you let me help you start again.
All the weight I've been carrying
[00:17:30] Speaker A: oh,
[00:17:30] Speaker B: hit the ground that one night
[00:17:36] Speaker A: when
[00:17:36] Speaker B: grace stepped into darkness and turned it into light I meant God in rock bottom when I had nothing left the world that you stopped calling Is all by myself.
In the undead in the broken down on my knees, man God in rock bottom he didn't give up on me Wasn't in a church pew under perfect skies Was right there in the midst he heard my desperate cry. If you think you're too far fallen you think it's over now Let me tell you where I found he was waiting way down low.
Waiting way down low.
I met God in rock bottom it's where he rescued me.
Turn my shame into his story
[00:19:03] Speaker A: My
[00:19:03] Speaker B: pain into belief I'm standing here forgiving oh, I'm set free My God at a rock bottom I met God at a rock bottom.
So if you're down to nothing and don't know how to pray just whisper his name into the darkness.
He's already on his way.
I met God in rock bottom.
[00:20:10] Speaker A: You hear Jonah's voice in there.
I met God at rock bottom.
This wasn't a pagan. This was a pretty prophet.
This was a man who knew the word of the Lord.
This is a man who was called, who God had empowered, who had done incredible things.
But he got off track in life and it took him to the bottom.
But to his surprise, that's exactly where God was waiting for him.
Church.
I find it very fascinating that when Jonah passes out or dies, whatever it was, he was remembering the Lord.
And when he woke up, he was praying in his subconscious mind.
Job remembered the Lord, and even in his subconscious mind, it prompted him to pray.
And when he came back to his conscious mind, he heard himself praying.
He heard himself saying, ah, there is hope in the steadfast love of the Lord.
Ah.
Church.
Ah.
We did this series because we're trying to confront Christian reluctance.
We're trying to confront that part in our souls that we hold out on God.
We're trying to confront that part of our souls that says, play it safe.
Ah. We're trying to confront that part of our souls that say, ah, don't do anything that rests wholly on faith. Keep your bases covered.
We're trying to confront that part of us that doubts the goodness of the Lord and questions and questions whether he is really ambitious to bless us and show us the way to the riches of life.
Church.
And then because Jonah is a prophet, he makes a contrast that all the prophets make.
He said, those who pray to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.
You know what that means to us today.
If you're looking somewhere other than God to do that work in your inner self that most needs done, Ah, you're going to be disappointed because there is only one God of steadfast love.
And that is what your heart so desperately needs today.
Do you hear this?
More than anything else, your heart needs to feel that God has an unbreakable love for you, that he loves you even when you're at rock bottom.
He loves you when you've burned bridges and you've made mistakes. And he loves you with an unkillable love.
And what we all need to quell a reluctance in us is a remembrance of how much the Lord really loves us.
How he. Why would he not bless you if. If he loves you that much? Why would he not forgive you if he loves you that much? Why would he not lead you in the good way if he loves you that much?
The reluctance comes from a fear that God is really not as good as Doc says he is.
And God doesn't really love me as much as God as Doc says he does.
I'm telling you, he loves you more than I have the vocabulary to describe.
He has a better plan for you than I have the intellect to share with you.
And he says to you today, wherever you are on the scale, if you have mounted up with wings like eagles, if you run and you're not weary, if. If you walk and you don't faint, God is still a God of steadfast love.
If you've fallen hard, if you hit the ground hard and you've been swallowed by something in life and you. And you feel yourself fainting away, the God of steadfast love is ready to meet you.
Can you hear me? Church?
And because Jonah feels this sense of God and this sense of steadfast love, for the first time in the book, Jonah has something beautiful happened in his heart.
Instead of the anxiety of flesh fleeing God all of a sudden, Jonah says, but I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will set, Will sacrifice to you what I have vowed I will pay. Listen. What happened. The anxiety of fleeing gave way to a spirit of thanksgiving.
The anxiety of being in the creature, the. The anxiety of water splashing over him, the fear that he could drown any minute, all that anxiety gave way.
And now, out of a renewed soul, Jonah says, even though I'm still in a terrible condition, my heart says to the Lord, thank you.
Thank you.
My soul is renewed. And I feel an impulse to worship you and praise you and thank you.
I feel rescued from my failed self.
Church Salvation belongs to the Lord.
And Jonah got it.
He came to a point in his life that he said, I can't save myself.
I can't rescue myself.
If the Lord doesn't do something, I'm done.
But that is exactly where the Lord wanted him to be. Church Some of you think you can save yourself.
You think that one of these days something's going to happen and the ugly part of you, somehow or another you will eject.
Or maybe if you're young, you think, I will outgrow this ugliness in my soul.
Let an old man tell you, you don't outgrow ugliness. It just gets uglier with age. Church if I'm going to be rescued, it's not because I have some self help program.
It's not because I transform myself. It's not for. Because I figure a way out of the creature that has swallowed me all of those are myths.
Jonah says very plainly, here's how it works. Salvation is of the Lord.
Whatever you need saved from today, the source of that salvation is the Lord.
You're not going to find that salvation in the latest guru.
You're not going to find that salvation in. In a new book at the bookstore on self help.
You're not going to find that in some magic pill or shot. All of these are myths.
If anybody should know that salvation of the Lord, it's Jonah. And he said, let me tell you from firsthand experience, salvation is from the Lord.
Salvation means, to begin with, that God in Jesus Christ forgives my sin.
Do you hear this?
The first meaning of salvation is God in Christ says everything I don't like about you. Christ paid for you on the cross, Church.
For you who are trying to make up. Well, I did this wrong, so I have to do this right. And I'll balance these out. It's not the way it works, Church.
There is forgiveness and it's free. It's a gift.
The second thing salvation is, salvation is being rescued from a failed and failing approach to life.
I don't believe Christ just saved me to get me to heaven.
I believe he also saved me because he wants me to live the life He. He created me to live.
And as many of you know, everything in life is trying to push you off the track.
Everything is trying to drag you off the track. Everything's trying to distract you.
Salvation belongs to the Lord. Means that the life God wants you to live, the life that is the richest and most beautiful life for you.
It is Christ who's going to save you from the distractions. And he's going to set you on the right way.
How do I obtain this salvation?
I obtain this salvation by faith, Church.
Now let me tell you what faith is.
This is my buddy, John Calvin.
It is a firm and certain knowledge of God's generosity toward us.
You can remember that. What is faith? It is a firm and certain knowledge that God is generous with his goodness toward us.
It is an unshakable knowledge. It is a certifiable knowledge.
And it comes by the work of the Holy Spirit within us.
Church.
Ah.
Perhaps some of you this morning, you need to whisper this prayer.
It comes from the Gospels.
A man said to Jesus, I believe.
Help my unbelief.
Some of you need to whisper that prayer to the Lord.
You. You.
You're not certain.
It's not firm. It's all iffy for you.
Ah.
Whisper to the Lord.
I believe.
Help my unbelief and see what grace God might give you, see what hope he might give you. See how he might lift you up.
And then Jonah said, I'm not going to be reluctant anymore. I'm going to fulfill my vows. I made some promises to you, God, and I broke them.
I made some promises to you, and I ran away from them.
I led you to believe that I would do things that you wanted me to do. And then I refused to do them.
He said, but I see you differently now.
And now instead of being reluctant, I want to fulfill my vows.
He was a prophet. He had taken the prophet's vow, which was to speak the word of the Lord.
Every prophet was. Had a contract with God that God would share his word with them, and they. They would share the word of the Lord with others.
And Jonah came to a point where he said, no, I'm not going to Nineveh. I'm not sharing the word of the Lord with them.
And then he reached rock bottom. And now he said, dear God, I'm sorry.
I don't feel the reluctance. I used to feel I know you in a better and richer and more beautiful way. And now I want to do the very thing you want me to do. Church.
You see this? God worked in Jonah's life to replace reluctance with willingness.
And when God got all that work done, then we come to chapter two, verse ten.
And the Lord spoke to the creature, and it spit Jonah out on dry land.
Listen, sometimes not giving up is the most heroic thing you could do.
In all of these two chapters, Jonah does one thing.
Never gives up.
He never surrendered.
He never.
He never said Samson's prayer. Lord, let me die with the Philistines.
He passed out. Or he died in the whale, in the great creature. But he died clinging to God.
Church.
He died clinging. I remembered the Lord.
He woke up praying. He never gave up.
Now, some of you are in hard spots. Some of you are in deep challenges. Some of you are struggling in ways that would break people's heart if they knew it.
And I'm telling you, there is a message from Jonah today.
Don't give up.
Don't give up. Maybe tomorrow is the day that this creature that has swallowed you, this problem that is defining your life, this difficulty that you don't know your way past, Maybe tomorrow is the day that God will speak to that issue and it will spit you out, and you'll have a fresh chance to live a beautiful, holy and influential life. Church.
If God can speak the language of the sea creature, he can speak the language of whatever Problem is holding you.
If the sea creature obeyed the word of the Lord, whatever problem is holding you, it will obey the word of the Lord.
Jonah got spit out on a beach probably not far from where he got on the boat to flee from the Lord.
I want you to hear this.
He got a fresh start.
Do you hear this?
Now he's right back where he was before he fled from the Lord and fled into all this difficulty.
Do you have the faith to believe that there is a fresh start for you?
There's a fresh start.
The way your life has been does not mandate that that is the way it has to continue.
Do you hear this?
The anxiety that you've lived in doesn't have to be the anxiety that you have in the future. The fear that you've had in the past, it doesn't have to make you afraid in the future. The doubt you've had in the past, it doesn't have to fill you with doubt in the future. Your reluctance from the past, it doesn't have to make you reluctant in the future.
When God meets us at rock bottom, something changes and it gives us a fresh start in life.
I'm telling you now, God is trying to change some direction in your life.
Everyone in this room, God is at work in some way to put you on a little bit better path, to help you to see something more beautiful than you're seeing right now. To have a hope that you don't have right now, to have a faith that you don't have right now.
God is nudging you.
He's gently and with his Holy Spirit nudging you and saying, I got a fresh start for you.
Things going to be different.
You're going to approach life differently than you have in the past.
I'm going to meet you in new and beautiful ways.
Your life matters.
There's things that we have to accomplish together. Can you hear the word of the Lord, Church?
Today could be the day that you draw a line in the sand and you say, my past is past.
But I have come to see God in a different way. And I'm letting go of the reluctance and I'm trusting the Lord with all my heart.
Begin a new life today.
Let the old life pass away in the sea of the past and set a new direction of life in Christ Jesus.
Our dear Heavenly Father, I do call upon your name.
I do turn to you in hope.
I asked for myself and everyone here and everyone who's watching online.
I ask that we could remember you.
Our faith could be strengthened and inspired and we would be. We would let go of the past with his disappointments and regrets, and we'd stand on a new beach in life, and we'd look up to the light of life in Christ Jesus. And something in our hearts would say, here am I, Lord, send me amen.
