God's Ceaseless Priority for the Gospel (Jonah)

Join Trey Overton, Mavric Herrera, and Denver Foster as they reflect on Pastor Greg's Sunday sermon, continuing the Bible recap series. The church started reading the Bible chronologically together, and this sermon continued the series that dives deeper into the readings. During this episode, Trey, Mavric, and Denver discussed the story of Jonah and how his heart for the people of Ninevah did not exactly align with the heart of God. This story shows God's heart for humanity and the reality that he desires to use believers to fulfill his purpose. Despite Jonah's response and lack of passion, God used him to bring revival and repentance to Ninevah. He desired Jonah to see the people of Ninevah the way he did and have a passion for them to turn to the Lord. Many Christians today have their own Ninevah and have a hardness of heart towards other people. It is the desire of Christ that people turn to him and take on his heart for all people. Join in and reflect with us as we discuss the sermon from First Baptist Church in Fort Smith, AR. 

Mavric Herrera - mherrera@fsfbc.org

Trey Overton - toverton@fsfbc.org

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Psalm 119.11 says that Scripture is a lamp for our feet and a light for our path. That means God gave us His Word to guide and equip us in practical ways as we walk through our everyday lives. Join us now for this episode of From State to Street, as our FBC staff and church members talk about how this week's Sunday morning message comes alive as we walk through the streets and moments of everyday life.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Hey everyone, thanks for joining us. My name is Trey Overton and I'm your host today, along with my good friend Maverick Currero. Maverick is back. Yes. Yes. So okay, let's just take like a half a second. I forgot that I was gone. You were gone last week, yeah, at camp. So Maverick was at camp with the with the kids. He was working with the youth mainly up there. Tell us a little bit about it. It was a lot of fun. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 0:53

It was so fun. We went to camp Silome, which is always a good time. They run such a great program. It's so high energy and everything. But man, I realized how out of shape I was, you know, just walking around. Like in the first two days, I was like, crap, this is gonna be rough. Like, this is this is gonna be rough. So um, but we did have a girl give her life to Christ. It was her first time like showing up. Yeah, she she was not like a previous member or anything. Her friends invited her, and she gave her life to Christ. Invite your friends, yes. There you go. So inviting your friends works.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. It's a great week, though. You're talking about being out of shape. I'm thinking about like we're gonna be starting men's group back here in like what two weeks now. And right now we're going through evangelism training on Wednesday nights. So if you haven't been, I encourage you to come down and join us for that. Um, but men's and women's ministry uh is gonna be kicking off in in I guess two weeks now. And uh we do that on the third floor. So uh yesterday we got done with evangelism training, and I'm thinking, man, it's been kind of nice, not me not not having to walk three flights of stairs to men's ministry, but I know in two weeks I'm gonna be getting to the top of the stairs. Yeah, I'm gonna be sucking air. I'm pretty excited about it. Um, speaking of men's ministry, we've got a guest with us today, Mr. Denver Foster. Say what's up, Denver. What's up? So Denver um is uh pretty active in the men's ministry. He's um he actually we're we're in the same little small group together, and um so we've been working together. I guess I don't know how long you've been coming now. What has it been six, seven months now? Yeah, just like right after the new year. Yeah, so it's yeah, so right around six months or so, Denver's been coming here and he's been helping us out at Chaffee and um all that. And he just started as an intern here. So um working through and you know, interns like which I was an intern too, obviously. Um yeah, so it's when people like whenever like and it's it's kind of different. Like sometimes you have an intern, it's a college student like at Maverick's age, when then they come in and you're like, Oh yeah, that makes sense. And then I come in here and you're you're as an older guy with a lot of different experiences, and people like say intern, and it's a loose term for what Denver, you know.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

The voice is young, the face is old.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Well, and and at the re at the end of the day, Denver's working through his master's like like I was, is getting his MDiv over there at Liberty, and um just kind of uh needed to, you know, and and they require an internship with that with that program. Um, but it's also an opportunity to learn different things um and do different things. And so I thought in light of him starting his internship here, this might be a good opportunity for me to introduce him to everybody. So to the people listening, um, if we have anybody listening, um uh we got we got Denver in the house. So if you see him walking around doing things, um that's who that is, and and um so he's here to do a lot of good things with us. My fiance listens for sure.

SPEAKER_04 3:54

So we have we have one, and my mom, so my mom listens. Shout out Hannah.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Yeah, shout out Sherry, yeah. So we got our two faithful people there. Um but anyways, and Greg listens, he does listen because he gives me um feedback, so we got that going forward. Yeah, no, no, no, no, it's always good. Um so, anyways, this last Sunday, Greg uh used the the story of Jonah, you know, it wasn't just a passage, but used the story of Jonah to to speak some truths and and to um really to to look at the heart of God, um to look at look at his heart, his heart of humanity, um, and then also pointed to some truth about Jonah's heart and and what that looks like. It's like, you know, of course we know the story of Jonah. Jonah, you know, God tells him to go to Nineveh, preach this message, he's like, nah, I'm not doing that, jumps on the boat and goes the opposite direction, and then what happens? He gets swallowed by a fish and is in the belly of that fish for three days. So, like this is a story, like, even you know, if you've been in church any amount of time, you probably know the story of Jonah because it sticks out. Guy got it ate by a fish. I mean, everybody remembers that story. Right. Um, but there's a lot of lots of unpack in that story that um and and and Greg really like to to sit there and speak on the story of Jonah, like the whole book of Jonah and the whole story in one sermon, is it's like, well, there's there's so much that you can unpack there. Um but I thought he did a really good job of just kind of getting to the meat and potatoes of of a lot of it, and really the there again, the heart of the matter, which is that, and this was the title, his title for the sermon was God's ceaseless priority for the gospel, right? And and the see and God's and and and we could even say going further that the God's ceaseless priority, which is to seek after humanity, right? To seek us. Right. And and so um I kind of wanted to start with with looking at, you know, uh that it's we'll call it the tale of two hearts, you know, God's heart, man's heart, right? Um and Jonah's heart, you know, God calls him over to Nineveh uh to go preach this message, and this instance response is no. Now, Greg has this theory that what was it, his uh his mother-in-law must have lived in Nineveh. Yeah, that was no, but you know, there's some reason why he has this, he just is against Nineveh. Now, like on the one hand, you read the story, you hear the story, and you're like, man, what's this deal with Nineveh? And like, why would he, you know, if he's but but we we kind of see that with a lot of Christians, right? Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 6:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

I mean, it's it's it's not, you know, we have our everybody has their kind of their Nineveh, right? So let's let's think about that. Like, what can we learn about Jonah's response to his calling over there to Nineveh?

SPEAKER_04 6:52

Well, for one, we can automatically see right off the bat that Jonah has forgotten who this is all about. Jonah has forgotten, like he's well well, he wasn't a he wasn't a prophet. Well, he was a prophet, right? Yeah. Um I forgot if they had a different name or something at that time. But uh Jonah was a prophet, and so his goal was to proclaim God's word directly, like he was the direct connection that people had. So he had a responsibility to his people. But I'm assuming, and I'm taking this from the the Veggitales version of it, it's probably not proper theology. Wow, but I think it's fair to assume. Yeah, hey man, you're pretty solid.

SPEAKER_03 7:30

Vegetales versus the city.

SPEAKER_04 7:32

And we we did recently go through Jonah as with the young adults, and so it's fresh in my mind.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

But um is that what y'all use towards Vegetail, just kind of showing episode?

SPEAKER_04 7:40

Yeah, it's just a one week. No, but Jonah, like, it's it's probably fair to assume that Jonah thought much of himself, as most people do, you know. And we see time and time again people falling because of pride and um their ego and stuff, and so maybe it was just that Jonah, like, his heart for his people was not for his people, it was for himself ultimately. Um, and I think that he just got lost in that and lost his purpose. And so God not only also wanted and we'll see like how God is was also using this, not for Nineveh as well, but for Jonah as well. Like he was doing this to save Nineveh and to change Jonah's heart. Yeah. Um but I think that's the heart change that he wanted to get out of Jonah was to remind him. He felt like Jonah may have been lost in his uh pride and his ego. And he was like, okay, then I'm gonna challenge him and I'm gonna use this and get him right with me. You know? Um and so just reminding him of his purpose. So I think we can lose our purpose a lot of times. We can forget that it's not about us.

SPEAKER_02 8:54

Yeah. Like none of the, you know, its location was, I guess, modern day Iraq. So so they definitely had a warring, you know, all throughout history. Um yeah, so that's that was like one of the reasons why he didn't want to go. Um, but as far as Jonah himself, I mean it the whole story to me just boils down to like, you know, can't Jonah knows God, but he just didn't want to share his heart. He doesn't you know, he's like God's like, hey, we're gonna do this, and he's like, I know who you are and I know what you want to do, but I don't I don't agree with this. And that's so he just kept running from that. And you know, that's my short take on the whole matter.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Well, I think I think we like I said, I think everybody kind of has their own innovative. Yeah. And yeah. I mean, we could look at this in many different aspects, but um let's I mean, which we've been I mean, you get on social media and the news, what do you see? Yeah. I mean, you see this this real tension in the US right now, right? With political parties pulling each, you got conservatives and and liberals just going at it all the time. Um and and and because of the extremes, it just seems like there's a lot of stone casting, right? Um and at the end of the day, um the reality is is nobody nobody's gonna have the same views on things, right? Yes, nobody's gonna it's it's impossible, right? And we're not gonna see, not everybody's gonna see eye to eye on things. Um, but what ends up happening more times than not, it's like I see somebody who obviously is not living a life of Christ, who claims that they are, right? Or or maybe they claim, you know, in this scenario, maybe they claim a God, but they don't know the God that I know, right? And so, um, but you're you're in the middle of you know, writing a book. Denver's in the middle of writing a book right now, you know, kind of focusing on on evangelism towards um um the Mormons, right? And well, it's really anybody, but it's yeah, it's it's open to anybody.

SPEAKER_02 10:55

Yeah, but not trying to zero down on right.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

No, zero, but you I I say that you know, you did spend time focusing on that, right? And so let's just kind of take that for example, you know, you could you could really paint the picture of Nineveh Nineveh being a bunch of Mormons, right? Yeah, yeah. And it's easy for us to close our eyes off to a people and count them off because of how they live and how they act, right? Right. Um, you could you could paint a picture, you know, there's there's a lot of them in a lot of my family and and people I know. I mean, we could paint pit a picture of Nineveh being California.

SPEAKER_03 11:29

Um I mean, yep.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

I you know, it's it's a thing though. I mean, like you, and especially how the media paints them and all that stuff, right? And so like there's I have so many people that say I chew my arm off, then go to California, right? Well, it's a thing. And and but our hearts are hardened there. There's a their hardness of heart that that we have postured ourselves because there's a people that believe a certain thing or act a certain way, and we turn our face face away from them, right? Right. And and that's what Jonah's heart's doing here. He's like, these people are not God, and he knows, and like, and that's what you read throughout Jonah, and I know that you're gonna have mercy on them and you're gonna forgive them. Right. And that's why I don't want to go there because I I you know I'm living my life the way I'm supposed to, but these these guys are not, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:21

Like we don't want anything to do with them.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

I don't want it, you're right, you know, like why should you show mercy on these people that have not shown you anything, have not turned to you anything else. And I'm gonna go there and preach this message, and then they're gonna turn to you and you're gonna forgive them. Yeah, like how is that right? You know, and that's what how that's where Jonas heart's heart is. Yeah, um, and and so I think that you know, looking at the heart of this message, coming back to kind of what what Greg was talking about, it's like we all have that in some form or fashion. We all have our Nineveh. Yeah, yeah. And and and we all have this this this place and in different aspects. Um, you know, whether it's economics, whether it's um political beliefs, whether it's religious beliefs, whatever it is, we all have our Nineveh and our hardness of hearts towards a people, but that's not God's heart, right? Um, so looking at this story of Jonah and and his message and Greg's message on it, what is one truth that if you were gonna pull from God right here, like one truth about God's character?

SPEAKER_02 13:23

Uh I mean, he's always he's always zeroed in. God has one message all throughout the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and I mean, you know, so and Jonah is just completely against it. He's like, I'm angry. I'm angry that you're saving these people. Yeah. But yeah, that's yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:41

I think um the thing I pull from God's heart is not only like well, like like I was saying, he did this for two reasons. He said he did this so that he could also save Nineveh, um, but also to change Jonah's heart, to go after Jonah's heart, right? Um and so I just like knowing that God is, yes, always so purposeful, um, and that everything he does is sometimes just there's a bigger picture that we always miss. You know, there's we can trust that there's some way that we see this, that God is looking at it and he sees everything about it, you know. Um and so I just I pull on that to say like whenever we have to make hard choices that seem like they're all about us, and say, okay, I can see that God is challenging me to do this thing to make me better or to grow my faith, I would challenge myself and others to look and think, okay, I know this is this is a challenge for me, but someone else might need this too. Yeah, you know, and that it's not about me, you know, it's not just about me. I get to benefit from the things of God and his plans and his plan of redemption and uh sanctification, but it just the gospel message goes so far beyond just us. And um I just think it's important that we take a step back and look and try and see things the way God does, which is yeah, which is exactly what Greg talks about is seeing these people, seeing your Nineveh as God sees them, but also seeing I would just tag on, but also seeing his plan as he sees it and not as you see it.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

So so let's think about this question. The when when I look at the life Christ and and and the you know, the whole message is talking about God cease as priority for the gospel. So looking at the gospel and and looking at li Christ's life on earth, right? He came proclaiming a message, um, teaching healing, right? He also came and empowered a bunch of disciples that had a similar heart. Yeah, James and John. Yeah, and bolts of lightning.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

Yeah, exactly, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:01

And so like they had these disciples had this mindset, right? And that was a similar mindset to a lot of other people, yeah, right. How would you compare that to where Jonah is in Nineveh?

SPEAKER_02 16:12

Yeah, it's yeah, like why would we save all of the all the Greek? Yeah, you know, yeah, yeah. You know, the the some uh Samaritans are you know, they're bad people and they spit on us, and why would we want to save them? Yeah, it's I mean it's the same story. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:32

And yet Jesus makes that his first priority when he's going to say, okay, we're starting the public ministry now, we're starting to actually start to make a movement. We're choosing Samaria first.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Well, and I think that I think that when we look at they are still so hyper focused on the law and the commandments, right? They're hyper-focused on what and their traditions, what they've been taught. You know, that yeah, they're they're focused on, well, the Messiah, you know, I've been taught the Messiah is going to be this mighty warrior that's gonna, you know, overcome our oppressors and we're gonna be this mighty nation of Israel again, right? And so like um every time that Jesus starts speaking to the heart of things, take it starting at the Sermon on the Mount, when they start going to the at the heart of the matter, they just don't get it. Yeah. Or they don't want to. Yeah, or you know, they're still kind of blinded to it. And they, you know, Jesus goes after it over and over. And then you got James there again, you know, you're talking about James and John coming and they're like, Hey, I want to sit at your right and left hand. And Jesus is like, Do you not get it? Yeah, you know, and and so I I kind of see that picture of Jonah here, yeah. You know, like there again, God's calling him to Nineveh to Nineveh to go to preach this message, and he's like, No, I'm not doing that. He goes and he uh you know goes getting swallowed by a fish, and then he gets over there and he's like, Okay, I'm well, I'm gonna preach the message, but I'm not gonna like it, you know. And God's like, Do you and then he sits down and of course this plant comes up and covers him. And you know, at the end of this, like, do you not get the message? Yeah. After all of this, do you not get why you're here?

SPEAKER_02 18:04

I think I don't know, it seems in my experience, and very short amount of seminary experience I have, is that that's just how seminary seems to work. Everybody, at least in this area that I've met so far and talked to, like I've had been pushing God away for 20 years. Like, you know, I from in my early twenties, God was pushing me to do this, and I was like, Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

Finally, I was like, fine, let's do it. Right, right. Yeah, after and that was me, like after seeking every other avenue and being selfish and and doing all those things, like you know, like you know, God, you know, I I was finally my he opened my eyes and I was blessed and all those things, you know, and it's like, but that's the same picture we see throughout. I mean, of course, in it we're reading through Kings, you know, seeing the nation of Israel, how they turn to God and and this cycle, but but at the end of the day, that like we are still just trying to grasp the heart of God. I mean, we're still trying to grasp the heart of God, like understand it, you know, search it. And and that kind of brings me to my to my next you know thought. But um the what does this story, you know? Greg, Greg challenged us to not only search, you know, the heart of God to learn it, um, but to mold our hearts to his, just like we see in this story in Jonah, and how um, I mean, that was you made that point, Maverick. Like that was God's I mean, he he wanted Jonah's heart to be his heart. When he preached this message, he comes there, it that these people turn to God. I mean, that you know, and but what what does the story of Jonah tell us about the desires of the heart of God um that we should so like what does it tell us about his heart that we should imitate and search?

SPEAKER_04 19:51

Oh yeah, just a small thing before we answer the question, but I also just I just thought of it, but I was like, I was so glad that Nineveh's redemption was not based off of Jonah's redemption. Oh yeah, yeah. And that this was a learning process for Jonah, and he was gonna go to Nineveh, preach the gospel, but God was still the one behind it all, and even though Jonah didn't get it, Nineveh was still saved.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

So just a small thing that I but that does answer this question too. Oh, really? I mean I thought it had nothing to do with it. No, but it does. I mean, it but that's the heart of God.

SPEAKER_04 20:26

Right. To change hearts.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

To change hearts, and that his purpose is gonna be done, right? Like I'm I'm you despite you, despite me, like his message is gonna be preached. Like people are gonna understand, like and and he calls us to obedience, yeah. But I mean it's just like so much more to that. Yeah. Um but yeah, I mean what are your thoughts on that? Uh uh I mean heart of God.

SPEAKER_02 20:54

Yeah, uh go. Yeah. Let's see. Yeah, it's just it's all about compassion. I mean, uh you know, I I mean Jonah is just like, uh, you're gonna die. I mean it was basically the sum up of his message. Like, you're gonna die if you don't do this. And they wound up being saved. And oh yeah, it's just the compass yeah it's just it's just the compassion of God. He's just he's like, hey, you know, we're gonna go headstrong. This is how this is the only thing we're gonna do. And and he's just like, I don't want to do this. And like the the anger from him, you know, pulling out, you know, just he's like, I'm angry that that these people repented. Like I brought a very horrible message and they still repented. Because that's what like God's like, I'm saving them, it's really not you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:40

So Yep. He says forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown. He just goes around yelling that. And the Nineveh's believe God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them from the greatest to the least put on sackcloth. Just like what just the simplest message.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

Yeah. That's all it takes.

SPEAKER_04 21:58

Yeah. It's like oh

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Come on.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:01

He's like act he's still actively trying to not do what God has telling him to do. He's showing him that it's like it's not about you. Yeah. You can you can benefit from this and like you can get closer to me and you can change and become a better prophet or whatever. And but if you don't want to, uh that's fine. It's not dependent on you.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

Yeah. Yeah. And that's at the end of the day, like his message once again, like I think about that all the time. If I, you know, anytime I teach or I preach, I get done, I'm like, hmm, that was bad. And but like, you know, I don't know what people have heard, and I don't know how God's working in people's lives. And and the reality is I could you could take this 45-minute sermon or 30-minute sermon or whatever, and look at it as a whole and think, okay, that was kind of rough, but somebody could have heard something for 10 seconds that came out of it that was like, okay, and that could change their life forever. And it's not anything that I said, it's just God speaking through me, right? That's right. Um, and that speaks to the heart of God. You know, he he's gonna use um he's gonna use us despite us. You know, I look at, you know, I look at how we've we've been reading through the Bible and we've been reading through the old testament, you know, so far. We haven't got to the New Testament, and and we look at how God brought you know the Israelites out of Egypt, and and he used uh Moses. And at the end of the day, like God could have freed, he showed that through the battles of with Joshua. Like God could have freed the Israelites without using anybody.

SPEAKER_02 23:31

Yeah, yeah. He he chooses to use man.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

He chose to use Moses, yeah, he chose to use Joshua, he chose to use the various leaders throughout Israel, like he chose to use us to fulfill his purpose, to bring his message, and and Jonah, the story of Jonah is just another piece that we see in the heart of God is like of how much he loves us and how much he wants us to pursue him, right? And and at the end of the day, that's what when every time we are used by God, and this is kind of the meat mate as we talk when we talk about it, the so what of this message. But you know, God wants to use you, yeah. Um, and he also wants you to align um your heart with his. And and and they kind of go one in the same, yeah, right. You know, in order for us to be used by him to the fullest, now can he use us? Obviously, the story of Jonas proves that he can use us despite us, right? But how much more are we gonna get out of him uh out of being used by him if we align our hearts with his?

SPEAKER_02 24:35

Don't don't go against it. Yeah, I mean he will tear you down to build you back up. Yeah, and it will be torn down. Don't go against it.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

And we kind of look at that. I mean, let's let's take the two stories of the two, you know, two, you know, let's let's take uh Paul, the you know, the apostle Paul is the opposite here, you know, how a Paul begins to align his heart with God. You know, God Jesus meets him on the road to you know, road to Damascus, he meets the person of Jesus and is changed forever, and his heart aligns with Christ, and we see how that impacts person after person after person after person, and everything he does, and and and Christ uses him in mighty ways. And we when when we look at that, it's like that's the tale of two people. You know, uh we have Jonah, who is not really is struggling to align his heart. Are people impacted? Absolutely, but how much more can you impact and how much more can you and you as a person? Like let's just look at us as individuals, how we are impacted by being able to be used by having aligned our hearts with him.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

Yeah, I mean, even even if people come against you, you still have to find that love in your heart. And I think that's to the heart of Jonah was like these people had done, you know, Israel wrong for so long, and he just you know, he couldn't get over himself. He has to learn how to forgive. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:58

So I just want to like pivot a little bit to like concerning the church and concerning what your impact has on the church, because it literally yesterday just has to be it. I was in uh first Corinthians twelve talking about unity and the diversity of the body. Uh but Paul goes into it saying in verse 13, we are all baptized by one spirit so as to form one body, whether Jew or Gentile, slave or free, we were all given the one spirit to drink, even so the body is not made up of one part, but many. And so I often just I just think about the the heart of service and like being involved in the body. And later in that chapter, he goes into talking about how some of you uh or we see gifts as better than others, um, and he goes into like instructions for leaders of like, hey, the ones that are less seen, the those are the ones you should give more honor to and bring more honor to. But um my my my point of that is that we have all been given something to that God wants to use in the church, and sometimes they don't you don't see it, you know. I think oftentimes we get lost in that. Oh, gifts include welcomers, greeters, um, worship team, tech team, preaching, and that's it, you know. But there are gifts that you have. Um, like one of my spiritual gifts is faith that I've founded on my one of my strongest spiritual gifts is faith. And so I God has given me and just at times just given me the words to say to other people that encourage their faith. And I've always just had a like just a a sense I can't describe it to you. I can't tell you exactly why. I can't bring up like, oh, this is why I have a bunch of faith in God. It's like I just God has just blessed me with the spiritual gift of faith that I am I I'm in full belief that He's behind these things, that He is backing me up, that He's before me, all around me. And like other people need that because other people are lacking in faith. And there's times where people I really struggle to believe God and I can tell them things that God puts in my mind in the moment right there, just because of how He wants to use you. And so um I you gotta think about our our gifts and our spiritual gifts and things, and uh you know, Jonovs was um prophesying and and preaching, and he was probably a great speaker, you know. He could he could pull on the hearts of people and because God wanted to use him to communicate to his people directly. And so there's a reason for you to be in the church that you're in. Right. You know, like God didn't just accidentally put me in Fort Smith. You know, there's there's a there are people here that God was like, okay, and not not to make it about myself, but like God put me here because he thought this person and this person and this person would really benefit from this gift that I've given to Maverick. And Maverick would benefit from this gift that I've given to these other people. And he's just he's just this great orchestrator of all these little red lines that he's he can just connect to people and stuff. And so I just there's no point in looking at yourself and thinking that God can't use you or thinking that you have nothing to bring to the table because it's not that you have something to bring to the table, but God has given you something that he wants you to bring to the table that other people need, that other people could benefit from. And if you're not being engaged in the church, and what I mean by engaged is like talking to people after and before service, showing up early just to talk to people. If you're not engaging in those things, like coming up to events, be sociable. It's not just about how can I serve directly in the Sunday service. It's like, no, like who can I go ask to just get lunch with? Who can I go get coffee with? Who can I talk to before service? Who can I talk to after service? Um, who can I grab like a refill of coffee for? Um, or grab them a donut, bring me like bring some breakfast one night. I didn't see it when I came in here. Like I I and I'm I'm preaching to myself here because I gotta get out of my own head that it's just about okay, what like okay, what's my worship set this week? Um, okay, how is it gonna oh this little this transition's gonna be really good and it's gonna like it?

SPEAKER_02 30:12

It's coming into that serviceman state of mind.

SPEAKER_04 30:15

Yeah, instead of like be a waiter and waitress, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:18

You know, right at the end of the day, like Jonah, you know, looking at the story of Jonah, I mean that's he did what was required of him. Yeah. And that was, you know, and and he kind of missed it. He's like, I'm checking the box. Checking the box. And that's it's easy to do. And I I think that that's let's you're just kind of taking what your point right there. That's kind of the when when somebody becomes a believer, a lot of times they're giving, and this is just this is how you know this is the truth according to Trey. So, you know, take it whatever. But like I I think a lot of it looks like a puzzle, right? So like we have different pieces, you know, they know that they're when they come to know Christ, they have this belief. Yeah, they know they have this faith and this thing we're supposed to follow. They have, you know, they have this Bible they have to learn, they have all these things, and they they know they're given ability. God wants to use them, right? And they give them this gifts, kind of like what you're talking about here. Um, but a lot of times I feel like believers have a hard time putting those pieces together, right? And making it all work and making it one piece, right? Um, and and I think, you know, just to kind of bring this to what we're talking about, that's the piece, and it's it's aligning our heart with God's. It's seeing people the way God sees people. You want to use your gifts that God's given you and you want to share your faith. Well, see people the way God sees people. Look at their heart, you know, and and you know, God came here for the Gentile and the Jew alike. God came here for everybody, and just because they have a different belief, just because they have a different background, just because they have a different outlook than you do, doesn't mean that God doesn't love them as much as that he loves you. That doesn't mean that God doesn't want to save that person as much as he wanted to save you, right? And he has a heart for that person, and he wants to use that gift and your faith, and he wants to put it together and align and and and share his heart with people, right? Um, and I think if we're gonna take you know one one takeaway just to kind of use your point, Maverick, but you know, he he does want to use your gifts to and wants you to be a part of the body and all those things. Um, and it has to start with you aligning your heart with his. And we've got to see people the way that he sees people. Yeah, and so this week, you know, that's my challenge to you, and just kind of what I'm closing with today, is I want you to start thinking about that and look at the story of Jonah and how God wanted Jonah to see these people in Nineveh. You have your own Nineveh. Everybody listening today, you have your own Nineveh. You have uh people that um you turn your nose up to, maybe you have you're angry with, maybe you have disagreements with, you know, with different viewpoints. Um we see it all over social media. You see it when you're driving down the street, you know, just I want you to I want you to focus this week on looking at those people the way you think that Christ would look at them. If Christ was walking down the street right now, how would he react and how would he speak to them? How would he uh interact with them and what would be his priority? And we saw it in the New Testament. What was Christ's priority to share his gospel, right? Mm-hmm and to share love and to heal and to and do those things. So so I want that's my challenge to you this week. Um, just to kind of we're we've got this uh just kind of get some events out there on this coming Sunday. Yes, we're having Lord's Supper at both campuses, and then we're having a cookout after service at the Chaffee campus. Grant is doing shish kebabs, and then it's uh potluck, sides, and desserts. So um, if you want to come join us out there, even if you're a downtowner, I'd encourage you to come out and visit us. We got some uh cool things, Maverick's doing an acoustic set, so that's gonna be um pretty cool. Uh you know, uh I'm like always back and forth, it's like, man, acoustic set, man. I really enjoy your like whenever you have the full band. Then like you get up there and you do the acoustic set. I'm like, that was pretty intimate. Like that was pretty cool. And I think we can get into we do, we are able to get into a cool mindset. So if you want to come out and experience that, experience the cookout, I encourage you to come out and join us. Um, and um, and and it's and we've got evangelism training on Wednesday night still. So we've got I think two more weeks of that left. Um and and then we're going back to regular um Wednesday nights after that. So uh I want to thank everybody for listening. If you have any questions, concerns, thoughts, our emails are in the bio. Uh thank you once again. We are out.

SPEAKER_00 34:46

Thank you for joining us for this week's From State to Street Conversation. This podcast is the Ministry of First Baptist Church, Fort Smith. As a reminder, you can always listen to each of the messages we discussed here on our chapter and first sermon podcast each week. Thank you for listening.