Living Outloud: Faithfulness Regardless of Outcome

We compare Jonah’s reluctant mission and Hosea’s costly calling to show why faithfulness matters more than results. We challenge the myth that inner peace proves a choice is right and call for a posture that rejoices at repentance, even from people we dislike.

• faithfulness over outcomes as the core measure of obedience
• Jonah’s “doomed to succeed” mission versus Hosea’s “doomed to fail” calling
• peace as an unreliable indicator of obedience
• Jesus’ anguish in Gethsemane contrasted with Jonah’s nap
• rejoicing when unlikely people repent rather than nitpicking
• sharing God’s love despite fear of rejection
• surrendering control of results while reflecting God’s heart

Let’s go live this out, and we’ll see you next time

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Transcript

Setting The Stage: Jonah And Hosea

SPEAKER_04 0:11

Hey, welcome back to the Out Loud Bible Project Podcast. Today's episode is another episode of Living Out Loud, where Kelsey and I get to talk about what we read earlier in the week in the podcast and how we can live it out, practically speaking.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

I like this week because we went through the entirety of Jonah's book and started Hosea's book. So it really is one of those weeks where I feel like we can look at an overarching narrative, uh overarching truths about who God is and tie together some themes that we that we discovered here.

SPEAKER_04 0:47

That there's no reason for Jonah and Hosea to be read together in this way.

The Shared Theme: God’s Heart

SPEAKER_02 0:53

I don't know that I've ever heard a Bible study of like, let's compare Jonah and Hosea, but here we are.

Jonah’s “Doomed To Succeed” Mission

SPEAKER_04 0:58

But here we are. And so uh but we do see a theme that's worth bringing out. When we when we can kind of take a look at God's heart through both of these and learn more about ourselves, I think I think we can stumble upon something uh pretty powerful. So today, what just by way of review, Jonah got a a call, a mission to go preach God's judgment to uh an evil capital of an evil nation, and he didn't want to because he knew that as soon as they were uh made aware of God's judgment that they could repent and that if they did, then he would forgive them. And he did not want them because he did not like them.

SPEAKER_03 1:39

He wanted them to get the punishment. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:41

He was like, they deserve it. I don't want to I if I take this message, I know I know God, he's gonna forgive them, he's gonna give them love, and he's gonna give them forgiveness, and I don't think they deserve it.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

So I don't want them to know.

Faithfulness Over Results

SPEAKER_04 1:54

And then we also read about Hosea, and God gave him the unique calling and mission to go marry a prostitute, and through that, the ups and downs of that relationship and the repeated unfaithfulness and the genuine heartbreak, this is not symbolic. This is like literally marrying a prostitute who's going out and having sex with other people, okay? Like the genuine heartache that that causes, Hosea was going to embody God's faithful love, even though his people, who the prostitute represents, he considered his people spiritual prostitutes for worshiping other gods. And so these these are two men with very uh unique and difficult callings, and they they go about their mission differently, frankly, but we can see ourselves in this because uh here's here's the thought we'll we'll dig down onto here today. Faithfulness matters more than the outcome. Your faithfulness matters more than whatever comes of it. You may want the outcome, you may not want the outcome. That's less important than you being faithful to what God calls you to do. Jonah, Jonah's mission was doomed to succeed. And he didn't want that. Hosea's mission was doomed to fail. Yet he went with it, and Jonah Jonah tried to escape it. Jonah saw success, he hated that. Hosea saw failure, and he stayed faithful. One runs from the mission, one embodies the mission. So what does that what does that mean about us? We can't measure obedience by the results.

SPEAKER_03 3:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:33

We can't just take a look at what happens and determine if we did the right thing or not. Like the ends justify the means isn't that's not a Bible verse. That's that's not a biblical principle. Your obedience is obedience, and let God handle the outcome. Let God handle the results.

Peace Is Not The Test

SPEAKER_03 3:52

And sometimes that obedience is going to lead us to places of pain and discomfort. Sometimes that obedience leads us to places of peace and joy and well-being. Sometimes the obedience leads- Wait, wait, wait.

SPEAKER_04 4:06

Are you are you saying that that if I do the right thing, I'm not gonna just have peace about it all the time? Or that if I have peace about something, that means it's the right thing? Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_03 4:15

Hmm, nope.

SPEAKER_04 4:16

But I but I've I've I've I've been thinking about it a lot and I really have peace about my decision. I really have peace about it.

SPEAKER_03 4:22

So Well, uh, Jonah took a nap. He was so at peace with not going to Nineveh, he took a nap on the boat on the way in a storm away from Nineveh. No less. He was so at peace with his decision to be disobedient. On the extreme contrary, Jesus was obedient to the point of while he was praying in Gethsemane the night before he would be betrayed, he was sweating blood. This literal medical condition of like of blood pouring out of like bursting because he was so stressed about the obedience that he was. That is not peaceful. He was not at peace in the garden while he was sweating blood, but he was obedient. So sometimes we we over-emphasize the I I'm at peace with this decision, therefore it's right, as opposed to asking, is it obedient? If that obedience is right. Peace is sometimes accompanies that the feeling of peace, but not always. Sometimes the feeling of peace just accompanies our decision because it's what we wanted.

SPEAKER_04 5:32

Because you give up.

SPEAKER_03 5:33

Because you give up and the stress is gone because you don't have to make a hard decision anymore. That's not because you're obedient. That's just because you let go of the rope. You let go of the you let go of the tension.

SPEAKER_04 5:44

Yeah. So neither, just like you can't measure obedience by results, you can't measure obedience by peace, the peaceful feeling that you feel about it. Or how you feel your emotion about it at all is irrelevant, is not a good indicator of your obedience.

SPEAKER_03 5:59

I can't say that Hosea was at peace while he knew his wife was sleeping with other men. No, that's but he was obedient to do it. Like, if you don't, you're not your calling is not to marry a prostitute because you're already married.

SPEAKER_04 6:11

I'm not gonna receive that calling.

SPEAKER_03 6:13

But if if you were a single man and God was like, go marry a prostitute, I can't imagine that being a peaceful, like, oh yay, that's the life I wanted.

SPEAKER_04 6:20

I can think of at least one angsty 90s pop or punk songs that have, you know, kind of explain that heartache there involved. And and yeah, it but was Hosea doing exactly what God called him to do? Yes, he was.

Heart Check: Celebrate Repentance

SPEAKER_03 6:35

And so it kind of just brings up the question like, how extreme are we willing to be in following God, in following him, in obeying what he's calling us to do? Like, there's not these old testament prophets did extreme things. And I don't think that we aren't seeing prophets like that nowadays, or that there weren't more of them even back in those days because God didn't want more prophets or more people living out his truths. I think God just knows we are not going to be willing to follow through with that level of obedience. Like, I don't think there are people alive today willing to live that extreme of an obedience so we don't see those those kinds of stories right now. Because I think God knows our hearts are just too hard against that because we want our lives to be the way we want our lives to be, and we're not willing to let God derail all of our plans in order to make his uh in order to obey him.

SPEAKER_04 7:39

And I think we can be the kind of people that God uses to communicate his heart and his character to other people. We just have to be willing to let go of the control of our outcomes. We have to be willing to not control what the results should be or what we want them to be of our obedience.

SPEAKER_03 8:03

We love making plans based on what the result will be, and we go for the results we want. And God is sometimes asking us to be obedient regardless of what the result is. And we don't know what the result will be. He's just asking us to be obedient anyway.

SPEAKER_04 8:18

Can we reflect God's heart? Like ultimately, well, that's what we're here to do is reflect God's heart, and that's what we need to do consistently. Nah, I I failed at that multiple times today. Like, we're not gonna be perfect at that, and that doesn't mean that he's not gonna use us anyway, but that should be our heart, is like, all right, God, uh how can I represent your heart today? And you know what? Maybe that is gonna mean a lifestyle, or maybe just a a way you spend your day different than you would want, and the uh outcome is unknowable. But will obedience drive you to just say, Yes, I'll represent you and I'll represent your heart in this? That's a question we have to wrestle with. God doesn't ask us to guarantee results, He doesn't guarantee for us, He just asks us to be faithful representatives of His character. And some people are gonna embrace God's love through hearing our story or responding to what we say. Sometimes, like Jonah, we may not actually like that. We we do kind of have to check our hearts to make sure that, like, hey, what if that person repents and turns their life around? Is that is that okay with us? Not that it matters whether it's okay with us or not, but it it it is good for a heart check. Sometimes some of those celebrities that I hear.

SPEAKER_03 9:54

Oh, people get like so so uh divided over celebrities becoming believers. Like they just want to pick them apart and like prove that they're not true believers or whatever. Like it's it's like we see someone who was so far from God turn to God, and instead of celebrating that, we start getting nitpicky.

SPEAKER_04 10:13

Or we're cynical or like it's not genuine, or oh, we'll see, or like so judgmental, and it's like maybe we should just rejoice that they heard the truth of God and potentially follow Jesus now. Yeah. Let's we can celebrate that.

SPEAKER_03 10:30

Yeah.

Facing Rejection And Speaking Anyway

SPEAKER_04 10:32

And maybe it's someone who of a a demographic or a minority or some lifestyle choice that you don't agree with. Or a political party, a political party that that finds salvation, whether you had some role in it or not? Do we rejoice when someone embraces the call of God to repent, or do we just question the re the genuineness of their repentance?

SPEAKER_03 11:01

More than that, are we willing to take and share God's love with those people with whom we disagree? Or are we just gonna do we just criticize their lifestyle or their political opinions from afar? Or are we willing to go to them as individuals or groups of people and share God's love with them?

SPEAKER_04 11:22

If we're expecting them to change something about their lifestyle before they become saved and respond to God's call to salvation, then that is not the gospel.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:32

That is not that is not representing God's heart and God's call. Some people will embrace God's love through us, through our messaging and around us and and through our lives. That's great.

SPEAKER_03 11:45

Some people won't.

SPEAKER_04 11:47

Some people won't. Others will reject it, and that hurts.

Final Challenge: Obey And Surrender Outcomes

SPEAKER_03 11:50

And that fear of rejection often keeps us from sharing God's love in the first place. But what Hosea shows us is that he knew he would be rejected, and yet he showed God's love faithfully anyway. We are just scared that we might be rejected and we keep silent. Like maybe, maybe we take Hosea's example to just refuse to be silent in the face of possible rejection. Because we don't know. Again, the results are not up to us. We do not know how people will respond. We are called to be obedient and share God's love, regardless of how they may respond to us, and not let Satan use that fear of rejection to keep us silent when we ought to speak.

SPEAKER_04 12:32

Like we said when we first started this conversation, faithfulness, your faithfulness, matters more than the outcome. What does faithfulness look like for you today? And are you willing to surrender the outcome of it and obey anyway? Something to think about, something to pray about today. But thanks for joining us here on this conversation. We'll leave it at that. Let's go do it. Let's go live this out, and we'll see you next time.