“The Purpose Driven Church” –Worship – Psalm 95

Ok, I’m going to say a word and I want you to say the first thing that comes into your mind. Whatever comes to your mind, just holler it out. “Worship”

Now, let me ask some questions. How important is it to worship that it be done in a church building? It’s absolutely NOT important, is it? Martin Luther once said, “A dairymaid can milk cows to the glory of God.” You can worship anywhere. Even churches don’t have to be in a building.

What about a preacher? Do you need a preacher to worship? Nope. Don’t have to, do you? A preacher can lead worship or contribute to the process. He can be a part of it but it’s not necessary to have a preacher.

What about music? Can you worship without music? Sure you can but at the same time, worship can be more powerful and more meaningful when music is involved. What is the right kind of music? Contemporary or traditional? If you came to worship, then either one can be worshipful.

How about prayer? Now, technically, you can worship things or people besides God but if you are going to worship God then prayer is vital. Prayer is vital to worship because worship is between you and God and that communication is called prayer. Does it have to start with, “Dear Lord” and end with “In Jesus name, Amen”? No, formal prayer is not necessary.

What about the Bible? Do we have to read from the Bible during worship? Technically no. I believe you can worship if you are on a deserted island with nobody and nothing except God and a willingness to do so but when we come together for the purpose of worship, we will always read from the Bible and have prayer. If worship consists of communicating with God, then we will pray to Him and listen to what He has to say through His Word.

Almost done with my questions. Do you believe that anybody can worship? The problem with that question is that you assume I am talking about believers. Can someone who does not have a relationship with God through His Son Jesus communicate with Him in worship? Can that person who is not born again, as Jesus said, understand what God wants if the Holy Spirit is not inside him?

I believe that non-believers can be part of the worship service. In fact, that is one of the purposes of our church; to encourage unbelievers to be part of our times of worship so they can become believers. But on their own, they have no real communication with God so they cannot worship. They can be blessed and encouraged and even feel the presence of God but true worship is done in spirit and in truth and someone who has made the choice not to accept Jesus cannot do that.

So, now that we have an overview of what worship is and what it isn’t, let’s see what it really looks like. How do we know how to do it if we don’t have a model? Well, we have models of worship all through the Bible. And that is just another reason to incorporate scripture into our worship. You can find people worshiping from Genesis to Revelation but I picked a few verses from right in the middle, from the book of Psalms.

On Wednesday nights, we are going through the Purpose Driven Life book written by Rick Warren. It’s not too late to join us for that. But I thought it would be appropriate to look at what it means to be a purpose driven church at the same time. In his book, Pastor Warren writes that the first purpose of our lives is for God’s pleasure. Is it any different for a church?

A church is just a group of individuals so if the first purpose of our individual lives is to bring pleasure to God, then that should be the first purpose of a church as well. And one of the ways we bring pleasure to God as a church is simply to worship God. So let’s look at what worship really consists of as we look at Psalm 95. Again, I encourage you to follow along in the Bible as we read. If you didn’t bring yours, there is a copy in the back of the pew in front of you. Just turn to page 426 in most of those Bibles and follow along silently as I read out loud.

Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
² Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.

³ For the Lord is the great God,
the great King above all gods.
⁴ In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to him.
⁵ The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.

⁶ Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;
⁷ for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care.

Today, if only you would hear his voice,
⁸ “Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,
as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness,
⁹ where your ancestors tested me;
they tried me, though they had seen what I did.
¹⁰ For forty years I was angry with that generation;
I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray,
and they have not known my ways.’
¹¹ So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.’”

The Psalms are full of worship. Almost every one conveys some aspect of worship about it. But not all of them are happy. And when we worship, we are not always going to be happy. In Job chapter 1, Job gets word that everything he has is now gone including his 10 children and all of his possessions. And the very first thing Job does is to fall to the ground in worship.

I’ll tell you what. I was going to make a point here about how sometimes we might not want to sing happy tunes when we are not happy. And so I grabbed a hymn book and flipped through there trying to find a song we might sing when we are happy. And I was trying to think of songs like “Glorious Day” or “10,000 Reasons” that are upbeat but when I got to looking, I realized that all of those songs would be appropriate to sing no matter how we feel because our worship shouldn’t be based on how we feel or how good our circumstances are at the time.

Remember? Worship is not about you at all. That’s why the psalmist starts out here saying “let us shout for joy.” We can have joy in any circumstance. Even Job had joy because he knew this life was not all that there is. He knew this life was a wisp of smoke and that because he had a relationship with God, he could spend eternity in Heaven. If worship was based on happiness, we would be doing good to have 2 people here this morning.

The psalmist tells us here to sing for joy to the Lord and to shout out loud. Now, I wanted to know exactly what the psalmist meant here by “shout out loud” and so I looked it up. In the original Hebrew do you know what that means? It means ***shout***out loud***!

It means even when this life is hard and things are going wrong and the world is collapsing around you, and it’s not fair and it’s not right that you are to shout with joy, out loud to the Rock of our salvation; to the One who is the strong ground of our confidence; the basis of our hope; our security. In the New Testament and for us today that Rock is Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 10:4 says, “They drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.” He is the Rock on which the church and all believers are built.

We are literally to shout as if we were yelling at a thief, going to war or after a great victory. That is really what we are told to do here in this scripture. You yell when your team scores on TV. How much more should we shout aloud for the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ? Thank you Lord for your grace! Thank you Lord for your mercy and your forgiveness and your love!

I don’t care how bad of a day you are having; true worship will include voicing your joy for what God has done. It’s not about wanting others to see how holy we are or drawing attention to ourselves or becoming a distraction. But true worship will come from your heart and out of your mouth as a joyful noise.

In verses 3-5 the psalmist shifts his focus to acknowledging just Who God is and why we should worship Him. These verses could be summed up by saying, “Who better to worship the Creator than the created?”

Five years ago, I took a trip up to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and Montana. How many of you have ever been there? How would you describe it? For me, it was almost like being on another planet at times. Some of the stuff they have up there…we don’t have around here. You can just be driving through that huge park and see bubbling pools of sulphuric waxy acid that is boiling hot and colored in pinks, yellows, blues and reds.

There are geysers and volcanoes, all bringing up liquids or semi-liquids that used to be thousands of feet underground but are now part of the surface. Then there are towering mountains with snow on them year round. The Tetons, just south of there, have the most jagged peaks and the air is so clear that it looks like if you could put your hand up on top of those mountains you would cut yourself. And all of it is just overwhelming in its beauty.

Look at verse 4 again. “In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him.” The psalmist had never been to Yellowstone, I’m pretty sure. I doubt if he had ever seen the earth’s core or even the top of a mountain. But he had reason to know that God is great and worthy to be praised; that He is the King above all man-made gods. And so he worshiped Him. He acknowledged God for Who He is and what He has done.

In Mark chapter 4, Jesus falls asleep in the boat after a long day of teaching. It says that a storm came up and all the disciples were afraid and they woke up Jesus and it says that Jesus rebuked the winds and told the waves to be quiet and then it was completely calm. The disciples looked at each other and were terrified and asked, “Who is this? Even the winds and waves obey Him?”

Who is this? This is the One who owns the winds and the waves. And He owns them because He created them. Verse 5 says the sea is His because He created it. He made it. He is Lord and Master over it. Can’t we be as the wind and obey and can’t we acknowledge His greatness? Worship is more than just showing up for church on Sunday morning. In fact, that has little to do with true worship.

True worship will verbalize your joy and will acknowledge God’s greatness. Now look at verses 6-7. True worship will also include your submission to God. Gasp! Oh, no! He said the “s” word. Yes, verse 6 is about submission and reverence. Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. I remember as a kid wondering why we bowed our heads and closed our eyes when we pray. At no other time do we ever do that.

This is why we do that. It is symbolic and yet a very real way of showing our submission to Almighty God. In the days of kings, people would come before the king and show their submission to him by getting down on their knees and closing their eyes, showing that they are completely at his mercy. The king could do anything he wanted to them and there would be no defense.

Today we do it more out of habit than in true submission. We bow our heads and close our eyes and immediately start to think about what’s for lunch or what time the game starts. And we do that because submission is the last thing we want to be a part of. We have grown up being taken advantage of when we give in to somebody. We feel we have worked too hard to give up any advantage or leverage we might have in any situation and to submit to God is going to mean He will send us to Africa to be missionaries or something.

In days of old when somebody knelt before the king I’m sure they were desperately hoping that they had caught the king in a good mood that day. They could only hope that he wasn’t drunk or angry at somebody else and was going to take it out on them by cutting off their head. But if he decided to there was nothing they could do. There was no appeal process.

Today we come in worship and symbolically bow our heads but the very heart of true worship is the submission of our hearts and minds and will to God. And we don’t have to worry about Him being in a bad mood when we come to Him. He is not demanding submission so he can be a tyrant. In fact, 1 Peter 5:6 says, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you.”

Submission to God is acknowledging that God’s ways are higher than our ways, as Isaiah said, and that we give everything we have, everything we are and everything we ever want to Him because we trust Him. And we trust Him because He has proven Himself trustworthy. He has proven Himself trustworthy from Genesis to Revelation and all through our lives as individuals and as a church.

Worship without submission is hypocrisy. It is saying one thing and doing another. And just like delayed obedience is not obedience, partial submission is not submission. If you come to God on your knees and with head bowed and eyes closed and say, “God, you can have every part of me. I submit completely to you everything in my life…except this one little habit…except this person…except this one place I go or thing I do…” That is not submission and that is not worship.

He wants every aspect of your life because He loves you and wants what is best for you and what is best for His Kingdom. Verse 7 says, “we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.” We are not peasants serving under a tyrant. We are His beloved flock waiting for the proper time for Him to exalt us. We submit to Him because we understand that He knows and is able to provide what is best for us.

True worship includes verbalizing your joy to God, acknowledging His greatness and submitting to His will for our lives. And we do this; we worship because we want to and he deserves it, not just because He commands it. And the more we know God and have a closer and closer relationship with Him through His Son Jesus, the more we want to worship; the more we want to know Him even more.

But there’s a problem.  You know that great old hymn, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing”?  There are 2 lines in there that say, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love.”  Unfortunately, that is true of all of us.  We have a tendency to wander off, to wander away from God and the worship of Him.  And when that happens, our relationship with Him starts to suffer.  It happens every single time.  It can’t help but suffer.

You can’t be away from someone and have the best relationship; the kind of relationship you could have if you were close.  And when that relationship with God starts to suffer, the other relationships in our lives start to suffer as well.  That joy that we have in the Lord gets harder and harder to find.  That peace that we once knew starts to look more and more like that stormy sea those disciples were so afraid of on that boat.

Look at verses 8, 9 and 10 again.  The author here references something that happened way back in Exodus when the Israelites had left Egypt and were wandering in the desert.  God had provided miracle after miracle for them and yet on this day they looked up and said, “Yea, but what have you done for us lately?”  They got thirsty and forgot all that God had done for them and they complained and were ready to go back into slavery.  It says their hearts were hardened. 

How crazy is that, right?  After all God had done for them and protected and provided for them in every big or little way and now they are forgetting God’s ways.  They were not verbalizing their joy.  Instead they verbalized their complaint.

They weren’t acknowledging God’s greatness.  They were questioning and doubting His provision.  And they certainly were not submitting to God’s will.  They wanted to go back where they started.  And God said He was angry with them because their hearts had gone astray.  How awful to have God angry at you!  We started out this morning talking about how to make God happy and we saw that worship was vital to making God happy.

And now we see that not worshiping is just the right way to make God angry.  And when God is angry, we as believers start to lose our joy and our peace.  So, which do you want today?  Do you want to verbalize your joy, acknowledge God’s greatness and submit to Him in worship?  Anything less is not worship and is how we start to wander off and get in trouble.

As a believer, I can’t afford to have God angry with me.  But for non-believers; for those who don’t have that relationship with Jesus and have not admitted they are sinners and repented and asked forgiveness to God for that sin, then the Bible says there will be a horrible day of wrath coming.  Zephaniah 1 says “That day will be a day of wrath—
a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness.”

And it is your choice.  God can’t make that choice for you.  I can’t do it.  Your mama can’t do it.  It has nothing to do with your church membership or even how many times you have been baptized.  Choose you this day whom you will serve.  As for me and this house, we will serve the Lord.

“Jonah’s Failure” –Jonah 4

I want to tell you what our friends at Unchained Prison Ministry were up to last weekend. They rode three hundred and something miles down towards south Texas and held a worship service in the prison down there. They had one on Friday and one on Saturday. Then they all rode home Saturday evening. Speedy said they were exhausted but had an incredible time of worship and had two men come to have a life-changing relationship with God through His Son Jesus because of it.

And we can all say “amen” to that. But let me ask you some questions. First of all, was it really worth it? I mean, really. Was it worth the time and expense to ride those Harleys nearly 700 miles round trip just to see 2 men saved? Couldn’t that time and money be spent elsewhere with more effect? Well, I’ll tell you how I feel about that. I hope you are sitting out there thinking, “Those are horrible questions, Todd!”

Because they are horrible questions, especially in a church that has as its statement of purpose that we will do whatever it takes to lead people to have a life-changing relationship with Jesus. Ok, so we all agree that what Unchained did was a great thing ordained by God, led by God, for God’s glory, right?

Now let me ask another question and I want you to just think about it. Don’t answer out loud. What if one of those two men saved was the man that killed your wife? Or what if one of those men was the man who raped your daughter? Does that change your view? The man planned, chose, premeditated something that would cause you great personal harm and overwhelming grief. Are you still glad that man received grace from God? Or does grace seem unfair to you?

With that mindset you come to understand a little of what Jonah was going through when God told him to go preach to Nineveh. Nineveh was the enemy. They had warred against Israel for years and years. They were vicious and unmerciful. They were savages. Not only that but they weren’t God’s chosen people. They didn’t even know who Abraham was much less have a part in the covenant between him and God. So when God told Jonah to go over there and preach to them, he didn’t want to because he didn’t want them to receive God’s grace. Because they were really bad people who didn’t deserve it.

In Jonah chapter 4 we see Jonah just coming out of some of God’s grace. God had provided a fish to keep Jonah from drowning and then caused the fish to vomit Jonah onto dry land. And while some grace feels and smells better than others, this grace was welcome by Jonah. God had gone to great lengths to protect and provide for him and Jonah was glad for God’spreferential treatment.

We all enjoy preferential treatment, right? When I flew to Nicaragua a couple of months ago, I was in the cheap seats in the back with all the other peasants. And this was especially difficult for me because I had known what it is like to have preferential treatment and this wasn’t it. I felt like just one more head of cattle. But on my previous trip I somehow flew first class.

We still don’t know how it happened. I didn’t pay for. Didn’t ask for it. The missionary didn’t arrange it. There were plenty of cheap seats to be had but for some reason my tickets got me on board first at the front of the plane with plenty of room for my stuff. I had a big leather recliner to sit in. And when the others got on board, I was already sitting there like Donald Trump drinking a cold Dr. Pepper, wiping my face with a hot towel and enjoying a first-run movie with a flight attendant asking me if I needed anything else.

You know how long it took me to get used to that? Not long! And so, on this last trip when we are being herded into our cramped little cattle car I passed by the first class section and I see this little kid sitting in that big leather chair, I almost got mad. It’s a little kid. He doesn’t deserve to be there. He didn’t do anything to deserve that. He’ll probably sleep through most of the flight anyhow. That should be me. I need room to stretch my long legs.

And that may sound pretty silly to you but you’ve never had that first-class preferential treatment like I have! You probably don’t even deserve it either. J

Jonah chapter 4is our text today and it is at times fascinating, funny and confusing. It is unlike any other biblical book you will read. The author, who was probably Jonah, tells a fascinating story but the ending is horribly written. The last sentence is God asking Jonah a question but we never hear his answer. We don’t know much about Jonah and this book doesn’t paint him in a good light. If I was writing about me I think I would have worked on that a little more but what do I know?

As you remember, God called Jonah to go east young man and preach to Nineveh. Jonah goes west, encounters Moby Dick and decides it is better to just do what God says to do than spend any more time with him. So he goes to Nineveh and with one sentence the whole city has revival and is saved by God’s compassion for them. And Jonah is furious. He’s mad because he sees Nineveh getting that preferential treatment that they don’t even deserve. And we pick up in chapter 4 with Jonah voicing his opinion of the matter with God. Watch what happens.

But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry.² He prayed to the Lord,“Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.

***Let me stop right there for a second. Do you hear Jonah’s tone with God? He points his bony little finger at God and accuses him of being compassionate and loving! I told you it was funny. Let’s continue.

³ Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” ⁴ But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?” ⁵ Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. ⁶ Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. ⁷ But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered. ⁸ When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.” ⁹ But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?” “It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.” ¹⁰ But the Lordsaid, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. ¹¹ And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”

Jonah, the great evangelist, the Billy Graham of his time, walks in the west gate of Nineveh, says his one sentence and walks out the east gate. He then goes up on a hill overlooking the city and throws a huge pity party with God the only guest. He’s not the first preacher to get depressed after a great revival, nor is he the last. Elijah wanted to die also after he had called fire down from heaven.

Martin Luther and Charles Spurgeon wrote about being depressed. I even heard just this week a popular radio preacher tell how he often struggles with it especially on Sunday nights and Mondays after having great worship on Sunday morning. I can relate to a pastor I heard say one time that the hotter he burns on Sunday, the more he is charred ash on Monday. There is something physically, mentally and even spiritually exhausting about proclaiming the truth of the Word of God.

And I know that Jonah has just walked 500 miles to get to Nineveh. He probably hasn’t slept well or eaten well on this trip. He is tired. But there is something else about Jonah that we see here. I don’t know how better to describe it and it’s not anything I have read in any commentaries. But I see a type of greed or selfishness here in Jonah. It is a greed that wants all of God’s grace for himself and for his country of Israel but not for those people over there who don’t deserve it.

As if Almighty, All-powerful, All-knowing, All-loving God can only give out a certain amount of grace and then it’s all gone. Jonah not only has a skewed vision of God’s grace but also of what grace is and how it is given out. I mentioned last week that the prodigal son repented and came home and it says that his father was watching and saw him from a long way off and had compassion on him.

The father showed the prodigal son great grace. And that is a beautiful picture of how God waits for us to repent so He can show us compassion and grace. But do you remember what happened when the prodigal son’s brother came home and found everybody celebrating? In Luke 15 verse 28 it says the brother got angry and refused to join the party. He was mad that his father would show his brother grace. It was basically giving him permission to break the law.

But he, too, had a skewed vision of what grace was and how it is given out. Ironically, Jonah nails it when he complains to God about how God works. In verse 2, Jonah, being a good prophet and having read the scriptures, quotes almost exactly what Moses said in Exodus 34:6. ““The Lord, theLord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness…”

That word “gracious” has the sense of “nurturing” or “bringing up” like a good parent does with a child. Have you ever thought that God gives us grace, not because He feels sorry for us, but instead because He wants us to grow and mature and to become more like Him? And so in his sovereignty and wisdom, He shows us grace when we need it. It’s not because of His pity for us or because we deserve it. If we deserved it, it wouldn’t be grace. And it is most certainly not because He is soft on sin. But like a good parent He shows grace when He knows grace will be more teachable than justice.

Illustration: Charles Spurgeon and Joseph Parker both had churches in London in the 19th century. On one occasion, Parker commented on the poor condition of children admitted to Spurgeon's orphanage. It was reported to Spurgeon however, that Parker had criticized the orphanage itself. Spurgeon blasted Parker the next week from the pulpit. The attack was printed in the newspapers and became the talk of the town. People flocked to Parker's church the next Sunday to hear his rebuttal. "I understand Dr. Spurgeon is not in his pulpit today, and this is the Sunday they use to take an offering for the orphanage. I suggest we take a love offering here instead." The crowd was delighted. The ushers had to empty the collection plates 3 times. Later that week there was a knock at Parker's study. It was Spurgeon. "You know Parker, you have practiced grace on me. You have given me not what I deserved; you have given me what I needed. Moody Monthly, December, 1983, p. 81.

God nurtures us, giving us what we need by His great grace. Jonah then goes on to “accuse” God of being slow to anger. That word literally means to be long-tempered or the opposite of short-tempered. Notice that in the last couple of chapters that Jonah wasn’t complaining about God’s long temper. Oh, no, not Mr. “Salvation is from the Lord.” Not while Jonah was in the belly of that fish praying while he had seaweed wrapped around his head. He wasn’t complaining about God’s lack of anger there, was he?

He wanted all of God’s grace and nurturing love he could get right there. So, what makes God mad? Sin, right? And what is sin? Sin is anything that displeases God. And the Bible is full of examples of people who sinned who paid dearly for making God mad. Whole families, cities and towns have been destroyed because of God’s anger at sin. And Nineveh was about to be on that list. But what happened? What keeps God from getting angry at sin and wiping people off the planet?

We talked about it last week. Repentance brings compassion, remember? Repentance keeps God from punting us off the earth. So, all we have to do is say we are sorry to God and He shows us grace? Is that it?

Augustine was the great preacher of grace during the fourth and fifth centuries. His motto was "Love God and do as you please." Michael Horton wrote “Because we have misunderstood one of the gospel's most basic themes, Augustine's statement looks to many like a license to indulge one's sinful nature, but in reality it touches upon the motivation the Christian has for his actions. The person who has been justified by God's grace has a new, higher, and nobler motivation for holiness than the shallow, hypocritical self-righteousness or fear that seems to motivate so many religious people today.” Michael Horton, The Agony of Deceit, Moody Press, 1990, pp. 143-144.

Make no mistake. Sin angers God. He sent His Son, Jesus, to pay the price for our sin and every sin we commit is another nail in His hands and feet. He has every right to be angry at our sin. But just like Jonah said He is slow to anger when repentance is involved. Nineveh repented. The sailors on the boat Jonah was on repented. Even Jonah finally repented and did what God wanted him to do but Jonah felt he was the only one who deserved God’s grace.

Notice then in verse 2 that Jonah says God is abounding in love. His love is abounding or abundant. The picture here is just wave after wave after wave of God’s love. Have you ever felt that? Have you ever felt the waves of God’s love? Breathe. Every time you take a breath is another wave of God’s love. If anybody should be able to appreciate breathing it would be Jonah who got dumped overboard of the boat and then spent 3 days in the belly of a fish gasping for breath.

And as the waves of the ocean passed over him, even there God’s abundant love was passing over him as well. 1 Peter 5:7says, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” George Muller restated it this way, “It matters to Him about you.” You know, I think I can understand how a non-believer might think that that is not God’s great love. I can understand that taking another breath for them is just one more pain; one more heartache; one more trouble. But in reality, for those unsaved, unchanged, unforgiven it is just the opposite. It is just another opportunity to confess their sins, repent and ask God for forgiveness.

And if you matter to Him and if you repent then the last part of Jonah’s accusation is true as well. He says he knew God to be a God who relents from sending calamity. The word “relent” is similar to the word “repent”. They both mean to change your mind; to go from doing one thing or going one way and to then do or go the other. And God is waiting for all of us to do just that. So, what keeps you from doing that? What keeps you from giving your life completely to Him?

Let me answer that question by closing with a story I heard told about an area preacher who was in the middle of a building campaign at his church. The building was not quite finished but he decided to go check on the progress late one Friday night. He made his way through the new hallway and checked out some new rooms, dreaming of what they would look like when they were finished. He opened one door that swung out and walked into that room and looked around.

Then he went out and pushed open a door that swung in and walked into that room. The door behind him closed and there was no light so he reached for the door knob…and it hadn’t been installed yet. His heart beat a little faster knowing it was Friday night and he could possibly be stuck there for a while. But then as his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he sees… there is another man in the room.

His heart really starts to pound. His hands get sweaty and his mouth is very dry. He summons up all his pastoral courage and asks, “Can I help you?” But the man just stares at him. He takes a step toward the man…and the man takes a step toward him. And then he realizes he is in the men’s bathroom looking into a mirror. (Dr. Joel Gregory, 7/27/10)

I believe what Jonah was really mad about, what really caused him fear and is also what keeps people from committing their lives to Jesus is what they think is a fear of encountering God but is in reality a fear of encountering themselves. Let me say that again. Our fear of encountering God is really a fear of encountering ourselves. God is gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love.

Our problem is that we know we are going to have to change our ways and we don’t want to do that. We know that we are weak and frail and full of baggage and that we are going to fail. We know that changing our ways is going to make some people not like us or change our relationships. And that’s sometimes very true. But it’s not really God we are scared of dealing with. Nor should it be.

Nineveh heard truth from Jonah. You have heard truth from the Word of God today. It can change your life here and now and it can change your life for eternity, just like it did the Ninevites. They didn’t deserve God’s grace. You don’t deserve God’s grace. I don’t deserve God’s grace. But His grace is abundant and available to you today.

Ephesians 2:8 says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.” You don’t have to worry about being good enough or that your baggage is going to make you fail. It’s not about you. Aren’t you glad?

Confess your sins, repent of your sins and accept God’s grace. Do it today because we don’t have the promise of God allowing us to breathe another breath.

Jonah is all about God’s grace. And sometimes God brings the storm or the fish or the scorching wind. And sometimes he brings his never-ending bucket of grace. But both are meant to bring you back to Him.

“Jonah’s Faithfulness’ –Jonah 3

One of the most well-known sermons ever delivered was entitled“Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards. Given in Enfield, Connecticut on July 8, 1741, it played a part in what was called the“Great Awakening”, an international revival in those days. It is my understanding that it was read word for word from his notes in his monotone style with his notes to his face so he could see them which covered his face from view.

(Monotone) Their foot shall slide in due time. Deuteronomy 32:35 “In this verse is threatened the vengeance of God on the wicked unbelieving Israelites, who were God's visible people, and who lived under the means of grace; but who, notwithstanding all God's wonderful works towards them, remained void of counsel, having no understanding in them. “

Imagine that continuing for what might have been an hour. How bored would you have been? What would you say when you left church that day? “Man, that preacher is horrible.” Right? Well, I say it might have taken an hour. By looking at his notes, that would be my guess for how long it would take to read the whole thing. But it probably took longer since it is said that he was interrupted many times by screams and people crying out, “What must I do to be saved!?”

Edwards only looked up from reading when he realized that people all over the congregation were crying and literally rolling in the aisle of the church begging God for forgiveness and to come into their hearts and save them. Now what do you say about that preacher? Would you say he was a great preacher? Or would you say like I do that…truth is enough! It doesn’t matter how “good” the preacher is or how well he speaks or looks. And for that I’m grateful.

There is power in the word that God gives you. And when God gives you a word to say, that word is truth. And truth is enough to change lives no matter how it is delivered. Now we all know that there is wisdom in oftentimes keeping your mouth shut. President Calvin Coolidge once said, “I have never been hurt by anything I didn't say.” And that may be true for him but we see in the life of Jonah that when he kept his mouth shut and didn’t say what God wanted him to say that it caused big problems.

And then in chapter 3 of Jonah, where we are today, we see that just saying what God wanted him to say; just one sentence, changed the lives of thousands of people. And Jonah didn’t have to be a great orator. His delivery wasn’t flashy. He didn’t even have 3 points and a poem like we all know is correct for a sermon. J God gave Jonah one job; one message; literally one sentence to say to Nineveh. And as far as we know that is all he said. But that one sentence was truth and truth is enough!

The book of Jonah is between Obadiah and Micah in the Old Testament. We have seen so far that God told Jonah to go preach to the Ninevites but Jonah ran the other way, got intercepted by a God-ordained fish where he promptly changed his mind and realized that it would be in his own best interests if he just did what God said to do.

In chapter 2, Jonah prays a beautiful and heart-felt prayer declaring, even while still in the belly of the fish, that salvation is from the Lord. God then provides that salvation, at least physical salvation, for Jonah by causing the fish to vomit Jonah onto dry land. What we don’t see in between chapters 2 and 3 is how Jonah felt, what he looked like and smelled like after being inside that fish for 3 days. And now in chapter 3 God calls him again and Jonah has to travel about 500 miles just to get there. But he goes. Let’s pick up the action in Jonah chapter 3.

Then the word of the Lordcame to Jonah a second time: ² “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” ³ Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. ⁴ Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” ⁵ The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. ⁶ When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. ⁷ This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. ⁸ But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. ⁹ Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.” ¹⁰ When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.

What a great preacher, huh? One sentence spoken by a man who was recently fish bait and probably still smelled like it and thousands of people from least to most, slave to king, rich and poor had their eternities changed. Not exactly Billy Graham, was he? And yet, Billy couldn’t have gotten better results because, once again, it is not about the messenger. It is about the message.

And when that message is the truth of God, given by God, to the glory of God, then God is in charge of the results! Amen. Thank you for coming. I’ll see you tonight at 6. I mean, what else do we need to know? When God puts something on our heart to say or to do or to go, our job does not include worrying about how it is going to be seen or received by others. Our job is just to do it and let God be in charge of what happens afterward.

Jonah had a problem with that from the beginning of the book to the very end but at least he did what he was supposed to do and went to Nineveh and said his one sentence. And with that one sentence; that one act of obedience we see a chain reaction of events that ends with thousands of people having their eternities changed. In this chapter of Jonah we see that truth leads to repentance. And repentance leads to compassion.

So, let’s look at this chapter closer by looking to see what those 3 things really are. What does truth, repentance and compassionreally look like and how do we know when we have them? Let’s start with truth. What is truth and how do we know when we have it? For Jonah, and ultimately for the Ninevites, the truth was that in 40 days they would be overturned. That was Jonah’s whole message. In 40 days Nineveh will be overturned.

That word “overturned” literally means to be turned upside down. That what is now up will be down and what is now down will be up. Everything they know, everything they have, and everything that they are will be lost or changed completely. Nineveh was powerful, rich, cultured…and on a path to destruction. They were lovers of themselves. They were selfish, greedy and very violent. They had no love or respect for God, only love for themselves. They found their“truth” wherever they wanted to find it.

I have said before that those who do not follow God’s truth are like the sailors in years past that were in the ocean at night and the clouds rolled in and they could no longer navigate by the stars and they couldn’t see the lighthouse and they needed something by which to navigate. And so they put a lantern on the bow of the boat and charted their course by that light and couldn’t understand why they never got where they needed to go.

In this country’s Declaration of Independence, it is said that we as citizens have certain God-given, unalienable rights. The founding fathers understood that our rights are based on the truth that God gives, not on something that seems to make sense at the time or that will help us achieve what we want to at a certain time. Truth is not necessarily what the majority says or what the majority wants it to be. Truth only comes from God. So, how do we know when we have found truth?

What does that look like? Again, I will start by describing what it is not. Satan is the great counterfeiter. He always wants to give you something that looks like what you need but is, in fact, not real. And he will counterfeit that still, small voice of God that we as Christians hear from the Holy Spirit. Satan is the one whispering in your ear,“It’s ok. Just a little porn is not going to hurt you.” “Don’t worry. You deserve to go get drunk after the week you have had.” Or he will be the voice that says, “You love him and you will marry him soon. It’s ok for you to live together until you can afford it.”

How do you determine that counterfeit voice when it can sound so much like the voice of God? Satan has been doing this a long time and he knows God’s voice and he can imitate it. But he can’t take from or add to God’s holy, written Word. When you hear that voice, if you have that relationship with God through His Son Jesus, a red flag should go up when you hear something like that and it is your responsibility to run that message up against what the Bible says. Because God’s truth that He gives you through that still, small voice will never contradict what He has told us in the Bible.

For Jonah, He knew that the word God had given him was consistent with what the scriptures that he had at the time taught about the justice of God. And so he could preach that message with confidence knowing with everything he was that what he spoke was the truth of God, given by God, for the glory of God. And we can have that same confidence but it is our responsibility to know or find out what the scriptures say about it.

And when we do what we are supposed to do; when we speak the truth that God has given us like Jonah did and that truth is accepted, that truth will always bring about repentance. We see that in verse 5 of our text. It says that the people believed God. Isn’t it interesting that it doesn’t say that the people believed Jonah? They understood that what Jonah said was God’s truth, not Jonah’s opinion, and they believed God. And it changed their lives immediately.

In verse 8 the king says they are to give up or repent of their evil ways and their violence. But what is repentance and how do we know when we have done it? What does true repentance look like? The word “repent” simply means to turn around and go in the other direction. When you give up what you are doing and the path you are on and go in the opposite direction in the way God has shown you, that is true repentance. It will be obvious.

It’s not a slight change of course. It’s not getting a little bit better. It means I was doing one thing this way. Now I am doing another thing the other way. It doesn’t mean a slight change of heart nor is it a gradual process. True repentance happens right now. A minute ago I chose to live in sin but now I have chosen to confess that sin and to repent or turn away from it.

My dad went to Brazil on a mission trip many years ago and was preaching in a revival there. One of the local ladies was saved at that revival and afterward came up to Pop and asked him if he would come to her house and speak to her husband who didn’t know Jesus. So, with the help of an interpreter, he talked to that man and he too was converted. He confessed his sin and repented of it and not just with lip service.

Pop said there was a sheet hanging up in their house that divided their house from the bar that he ran that was the sole source of income for their family. And before Pop could even leave, that man had taken down that sheet, closed the bar and dumped all the alcohol because he didn’t want to be a part of that kind of lifestyle anymore. God had shown him truth and his life was immediately changed by it through his repentance.

Jonah didn’t walk into Nineveh saying, “God loves you and so do I.” Noah didn’t stand in front of the ark telling his scoffing neighbors that they should try to be a little better. Jeremiah wasn’t put into the pit for saying, “I’m ok. You’re ok.” Daniel wasn’t thrown into the lion’s den for telling people how to have their best life now. John the Baptist wasn’t beheaded because he told people to think positive thoughts.

What was the message of all of these men of God? “Repent! Turn away from your sin and go in the way of truth and your life will be immediately changed.” When Jonah told the Ninevites that they had 40 days, they immediately understood, immediately believed, immediately fasted and prayed and confessed of their sin and immediately repented of it. And what happened then?

Look at that last verse again. Verse 10 says, “When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.” God had compassion on them. They found truth. That truth led them to repent of their sin. And when they repented, God forgave them and had compassion on them.

Did they deserve it? No. Were they now perfect? No. Was life perfect for them? No. No. No. But they could now live their lives with the hand of compassionate God on them and with the full security that He knew them and loved them and had an eternal place for them in Heaven with Him when they died.

In Luke 15, the prodigal son goes to his father and demands what money he has coming to him. Then he makes the choice to live a wild and wasteful life; a life of which he knew his father would not approve. He lived it up…until he couldn’t afford to any longer.

Then the truth of his situation set in and he realized that what he had done and where he was and how he was living was a disgrace and so in verses 18 and 19 he confesses and repents and immediately goes home. He was living one way but turns around and goes the other way, back home to his father.

And in beautiful verse 20 it says that his father saw him from a long way off and was filled with compassion for him. His father was waiting for him; waiting for him to come home; waiting for him to repent and leave that old life; waiting patiently so he could have compassion on him.

Did he deserve it? Was he perfect? Was life perfect? No, of course not. None of that has anything to do with the compassion of the father. Nor does it have anything to do with our Father’s compassion for us. King David knew that. He wrote in Psalm 86:15, “But you, Lord, are a compassionateand gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.” Lamentations 3 says, “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. ²³ They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

When you find God’s truth and realize who you really are, a sinner who deserves to be in the hands of an angry God, it can be overwhelming. And sin does make God angry and there are definitely consequences for our sin but 1 John 1:9says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” And he does that because he is compassionate towards us.

We don’t deserve it. It doesn’t make us perfect nor will our lives be perfect but truth will lead to repentance and true repentance will lead to God’s compassion. And he is waiting for you today; waiting for you to repent and leave that old life so He can show you compassion in this life and eternal life with Him in Heaven. If you have not done that then today is the day of salvation. And as Jonah says, “Salvation is from the Lord.”