SPEAKER_00 0:00

Anybody bring a boat in this morning? It's kind of crazy, huh? It's like we either have lots of rain or no rain. And then lots of rain and no rain. But uh thankfully uh we've uh gotten a little rain over the last few days and and uh hopefully uh the lakes will continue to fill up. That's a good thing. So uh if you're new here, if you're a guest, I just want to say my name's Nick. I'm one of the pastors here, and I want to say welcome and glad that you're here. Uh I hope you know that this is a safe place to not be okay. Uh, that we don't have it all together, we don't have it all figured out. We're exploring faith together, and we're asking the question what does this ancient book have to do with life today? Because we believe that it's uh it has a lot to do with life today, but we are learning how to apply the truths of God's word into our lives. And if you're not a believer in Christ, if you're not a Christian, a Christ follower, or however you want to say that, if you're not a regular churchgoer, um, we're especially glad that you're here because I know that's a risk. Uh you're taking a risk to join us, and so I want to say thank you for doing that. And uh we hope you know that it's a safe place to ask questions and to struggle, uh, because we all do at some level. But uh as we get started this morning, uh I have a serious question for you. You guys know when I typically say that means it's not gonna be very serious, right? Uh does anybody know what October 21st, 2015 was? Let's see, let's hear it.

unknown 1:26

Back to the future.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Oh, okay, okay. How many of you would admit that you posted something on that day about Back to the Future on social media? Okay, a few hands. All right. You guys are dorks. Um anyway. No, you know, Back to the Future Day was hilarious. There was stuff everywhere plastered about Marty McFly and Doc and uh all the craziness. But what was insane, you know, looking at some of it was uh how some of the things that they talked about being uh in the future that we now live in are not so far off. We've actually seen some of those things come to be. Now, maybe it was because uh creative people watched Back to the Future and they thought, yeah, that's maybe a good idea, let's make that happen. And so they started working on it. I don't know, but technology is kind of insane, isn't it? The fact that we've got these devices, uh mobile devices, or uh different ways. Uh and even I know some of you probably rode your hoverboards in this morning, right? No, you the Cubs almost won, yeah, uh they almost went to the World Series. Um but you know the thing is is that what really is intriguing about the Back to the Future show to me is that I think all of us, if we had the option, we would love to have a plutonium-powered DeLorean. Um, right?

unknown 2:32

Right?

SPEAKER_00 2:33

I mean, like, wouldn't that be cool? Like a plutonium-powered DeLorean that takes us back in the future, back in the back past or in the future, it takes us different places and we can we can jump around. Um and part of the reason why we'd like something that would take us back in the past sometimes is so we could go back and fix some of our past mistakes. I mean, we'll go back and like correct some of the areas where we we kind of screwed up and we blew it, and instead of doing the right thing, we did the wrong thing, and now we're still recovering from that wrong thing, like years later, you know what I'm talking about? I mean, uh, here's Marty McFly, he goes back and he ends up back in the 50s. Uh, he actually messes up his parents' meeting uh if you follow the Back to the Future thing. And uh, so then he has to work through trying to fix that. But for us, I mean, if we could just go back and fix some of the problems systemically we had back in the day, and uh and maybe again make a different decision, that'd be pretty cool, wouldn't it? But but here's the thing, we can't do that. That's not possible. That's not that's not gonna happen for us. So, what do we do? Well, I think we're gonna try to address that question today. How do we overcome our past failures, our past mistakes, our past rebellion to God if you're a Christ follower? How do we overcome those things? If you have your Bible, why don't you go ahead and pull it out to the book of Jonah? It's in the Old Testament. We're gonna look at Jonah chapter 3 today. I'm gonna read the whole chapter to you in just a minute. And I want you to listen to this story, this third chapter in the story of Jonah, and let's think about how God is a God who can help us overcome those past struggles, those past issues in our lives. Okay? If you haven't been with us over the past couple of weeks, uh we've been moving chapter by chapter through the book of Jonah. So this is our week three, therefore we're in chapter three. And up to this point, uh, we've said that the story of Jonah is actually not really a story about Jonah. It's not really about a man who was swallowed by a fish and lived to tell the tale. Uh it's actually a story uh about God who is relentless in his pursuit, like we sang about a while ago, that God is a God who loves us so much that he continues to pursue us again and again and again, even when we don't deserve it. And I'm thankful for a God like that, aren't you? I'm thankful that God doesn't leave us alone. And even though sometimes it's annoying, and even though sometimes it's painful, God continues to pursue us in our lives. In Jonah chapter 3, we pick up the story after Jonah has been vomited. That was the word that Harley loves saying last week a lot. He was vomited up onto the shore, and as he was vomited up on the shore, we we pick up the story to see what happens next. So Jonah chapter 3, verse 1 says this. Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. Everybody say second time. That's really key, right? We're gonna come back to that. Get up, go to the great city of Nineveh, and preach the message that I tell you. So Jonah got up and he went to Nineveh according to the Lord's command. Way to go, Jonah. Now Nineveh was an extremely large city, a three-day walk, and by the way, it doesn't mean it was three days from where he was. It means it would take three days to walk around it. That's how large it was, okay? Three-day walk. Jonah set out on the first day of his walk in the city and proclaimed, In forty days, Nineveh will be demolished. Okay, so that was his message. It's a great, very popular message, I'm sure. Uh in forty days, you're all gonna die. There you go. And so he goes on to say, The men of Nineveh believed in God. They proclaimed a fast and dressed in sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least. When word reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, he took off his royal robe, he put on sackcloth, and he sat in ashes. Then he issued a decree in Nineveh, by order of the king and his nobles, no man or beast, herd or flock is to taste anything at all. They must not eat or drink water. So he puts everybody into this massive fast, even the animals, the livestock, have to be in a fast. In fact, he says, Furthermore, both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth, and everyone must call out earnestly to God. I don't know how the beasts call out to God, but they had to put sackcloth on, and they had to be a part of this process. Each must turn from his evil ways, and from violence he is doing. Who knows? God may turn and relent. He may turn from his burning anger, so that he we will not perish. Then God saw their actions, that they had turned from their evil ways, so God relented from the disaster he had threatened to do to them, and he did not do it. That's pretty awesome. So when we think about the God of the Bible, I don't know what comes to your mind, I don't know what picture of God you have, I don't know if you see him just as this kind of crazy cosmic being out in the distance who doesn't really give a rip about your life personally. But here's one thing that we see consistently throughout the entire Bible, and that is that our God is a God of second chances and do-overs. Our God is a God of second chances and do-overs. In verse 1 there, he says that the word of the Lord came to Jonah a what? A second time. Aren't you glad that God comes to us a second time in our lives when we make the wrong decision or when we ignore him? That sometimes he comes a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth. Sometimes he has to come multiple times and in multiple ways. God has done that in my own life through either using something that I've read in his word, or then he puts somebody in my life who says something, or then I see a circumstance that he uses, or then his spirit impresses it on me, and multiple things. He tried to communicate. Nick, you're being dense, dude. Listen. This is what I want for you. This is where you're gonna find life. So listen to me. And he does that because he is a God of second chances and do overs. And that right there alone is enough to just marinate on the rest of the morning and just say, Thank you, God. Thank you, God, that you are a God who gives us another chance. Who doesn't give up on us when we screw it up and when we blow it. A God who, like in the story of Jonah, who the first time God comes to him, he says the exact same thing, says, get up and go to Nineveh, and he runs the opposite direction. That could have been the end of the story. He could have just said, Fine, I'll kill you, done. But he doesn't do that, does he? He gives him another chance. But there's two big things that we see that I think are really powerful in the story of Jonah in this third chapter. Because now that he's gotten his second chance, what does he do? He gets up and he goes to Nineveh. Way to go, Jonah, right? Good job. And it's easy for us to see the story and go, why didn't he listen the first time? Didn't he know he was gonna run into some trouble? Didn't he know that running from God was silly? Didn't he know he can never escape God's presence? That's that's kind of our view of the story, right? But yet we see this repeated out again and again in our own lives. And so here's Jonah. He goes to Nineveh, and one of the first things that we see, just from the fact that he goes to Nineveh as one who has been sent by God, is this truth. God moves towards messed up people. God moves towards messed up people. He cares about the people who are jacked up. He cares about people who don't care about him. He cares about people who don't know him, he cares about people who are rebelling against him. God is a God of love and he moves towards people that are messed up. Now, maybe you don't feel messed up this morning, but as I said before, I just want to go ahead and just be honest with you. There is no S on my chest. There is no free pass that I have from dealing with my flesh as a pastor. In fact, I think the moment I said yes to God is the moment my spiritual battle really intensified. And daily I face temptations to be a jerk or to be impure or to be uh greedy or to pursue the things of this world. And I tell you, it's it's a battle. And I find that sometimes my mind and my heart goes places and it's messed up. Can I just be honest with you? That that's where I am, but that God is graciously calling me again and again and again to follow him. But God thankfully moves towards the messed up people. Now, let me tell you a few things about Nineveh just to help you understand what I mean by messed up, specifically in our story, because the first week, if you were here, I said the equivalent of what it was like to be told you're gonna go to Nineveh and be a missionary, you're gonna go tell the Ninevehes what God has for them, what he wants to do to them from a destructive perspective, will be the equivalent of being told to go to ISIS and be a missionary. Now, I don't think anybody in this room would be like, pick me, pick me, pick me, God, right? This isn't like you're getting ready to get go to the store and get some ice cream. This isn't like you're gonna, you know, go and get to do something fun. This is like hard, hard stuff. And he says to Joan, I want you to get up and I want you to go to Nineveh. And he's thinking in his mind, God, you do know that those guys are terrorists and they're they're torturers, right? Like, those guys are really bad dudes. I don't want to go there. I'm not even gonna even remotely entertain the thought of going to Nineveh. And so instead, he runs. And we need to understand that because he did have a hard decision to face in that moment that I don't really want to go to this place. You see, Nineveh was the Assyrian capital. And Nineveh was the largest city on the planet for 50 years. It was a brutal place. They had two walls around their city. They wanted to intimidate all their enemies. They had two walls. Most cities only had one if they had a wall. And this the one of their walls, the outside wall, was a hundred feet tall. So these guys had some little some legit capital and they had some manpower, and they built this massive, these two massive walls around their place. They had a library, which was very rare in that that day and time. Uh they had lots and lots of wealth. And part of their goal was to intimidate all their enemies by saying, hey, look at like we've got all this wealth. We also have these big, bad walls. They had a massive army, and and then so they were very, very um arrogant and very, very intimidating. Now that's just kind of the place that this was. But it didn't stop it just being intimidating and arrogant. These guys were wicked. I mean, they were seriously wicked and evil. In fact, um, one historian called these guys the cruelest, vilest, power, most powerful, and idolatrous nation ever to exist. I mean, that's why one historian liked just looking back at the records of these people, he saw that these were guys were terrible dudes. And he described them in these ways. One of their kings, Asher and Asher, I can't even say it. Asher and Paul, try to say that like three times in a room, right? Asher andeshe Paul II, he writes this about uh himself as he would go out with his army and capture other people. He would say this, he would say, Uh, their young men and old men I took prisoners. Of some I cut off their feet and their hands, of others I cut off their ears and their noses and their lips. Of the young men's ears I made a heap. Of the old men's heads, I made a minaret. Uh, I exposed their heads as a trophy in front of our city. Their male children and their female children I burned in flames. The city I destroyed and consumed with fire. And then he even goes on to say that he took their king that he had defeated, and he boiled them in a pot, and he spread his skin on the city gates. Anybody like like that just grossed out now? That's crazy, isn't it? That's how bad these dudes were. I mean, these guys were vicious. And this isn't like a movie. This isn't fake. This isn't sci-fi. This is real life. These guys were nasty, evil, wicked dudes. And he did this stuff, and not only did he do it, he actually wrote about it because he wanted to be known for this. That's pretty wicked stuff, isn't it? And so here's this king as this wicked, evil man in Nahum chapter 3, another uh book in the Bible, just a few over from this. Uh Nahum actually says that Nineveh was the city of blood, and it was known for cruelty. But as I said, they weren't just wicked and evil, they were also incredibly arrogant and prideful. One of their uh kings, Irshadon, he said this about himself. I'm sure he said this as he looked in the mirror at himself in the morning. He said, I am powerful, I am all powerful, I am a hero, I am gigantic, I am colossal, I am honored, and I am magnified. And he actually goes on from there. Here's the point. These guys, they thought they were everything. I mean, he writes this about himself. I'm sure you guys all do that in the morning, right? When you wake up in the morning, you're looking there as you're brushing your teeth. I am powerful. I am majestic, right? No, these guys were crazy into themselves, so arrogant. And God sees all this. Now we kind of understand why their wickedness was kind of rising up before God. God was fully aware these were not good people, and they were doing some wicked, evil things to the nations. And yet, in spite of all this, you're asking, why in the world are you even talking about this, Nick? Because when you understand just how messed up the people of Nineveh are, and you realize that God sent a prophet to them to speak truth to them so that they might be saved. God moves towards messed up people, doesn't he? God moves towards messed up people. But here's the other thing that we learned in chapter three, and there's a lot of things here. I can't talk about all of them today. Not only does God move towards messed up people, but God uses messed up people. Who is this prophet that he is using to go and share this message? He's using Jonah. Now, what do we know about Jonah from the first two chapters? We know that Jonah heard from the God heard from God regularly, and instead of listening to God, he what? He runs from God. And so in the story, we already know that Jonah is not doing real well. Jonah has decided that in of himself he is wiser than God, that he is gonna be in charge, he's gonna be in control, he wants to call the shots, and he's like, God, I'm not going there, I'm gonna go here. In fact, uh commentators would even say that for Jonah, it wasn't like he was just saying, I'm gonna ignore God once. It was like literally he was making a change of job forever. Because here's the way it worked he was a prophet among God's people, and as he would stand in front of God's people, God would speak to him, and then he would share God's word. And the moment he said no to God is the moment that God stopped speaking to him. And once God stopped speaking to him, pretty quickly the people of Israel were gonna realize, hey, wait, he's no longer a good prophet. We can't listen to him. And so they would, you know what the penalty of being a false prophet was? Death. Okay? So basically when he said, I'm going to Tarshis, he's going, I'm not only gonna just say no to this God, I'm actually gonna change my profession, and I'm gonna go over here to Tarshis and hang out. I'm no longer your prophet. So he's he's turning from all of that. And all the while, the crazy part is that he gets these sailors who are on a ship involved in his mess, and they're all of a sudden in the middle of this storm. We talked about that in week one, that when you disobey or rebel against God, a lot of times there are people who come with you in the process and they're in the mess too. They didn't do anything, and yet they're part of your the wake of your uh disobedience and your rebellion. And then on top of that, all the while you've got the Ninevites who God wants to rescue and to redeem, and Jonah's running the other way saying, Hey, you know what? I'm okay, I'm gonna do my own thing. My comfort and my safety and security is more important than the Ninevites. So that's pretty messed up, isn't it? And I realize, again, it would be a hard decision to do what Jonah uh was told to do by God, but yet we know that he was messed up. And I just want to say this to us this morning God wants to use us as messed up people to help others experience the life that's in Christ. You know, one of the things that I hear from people when we say, hey, uh, God wants to use you in your workplace, he wants to use you in your family, he wants to use you in your community to point people to Christ, and they say, Well, that's great and all, but I'm too messed up. I don't have that ability. I'm too messed up. Listen, if God can use Jonah to go to the Ninevites, God can use you. God can use us even as messed up people. We don't have to be perfect people, we have to be honest people. We don't have to be people who have it all figured out. We have to be people who are humble and dependent on God. And as we do that, God will use us. Here's the crazy thing about the story, by the way, and we're getting ready to talk about this in a second a little more, but Jonah goes, and what happens? A whole city is saved. And here's the thing: God's mission and his plan don't rest on the shoulders of imperfect people. God is sovereign and he is good, and his power will be displayed, and his glory will go out, and his gospel will be proclaimed, even in spite of messengers. I feel this way every week, guys. I stand up here and I preach a message that I know personally I need to hear. And I'm telling you, thankfully, by God's grace, he's changing us in here, not because of me, but because he is that good. You see, God uses messed up people. He uses us in our brokenness, he uses us in our pride, he uses us in spite of us because he is that powerful and that awesome. He's that gracious. And I think what's interesting too is that when we dig into the story of Jonah, we actually see some clues that would tell us that God used Jonah's story of rebellion to help the Ninevites be rescued. Um I mean, I don't know about you guys, but it seems a little bit odd that Jonah, who hears from God regularly, is told to do something and he runs the other way, and it takes a storm and a fish to get his attention. The Ninevites, however, he says eight words. In 40 days your city's going to be demolished, basically, right? And he says these, this, this really quick sermon, and yet they all repent. They all turn. They all uh immediately believe in God. I I don't think this was all that Jonah said. In fact, I think what you see from the king when he talks about uh later in verse 9, he uses this language. He says, Who knows? God may turn and relent. He may turn from his burning anger so that we will not perish. I think this king got his idea from Jonah's story. I think that's one clue. But the other clue is actually in the New Testament when Jesus talks about Jonah, Jesus talks about Jonah and he says that the only sign I'm gonna give you is the sign of Jonah. He's talking to these people that want a sign of is he the Messiah? Is he is he really who uh people are starting to say that he is? And he says, I'm gonna give you the sign of Jonah. And he says, I'll be in, uh just as Jonah was in the belly of a fish for three days, so the Son of Man will be in the earth for three days, which we know, of course, on this side of it was his burial after the cross and then his resurrection, he came out, right? And so, but in that same thing, he in the same uh set of scriptures there, he says, just as the Ninevites were given this sign of Jonah, that they knew he was swallowed by a fish, and that they then repented because they saw God's work through that, God's redemptive work, relentless uh pursuit of Jonah in his mess. I think Jonah shared his grace story. And I think when Jonah shared his grace story, people are like, well, if God can save a guy like Jonah who deliberately disobeyed after he heard, he can save us if we'll if we'll humble ourselves. Isn't that cool? You see, one of the greatest impacts you and I can have on our children, parents, on our spouses, on our friends, on our coworkers, is not to share how great we are, but to show how great God's grace. Is. And when we start to talk about God's grace, that's attractive. It's compelling. It moves our hearts towards God. So how do we get a second chance? If God is a God of second chances and God is a God of do-overs, how do we get a second chance? Well, according to our story here, we see that whenever Jonah declared, in 40 days Nineveh will be demolished, the next verse that's butted right up against it says, the men of Nineveh believed in God. God offers us a second chance, but it's our job to receive it. It's our opportunity to receive it. Just because God is a God of second chances doesn't mean we actually experience a second chance, because our job is to actually receive the gift of that second chance, or third chance, or fourth chance, or however many chances you think you're on today. If you don't receive it, it's just simply an offer to you. It's a present that you haven't unwrapped, if you will. And that's the gospel. That's the whole grace of God. And the good news of God is that we don't earn our salvation. We don't earn our second chance with God. I mean, we've all, as human beings, from the very beginning of Genesis, when Adam and Eve decided to rebel against God, we've became a people who require a second chance. Because from that point forward, we knew the world was screwed up. And when we were born in flesh, we were right in the same vein, rebelling against God, wanting our own way, doing our own thing, giving God the finger, if you will, saying, God, I don't really want you to control my life. I don't want you to be in charge. I want to do my thing. But God offers second chances again and again and again because he's so good. But we have to receive it. You see, God sent that storm and that fish into Jonah's life and he gave him a second chance. And he sent Jonah into the people of Nineveh and He said, give them this message, and he gave them a second chance. And by the way, again, I don't think that this message was a real popular one. But it doesn't matter because here's the thing: soft preaching, me just getting up here and say God loves you and it's all about lollipops, rainbows, and unicorns, that doesn't help soften your heart. It doesn't help soften my heart. Sometimes hard truths are the only thing that will soften our hearts towards God. And what I'm saying this morning is that sometimes we need to hear things we don't want to hear so that our hearts will be softened and we'll be able to have that second chance. And so Jonah just tells them straight up, this is what God says. You're gonna die in 40 days. You're gonna be destroyed. And their hearts soften towards God. And I want you to understand this something this morning. I said this at the very beginning. I don't know what your picture of God is. I don't know what your view of God is. Uh growing up, I had a variety of different pictures in my mind, uh kind of a Santa Claus in the clouds kind of thing. Uh I it's kind of weird. It's funny how even growing up in church, you just have these different images of what God's like, and maybe he's like a genie, you know, and you just pray and then he answers your wishes, and uh when you really need him, you know, he delivers you like students, and when you got a big test coming, you know, maybe that's how you see God. I don't know. But but here's what I know about what the Bible says about God. God is a God who does not delight in bringing destruction. I think some of you in this room, if you grew up in a setting that was very moralistic and it was very uh heavy on law and not the grace of God, you may have grown up thinking like God is just this angry, mean person in the sky who wants to just kill you the moment you screw up. And I want you to know that the God of the Bible is a God who does not delight in bringing destruction in our lives. That's not Him. In fact, He gives us chance after chance after chance after chance. He is generous with His grace, He is generous in His patience and His mercy. In fact, some of you guys came in today, and this week has been really a train wreck for you. And I want you to know that the Bible says that every morning God's mercies are new. It's fresh. You get a fresh start every day. There's days when I go to bed at night and I'm like, God, I just totally, I just totally failed today. Thank you, God, that tomorrow is a new day. Thank you, God, that tomorrow I wake up and I am forgiven and I am loved and I can go at it again with your power and your strength. Help me to love you better, to help to love others better, to serve you well, to obey you, to follow you. That's the kind of God that we have. And know this that warnings of judgment, like when I stand up here on Sunday morning and I tell you things like, look, there's a day coming when Christ will return and he will judge the earth. In fact, I think uh our teens tonight are gonna be talking about some of this, but that the the Christ is gonna return and he's gonna judge the earth, and everyone who knows him is gonna spend eternity with him, and everyone who does not know him is gonna spend eternity separated from him. It's either gonna be eternal blessings and communion with God, or it's gonna be forever, eternal pain and suffering. That's what the scripture says. I don't say that with joy in my heart to those who are not believers. I say that with love in my heart to say God wants you to know him, he wants you to follow him, he wants you to surrender your life to him because he offers you forgiveness. He wants to bring reconciliation and restoration. God is not a God who delights in bringing destruction, but he takes pleasure in offering you reconciliation. And by the way, just a side note here, if that's our God, we should be the same way. We should not be the kind of Christians that are around, like, yeah, go get them, God. Go kill them, yeah. Bring your justice on them. You know, rain down on my husband. You know? I mean, sometimes we have those feelings, right? We're human beings. Bring your justice to that coworker. You know, bring bring bring whatever, bring pain in their life, God. Do what you gotta do. Listen, we don't want God's justice. We would all be in trouble. Because none of us are righteous, but for the grace of God. And that's our God. But the difference between a second chance and game over is repentance. The difference between a second chance and game over is repentance. Like I said a while ago, God offers, but it's up to us to receive. How do we receive? Well, again, notice what's going on in the text. A radical change happens in the people's hearts in Nineveh. You remember how nasty and gnarly and jacked up I just said these people were? Notice what happens to them when they hear this message. The men of Nineveh believed. They proclaimed a fast, they dressed in sackcloth, they from the greatest of them to the least of them, all of them. A whole city, 120,000 of them, fall on their faces before God, and they say, God, save us, rescue us. Listen, repentance at its basic, as a baseline definition, repentance is saying, God, I'm going after my thing and I'm gonna turn in repentance. I'm gonna turn and I'm gonna go after your thing. I'm gonna go after you. That's repentance at its basic level. But there's really three key parts to repentance and understanding how we really experience and live out the second chance that God wants us to have. And by the way, if you're not a Christ follower, the first place to start, of course, is receiving the gift of salvation. You've been offered the gift of salvation, but if you are a Christ follower, you still have to learn to live in daily repentance. Actually, in fact, you'd say maybe moment by moment repentance, because we are still battling our flesh, like I said a while ago. And so in our lives, the first thing that happens is that we have a change of opinion. We have a change of belief. We have a change of understanding that something in our mind has to change, that we're not in charge, that God really is the king of the universe, that he really is the creator, that he is the one who is over all and through all and in all. So we have to ask God to help us have that change of mindset, the change of opinion about God, a change of opinion of who is really in charge and who's really calling the shots in life and where this thing's really headed. So we have a change of opinion. And that change of opinion hopefully will lead to a redirecting of our affections. Now, let's be honest, there's a lot of us in this room that make our decision about whether we're gonna follow God or not on our feelings. Right? I mean, if I feel like it, I'll do it. If I don't feel like it, I won't do it. And I want you to know that repentance, walking with God, experiencing the grace and the mercy of God requires, it does require us to say, God, I'm gonna change my mindset about you. By your grace, you're gonna renew my mind from your word by your Holy Spirit, and it's gonna change my affections. And here's the cool thing I've learned this in life. There's two people in my life that get my attention and can get me to do pretty much anything. Right? Number one, the authorities in my life. And number two, the love in my life. So let me speak for the first one. If a police officer turns his lights on and he's pulling you over, guess what you're gonna do? If you're wise, you're gonna pull over, right? It's an authority. So in your life, you're gonna pull over because that's that position of authority, and you're gonna obey that authority, hopefully, right? We talked week one, some of you guys, maybe that hasn't happened. Maybe you got a little chase going on. I don't know, but that's a whole other story. We'll reserve that. That's between you and God right now, okay? But here's the thing: authority is in our life. They tell us what to do. We should obey, we should submit, right? The second thing, though, is the love. Who has my affection? Who do I really care about? You know, my wife, when she speaks up to me, I know some of you guys are gonna say this isn't true, but when she speaks up to me, because I love her, I want to do what she asks of me. I want to, I want to please her. Um, I j I I laugh about this with teenagers when I watch teenagers um when they get puppy love. You guys been there? You know what I'm talking about? And all of a sudden, like the guy is dressing different, and and he looks, he looks different, and you're like, he's in love. You know, he's got he's some some girl is getting him to dress like that, right? Because he would not dress like that. I saw him two weeks ago, and he did not look like that. He did not smell like that, you know. So what am I saying? I'm saying that what you love, what your affections are focused on, that will affect your behavior. And that's really the third piece of this thing. That once you have a change of mind and a change of affections, your behavior are an outflow of that. And so if we genuinely believe that God is good, that he is gracious and great, and he is glorious, he has all those things, and that changes my affections because I think when you see God rightly, you you will love him. The problem is most of us don't see God rightly. We see him as an evil, wicked judge, or we see him as unfair, or we see him as just disconnected from my life. He doesn't care. But when you understand who God is and you understand that Jesus stepped into our mess because he loves us, it will change your affections towards him, and that will radically change your behavior. That's why I don't stand up on Sunday morning and say, stop lying, stop stealing, stop. I mean, we could say that, but unless your heart's changed, you're not gonna keep doing that. But when your affections change, it transforms your lives, our lives, right? And so we need the gospel, we need the grace of God to radically transform us. J.I. Packer said this: it is a costly thing to repent. It means reshaping your life in quite a radical way. Repentance is not easy. I'm not gonna stand up here and say repentance is easy. It's not. But it is the only way to truly experience the second chance, God, that we can go from living for ourselves and walking in our own way to living in the life and the redemption that He offers us. And some of you today, let's get practical for a second, some of you today, you are walking in disobedience in the area of your relationships. You've decided, God, I'm gonna do what I want to do, and I don't really care what you have to say about that. And I'm telling you today, God offers you a second chance. But you have to lay down your right to be right. And you have to lay down your right. Notice what happens. This king, this king, I read you earlier, the quote of the king, right? I'm awesome, I'm magnificent, I'm powerful, I'm all great, I'm worthy of worship, basically. Notice what this king does in this passage. What does he do? He takes off his crown, he gets off his throne, and he sits in ashes and he says, God, please don't kill us. You think that's humility? Some of us today, figuratively, we need to take off our crown, we need to get off the throne, we need to sit down before God and we say, God, please rescue me from myself. I'm self-centered. But you know what? Here's the thing God loves it when we do that. And he steps into that and he brings life. And it's it is painful to be honest. It's painful to be humble. In fact, the greatest barrier to us getting a fresh start is our pride. It's our pride. That is the greatest barrier. What if Nineveh had just said, we don't care what you say, we don't want to hear you. What was coming? Destruction. That's what it says. And in Scripture, Proverbs 16, but the verse plainly says in Proverbs 16 that a haughty spirit, that is a prideful, arrogant spirit, comes before what? Destruction. It comes before it. And you cannot be a prideful person and be God's child and God ignore that. He is going to bring pain in your life to break you because he loves you too much. He loves me too much. And so I'm just telling you today, I'm giving you a warning, you have an opportunity for a second chance, but it's going to require you to lay down yourself, your agenda, your self-centeredness, and say, God, would you save me? Would you rescue me? Would you help me to repent? You see, there's really two ways that pride shows up in our lives. Uh, there's there's a lot of things we could we could say here, but there's two things that we see that really keep us from this repentance piece. Number one, we just simply say, God, I got this. I don't need you, right? God, I'm good on my own. Let me keep doing my thing. And if you do that, if you keep doing that, you're headed for crash and burn. Okay? Just to be completely honest. If you do that, you're headed for crash and burn. The other way that we can go at this thing is we can say, God, I'm too bad for you to love. I'm too evil and wicked. You can't love me, so I'm gonna keep doing my own thing. And you're like, how's that pride? Well, because it's still all about you. It's still all about us when we do that, right? And so in our lives, pride can actually keep us from receiving God's gift because we can say, God, I don't deserve it. I can't have it. So therefore, I'm just not gonna receive it. I'm so messed up, I'm so jacked up. And we can go that, take we can take that so far that we can't believe that when God stepped down out of heaven in the person of Jesus and He dwelt among us, and that He went to the cross, that was for us. And some of you need to hear today that you have never, ever, ever run far enough to get away from God's grace and love. You can reject it, but he is there waiting on you. He is there. He is with you, he is for you. He is waiting on you. I was curious as to why the people of Nineveh repented. Eight-word sermon. That seems kind of odd that they would immediately repent so quick. You know what was happening historically? It's not recorded in the book of Jonah, but it is interesting, and maybe some of you guys would appreciate this. Historically, we're told that the Ninevehes had actually just gone through two plagues. There had been two very difficult plagues that were sent upon them. And on top of that, they'd gone through a solar eclipse. And any of the ancient world, when a solar eclipse happened, they thought, oh, the gods are gonna judge, they're judging us, we're in trouble. So their hearts had been what? Softened. Their hearts were being tenderized towards God. And not only that, but Jonah, he shared his story. And what did he share his story about? Being on a ship, getting tossed over because he was disobeying, right? Getting swallowed by fish, and then getting vomited up on the shore. Now, this is very interesting, but the people of Nineveh, their main God, in fact, their God that they really worshiped and had statues of everywhere, was a God named Ninu. Not Nemo, okay, Ninu. Actually, they also called him Dagon. You know what he was? Did you see that? It was a fish man. That's an interesting thought, right? You think that's an accident? You see, here's the thing: God is sovereign. And God was softening the hearts of the Ninevites. And when Jonah shared that story, I'm sure they probably perked up, what? A fish? What? He sent you what? He caught he copped you up on the shore. Man, we better repent. Listen, I don't know what God's doing in your life. I don't know what storms are coming in your life, but God is trying to soften you to hear the truth today. And here's the other thing there's people in your life. God's using storms in their lives. You don't mean you may not see it, because I know that we are masters in the United States of hiding behind closed doors in our homes. We put that garage down, we shut that door, and behind those doors, there's lots of stuff going on in our worlds. But I do know this that God uses storms to tenderize our hearts so that when the message comes, we're ready to receive it by his grace. And so my hope is today, maybe God's been tenderizing some of you to hear this message that he offers you life today. Will you repent? Will you turn away from doing it your way and turn to his way and experience his grace and mercy? He doesn't want to kill you, he wants to save you. He doesn't want to bring destruction, he wants to bring life. That's our God. So if you don't know God, if you're not a child of God, you wouldn't call yourself a Christ follower. My my first plea this morning is simply this would you receive the gift that he offers? Would you receive the gift of salvation? You see, Jesus, as we said every week, is the greater Jonah. He didn't come reluctantly to the earth to be the missionary to a broken people. He came full of love and compassion. And it even says in scripture that he came not to condemn, but to what? To save and to rescue. That's what it says in the scripture in John. It says that he came not to condemn, but to bring life. And he offers that life today. I don't know your story, I don't know what's going on in your heart right now, but I want you to know that there's a merciful God chasing after you. You may not be listening, you may be running really hard and really fast. He's faster than you. And I'm I'm thankful that this story of Jonah is not a story of just a really unique human being. It's not even just a story of a whole city repenting to God. It's a whole story about an amazing, miraculous, love-filled, gracious, merciful God who keeps pursuing messed up people. If you're a Christ follower, is there any area of disobedience that you just said, God, you can't go there? You can't go there. Don't touch that. Let me keep doing God. I'll keep going to church, I'll keep reading my Bible, but just don't mess with that part of my life. Don't say I don't want to I don't want to hear anything about this money issue over here, I don't want to hear anything about this relational issue over here. Uh God, you can have all this stuff, just let me have this peace over here. And God's saying today, let go. And then for you who are Christ's followers, do you recognize that even though you're messed up, just like me, God wants to use you to help bring his grace and his good news to people around you. Just like Jonah going to Nineveh, God wants to use us. That's exciting, isn't it? That we get to participate in his mission to the messed up as we continue to be healed and rescued from our own messed upness. Let's pray.