04/28/26

Jonah week 7

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Now let's pray and we're gonna dig right into God's word. Lord God, we thank you, Lord, for this time that you give us. We thank you, Lord, for uh the meal tonight, dear Lord. We thank you for the all the hands that have been a part of it. Lord, I thank you for each and every one of these men, what they mean to me, what they mean to the people sitting beside them. God, I thank you for uh the relationships, the fellowship, dear God, that you've allowed us to to to mend friendships and things that's gonna carry on forever and help people through the valleys and on the hilltops, dear God. And I thank you for this. And Lord, I just pray tonight, because I'll be honest, Lord Lord, I'm struggling with this text tonight, God, and I just pray you'll give me this, you'll give me the words. God, they'll be of you, not of me, God, because it's nothing about me. It's all about you, Lord. I just pray you'll provide right now. I pray I decrease and you increase, Lord. And we'll be careful to give you the honor, praise, and glory that you deserve in Christ's name. Amen. So we're digging back into Jonah. We hopefully gonna finish tonight. We're gonna try, we're gonna try to knock this thing out. We got about six verses left. We're in Jonah 4. Um, Jonah had just told told God, God had just told Nineveh, hey, I saw you, I saw, I saw with my spiritual eyes that you didn't, you didn't want to get out of hell ticket. You truly needed, you wanted to be changed. You truly changed within yourself. And and and as he told him that, man, Jonah got all ticked off at God, and he's mad, and he says, Man, I just want to die. I just want, I just want to die, God. Just leave me alone. He's mad. He's mad. I say that again, he's mad because I want you to understand where you're at many times, and so am I. So he says in verse number four, in verse number four, he says right there, he says, then the Lord said, Doest it well to be angry. And I want to put this in South Georgian lingo for you for a minute. What the Lord is asking Jonah right now, he's saying, Listen. Do you not understand why I put you on this earth? He's saying, He's saying, Jonah, do you not know why I put you here? So you could go out and be a prophet and go tell people about me, the mighty to save, that's what I put you here for. And that's what he's saying to each of them or every one of us tonight. Listen, man, your anger ain't about you. You're getting selfish. That's what he's saying. You're getting selfish. You're all worried about what you want, the things that you want in life. He said, Man, you've got to get out of the way if I'm gonna be able to work in your life. He said, If I'm if you're gonna be the prophet that I called you to be, you've got to get Jonah out of the way so God can work. And the same thing he's saying to us, many times we got to get our selfish desires and our worldly ways out of the way so God can do the work that he's called to do in our lives. But you say, but God, you don't understand. Anybody in here, and I made a little bit of mention of it last week. Anybody in here ever been in church hurt? Any anybody? Anybody been uh upset with a church before? Anybody have been mad with the pastor? Anybody been mad with the Sunday school teacher? Or the person that sang because they didn't sing loud enough or they they they squealed a little too much or they didn't sing the right song or they wasn't in the right key, brother Keith. Somebody's out the wrong, they're in the wrong key, man. Come on, they can't get the right, you know what? I I got to thinking about some of y'all, man. Some people that's lost lost pastors lately. Like, God, why is this happening? God, why are you allowing this stuff to happen in our lives? God, why why why aren't we? Man, everything was right, God. Everything was great. Life was going good, and then all of a sudden, God, man, why'd you shake it up? Anybody sit there and ask God why? We have. We have. And God answers it easily. He said, because it's about me. It ain't about you. Maybe I need to use you to win somebody else. Maybe I need to move you out of the way because you're a little too comfortable in the seat you're sitting in now. That's what he's saying. He's speaking to us and trying to tell us, man, you've got you've got to get out of the comfortable. I'll be honest, man, the pew's been too comfortable sometimes. And I didn't want to move. Because listen, I can sit in that pew and I, hey, I ain't got to do anything. Nobody will mess with me. Man, God's trying to stir some people up. And it ain't easy. It ain't easy. I'll be honest with you. We ain't been in an organized church where we ought to be every single Sunday in ten months now. It ain't been easy. I can sit up here and preach. I'll just be honest with you. I'm just gonna get with you for a minute. I can sit up here and preach, and man, I can look good on the inside and I can tell you what God's saying. But I'm gonna tell you, man, my life for the last 10 months has been, it's just been like a terror. It's been like going through a tornado, man. I'm just being honest with you. I'm just sharing you a little bit of me, but I'm gonna tell you, I know that my God's got a plan, and I'm not gonna leave him. He's got a plan for my family. He's got a plan for our lives. And I'm not gonna quit on my God. Like Jonah was trying to quit. Because my God is able and he's gonna bring us through it. He's gonna bring us through it. And I know it's tough. I know you get angry. I mean, I'm sure there's people sitting here, man. God, why don't you just show me? God, why don't you just make it? Maybe he's just wanting to hear from you a little bit more.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

I got to thinking about people. I'm just, I ain't in the scripture for a minute. We're chasing a rabbit, we're gonna kill him then. A lot of people saying in this storm, man, I feel for these people that struggling, man, that they've lost everything. And people, you see it on Facebook and you hear people, man, pray for rain. Pray for the people, pray for all these people. Yes, pray for the people. But where was the prayers before the storm got here, man? Come on. That's what God is saying to us. Man, I'm praying for these people. I'm burdened for these people that's lost everything. But man, maybe God's trying to wake us up and say, listen, you need to cry at me, cry at me while you're in the storm, but man, cry at me before the storm shows up. Maybe he's saying Ephesians 10, he said, put on the whole armor of God that you can withstand the wiles of the devil before he gets there, man. He said, put on the armor.

unknown 6:17

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

Maybe he's speaking to some of us tonight, saying, Listen, they might be something right around the corner. You better get ready. You better get in this sword and get ready for the battle. God's speaking to somebody tonight that needs to hear what he's trying to say. So look right here. We're gonna jump back in. We dabbled in verse 5 last week. We're gonna jump right here, right quick, if I can get my butt and my pages stay. So Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city, and there he made him a booth and sat under it in the shadow till he might see what would what would become of the city. So Jonah, the problem with Jonah, Jonah didn't trust God at his word. That's what he's saying right there. Look in verse number five, the last part of that. He said, Till he might see what would become of the city. God's done told him what was gonna happen. But Jonah didn't trust God. He said, God, I I seen those people, God. I remember when those people were on the streets and I seen the harlots on the corners and I seen the men meeting, I seen all this stuff, so I'm just gonna prop up. I'm gonna make me, I'm gonna make me a booth, Lord. I'm gonna sit up under the shade and I'm gonna watch them fail, God. That's what I'm gonna do. But God said, No, you don't understand, Jonah. I I've done said what they're gonna do, and when I say it, that's it. You've got to trust me at my word, Jonah. But Jonah didn't want to trust God. That's just the truth. Jonah was a temporary truster. He trusted God when it when it's convenient for him. Come on, that's what happens in our own life many times. We'll trust God when it's convenient. We'll trust God when it feels good to us. But man, when it's gonna require something, when it's gonna require us to go to Nineveh somewhere we don't want to go, man. Hey, we don't want to listen to him then. But he didn't trust God fully right here. That's why he went propped up. Because if he truly trusted God, he'd have never left the city. He'd have never gone out and pitched a tent and said, You know what? I'm gonna go watch him fail. The very man that sit there and watched the revival in a hundred and twenty thousand people in this great place, all of a sudden he said, You know what? I'm not happy about it. Because he had sin on the inside that he had never taken care of. We talk about this all the time, y'all. That sin that we bury so deep, that that's so deep that we can always reach down and pick it and bring it right back to the surface so quick. And that's where Jonah was. Jonah needed to grow, but Jonah had to ask God to forgive him. Jonah needed to cleanse some things out of his life. And that thing was, he was still mad with Nineveh. That thing was something that happened in his childhood, it's still work, it's still working in him today. Anybody? Something that happened in your childhood, something that happened a long time ago, you ain't never let it go, and God ain't never, you'll never be what God's called you to be till you truly give it to God. You say, Brother, what do you mean truly give it to God? I mean truly lay it down, what he's saying. You gotta lay it down before him and say, God, this is yours. The same thing you're saying to somebody about your life, about your testimony, about what he's called you to do in your life. He's called each and every one of us to do something. But you don't know what that something is because you give him 85%. You give him 75%, you give him you give him 95%, but that 5% is what's keeping you from experiencing what God can do in your life. I know I've been there. That's just the truth. But look what he says next. And the Lord God prepared a gourd and made it to come up over Jonah that it might be a shadow over his head. Wait a minute. That it would be a shadow over his head? Didn't Jonah make something in verse 5? Jonah made a shadow in verse 5. Jonah made him a shelter in verse 5 for the shade, but now God's God showed him, Jonah. What you try to provide for yourself in your life will never fully and satisfy you to the end of what you need. Hey, I'm the only thing that can fully satisfy you to the thing that you need in your life. That's what he's saying to you and I tonight. He said, I'm the one that can satisfy that fully and finally give you everything you need. It's me. See that shade that he provided, it was temporal. But that shade that God provides is forever. And that's what he's showing right here. But look what he says that it might be a shadow over his head to deliver him from his grief. You know what I've noticed is even when you're out of God's will, God's still chasing you. See? God prepared a fish to swallow him and save him. God prepared a gourd to put a shelter over him. That's what he did. See, when he was out of God's will, and when you get out of God's will, if you're a child of the king, he's gonna do one of two things. He's gonna chase you till he gets you back, or he's gonna take you out. That's just what he's gonna do. I don't want him to take me out knowing that there's other people that I could have won if I'd have just been obedient to God. Be obedient to him. So it says in verse number six, it says, To deliver him from his grief, so Jonah was exceedingly glad of the gourd. But finally, the one thing that Jonah's glad about is a thing he had nothing to do with. He's finally glad about something. He's finally excited because he's finally got shade over his head. But then the Lord shows him right quick, like. In verse number seven, but God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smoked the gourd that it withered. See, God ain't called us to the comfortable. He was sitting right out there, and God said, You know what? I don't think so. And I was just studying this as this is total off the text of what God showed me this today as I was as I was studying about the worm. You know, I got to thinking about this men's group meeting and um all the different people, all the different jobs, all the different things that men do here. You say, Well, Brother Mike, I don't I don't see that I do anything. I don't see that I bring anything to the table. You might think that. And man, I got to thinking about that that worm today. And you might think you ain't nothing but a worm. That man, I just I don't see where I'm really doing much. And man, that worm was doing so much because he exposed him. And I'm gonna tell you something. God showed me today. You might not be standing up here speaking, and you might not shake the right seasoning on your fries, Taylor Lee. But you know what you do? You show up here and you provide fellowship. And your fellowship, your fellowship draws people. Some of you can just talk, can't they, Glenn? I mean, they just can. I mean, I'm not gonna call anybody out, but I mean, some people can. But but and people say, man, that man, that is a ministry way more than you understand. Because if you can, if you can, if you're able to talk to someone, you're able to come in and you're able to fellowship with someone, you might be helping someone through something. You didn't even know just talking to them, man. You didn't you just made them feel good. You you was a blessing to them. And you need to understand that, and I need to understand, it's a blessing to us at times just to get to talk to somebody. And you're being that blessing. I wrote this down today. You come in with fellowship and you draw fellows. And when you draw fellows, it hopefully equals somebody that draws in some faith. And when it draws into the faith, they have they fall in love with the Father. And when they fall in with love with the Father, they become fruitful. That's that's the goal. That's the goal. That each and every man in here leaves here fruitful. So don't ever think just because you chewed up some leaves so that man didn't. Hey, every single body in this room is a part of this ministry, what God is doing here. Every single person. You are. And I'm thankful. I'm thankful we are a part of it. So the worm, we're back in verse number seven. I got to go quick. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smoked the gourd that it withered. See, he thought he was good where he was at. He thought that he was good where he was at, but the worm eat it up. Now that this east wind's fixing to come in, and it's fixing to be terrible on him. It's fixing to be trials on him. It's fixing to be all this stuff. But what the Lord is showing me, what the Lord is showing Jonah right here is saying, listen, Jonah, I want you to understand something. I prepared something and now it's going away. What he's trying to teach all of us tonight is, listen, those things that you're worried about, Jonah, they're temporal. Those things that those things were temporal that you were worried about. I want you to, and I'm painting this picture to you in a gourd. Listen, it came up today, it's gone tomorrow. Life is short. Life is short. And what he's trying to paint the picture is listen, Nineveh's way more important than your anger. Nineveh's way more important than your desires. Nineveh's way more important than your social status. Because he was worried about what people would think about it. It's way more important than that. And yours and I's life in Christ is way more important than what you think and what people think about you. The Bible says in the book of James. He says in James 4.13, he says, Go to now you that say today or tomorrow, we will go to such a city and continue there for a year and buy and sell and get gain. Whereas you know not what it shall be on tomorrow, for what is your life? It is even but a vapor that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away. For that you ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that. But now you rejoice in your boastings, all such rejoicing is evil. Verse 17, therefore to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin. What he's saying is, quit putting it off, man. If you need to make something right with somebody, make it right. If you need to go share Christ with somebody, go share Christ with them. What he's telling Jonah is, listen, the Gord can be gone tomorrow, just like that, that your next door neighbor can be gone tomorrow. Just like that man that came in two weeks ago. He's gone. He's gone to be with the Lord. Two weeks later. That just blows my mind just hearing about it tonight. And it came to pass when the sun did arise that God prepared a vehement east wind, and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah that he fainted and wished to himself to die, and said, It'd be better for me to die than to live. See, at that very moment, he was discouraged, he was defeated, and he was feeling the heat, man. I think God said, Alright, you want to be hot, you want to be angry? I'm fixing to give you some heat, big boy. I'm fixing to show you some heat. I'm fixing to show you what's really fixing to happen in your life if you don't straighten up. So he allowed some heat to come on him. He took all his protection away from him. He said, Alright, you want to run, run. And he got cooked. He was getting cooked, and he had only one way to run. I got to thinking about this thing. He only had one way to run then, y'all. The only way he could go back to get shelter was to the city. He had to go back to Nineveh. The very place God never told him to leave from, the very place that he had an opportunity to win souls and to minister to people, God said, Alright, the only way you can get you can get out of this heat, you can go to where I called you to. Again. Again. So look. He said, It's better for me to die than to live. And here we go, we're almost done. And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? Where was his heart? It was still on himself. It was still on himself. He said, I do well to be angry even unto death. He couldn't get out of his own way. He just couldn't. I'm just being honest. He couldn't get out of his own way. He was more worried about his social status. He was more worried about where he needed to be than where God wanted him to be. You see, I'd never be there. We're many like that. We're more worried about where we got to be in the morning and what tree I need to prop up against, where that turkey's gonna come out, or where I got to be at work, or where where I need to be at the right fishing hole, or listen, you can plug in whatever you want right there. But what about the man next door? What about the person down the street? But then verse 10 it says, Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd for which thou hast not labored. Neither made us it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. He said, Man, all this temple stuff, all these things that you're so concerned with, he said, They don't matter. They don't matter. Anybody anybody play sports in high school? A few several of you. Anybody think that was good? anybody anybody come to that point and said, like like I hear my boy say sometime, and we said it, they they get to arguing about who's better, Michael Jordan or or LeBron James, and and they get to talk and y'all know let's don't get started in here right now. But anyhow.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

We're gonna all have to repent.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Yes, that's right. So you say he's him. And the next one says, he's him. And the next one says, No, I think he's him. And then some of y'all walked around in high school and you thought you were him. You thought all the girls liked you, and you thought you were him. Anybody? Can I tell you? The very moment that Jonah can understand that Jesus Christ is him, that's when he'll get right. And he told him right here in verse number, the last part of verse number, or first part of verse number 11. He said, And should I not spare Nineveh that great city, wherein more than 120,000? He said, more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left, and also much cattle. He said, Jonah, I've built temporal things like gardens, like. These gourds, these things in life. He said, John, I want you to think about temporal things like you're happy with the gourd one minute, the next minute you're mad with me. What he's saying to you and I tonight is listen, there's gonna be times in your life that some things you get upset with, some things you get mad about, some things ain't gonna go your way. But what he's saying is, you need to put your eyes on the eternal things. Like he said, like right here in verse number 11. He said, Should I not spare this great city, these Ninevehes? That what he says right here in the last part of that verse, and I'm done right here, he said, they can't discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle. What he's saying is, man, they're vulnerable. It gets to reminding me of like a baby. When a baby's just learning to walk and and and and they get that two or three-year-old, that that stage where, man, they're just soaking up everything you tell them. Everything, man, they're just soaking it up, they're grabbing it in, and they're he says, Jonah, do you not realize that Nineveh right here was these people? Nineveh was these people that, man, they were right there, they were ready to absorb it. They couldn't tell their left from the right. They didn't really know what Jesus was, what God was about right here. They didn't understand those things, but they're in a vulnerable spot right now. That man, you can pour into their lives and win them. He said, and this is just my mind of thinking. And he said, and all so much cattle are like, God, why did you stop right there? Y'all ever asked that? Have y'all ever looked at the last part of that text and look, why? And I sit there for many times studying this text, God, why? I think he was trying to remind us they didn't understand what they had right there in front of them. And I think that's what he's saying to you and I. You don't understand what you got right in front of you. You don't understand what you got between your ears, you don't understand what you got right here. He's given you everything you need to be what you need to be in life for him. Not for Jonah. Not for yourself, for him. There was 120,000 people in Ninevah that got saved. Their life was radically changed. This past week there was 120 homes that got burnt up in that fire. You say, well, brother Matt, they don't live next to me. Can I tell you they need you just as bad as Nineveh needed you? Because you know what? Right now, at this very moment, there isn't any of them. They're exposed, and they need Jesus right now. There's two people that need to be ministered to right now. And our desire should be to want to go minister to them however we can. If it's with money, if it's with prayer, if it's with helping, if it's whatever it is. That should be our heart to help our neighbors in need. And I'm sure it's a heart of many of us. So if any of you men, you know a spot where we can plug in? Hey, we need to plug in. We need to be the hands and feet of Jesus. That's what we need to be. We can sit here and talk about it all we want to, but we need to put feet on our faith and do what God's called us to do. Anybody got anything else tonight? If not, I'm fixing to close us in a word of prayer. I've been praying about God, where you want us next. And I'll be honest with you. I'm still battling with it, but next week, we're gonna be where we started. God said, There's a lot of people that wasn't here, we're gonna be exactly where we started in John 15. He said, I'm the vine, you are the branches. We're gonna study about the vine and the branches and what Jesus Christ is because the what we've got to understand is what He is, where we can understand who we're supposed to be. Anyone with anything else? If not, Terry, will you close on a word of prayer, please?

SPEAKER_00 26:24

I thank you for each man that's my Lord, each boy. I thank you for each family that's representing your night.