UNKNOWN 0:00

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hello and welcome to the Westside Church's special podcast. If you would go ahead and open your Bible to the book of Jonah. And that's where we're going to be this evening. Good to see all of you here. Great to see a lot of young people here. Appreciate everybody making the time to be together to open up God's Word. Appreciate all of you who have been praying for this gathering. Appreciate all of you who have attended. It wouldn't mean much if nobody showed up. So I'm glad you're here. Hope you'll open your Bible to the book of Jonah. That's right back there in that part of the Bible we don't use very often. But I know you know the story, so get your Bible there if you would. And I know many of you are here coming off of camp. This is a little reunion. You're getting to see some of your friends. You're getting to be back and maybe look for that camp crush you had this year while you were there. You know, that's kind of why we do these things, right? You know, at least that's how I did it when I was in high school. But... Some of y'all already know, we used to sing at Texas camp back when I was a camp friend, thinking bridal. And it just takes a week, and all of a sudden you think you're going to get married, and then all you know, like a week, two weeks, three weeks, maybe you forget it all. But hey, at least we're here. I want to encourage you. Maybe you've got plans for the weekend. You're trying to talk to that special somebody. You're trying to just hang out with the bros just for a little bit. Put on those noise-canceling headphones that our brother just told us about, and let's listen for one more hour to the Word of God. Look with me at the book of Jonah chapter one. I want to talk to you about grace tonight. And if you're already there, we're going to start reading in chapter one and verse number one. Here's what we're going to do. Three things tonight I want to do with you. I want to first look at the desperate need for God's grace. Secondly, I want us to look at the depth of God's grace. And then thirdly, I want us to talk a little bit about our response to God's grace. We're going to be mostly in the book of Jonah. So go ahead and get there if you can. And let's read together Jonah chapter 1 and verse number 3. Verse number 1, 1 through 3. The word of the Lord came to Jonah, son of Amittai, go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because its wickedness has come up before me. But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa where he found a ship bound for that port and after paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord. Jonah was a prophet. He prophesied during the time of King Jeroboam in 2 Kings chapter 14. This is not the only place we know about him. You can read 2 Kings 14 sometime on your own and you can find out a little bit more about Jonah. It was a relatively peaceful time in Israel at the time, though spiritually it was a time where the land of Israel was spiritually bankrupt. This was a horrible time. And so God is calling Jonah not only to preach to Israel, but also to preach to the other wicked nations around, specifically And when God says go, Jonah says no. Jonah says no. And he runs the opposite direction. I'm not great with geography. I did teach it for a few years in seventh grade. But hey, this is all you need to know about this. God tells Jonah to go this way and Jonah goes that way as far as he could go and as fast as he could. And I just want you to think about the audacity that this man has to try to run away from God. Have you ever tried to outrun somebody? Have you ever tried to outrun somebody who's way faster than you? Not a good decision, is it? Not a good decision. In fact, think about this. This is not a very smart guy. The book of Psalms tells us in Psalm 139, where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there, your hand will guide me. Your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, surely the darkness will hide me and the light will become night around me, even the darkness will not be dark to you. The night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. Do you know what that's saying? It doesn't matter how high you go. It doesn't matter how low you go. It doesn't matter how light it is, how dark it is. God can see everywhere. You can't get away from God. You can run, but you can't hide. God knows everywhere. God sees everything. So what is Jonah doing? Why would Jonah run away from the Lord? This is not only audacious, it's also stupid. Jonah was not a smart guy. I mean, of all the prophets, he may be the dumbest one of all. This is not the only dumb thing we're going to see him do. But I want you to think with me for a second about why would a prophet of God, who's called by God to go and deliver a message, why would he be so dumb? To run away. And there are some reasons. Before you judge Jonah too harshly, often when people are running away, the answer is fear.

UNKNOWN 5:07

Fear.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

He's afraid. And before you call Jonah a coward, let me tell you just a little bit about the people that God was calling him to go and preach to. Assyria was a rough, evil, terroristic state. This was a place, one Assyrian king, he bragged about this. He said he conquered a city that resisted them and he said, I flayed as many nobles as had rebelled against me and draped their skins over a pile of corpses. Some I spread out within the pile. Some I hung on stakes upon the the pile i've laid many right through of my land and draped their skins over the walls how does that sound to have as a king that you're supposed to go and tell repent how many of you are ready to go preach to the king of assyria how about this he said i cut off the heads of their fighters and build a tower before their city i burnt their adolescent boys and girls I cut off some of their arms and hands. I cut off of others their noses and ears and extremities. I gouged out the eyes of many troops. I made one pile of the living and one of the heads. And I hung their heads on trees around the city. So before we start judging Jonah too hard, just think about who God is calling this man to go and preach to. And I don't know how many of us would be willing to say, hey, You know, Isaiah, when the Lord calls him, who will go and preach? Here am I, send me. Who's ready to say that? I'll go preach to them. You know, imagine if God called you today to go to Iran to preach the gospel. We're not that popular. If you're an American, you're not that popular in Iran right now. Imagine if God called you to go to Russia. Are you ready and willing to sign up and go? Jonah was not. And Jonah fled from the Lord. Look at verse 4 and read with me down through the end of the chapter. Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. And all the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own God. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. And the captain went to him and he said, how can you sleep? Get up! Call on your God! Maybe He will take notice of us that we will not perish. And then the sailors said to each other, Come, let's cast lots to find out who's responsible for this calamity. So they cast the lots, and of course, the lot fell to Jonah. So they asked him, Tell us, who's responsible for making all this trouble for us? What kind of work do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you? They want to know all the answers to every question. And he answered, I'm a Hebrew. I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. And this terrified them. And they asked, what have you done? They knew he was running away from the Lord because he'd already told them so. Verse 11, the sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, what should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us? Pick me up and throw me into the sea, he replied. And it will become calm. I know that this is my fault that this great storm has come upon you. Instead, the men did their best to roll back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. And then they cried out to the Lord, Please, Lord, do not let us die for taking this man's life. Don't hold us accountable for killing an innocent man. For you, Lord, have done as you pleased. And they took Jonah and they threw him overboard. And the raging sea grew calm. And at this, the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to Him. Jonah learned a really important lesson. You can run from God, but you can't outrun him. You can run from God, but you can't hide. And you know what? Sin always brings a storm. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying here. I'm not saying that every storm in life is a result of your sin. That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that sin always brings a storm. And God, in his grace, brings the storm to Jonah to wake him. Jonah up. This storm was meant to be a wake up call for Jonah in the form of a violent storm. But Jonah slept right through it. Did you catch that? While everyone else in the boat is begging God and whatever God they call out to, they're begging God for mercy. Jonah is sleeping. Have you ever slept right through your alarm? This morning, we were supposed to leave at 5.30 in the morning. There was supposed to be a cab outside. I had to take a plane from New York. I had to get there by 6 so we could take the plane at 7.30 to get here. I was supposed to wake up at 5 o'clock. For whatever reason, I didn't hear the alarm. 5.18 I woke up. I still hadn't packed. I had 12 minutes to take a shower, pack my stuff, and get over here. And here I am. You ever slept through your alarm? You know what's great about God? God gives him multiple alarms here. He not only sends the storm, but he also sends the pagans to preach to Jonah. Did you notice this? Jonah's teaching us something really important. You know, sometimes the people of the world, the pagans, are more godly than the religious people. Did you know that? Sometimes people out in the world are more godly than the people who are in church. And that's the case here. While he's sleeping, what are they doing? They're praying. While Jonah's thinking only about himself, they're thinking about each other. While Jonah isn't telling them to call on the name of the Lord, they're telling him, get up and call on the name of your God. What in the world? Sometimes the pagans are more righteous than the righteous ones. They're more ready to call on Jonah's God than he is. God sent the prophet to point the pagans back to him. But ironically, it's the pagans who are pointing the prophet back to God. They are more religious, more godly than even him. And even when they find out that Jonah is the cause of the storm, even then in that moment, they don't assume they can kill him. Did you notice that? They're reverent towards God. They're looking for another way. They're rowing harder and harder, hoping that they can just find the right way to get back to shore. But actually the storm just getting worse and worse and worse. And so they cast lots and they found out that Jonah was the cause of the storm. You ever had somebody tell you something that you didn't think was important at the time, but they forgot to tell you some really important details that later on you find out and then you realize, wow, that was pretty important. I didn't think it was important, but it was actually important. Jonah had already told them when he got on the ship that he was running from the Lord. But here's the deal. Back in those days, most people thought that gods were territorial. So as long as he got out of land and, you know, he's okay. What Jonah failed to mention was that the God that he's running from is the God of the heaven and the God of the earth, the God of the sea. So what is the problem here? God is chasing him down. And they find out that he's in trouble. It seems when they first told him this, they didn't raise the alarm bells with them initially. But the truth is that once they realized this was the God of heaven and earth, they realized they were in trouble. What's crazy here, though, to me is, did you notice this? Rather than choose at this moment to repent, and for Jonah, when they say, what have you done? And they say, what should we do with you? Rather than Jonah say, hey, you know what? Man, I was wrong to do this. This whole storm is all my fault. I'm so sorry. I know I didn't do this early. I was sleeping, but now let's pray. And he starts crying out to God in that moment. You know what Jonah does? Jonah says, nah, throw me overboard. Throw me overboard. Jonah would rather die than do what God has asked him to do. Jonah would rather be thrown into the depths of the sea than obey the Lord and do exactly what the Lord wanted him to do. Jonah had sunk so deep in the muck and the mire of sin and rebellion that he'd given up not only on God, but he'd given up even on himself. Have you ever been there? You ever gotten so deep in sin that not only did you think, I don't know that God would ever want to save me, I'm not sure God could save me, but I don't think I could ever be pleasing to God again. You ever felt like that? I can tell you I've been there, and it's a dark place. Some of you can relate to this. There have been times where I've sunk so low into sin that you begin to wonder, and I begin to wonder, there's no way I'm ever getting out of this. And even when I've given up on me, you know what's amazing about God? As long as there is breath in our lungs, God has not yet given up on him. Jonah chooses to die, but God has not given up on him yet. And so in chapter 1 and verse 12, we see what is Jonah's only good act here. Every decision he makes here is bad except for this one. In Jonah 1 and chapter 1 and verse 12, for the first time in the story, it appears that Jonah begins to think about somebody else besides himself. And he realizes they're about to die for him when he should be the one dying for them. And so he says, throw me in. And after doing everything they can to avoid it, they toss him overboard and they cry out for God's grace. That God would show them grace. That he would not hold this sin against them. That he would not hold them accountable for this. Knowing that it was the Lord who has done what has pleased him. And as soon as they throw him overboard, the sea is calm. I want you to think about it. If you were one of those pagans on that boat, you think you became a believer that day? You best believe they became believers that day. Those people feared the Lord. They offered sacrifices to the Lord. They made vows to the Lord. These people, because of Jonah, have become believers in God. And you know what? This teaches us something really important. You know what? You are a vessel for God's grace. And God will use you for His glory, whether by your obedience or even by your disobedience. Did you check that out? God's using Jonah, even when he's stubborn and disobedient, to bring people an opportunity to turn away from their sins and fear the one true God and know Him. Isn't that amazing? You are a vessel and God will use you for His glory. God's going to use you for His glory either way. But you get to choose whether or not you will be a vessel of obedience. and submission to God's will, or whether or not you will be a vessel of disobedience. The sacrifice that Jonah makes to go into the sea actually brings about the salvation of the people on board. The people in the ship survive because Jonah goes in the depths of the sea. And the sea grows calm, and they have an opportunity to turn to the one true God. Now, let me just pause here for a second and ask you, does this remind you of any other stories in the Bible? You know, there's a crazy storm on the water. There's like people in a boat. Everybody's afraid. Everybody's crying out for help. And then somebody's sleeping. Does this remind you of any stories in the Bible? Sounds a little bit like another story we read about in Mark 4, doesn't it? This sounds like a story of Jesus. In the boat, there's a storm. Others are afraid of the death. The sleeping prophet gets woken up and he's rebuked. What are you doing sleeping? The storm is miraculously calmed. The companions are rescued. And the men in the boats are more afraid after the storm than they even were in the storm. But there's one difference. In Jonah, the prophet is thrown into the deep, satisfying God's wrath. so that others are safe from it. While in Mark, Jesus is not, right? Maybe we'll come back to that in a little bit. God overcomes even evil with good. Isn't that the story here? God overcomes even evil with good. Jonah fled to avoid being used by God as a vessel to the pagans, but he finds himself, whether willing or unwilling, being used by God as a vessel to the pagans. And I want you to notice just how deep God's grace is. Read with me, if you would, Jonah chapter 1 and verse 17. And I'm going to read all the way down to chapter 2 and verse 10. And I want you to ask yourself this question as we read. At what point does Jonah finally turn from his wicked ways and his stubborn rebellion and finally repent? At what point does Jonah turn from his wicked ways and repent? Look at what it says. Jonah 1 verse 17. Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. And from inside the fish, Jonah prayed to the Lord is God. And he said, toward your holy temple the engulfing waters threatened me the deep surrounded me seaweed was wrapped around my head to the roots of the mountains i sank down the earth beneath barred me in forever but you lord my god brought me brought my life up from the pit when my life was abbing away let me read that again when my life was abbing away i remembered you lord and my prayer rose to you Verse 8. I don't know about you, maybe somebody in here is a great swimmer. I am not. I can swim, but I can't swim well. And I have two great fears in life. One is turbulence on a plane, and two is drowning in water. Those are the two great fears in my life. You know, I could go all over the world, I'm not afraid, whatever, but if I'm on a plane and there's serious turbulence, the fear of falling out of the sky is a major fear for me. And the other one is drowning. I don't know about you, but if I'm Jonah, And I start to realize that I'm the cause of the storm. And I start to realize that everything that we're doing to get back to shore is not working. And I start to realize that they are about to throw me in the deep. It's at that moment that I'm crying out to God. God, please, I'm sorry. I'll go to Nineveh. Whatever you want, I'll do it. I am not going in that sea. But let me ask you this. When they grabbed Jonah and started to throw him overboard, did Jonah pray then?

UNKNOWN 19:51

No.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Read it again. Notice this. Notice here. He's hurled into the heart of the sea and he does not repent. He's covered up by the waves. I don't know if you ever swam deep in a pool, but you know how you get deeper and deeper in the pool and the weight is just heavy of the water on you is heavy. He's hurled in the heart of the sea and he doesn't repent. He's covered by the waves and he doesn't repent. He's surrounded by the deep. and he doesn't repent. He's got seaweed wrapped all around his head and he still doesn't repent. He sinks down to the roots of the mountains and he does not repent. And the Bible says that it's not until his life is ebbing away when he's on his last breath, he cries out to the Lord. And I just want to pause here and ask you a question. If you were God in this moment, what would you do? What would you do? I can tell you what I would do. This is a stubborn child. This is a rebellious child. The Lord didn't give him one chance to repent. He gave him about 20. He's given him so many chances to turn around and say, I'm sorry, I'll go do. But this man is stubborn to the bottom of the sea. Stubborn. He is rebelling against God, unwilling to do what God wants him to do. I can tell you, if I was God, I can tell you exactly what I'd do. I'd say, hey, bro, too late. You should have done that a long time ago. You should have done that when you hit the water. You should have done that before you hit the water. What is wrong with you, man? How stupid can you be? You wait till your last breath. You've waited too long. I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore, buried deeply stained within, sinking to rise no more. But the master of the sea heard my despairing cry and from the waters lifted me, now safe and I. Deeper than the ocean and wider than the sea is the grace of the Savior for sinners like me. Amen. This is the beauty of our God. Now, God doesn't lift Jonah out of the water right away. He actually sends a fish. The fish actually is God's salvation for Jonah. God provides a huge fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Now, to me, that sounds like a long time to be inside the belly of a fish. I'm a little bit claustrophobic. I don't like being in tight spaces. I don't know how big this fish is, but that doesn't sound like a good place to be. Three days and three nights. I'm assuming here God didn't tell him, hey, after three days and three nights, you're getting out of here. Like, how long is he going to be in here? If I was him, I'd go crazy. This is nuts. But God gives him the fish and leaves him there to think about himself. And what I love about this is while he's in the fish, he starts praying. He realizes that God has rescued him from death, at least thus far, and he begins to pray and he begins to make vows to God. God sends a fish who swallows him up for three days and three nights. He sits inside the fish not knowing where he's going until God in his amazing grace makes this fish, get the picture here, makes this fish vomit him up on dry land. And then God calls him again and sends him to Nineveh. I want you to notice something here. Jonah in the story so far has played the part of the prodigal son. Consider with me for a second that God has entrusted him with his most valuable treasure, his word. And yet rather than using that treasure as God, as the father intended him to use it, what has he done? He ran off to the far country to use it how he wanted, to squander it. He runs away. And yet even then, he didn't return to his father. It wasn't until the storm came. It wasn't until the famine came. It wasn't until, remember in the story of the prodigal son? It wasn't until life got really hard and no one gave him anything that life got so desperate that he came to his senses. And he finally remembered his father. And when he looked toward the father and began that journey back home, the father ran to him and rescued him. And isn't that the story of Jonah? Stubborn, rebellious. It wasn't until he hit the bottom of the sea and his life was ebbing away that finally he comes to his senses. He cries out to God. And isn't this an amazing God? Oh, the depth and the riches of God's grace that even from the bottom of the sea he would listen to the cries of his people who would turn from their wicked ways and seek him with their whole heart. God gives an even greater grace. You know what it is? Look at Jonah chapter 3 and verses 1 to 10. The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you. God gives him even greater grace. You know what he gives him? A second chance. A second chance to go and do what God has asked him to do. And this time Jonah obeys. Took him some hard lessons. Maybe not feeling as great as he was before. But this time, Jonah obeys. He goes. This time, Jonah goes. And he preaches. 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown. Remember what we learned about Nineveh. And imagine you showing up, an Israelite, to this place. You're a foreigner. You're a stranger. You're an immigrant. You're not welcome. And you're going to come in here. You're going to preach that message? 40 days? And this city is going to be overthrown? What do you think the response would be? Forty days in Nineveh will be overthrown. And Yahweh, with an army of one man, brings the greatest city in the world to its knees with that simple message. The Ninevites believed in God. A fast was proclaimed. The whole city is wearing sackcloth. The king takes off his royal robes. He's covering himself with sackcloth. He's sitting in the dust. Even the animals are covered in sackcloth. I don't know if you guys do this here in New York. Sometimes people dress up their dogs in clothes. I don't know if you guys have seen that before. But imagine this. You're going through a city of 120,000 people. And not only that many people, but all the animals, every one of them is wearing clothes. But it's sackcloth and ashes. Because The whole city is fasting. The city is trying to make a change. And they're trying to make it quick before they get destroyed. The king sends out a proclamation to the whole city. And he says, don't let people or animals taste anything. Let them all be covered in sackcloth. Let everyone urgently call on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. And who knows? God may yet relent. How could this happen? Jonah preaches 40 days. And then it will be overthrown. And all it takes is that. And bam! I don't know if you guys see this stuff happening in downtown Dallas, but it's pretty common in Brooklyn for you to see on the street people street preaching. And they'll come up. Some of them will have a sign. They'll say, hey, you know, 40 days and Brooklyn's going to be overthrown. You know, this whole city's coming down. You're going to be destroyed. That day of the Lord is coming. And you know what most people do when they come and say that? We just walk by on the other side. You know, even me sometimes. You just walk by, you know, like... I didn't really think much of it. I do fear God. I know the Lord's coming back, but I didn't think much about it. How does this Israelite preacher from a foreign land come to this city, preach a simple message like that, and the whole city repent with just like a 10-word sermon? Maybe Jesus gives us a clue in Luke chapter 11 and verse 30. And before I read that, let me preface what I'm about to say here with this. I've never spent three days and three nights in the belly of a fish. I have very little experience in the belly of a fish. However, I have gone fishing. I have fished before. And one time, I caught a fish. One time. We pulled the fish out. And we took it home to fillet it. We were going to eat the thing, and it was like bulging. And so we started to cut it open, and at first we're like, maybe the fish is pregnant. Like, why is it sticking out like that? Well, we opened the fish up, and inside of it is a whole big crawdad that it had eaten. Except when I saw the crawdad, the crawdad was no longer the color that it normally... It was like bleached, like white. And I was like, what in the world is going on? Now... What I'm saying here is not specifically what the Bible says, but I do wonder about this. Though I have very little experience in the belly of a fish, I do wonder, after spending three days and three nights in the belly of a fish, what do you come out looking like? Do you think this man looked like he did before? Or do you think maybe something was changed about his appearance? Can you imagine that? He had that sun-kissed skin, but he comes out bleached white? Like, that's crazy! And then he goes to Nineveh and he starts to preach and he says, 40 days and this city is going to be overthrown. And imagine some guy walks up to him and says, bro, what happened to you, bro? And he starts to say, you're not going to believe this, but I got swallowed by a fish. And I spent three days and three nights in the belly of a fish. Now, I don't know if that's how the story went, but I do know this. Jesus says in Luke chapter 11 and verse 30 that Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites. Now, I don't know exactly what that means. I don't know if he looked different. I don't know if word got back. Somebody was on the shore when the fish vomits up a man and they're like, what in the world? And they passed the word back to Nineveh? I don't know how this worked, but somehow, some way, Jonah has become a sign to the Ninevites so that the whole city repents. And you might think this story has a happy ending, right? This is amazing. Jonah repented and God saved him. And now all of Nineveh has repented. And this story is going to end well, right? Look at chapter 3 and verse 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 that He had threatened. I want to tell you this tonight. I don't care what you've done. Probably most of you have not skinned A huge number of people and put them in piles and draped them over the wall, right? You may have done some bad things. I don't know if anybody in here done that But you know what our god is so deep in his grace That even people who've done the unthinkable Are not so far gone that they could not experience his love if they turn from his wicked ways You know what that tells me You're not a lost cause. You may feel like you really screwed it up. You may feel like you've already made mistakes that have wrecked your life and you don't know if you could ever recover. But the story of Nineveh shows that there is hope for us yet, that we can still be saved by an amazing God who has amazing grace. And that should be the end of the story. And what a beautiful ending it would be. But in Jonah 4 and verse 1, the text says, but to Jonah, this seemed very wrong. And he became angry and 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 the Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in love, a God who relents from sin and calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life. For it's better for me to die than to live. But the Lord replied, Is it right for you to be angry? I want you to think about that question. Do you see what's happening here? We're learning something here about Jonah that we didn't recognize at the beginning of the story. And that is that it's not just Jonah being afraid of Nineveh that led him not to go there. I do think he was afraid. But it's not just that he was afraid. Jonah... hated Nineveh these were wicked people who had come to oppress the people of God Jonah hated this nation Jonah did not want this nation to experience God's grace but do you see the irony here do you see what I'm seeing do you understand the question that God is asking him do you have a right to be angry think about this A man who was deep at the bottom of the sea with seaweed wrapped around his head, his life ebbing away, and he cries out and God sends a fish to save his life. Does he have a right to tell God who he should show his grace to? Does he? Does he have a right to be angry? Do we have a right to be angry? Understand what God is trying to teach Jonah here. Should not the God who extended His deep, amazing grace to him, when He sank deep in sin to the bottom of the sea, should He not also extend it to this great nation of Nineveh? Though they were deep in the muck and the mire of sin themselves. Jonah realized what we did not. That God was actually calling him not on a mission to destroy Nineveh, But to say, Nineveh, that our God is a God of amazing grace. And you see here is, this is, if you didn't get anything so far, I just want you to hold on to this one thought. This is the main point of everything we've been working towards tonight in this lesson. When you receive deep, amazing grace from God, what should that produce in you? Grace received should produce a grace that is extended to others. Do you see that? Because God has given you so much amazing grace, you know what you should give others? Amazing grace. The grace that God has given you is not a grace that God expects you to receive and to hold to yourself, but something that you should share with others. We are called by God. to be conduits of his grace, not decaying cul-de-sacs. You know what a cul-de-sac is? We don't have a lot of those in Brooklyn, but I've seen a few here. You know what a cul-de-sac is? It's where you drive in and there's just a circle and it's a dead end. When God gives you grace, he doesn't give it to you simply so that you can have it and rejoice in it and give thanks for it and just hold it all to yourself. God gives you grace so that you can extend it to others who are in need. That's what God wanted from Jonah. God had given him amazing grace and God just wanted him to share that grace with the people of Nineveh. But Jonah wanted no part of it. And you see what we're noticing here? We are gracious toward others because God has been gracious towards us. When we come to recognize the depth and the riches of God's amazing grace toward us, Nothing will be able to stop you from sharing that same grace with the world around you. That's the way it works. God's grace provokes grace. Grace received provokes grace extended. Freely we have received, therefore freely also we give. I want to talk to you for a second, though, about our response to grace. Why is grace so hard for us? Why is it so difficult for us to extend grace to others when we all know that we have needed it ourselves? Why is it so hard for us to share that same grace with others that God has shared with us? Let me give you a couple of reasons. One, we forget who we are and we forget where we came from. Did you notice this? In the first half of the story, Jonah plays the part of the prodigal son. But did you notice what's happening in chapters 3 and 4? Who is Jonah now? He's the older brother. When the father comes and grabs his son and welcomes him home when he comes back home and he throws a feast and a huge party and he invites and pleads with his older son, come inside and rejoice. My son who is dead, he's been found. He's here again. And what did the older brother say? What in the world? I ain't coming in here to celebrate that. I've been over here slaving away. I've been doing everything you asked. You haven't done that for me. Doesn't that sound a bit like Jonah? You know what our problem is? When we are having a hard time extending grace to others, it's because we forget who we are and we forget where we came from. We are the prodigal who is sinking deep in sin. And therefore, we need to extend that same grace that God has given to us. Why don't the Pharisees eat with tax collectors and sinners? Why doesn't Jonah want God to show mercy to Nineveh? Because Jonah had forgotten what God did for him. And he'd forgotten that that same grace that God had given him is what God wanted him to extend to others. We forget who we are and where we came from. Secondly, though, we have a very narrow definition of sin and an enormous amount of pride. A very narrow definition of sin and an enormous amount of pride. I want you to think about this for a second. We are good at defining sin in ways that excludes our own faults and flaws, right? It's easy to see sin in other people. This is why Jesus says that thing in the Sermon on the Mount about like, hey, you know, before you deal with the speck in your brother's eye, deal with the plank in your own eye. I don't think that that means in every case... In every case, the sin is always bigger in me than it is in you. Maybe sometimes your sin is bigger than mine. But I think the point of that is that to me, when there's a sin in me and there's a sin in you, to me it should look like always that it's a plank in my eye. That my sin should always be bigger. But you know that's not the way we work, right? Isn't this true? A lot of times, it's the sin in everybody else that looks way worse. Everybody else is the problem. I'm not the problem. I got some flaws and faults, but they're not bad. They're just little things, you know. I sin every few weeks or every few months, but not that much, you know. When Isaiah comes into the presence of God, Isaiah, he wrote scripture for crying out loud. He comes into the presence of God and what does he say? Woe is me. I am ruined. I'm a man of unclean lips. Who are we? You see, our problem, we don't appreciate God's grace because we don't recognize how deep we were in sin. Some, you know, it's like a child. When we were at the beach one time, my sister had a, her son was just a baby, and he went out and he walked off of this little sandbar into the water and just fell flat down in the ocean. And we were like, wait, he's in trouble. I just ran over there, grabbed him, pulled him out. But you know what happens sometimes? We don't recognize how deep we are and how much trouble we're in. Because somebody's rescued us from it. God rescued us from it and we are quick to forget where we were. We're quick to define sin in ways that really don't apply to us. And so we forget how much grace we need. Let me give you one more here. Why is grace so hard for us? We get distracted by religious things from the things that matter most to God. Do you guys remember Jesus saying over and over again, he said to the Pharisees that they were too busy tithing and every spice in the spice cabinet to find the time to do justice, to show mercy and to walk faithfully with their God in the ways that God desired. It's possible. Jonah teaches us it's possible to be religious, but to not be godly. It's possible to be busy doing all sorts of religious things, but to forget the things that matter most to God. And we are distracted by so many things. Why would Jesus tell a story about a Levite and a priest who pass by on the other side? Is it not because many religious people are the ones passing by on the other side rather than showing compassion to the ones who are in need? How can you As a junior high, a high school student, how can you, as a college student, how can you, as a human on this earth, extend grace? I want you to think about this. The mark of those who've been immersed in God's grace is compassion. Did you notice that's how the story of Jonah ends? God gives Jonah a plant, another object of God's grace. And then Jonah, again, doesn't seem to be getting the point here, doesn't seem to be comprehending truly God's grace. And so God takes the plant away to teach him another lesson. And God takes the plant away to teach him this very important lesson in which the story ends upon. You've been concerned about this plant, though you didn't tend to it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. Should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh in which there are more than 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left and also many animals? What did God want from Jonah? He wanted compassion. And this is the mark of God's people who've been touched by his grace, who've been immersed in his grace. We have compassion. Let me ask you this. Do you have compassion? Do you have compassion for people who are not like you? Do you have compassion for people who don't look like you, who don't talk like you, who don't walk like you, who don't live like you? Or do you show contempt for them? We're living in an increasingly polarized culture. Where we watch and we pay attention to all this social media stuff. And you know how these social media companies work. They have specifically designed the stuff in your feed to feed you the stuff that they think can hook you. And you're just hearing one side of the story most of the time. And it's designed in such a way. You know what gets people to like. You know what gets people to subscribe. You know what gets people to stay watching. The more angry they can make you, the better they got you. That's how it works. We're living in a culture that's teaching us to have contempt for the other side, whoever the other side is. When you go back to school, how are you going to treat the people on the other side, whatever that group is? What's your view going to be towards them? How are you going to talk about them? How are you going to treat the people who mistreat you? What about when you get back to school and you find out that people have been spreading rumors about you all summer? They've been saying things about you. They've been saying things that are not true. They've been saying things that are hurtful to you and they're lies. And then some of those people that have been spreading those rumors show up here in church. Will you welcome them? Would you give them a chance to hear the gospel? Would you preach to them the message of grace? Would you want them to be saved? When you go back to school, many of your friends are going to form groups and tribes. And they're going to start to look at other groups with contempt, and they're going to look down on those people over there who look different, who talk different, who live different. What about you? Will you demonize them? Will you mock them? Will you attack them? Or will you extend grace? Will you show kindness, not just to the people who are cool, but also to the people who are not cool? Will you show compassion for people who are in trouble? What about the people that hurt you? Will you forgive them, as Paul says in Ephesians 4, just as your Father has forgiven you? Will you give them second chances, just like God gave Jonah and God has given you? What will move me, and we'll end with this thought, what will move me and what will move you to become a man and woman of God? moved by grace filled with grace grace provokes grace mercy provokes great mercy if god gives it to us then we must extend it to others but how well i said earlier about that story in mark um Jonah was thrown into the deep and Jesus wasn't. At least that's kind of how it seemed like the story ended. But actually, do you guys remember that Jesus said something like this? Just as Jonah spent three days and three nights in the heart of the sea, so also will the Son of Man spend three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Maybe he was thrown in the deep. Actually, think about this. Actually, have you considered this? That when God said to Jonah, go to Nineveh, Jonah refused to go. for fear of what might happen to him there. Possible suffering and death. But Jesus, on the other hand, when the Father said go, He chose to go. He made up His mind to go, knowing what would happen to Him. Absolute, certainly, suffering and death. Jonah refused because he thought about himself. But Jesus went... Because he thought about us. Who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame. What was the joy that sent Jesus to the cross? It certainly wasn't the idea of hanging on a tree. What was the joy? It was the joy of loving you. It was the joy of sharing his amazing grace with you. And so while we were still in the pig pen, Jesus came down here and he suffered and died. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. Jesus, our older brother, did not look on us with scornful eyes when we were in the pig pen after squandering our lives, after squandering God's wealth with wild living. Instead, he ran to us. He suffered and died for us while we were still in the pig pen. We are called by God to be not only recipients of God's grace, but distributors of God's grace, not just dead ends. So what about you? Will you be a vessel of grace? Will you take God's grace in your backpack as you go back to school in this world? Maybe you're here tonight and you haven't yet experienced the grace of God. There's no better night than tonight to become a Christian. and to truly understand, maybe for the first time, God's grace. I'll tell you this, the grace of God is something you can't fully understand your first time hearing about it. We need a second touch and a third touch and a fourth touch, just like Jonah did. We need to be renewed day after day. But here's what the Bible says in Colossians chapter 1 and in verse 6. Colossians chapter 1 and in verse 6, this is what the Bible says. In the same way the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God's grace. From the day you truly understood God's grace, God's grace begins to produce fruit in you. And maybe that fruit needs to be accomplished tonight with you dying to your sins and burying that old man and being raised to walk in newness of life. If that's where you need to be, then come to Jesus today. And experience the amazing grace of God. Maybe you're already a Christian. And if you're already a Christian, then make it your aim that from this day on, you will continue to learn about God's grace. Not just so that you can appreciate how great it is, but also so that you can share it with others. If there's anything we can do to help you to come to the Lord or come to seek Him more diligently, let us know as together we stand and sing.