Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the FBC Eldorado Sermon Podcast.
Speaker 1: My name is Taylor Guerin.
Speaker 1: I have the privilege of being the pastor here at First Baptist and I want to thank you for listening in to our sermon this week.
Speaker 1: And I want to tell you this if you're in our area and you don't have a church home, we would love to see you any Sunday morning at First Baptist, el Dorado.
Speaker 1: Will you join me now in listening to our sermon from this week?
Speaker 2: You can open your Bibles with me to the book of Jonah.
Speaker 2: Starting will read the first three verses, which is where we will be today.
Speaker 2: Jonah, chapter 1, verses 1 through 3 are as follows Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.
Speaker 2: But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
Speaker 2: He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish, so he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.
Speaker 2: Let's pray together.
Speaker 2: Lord Jesus, I thank you for your word and ask that, by your spirit, you would speak to us this morning.
Speaker 2: We are dependent on you in Christ's name, amen.
Speaker 2: One commentator, eric Tully, reminded me of a story that I had actually heard, at least the first part of a few years back, but of a man named Christopher.
Speaker 2: Up until 2018, this man, christopher, you would have said, was living the American dream.
Speaker 2: He had a wife and two beautiful girls.
Speaker 2: They lived in a great location, he had a good job, he had a great house.
Speaker 2: Everything seemed to be going for him and going his way.
Speaker 2: All seemed to be well, and yet in 2019, he realized that very much.
Speaker 2: There was still something missing in his life, something that he needed deeply, and he was finally able to put his finger on what that was, and it was a relationship with the Lord, jesus Christ.
Speaker 2: And in 2019, christopher came to know Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.
Speaker 2: But this wasn't just a conversion to a new idea.
Speaker 2: This was a conversion to a new life.
Speaker 2: Christopher was sold out for Jesus.
Speaker 2: He would read his Bible daily, his parents talk about, he would message them with different scripture passages he was learning from.
Speaker 2: So Christopher was very much all in.
Speaker 2: One interesting thing I didn't mention about Christopher's conversion is that it took place in a prison cell as he was serving five consecutive life sentences, with no possibility for parole, for a crime he committed in 2018, the details of which are far too tragic to mention from this pulpit.
Speaker 2: Now my question is this what do we do with Christopher's conversion?
Speaker 2: What do we do with an individual that has come to know Jesus Christ, but maybe the world would certainly say can he really be forgiven?
Speaker 2: What do we do with someone like this that certainly has a devastating past.
Speaker 2: Do they just get to, in a moment, have all that sin washed away?
Speaker 2: Do they get to come to Jesus Christ and just get a new blank slate?
Speaker 2: Is that how this thing works?
Speaker 2: What do we do with those that we're tempted to say, at least in the world's standards, are unworthy of mercy and grace?
Speaker 2: These are really the questions Jonah was asking many years ago.
Speaker 2: What do we do with the people that we might be tempted to say don't deserve the grace of God, don't deserve the mercy of God?
Speaker 2: Jonah was asking these kind of questions and in this new series, as we walk through for about five weeks, the book of Jonah, we're going to figure that out.
Speaker 2: What do we do with this?
Speaker 2: We're going to let Jonah teach us Now there will be a temptation to maybe not read as deeply, simply because we'll say this that we know the story of Jonah.
Speaker 2: We grew up hearing about it in Sunday school.
Speaker 2: Maybe we've watched a VeggieTales episode about it and we know the story.
Speaker 2: We know he runs from the Lord.
Speaker 2: We know he finds himself in a big fish.
Speaker 2: We know he ends up in Nineveh and Nineveh repents.
Speaker 2: The story's closed, but I believe there's much more to see over these next five weeks.
Speaker 2: The first question I ask is this who is Jonah?
Speaker 2: Well, first of all is this Jonah is a prophet.
Speaker 2: Now, what does it mean specifically in scripture to be a prophet?
Speaker 2: One who announces we could say prophecy.
Speaker 2: Well, one who announces, we could say prophecy.
Speaker 2: Well, here's what we're first tempted to think that a prophet who gives prophecy is someone who tells the future.
Speaker 2: Isn't that what we think?
Speaker 2: That a prophet is the human embodiment of a fortune cookie that tells you what the future will hold.
Speaker 2: Now, that's not exactly accurate.
Speaker 2: The reality is this we see many times in Scripture where a prophet, through the word of the Lord not the prophet's word, but God's word does tell the people of God what will take place one day.
Speaker 2: That is very much part of it, but more than that, when you think of the word prophet, or you think of the word of prophecy, that word prophet, think of this just a truth teller, one who proclaims the truth of God.
Speaker 2: God gives the word, the prophet proclaims that word and, because of the faithfulness of God to his word, that word comes to pass.
Speaker 2: So Jonah is a prophet, but the reality is this we really don't know a ton past that about Jonah.
Speaker 2: We get four chapters in the book of Jonah where we learn a little bit about Jonah and we get one small reference in 2 Kings, chapter 14.
Speaker 2: Other than that, that's all we get in scripture about Jonah.
Speaker 2: And it's also interesting that throughout the book of Jonah the four chapters we do get he's not really put in the best light.
Speaker 2: And if Jonah, I believe, is the author of Jonah, it's actually a great matter of humility on his part that he told the truth.
Speaker 2: That'd be a temptation if you were writing an autobiographical account of your life.
Speaker 2: You might make yourself look a little better.
Speaker 2: But Jonah tells the truth and I appreciate that.
Speaker 2: But I want to quickly turn to see what we can learn about Jonah in 2 Kings, chapter 14.
Speaker 2: I'll read it to us, starting in verse 23.
Speaker 2: In the 15th year of Amaziah, the son of Joash, king of Judah, jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel, began to reign in Samaria and he reigned 41 years.
Speaker 2: Translation there's a new king.
Speaker 2: Jeroboam II, is on the throne in the northern kingdom of Israel.
Speaker 2: He'll reign for 41 years.
Speaker 2: Verse 24, he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.
Speaker 2: He did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, which he made Israel to sin.
Speaker 2: So Jeroboam II is the new king and guess what?
Speaker 2: He does a terrible job.
Speaker 2: In the world's eyes he might be a halfway decent king.
Speaker 2: In the Lord's eyes he misses the mark time and time again.
Speaker 2: Throughout the book of 1 and 2 Kings 2 Kings really you will see all this line of kings come forward and most every time it'll say that the new king did what was evil in the Lord's eyes.
Speaker 2: There's a few occasions you'll see that a king did what was right in the Lord's eyes, but more often than not you see the evil side of things.
Speaker 2: Jeroboam II did what was evil in the Lord's eyes, but the Lord is faithful and the Lord can work in spite of an evil king.
Speaker 2: And we read verse 25, he restored the border of Israel from Lebo Hamath as far as the Sea of Ereba, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel.
Speaker 2: Look at this which he spoke by his servant, jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath-Hephur.
Speaker 2: And so we have this evil king and yet, in spite of his evil ways, the Lord can still work.
Speaker 2: The Lord expands the area of Israel, as the Lord promised through his word.
Speaker 2: And who did he give that word?
Speaker 2: Through?
Speaker 2: The prophet Jonah, son of Amittai, the same Jonah that we read about in the book of Jonah.
Speaker 2: And so the close reader of scripture turns to the book of Jonah, and what he or she says, that close reader of scripture, is this that I've seen Jonah before.
Speaker 2: He was faithful back then.
Speaker 2: I'm sure we'll have no issues in the book of Jonah that the last time we saw Jonah in 2 Kings 14, he received the word of the Lord.
Speaker 2: He spoke the word of the Lord and God was faithful to his word, as he always is.
Speaker 2: What he said came to pass, and so we would expect the same would follow.
Speaker 2: And then we arrive in Jonah, chapter one, verse one.
Speaker 2: Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying and we'll get to what he said in just a second but again the close reader of scripture, who knows of Jonah from second Kings, says this is great news.
Speaker 2: And, lord, you've come to the right man.
Speaker 2: He's done it before he can do it again.
Speaker 2: You're going to give Jonah the word and he's going to go.
Speaker 2: And what is the word?
Speaker 2: Verse two arise go to Nineveh, that great city you can read that as that important city and look at this and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.
Speaker 2: So the first word of the Lord to this prophet arise, get up, arise and go.
Speaker 2: Go where?
Speaker 2: Go to Nineveh.
Speaker 2: Now that's interesting.
Speaker 2: Prophets usually speak the truth to the people of God and yet in this moment God is calling Jonah to go speak the truth, and what is a very hard truth, to the enemies of the people of God.
Speaker 2: Assyria.
Speaker 2: Nineveh, which is in Assyria, is not the place you want to be during this time.
Speaker 2: It is a dangerous people.
Speaker 2: It is a sinful, evil people.
Speaker 2: The stories of what Assyria would do, they're not even at the height of this power.
Speaker 2: They would be in 50 or 60 years from now, but at this point, even not at the height of their power.
Speaker 2: The stories of Assyria, like a story I said earlier, aren't appropriate to even speak from this pulpit.
Speaker 2: They're an evil, evil people.
Speaker 2: And yet God has given his word for Jonah to go to this people.
Speaker 2: But, as we know from 2 Kings, jonah has been faithful in the past and I've got no reason, through the first two verses, to believe that Jonah will do anything other than be absolutely obedient.
Speaker 2: And here's the good news the obedience continues.
Speaker 2: Because verse three, the first three words, it says this but Jonah rose.
Speaker 2: That's great news, because in verse two God said Jonah arise.
Speaker 2: And here is a man of God, a prophet of God, as he should.
Speaker 2: The first thing he does in the following verse is Jonah rose.
Speaker 2: And that's where everything ends, that's where all the obedience ends, because Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish.
Speaker 2: Look at this from the presence of the Lord.
Speaker 2: And so now, in this moment, we have a prophet of God running from the presence of God, of God running from the presence of God, a prophet of God running from the presence of God.
Speaker 2: Now, we've certainly seen stories in Scripture of people called to be the human mouthpiece of God that, at their calling, originally had some doubts.
Speaker 2: We talked a few weeks ago about Moses, unsure about his public speaking about Jeremiah, his age.
Speaker 2: We see Gideon when he gets a call.
Speaker 2: Aren't I from the least of all the tribes of your people?
Speaker 2: We've had individuals that have doubts.
Speaker 2: But here's the good news in those situations they bring those doubts to the Lord.
Speaker 2: Jonah has doubts and it leads him to get as far away at least he thinks from the presence of the Lord as humanly possible, and just how far away does he want to get?
Speaker 2: Can you put the first map up of the Mediterranean Sea I've got a map for us and what you see closer on the right here, you see Joppa, there towards the bottom right on the coast of Israel.
Speaker 2: There you see 550 miles to the northeast.
Speaker 2: You see Nineveh, 550 miles.
Speaker 2: Now where is Tarshish?
Speaker 2: We don't know for sure, but we think it's in southern Spain, 2,500 miles in the other direction from where Jonah was called to go.
Speaker 2: And if you say this, you know my scale.
Speaker 2: I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 2: Can we go to the next map?
Speaker 2: Think about this If you're sitting in El Dorado this morning and you want to go to Atlanta Now, atlanta is not next door, but if you left right now, you could have a 7 o'clock dinner in Atlanta, 550 or so miles away.
Speaker 2: Where is Tarshish?
Speaker 2: Instead, go up to Vancouver.
Speaker 2: Jonah didn't just want to get away from God's call on his life, he wanted to get away from God's call on his life.
Speaker 2: He wanted to run as far as he could from the presence of God.
Speaker 2: But let me ask you and you know the answer what's the problem with trying to run from the presence of God.
Speaker 2: It.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you and you know the answer what's the problem with trying to run from the presence of God?
Speaker 2: It's an impossibility.
Speaker 2: Think about David in the Psalms God, where can I go from your presence?
Speaker 2: If I go up to heaven, you're there.
Speaker 2: If I go to Sheol, you're there.
Speaker 2: We can't get away from the presence of God.
Speaker 2: And if anybody should know it and I believe in his heart of hearts he does know it Jonah should know this.
Speaker 2: But my next question is this why is he running?
Speaker 2: Why is he running from the presence of God?
Speaker 2: I think we can think of a few reasons that are all related.
Speaker 2: One it's a strange request.
Speaker 2: It really is a strange request from God that God would ask Jonah to go warn the enemies of God.
Speaker 2: I mean, they're evil Assyria.
Speaker 2: I don't want them to have a warning.
Speaker 2: God, let's go surprise attack, let's go and ambush, but a warning.
Speaker 2: It's a strange request, but the reality is we've seen strange requests to prophets before.
Speaker 2: If you look at the book of Hosea, what a strange request that is.
Speaker 2: God comes to Hosea and to represent just how much Israel has run after other gods and been unfaithful to the true God.
Speaker 2: God calls Hosea to go out and marry a lady whose name is Gomer, who is a prostitute, and that will be a living example of the disobedience of the people of God.
Speaker 2: And they're running after other gods.
Speaker 2: Now that's a strange request, and what do you do?
Speaker 2: You see the call to do that in verse 2.
Speaker 2: And then verse 3, hosea doesn't.
Speaker 2: And so, yes, it's a strange request to go preach to the enemies, but strange requests have happened before.
Speaker 2: Why else might he be running?
Speaker 2: Well, we already talked about prophets usually preach to God's people and not their enemies.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you that Jonah gives the answer to this question in chapter 4, verse 2.
Speaker 2: We'll look at it more in depth in about five weeks, but in verse 2, after Jonah preaches, after the people of Nineveh repent and God relents from disaster, verse 2 says this of chapter 4, and he prayed to the Lord and said O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country?
Speaker 2: That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you in very simple terms what 4.2 is saying, and why Jonah is fleeing from the presence of the Lord and will not go to Nineveh to preach.
Speaker 2: The very simple answer is this he's terrified that it might work, might work.
Speaker 2: He's terrified that if he preaches this message that the enemies of God might actually hear the word of the Lord and repent, change their ways and be spared from destruction.
Speaker 2: And Jonah can't imagine a world where these evil people could possibly receive the same grace and mercy that Jonah would say I and the Lord's people receive.
Speaker 2: He's terrified that this mission might actually work, as we'll see over the next five weeks.
Speaker 2: Jonah is a perfect picture I guess I could say an imperfect picture of loving grace for ourselves but unwilling to extend it to others.
Speaker 2: Loving the character of God when it benefits me but withholding that goodness to those we might deem unworthy of God's grace.
Speaker 2: That's really what the four chapters of Jonah teach us about Jonah.
Speaker 2: Jonah's the only prophetical book in which the villain of the story if we could call him that is the prophet himself, the one that we've got to learn not to be like, except for maybe a little in chapter 2, the one we've got to learn not to be like is the prophet himself, and so I want to learn three things this morning, three quick points on these three verses before I take my seat.
Speaker 2: And they're this In your walk with the Lord.
Speaker 2: Number one, our dependence is necessary.
Speaker 2: In your walk with the Lord, our dependence is necessary.
Speaker 2: I want you to think about something this morning.
Speaker 2: In 2 Kings, chapter 14, it's very brief, it's very short, but we see a picture of a prophet doing what prophets do.
Speaker 2: Jonah receives the word from the Lord.
Speaker 2: He faithfully preaches the word of the Lord and that word comes to pass because of the faithfulness of the Lord.
Speaker 2: We see Jonah as an obedient prophet, but church let this be a reminder to all of us as an obedient prophet, but church let this be a reminder to all of us Our past obedience does not guarantee our present and future obedience.
Speaker 2: We don't get to live a Christian life in which we get to sit back and just rest on our laurels and say, god, didn't I do good way back when?
Speaker 2: I guess my work is done, I guess I can retire from the Christian life and just wait for you to receive me in glory, because didn't I do good back then?
Speaker 2: It requires dependence on God daily.
Speaker 2: I think about Jesus in Matthew, chapter 6, in the Lord's Prayer.
Speaker 2: What did he say?
Speaker 2: Give us this day our daily bread.
Speaker 2: That tells us something, doesn't it about the Christian life that we can't live a life simply based on last week's bread, yesterday's bread or the bread from a few years back?
Speaker 2: God, daily I've got to depend on you so that when you call me to new places of obedience in my life, I am ready and willing.
Speaker 2: And, lord, just because I was obedient back then, I need a fresh wind from your spirit so that in this day, in this time where you call me right now, all the more, I will be obedient once again.
Speaker 2: I just want to ask are we ever tempted to just coast off of, maybe, yesterday's walk with the Lord, coast off of yesterday's obedience?
Speaker 2: Are there any adults in the room that are tempted to coast off of yesterday's obedience?
Speaker 2: Are there any adults in the room that are tempted to coast off of yesterday's faith that way?
Speaker 2: Back when, when I was in youth group, that's when I was on fire for the Lord, when we'd go to summer camp, that's when revival happened in my life, that's when I had the close walk.
Speaker 2: But now I'm doing other things.
Speaker 2: I've got a career, I'm raising children.
Speaker 2: I've got this, that and the other and let me say praise God for careers and children and all that, everything you've got.
Speaker 2: But is there a temptation to say the younger years are when you're on fire and now I'm just gonna kind of coast?
Speaker 2: I'm doing my best, taylor, I'm in the room, okay, I'm in the room.
Speaker 2: Is there a temptation to let yesterday's obedience not lead to today's fire for Christ?
Speaker 2: Is there a temptation to do everything we can to maybe serve and maybe make sure our kids are here in the room and our kids are a part of the programs and growing in their faith?
Speaker 2: And yet in our own hearts it's been a while since we've had a true encounter with the person of Jesus, in relationship with him and daily coming before him.
Speaker 2: Is there a temptation in the busyness of life and everything we're trying to do and accomplish, and maybe even all the unbelievable things we do around us, in our jobs, in our work, in our family?
Speaker 2: And I just got back from a week of trying my best to give my children unbelievable memories, because I want them to have unbelievable memories and I know you do too.
Speaker 2: But let me tell you this as unbelievable as any vacation can be, and keep taking them and giving them those memories.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you what will stick with a kid even longer when they wake up early on a Tuesday morning, a random day in the school year, and they're up early.
Speaker 2: They don't know why they're up, but they walk into the living room or the dining room and they see a lamp on and they see a cup of coffee and they see mom and or dad with an open Bible.
Speaker 2: They won't forget that when they sit in a room like this and look to their left or right and they don't even understand every word up on the screen during a certain song.
Speaker 2: But they see mom with her eyes closed and something's hitting her in worship and they see dad who's not afraid to sing out.
Speaker 2: There's things that our children and grandchildren need to see in our lives and we can't just live off of yesterday's obedience.
Speaker 2: We can't say I did a good job in 2 Kings so I can coast through the book of Jonah.
Speaker 2: We've got to have our daily bread every day and a daily dependence on the Lord to walk in faith day by day.
Speaker 2: So number one is this in our walk with the Lord, our dependence is necessary.
Speaker 2: But this too, our disobedience, is costly.
Speaker 2: Our disobedience is costly.
Speaker 2: Think about the cost of Jonah's disobedience.
Speaker 2: There's quite literally a cost.
Speaker 2: It says Jonah went down to Joppa and he paid a fare.
Speaker 2: He quite literally had to come out of pocket to pay for a ride over to Tarshish.
Speaker 2: In fact some even speculate it could be quite a significant sum.
Speaker 2: The pronoun is really he paid her fare, that her being the boat itself.
Speaker 2: It could be some speculate that he quite literally paid for the boat.
Speaker 2: He chartered the whole boat, so he wasn't flying Spirit Airlines, this was a chartered flight all on his own.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but either way there was a cost to this.
Speaker 2: But I'm talking more than financial and you know that the cost of our disobedience, think about it in Jonah's life, the spiritual cost as he got on that boat.
Speaker 2: Certainly it cost him some time in the belly of a fish.
Speaker 2: Certainly it cost him the danger to himself and everyone on that boat with him.
Speaker 2: Certainly it cost the city of Nineveh who had to wait longer and longer for the word of the Lord to come to them.
Speaker 2: In your own life you know this that there is a cost to our disobedience.
Speaker 2: There's a cost.
Speaker 2: In your own life you've seen the cost of your disobedience, the cost of your sin.
Speaker 2: You've seen the consequences that have come, and you've tried two things in your life.
Speaker 2: You've tried doing it the Lord's way, you've tried doing it in your way and you know when you do it in your way there is a cost.
Speaker 2: It's interesting to me, and we'll see it, that Jonah gets to Nineveh.
Speaker 2: Do you know that in this, god's will is accomplished, god's will is done?
Speaker 2: God said Jonah, arise and go to Nineveh.
Speaker 2: And do you know?
Speaker 2: By the end of this thing, jonah gets to Nineveh and preaches exactly what God said.
Speaker 2: And so I just want you to know that in my life, in your life, in all of our lives, god's will will be done.
Speaker 2: But I just want to ask you this Do you want God to work in and through you, or do you want God to work in spite of you?
Speaker 2: Because God's will will be done, but you will have a very different experience, and one will lead you to more joy in the presence of the Lord than you can imagine, and one will lead you to a greater cost than you ever thought possible.
Speaker 2: Our disobedience is costly.
Speaker 2: So three things.
Speaker 2: Number one in our walk with the Lord, our dependence is necessary.
Speaker 2: Our disobedience is costly.
Speaker 2: But look at this Our God is faithful.
Speaker 2: The book of Jonah is about a prophet on the run.
Speaker 2: The book of Jonah is about a prophet who seemingly at every turn gets it wrong.
Speaker 2: Even when he finally gets it right, he turns around and then finds a way to get it wrong after.
Speaker 2: That's what this book is about, but even deeper than that.
Speaker 2: But even deeper than that, it's a book about how, in the midst of our unfaithfulness, god is faithful.
Speaker 2: That in the midst of our walks in life, when we get it wrong, when we are just like Jonah, we're just like the people of Nineveh, when we get it wrong time and time again, that God is faithful.
Speaker 2: We'll get to each one of these.
Speaker 2: But I just want to show us quickly Verse 117, and the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Speaker 2: We'll talk about through the series how even that is a great grace on the part of God.
Speaker 2: 2.10, and the Lord spoke to the fish and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.
Speaker 2: That's the ESV's word.
Speaker 2: It vomited him out onto dry land.
Speaker 2: We'll talk about how even that is such a grace by a faithful God.
Speaker 2: Chapter 3, verse 1,.
Speaker 2: Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.
Speaker 2: God gives Jonah another chance to preach.
Speaker 2: We'll talk about verse 310,.
Speaker 2: When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, god relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them and he did not do it.
Speaker 2: Time and time again, in Jonah's unfaithfulness, in Nineveh's years, decades, centuries of unfaithfulness, even in these moments, god will show himself faithful, and you will leave this series saying this Jonah messes it up at every turn, and yet God seems to show himself faithful every step of the way.
Speaker 2: Have you seen it in your own life that in those moments where you look back and say didn't I drop the ball?
Speaker 2: Didn't I know exactly what God was calling me to do and didn't I do the opposite?
Speaker 2: Didn't I know I needed to get in a car to Atlanta and I found myself in Vancouver?
Speaker 2: Didn't all these things happen?
Speaker 2: And yet God didn't leave me?
Speaker 2: Wasn't always comfortable, there was a storm, there was a fish, but God didn't leave me.
Speaker 2: And really, what the story of Jonah is is, in one sense, a story of the gospel itself that in our unfaithfulness, in our disobedience, in our running as far as we can run, as rebels from the presence of God.
Speaker 2: God does not wait for us to get to Tarshish and then realize we need to come home.
Speaker 2: No, no, no.
Speaker 2: God finds us in the midst of our faithfulness While we are on the run.
Speaker 2: As Romans says, while we were yet in sin, christ died for us.
Speaker 2: That's what the story of Jonah is about that God would come for us, that God would come for us.
Speaker 2: And so I'm excited about what is ahead.
Speaker 2: I'm excited for us to more and more understand that our dependence is necessary, our disobedience is costly, but what we'll see time and time again in the five weeks ahead our God is faithful.
Speaker 2: This morning, if you need to respond to God's word in any way, I hope you will.
Speaker 2: Whether it's you just coming and letting me pray with you, and maybe it's you wanting to join our church family.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's you saying I'm ready to stop running from the presence of the Lord and I want to know Jesus, and I want to know that he died for me, that he came for me.
Speaker 2: I'd love to introduce you to him.
Speaker 2: However you'd like to respond this morning, I'm love to introduce you to him.
Speaker 2: However, you'd like to respond.
Speaker 2: This morning I'm going to pray and then I ask that you would.
Speaker 2: Lord Jesus, I thank you so much for your word.
Speaker 2: I thank you for this day and just the gift of getting to see your word, even when it is convicting, even when it describes us in a way that we don't necessarily love, because it's a way that's just accurately talks about how God, we missed the mark.
Speaker 2: And, lord, every one of us can think of times in our lives where we've looked in the mirror and we've seen Jonah.
Speaker 2: We have been Jonah, we have been Jonah, we have been on the run, but for everyone in this room that knows Jesus Christ personally, we can also recall a time where, christ Jesus, you found us.
Speaker 2: By your grace, you found us, and so, lord, if there's one that needs to be found by you this morning, would they Lord?
Speaker 2: However, anyone needs to respond, would they do it now?
Speaker 2: And, lord, let us live on mission for you, following you, committed to your word and your will and your way, that you could work in and through us.
Speaker 2: God, not in spite of us, but Lord, would we faithfully serve you.
Speaker 2: We ask this in Christ's name, amen.
Speaker 2: Would you stand now as we continue in worship?