Well, good morning, Church. Hopefully you have been outside in the last couple of days. And Happy Spring, evidently, right? Before we jump into the message, let me just reiterate one thing Pastor Brian said in his welcome earlier, and that is that we want to hear your stories of your serving, whether it's you individually or as a group or as a family. We just want to hear and be able to celebrate with you over this next month and kind of get a list of just what God is going to do through this month of 3-2-1 Serve. On the mission’s page, on the website, on the app, there's a place you can just click it there, type it in and share it. And look, it's not bragging, it's just showing what God is doing. Actually, the whole Bible is somebody that wrote down their God story. So, we want to do that through this month. All right. Well, let's jump into the message today. If you got a copy of Scripture, We are in week two of our series like you just saw on the Runaway Prophet, The Runaway Prophets.

If you got a copy, go with me to the book of Jonah, the book of Jonah, and just click, click and open or on. And let me just see that warm light glow of God's word all across here today. Today, we're going to jump into Jonah's life a little bit, and we're going to look today deep into the crisis of his faith. Today, we're going to show how he sunk into despair. But let me warn you, today, it might make your stomach turn or it's going to be hard to swallow. All right. Come on. I'm trying. Really? I'm trying with the dad jokes. All right. I really am trying And some of you are sending me some. And they're horrible. All right. Here's all we're doing today, just in case you are here. Last week, we launched into Jonah's life, and we saw that Jonah is a prophet of God in the Old Testament. He's a prophet through most of his career, career to the people of Israel. The Bible says that he was a good prophet. He was after God's heart. He was a spokesman for God. He knew the heart of God. But then God called him, as he does to some of us, to do something that he just, quite frankly, didn't want to do. He didn't want to do it. He, like a lot of us, when called out of our comfort zones, he basically just looked at God and went, Hey, God, I'm glad that you love me. I'm glad that you created me. I'm glad that you saved me. But no, right. I'm not doing it. And as a result of saying no, he decided that he would run from God. Well, actually, he would try to run from God right in the story instead of going northeast to Nineveh. He set out to go as far as he could. West, actually to the end of the map. Well, God didn't really take kindly to his heart in the situation. And God sent a storm after he got on a boat to sail to the middle of nowhere. Right. God sent a storm. And God calls him Jonah to be thrown overboard as the sacrifice for his sin. I read something this week that kind of summarized our whole talk of Jonah last week, and it says this.

It says, Sin will take you farther than you want to go. It will keep you longer than you want to stay. It will cost you more than you ever thought it would cost. It will leave you worse than you ever thought you could be. But God's love when we turn to him, will completely rescue you. We'll completely rescue you in a moment. Isn't that Jonah? Isn't that where we see Jonah's life through this story? We ended up last week with this runaway prophet being thrown overboard. We said that as soon as he hit the water, the water went calm. The storm goes calm. And that's where we're going to take up the story this morning in chapter two. Actually, we're going to take it up in chapter one, verse 17.

But here's the deal. The word of God is inspired. It is 100% God's word and it's 100% true. But the chapter breaks are not all right. They're not. In fact, if someone would have asked me, I would have put verse 17 into chapter two and I got the microphone. So that's where we're starting today. All right. Here it is. Jonah Chapter one, verse 17 says this, says, Now, remember, he had just hit the water. Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow. Jonah and Jonah was in the belly of the fish. Now, pause there, because we need to talk about this word. Provided this word, provided it's not a really hard word. It literally just means that God ordained this fish that God called this fish that God set apart this fish, or that God used this fish to come into his service. And I love this one, little one. Do you know why? Because this one little line leaves all of us with no excuse to be used by God. Zero. Here's the deal. If God can call a whale, He can call you. Right? If God can use a donkey, He can use me. If Jesus can ride in on a colt, then God can use me in his missional plan from God. So, the next time you stand up against God, I'm like, God, I can't do that. God's like, remember the whale, right? Remember what I did? By the way, let me just chase this rabbit for a minute, because this is what everybody's really asking. I mean, I know it is. You've already told me we really don't know what kind of animal swallowed up Jonah.

All right. Can I just be honest in saying that we really don't know. And actually, the Hebrew word that is translated here into huge fish literally just means sea creature. Right. We don't we don't know what it is. We don't have any pictures. Right. Nobody sketched a little drawing of it at the moment. We're just assuming some things in this. Most people. Okay. I'm just going to say it. Most theologians, most historians believe that it was some kind of a sperm whale. Some kind of a sperm whale. Why a sperm whale? Well, they don't chew their food. They don't bite their food. They literally just move into things, and they just swallow them whole. In fact, throughout history, if you read about these whales, you'll see that many, many, many times through history. We see they swallow whole animals. And when the whale was harvest, the fishermen would begin to process their stomach and whole animals would fall out alive, whether it be a little walrus or another little mammal or any kind. There's even a report of a 440 lb. octopus falling out of one of these things, mouth one day. And it was alive. It was alive. So, we don't know what kind of animal it is, but most people believe it's a well, in fact, in 1891, there's a story, all right. There's going to call it a story. There is a story in 1891 of two whaling vessels off the shore of the Falkland Islands. The whaler on board the key whale or the main guy, threw a harpoon at a whale, struck the whale, did not realize that 100 yards down the rope that his foot was tied around the harpoon.

The whale ripped him off of the boat and they lost poor Fred. They don't know. I don't know if that's his name. I can't remember. But they lost the whaler into the water. They searched for him all night as they were tethered to this whale. The other boat came and struck down another harpoon into the whale. The next afternoon. The next afternoon, they gave up looking. They pulled, winched in the whale began to process it. Hey, lo and behold, they found poor Fred in the stomach of the whale. You can look the story up 1891 Falkland Islands. Well, poor guy was unconscious, but he was alive. He was alive. But catch this because of the stomach acids around him, it had bleached his skin stark white. Every bit of hair had fallen off of his body. And when he got up onto the boat, he ended up making it. And actually, speaking about his encounter to the Jewish I mean, to the Jews, to the British Museum of Natural History. But catch this. I got to thinking this week, what if this happened to Jonah what would have happened if poor Jonah? Because poor Jonah wasn't an Anglo white dude, right? He was from the Middle East. Right. What happened if poor Jonah skin went stark white? You wonder why the Ninevites repented later on in the story, right? This white dude walking down the street of Nineveh, stark White saying repent? I'm like, I'll do whatever that guy says, right? I'll go now. That's not the Bible. That's just me thinking about right. Hey, how could God have done this? Look, I don't know how God did it. I really don't know how God did it. I just know that he did it. I don't know what kind of animal he called. He could have called up Jonah's personal submarine animal for all I know. God created everything. God did it in Matthew Chapter 12. Jesus says this is true but here's what I do know about the story. God did all of it to call Jonah back to himself. God orchestrated all of this storm, in Jonah's life just to change Jonah. And here's the deal. Isn't that how God works most often? You see, God starts with whispering to us, doesn't it?

He starts with whispering. He starts with calling. He starts with those gentle nudges. He starts with your momma calling you. He starts with your friends saying, this is going on. And then eventually God says, Okay, enough is enough. See, isn't this is this is actually the third storm that's been in Jonah's life, is it not? The first storm was just internally in his mind when God called him to do something and he decided, I'm going to walk to Joppa to get on a boat. The second storm was a physical storm, was it not? It was waves crashing in, the lightning coming at him being lost in the sea. Now we're seeing the third warning and the third storm in this prophet runaway prophets live. And God at this point is saying, hey, listen, how far are we going to go in this? Do you know that God put storms in our lives, too? I was thinking this week about the storms that have been in my life and there's been a bunch of them and a lot of you. We've shared some common storms, but I think there's three kinds of categories, if we could say about some of the storms that God uses. Number one category, and you can write this down because you may be in this, and this might help you.

Number one, God uses protecting storms in our lives. He uses storms that protect us. You say, how would a storm protect us? Well, the best example that I can kind of come up with some scripture is, is the Apostle Paul, right? It's the whole book of acts we see through the book of acts. We see the spirit of the Lord directing Paul. Right. We see the spirit of the Lord Paul's running in ministry. And then all of a sudden, God shuts the door in front of us. No, no, no, no, don't go there. Or we see the apostle Paul having this protection of these chains falling off of him in a prison. Or maybe you could even say the children of Israel, right as they're in the wilderness, God protected them by not allowing them to go this way. God protected them by moving them in a different way. You see, God puts things in our paths to direct us. Listen to me away from things in our lives that we are not able to handle. Here's the deal, though. Sometimes those things are outside sources, but sometimes those things are just he protects us from ourselves. God protects us with storms in our lives. So next time something comes up or next time there's a door closed, or next time there's some kind of tragedy going on in your life, maybe, just maybe, God is protecting you from yourself or going too far in another direction. But God also uses, secondly, perfecting storms perfecting storms. God uses storms in our lives to begin our process to become more like him.

It is it's the process that in Bible language, you would just call sanctification, right? When you are saved, you are fully given the spirit of God. But God wants you to continually grow and continually mature in your faith. Well, perfecting storms in your lives are trials or hardships or events in your life that God let you go through to enable you to mature in your faith so that catch this when He does call you or when He does use you are when the big one comes, as will be said, you will be able to walk in His presence. Think of the life of Joseph with me in the Old Testament, right? Think of Joseph. So many things happen through his life. In jail, out of jail, in jail, out of jail, right. Chased by Potiphar's wife. Why? So that one day when he is called on to save all of God's people, he would be a point in his life where he knew, he trusted, and he fully relied on who God is. This is why we can say Romans 8:28, and all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose. Why? Because the things that God allows into our lives are things that are perfecting us, are moving us in His direction. This is why we can also say that in second Corinthians 4:17, it says, For our present troubles are small or you can say your present storms even are small and they won't last very long.

Yet they produce for us a glory that outweighs all of them and will last forever. So, we don't look at our troubles that we can now see. Watch this, we fix our gaze on things that we cannot see. For the things that we now see will soon be gone. But the things that we cannot see will last forever. Let me ask you something. Are there moments in your life right now where you can see the man this is happening, but God is shaping me in it, he's training me in it. He's giving me the experience to walk in his power. Man. Listen, I could take the next hour and a half and tell you how God has allowed me to walk through things so that now I can come behind people in these moments in their lives and go, hey, listen, I got you and let me just walk you in it. God uses these perfecting storms. The third storm is the one that Jonah is in. This is the one that you don't want to be in, by the way. And I'm just going to call it the correcting storm. It's the correcting storm. So, we don't mind being in the perfecting storm and we don't mind being in the protecting storm.

But listen, when you get into the correcting storm, you need to get your head above water. This is where Jonah is. We clearly can see that Jonah is in this third storm of his life for the reason that God wants him to repent. God wants him to come back. He wants to circle him back. And listen, God sent a correcting storm on the reason because Jonah disobeyed him. We said it last week, right? Our sin will always affect other people around us. But now we're watching this. Look, I know it's hard for us to believe because we grew up in church school. God's a loving God, right? He is. It's hard for us to believe a lot of times that God will allow his children to go through difficulties. But listen, God is more concerned with your maturing faith than He is with the exact circumstance that you are in your life right now. Do you know why? Because God can see eternity and God can see the other side of the timeline. God can see how you can, in fact, come out of the other side of where you are. One of the marks of God's true love for you catch this is that He disciplines you. Can I just tell you this? If you feel like God has left you alone, if you feel like God has removed His power, and removed His nudging from your life, you better watch out because He is no longer putting these storms in your life to call you back to him. This is where we see Jonah. But remember, correcting storms are not punishment.

They're not there for retribution. Christ has already taken the punishment they're only there for restoration. They're there for restoration. This is where Jonah is. So, Jonah, he's in a storm, right? He's in the whale. Now, why watch how stubborn Jonah's heart is. It's not for anybody here but other people. Right? Watch this. Verse 17. Now, the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Now, notice what hasn't happened yet. Notice what has happened yet. Jonah's heart has not changed. Jonah's life has not changed. And Jonah, the prophet of God, the mouthpiece of God, has not spoken about God one time. Nor has Jonah prayed and called out to God one time. Not one time yet. Think about this. Let's get into Jonah's mind just for a minute. Right. He is seeing God in the massive storm. He has seen God calm the sea. He'd experienced something that only can happen in your nightmares, quite frankly. Right. He got swallowed by a large animal, and now he's still fighting God. Talk about stubborn, right? Man, doesn't God know our hearts? Right. Amen. Maybe not you guys, but some other people, right? I mean, he's still, om fact, I could just picture Joan in my mind. Him in my glorified imagination. Right? It is hot in this whale, right? Biologists tell us it would have been between 104 and 115 degrees in the belly of this. Well, how do they know that?

I don't know. I just read it. Right. I mean, it's just crazy that the stomach juices would have been churning. I mean, churning right? I mean, nastiness, right? It would have been dark in this thing. Ain't no light in nobody’s belly. Right? There's no light. I mean, it probably smelled like a porta potty in August in South Florida, right? I mean, it was just nasty. Nasty, nasty in this thing. God is still performing this miracle. And what's for Jonah doing? Jonah's like, now, God, I'm on my own now. God, I'm on my own. I got this. I'm a power my way out of this thing. I'm going to nudge my way out of this bad. I don't know, but I'm a man. I'm like, Jonah, just give up dude. Really and truly. You got to give up. Jonah, please. And Jonah fights him for three more days. Tell me sin doesn't grab us and hold us. Tell me the power of sin. Does it hold us to where even other people are looking at us going you just need to give it up.

You just need to submit to the Lord. You need to come to your senses. Now we get to chapter two right here we go from inside the fish. Verse one, from inside the fish. Jonah prayed to the Lord. Now, notice this is the first time. Many translations. In fact, the better of the on this verse, I might add, starts this verse with the word then. The NIV implies the word then. But I like the one. I like the fact that most will use in emphatic and say, then Jonah prayed. You might want to write that in your Bible. Over that, after three days struggle, Jonah prayed You know what this is showing us? This shows us this calling that God called him to go do, man it was a deep no for Jonah. It was deeply set in him. He knew the Ninevites were evil. He knew how wrong and raunchy they were. He knew how they killed people. Remember last week we talked about how bad they were and what they did to people and one of their primary targets was Jonah's people, the God-fearing Israelites. In fact, one author I read this week said that this would have been the same as a Jew in 1942 being called to go to Nazi Germany and stand in front of Hitler and proclaim the love and mercy of Jesus. Jonah is like no! Either A - I get killed for doing this and I don't want that, or B - I do this and it works, and I don't think those people, those people are trash. I don't want them to repent. Jonah said, No, you see, three days in and finally the storm and Jonah's life gets Jonah to go. Yes, yes, Lord. And what does he do? He reaches his breaking point. He repents. He realizes that this world is not about him. This world is not about his desires. It's not about his wants. It's not about what he can offer. But it is about the glory and the majesty of who God is. So, here's the connection for you. All right? I know there's been a lot of history. The connection for you is this. Are you at the point that you know something has to give? Are you at that point?

Look, I know that you might not say it out loud, but are you tired of running? Are you tired of filling your life with stuff after stuff after stuff? Or are you tired of trusting people after people after people? And have you got to the point where you've pushed, and you've tried, and you've nudged, and you've gone, and you've done everything else in your life and you're finally realizing you need God. And you need his mercy, and you need here's the only way out of the whale, to repent. To repent. Here's the good news. That's heavy. I know that. Here's the good news. The remainder of Chapter two gives us a model of some things that Jonah saw about God and about himself that helped him repent. So, here's what I want to do with my time left. I want to give you four incredible lessons on Jonah's deep repentance, right? Repentance.

Let's keep reading the story. Here it is. I think I'm funny, I know you don't. Here it is. He said in my distress, I called out to the Lord, and he answered me. Man, he always answers you when you call from deep in the realm of the dead. Jonah. Jonah was literally calling out from where he thought he was going to die. I called for help you God. You listen to my cry. He'll listen to you. Verse three. Watch what he said about God. You've hurled me into the depths, into the very heart of the sea and the currents, they swirled about me. Your waves and your breakers, they swept over me. And verse four. Watch this, I said. I had been banished from your sights. Now stop there. Here's the question. Did Jonah feel like right here that he had been forgotten by God? Yeah. Yeah, he did. Look what he just said. You. I have been banished from your sight. He felt like he'd been forgotten by God. But had Jonah been forgotten, by God? No. Look, here's what I know. Some of you, because of the situations in your life right now that you're walking through a man, we walk through some of these with you. You feel like God has forgotten you. You feel like God has forgotten. You feel like you're alone. You feel like you're in the heart of the sea. You feel like the flood has surrounded you. You feel like God has turned his back on you and life has taken you. But here's the first lesson from Jonah. No one. I need you to write this down. You have not been forgotten.

You haven't been forgotten. God has not forgotten you as a child of God. Listen, the moment you give your life to the Lordship of Jesus, God has not forgotten you. He is not forgotten you. He will not forget you no matter what it is. God will always be there. And here's the deal. God will always desire to bring you back into His power. Is your heart broken? Is your financial situation blowing up? Is death and sickness and lost job and depression? Listen, all of that may be happening in your life, but God hasn't forgotten you in the middle of it. God is standing in the middle of it and he's wanting to deliver you into His love and mercy. Because remember this God is relentless in pursuing His children. He's relentless in it. But the question is, will you submit to it? He's relentless in it. But will you submit to it? Keep reading. Watch what's happening to Jonah verse four. I said, I've been banished from your sight, yet. Key word yet, I will look towards your holy temple. The engulfing waters. They threaten me. The deep it has surrounded me. Watch this. The seaweed has wrapped around my head. I don't know if that's literal or figurative. Either way, I don't want it right. Verse six, to the roots of the mountains I sank down the earth beneath barred me in forever. In all of this, Jonah finally realizes that God is present in his life. My prayer for you this morning is no matter what will your end that you realize that God is present, number one. But also, here's what Jonah realizes. Number two, in his repentance - should be in ours - is that number two, he realizes that life is meaningless without God being in the center. He also realizes that God, that life is meaningless unless God is in the center of. What did we just read about Jonah? He's hopeless. He's helpless. The weeds were choking him.

It's like he was in prison, literally. In prison, right? Everything was closing in around him for three days. He fought it. Do you know what? Sometimes it takes this for God to get our attention it does. Sometimes God has to allow you to chase your desires until you realize that His are better. Sometimes God has to give you the desires of your heart to help you realize that no matter what His are better. Sometimes it takes that bad health report. Sometimes it takes a physical or metaphorical prison in our life to do what? To turn us. But I can feel the push back that isn't those just emotional God decisions, aren't they just like temporary things in our life? Well, I can see how you can say that, because, yes, sometimes they are just these emotional decisions that give me a week or two of walking with Jesus in the roller coaster ride of my faith. But here's what I just want you to say. Sometimes they're exactly what we need in our faith. Sometimes those are the things that put us flat on our back, because when we're flat on our back, there's only one direction we can look, and that's up towards God. That's what's happening in the story. Let me just ask you, have you gotten to the point in your life to where you're finally realizing, Man, I need the love and the grace and the mercy and the justice of Jesus?

Because the rest of this stuff, it's fleeting Its fleeting. And let me ask you, are you in this situation right now? Are you in a spot right now where you just feel like nothing is working in your life? You feel like you're just putting yourself in situation after situation. And when you, and you get up out of it, you're like, man, I'm worse than I was before. Or maybe your life is just gotten dull, just to be honest. And your unhappiness has set in, and you've noticed there's very little joy right now. So. So what are you doing? You're finding yourself just watching too much TV to pass the time. Endless Internet just kind of veg out. You're escaping reality by living through other people's lives on social media. You find you're eating too much and you're drinking too much. Why? Just to find pleasure. Possibly you're following after other people's hearts with envy. Because you want what they don't want. Whatever Jonah is showing us here is this. He is showing us that the moment of despair in our lives is the very moment sometimes we look away from our situations and we look towards who God is and we say, Yes, Lord. You see Jonah showing us that repentance always starts, here it is, with a spark of despair. It always starts with me going, I can't do it. In the good old United States of America, we don't like to say those words, do we? Because we are our people, and I will make it happen. But until we refocus who God is and who I am, God says, Okay, I'll wait, I'll wait.

So, what is it that God is trying to use right now to get back into the center of your life? Keep reading, verse six says his. But You Lord, my God brought my life up from the pit when my life was ebbing away. Circle this I remembered you Remember you. What a moment, right? What a moment. Watch this. Lord, my prayer rose to you My prayer rose to your holy temple. Here's what's happening, Jonah. Until this very moment did not think there was hope. He didn't think God was working. God catch it. God put him in a temporary hospital for his soul. Let me ask you this. Does God have you there right now? Does He have you there? You know what's really interesting about this verse that we just read is that is that Jonah is celebrating his deliverance in this verse before he's delivered. Do you see this? He is celebrating who God is before God even gets him out of the whale. God doesn't get Jonah out of the whale until verse ten. Right? What we're seeing in Jonah's life right here, is this the greatest deliverance from the greatest deliverance in your life is not your deliverance from your circumstances. It's your deliverance from your sin. That's the greatest deliverance. Tim Keller says like this, it's always better to be united with God, even in the belly of a whale. Than to be on dry land without him. The real pit of darkness is being anywhere apart from God. So, let me just ask you the question, just quite frankly, what is it going to take for God to be back in the center of your life?

Let's keep moving. I want to show you this next principle, it's in verse eight, because Jonah gets meddling into our business a little bit. Watch this. Watch what Jonah says. He says, Those who cling to worthless idols they turn away from God's love for them. Verse 8 is the key verse of Jonah, by the way. It's right in the middle of the book. There are 24 verses before. There are 23 verses after it. And what's interesting about this verse when you read it is you have to realize that Jonah is speaking to himself in this verse. Right? He's calling his idolatry out and his lack of love for God out. God is also speaking in reference to the pagan sailors that were on the boat that just hurled him into the water. But he's also speaking on behalf of the Ninevites that God has called him to go reach. And he's speaking to me and to you this is an incredible verse because Jonah brings up two huge theological promises from God. The first one is in the fact that idolatry never leads to God's presence. Idolatry is this. Idolatry is not you bowing down before some little statue on a mantle somewhere. Idolatry is you putting anything before God, giving anything more worth than God, giving anything more value than God. What second, He's teaching us here is that God's love and compassion goes to the nations. And that's why He's calling Jonah to go reach the nations. In fact, the word that he used right here for love in chapter two is the word hest in Hebrew. It's the word loving kindness or enduring love. And this is the first time that God has used this word for anyone except for His chosen Israel. So, what is God doing in this story? God has shown you are idolatrous. You are running from me. You are full of yourself. And you just want yourself. But I Jonah, I'm showing you that I love the world, even the worst of the world, which is where you're falling in this category right now.

It's an amazing, packed verse right here. And what he's shown us is that there is nothing else that can save mankind except for when we break down the idolatry in our lives and we allow God to rise up in this place. In fact, write this down. Number three, idols seem fulfilling, but they always leave us empty they always leave us empty. Have you ever noticed how far you sink into anything else in this life that it might be great for a moment, but afterwards, you're like, that wasn't worth it? It wasn't worth it. You see, Jonah is saying this to us. So, here's my question to you. What do you love more than God? That's the easy way to put this right. What do you love more than God? Or to what do you give more weight than God? You know, we would never just stand there and go, well, I love that more than God. No, But here's the deal. What in your life gets more time than God? What gets more weight to God? When you close your eyes at night, what is the things that keep you up? What are the things that drive you? What are the things that you will get up for? Or that you will sacrifice for? What are the things that you will give towards? What are the things that you will rise up and serve? Where do you find your refuge? Where is the greatest source of comfort?

Where is it that you go when life gets tough? That's the question. Because if it's anywhere but God, it's not going to work for you. It might work for a moment, Jonah shows us, but it's not going to work. If it's friends, if it's family, if it's shopping, if it's boyfriend, if it's media, look, most of the things are not bad things. But we have a really big problem with making good things into God, things. We really do. And it always leaves us empty. You see, the tragedy that Jonah's showing us here is that the only thing and the only person that can give us true life is Jesus. But when we turn to idols, we forfeit the grace and the steadfast love that he wants to have in our lives. Which leads me to number four. And here it is. It's the true salvation only comes from the Lord. He only comes from the Lord. We see this in the story, don't we? But in life, man, how many places do we turn thinking that fulfillment will come from them? Do you guys know that we turn to other things, right?

But it's not going to work. There's only one name under heaven in which all mankind must be saved. Watch Jonah's repentance. Watch his heart change, verse nine. We're finally there. Watch this. But remember all the Jonah has said. You're going to go back and read it this week. I've just skimmed the top of this thing like a rock, right? I haven't gone anywhere into it, but I with shouts of Praise God will sacrifice for you. Man, does that represent your life? What I have vowed Jonah said, I will make good. Now, what did Jonah vow? Jonah was a prophet, right? Earlier in his life before he said no to God. We can't discount the fact that he knew God. He was the mouthpiece of God. He had bow before God to be his, but he had just kind of fallen a little bit. Watch this. watch what Jonah said, I will say salvation comes from the Lord. Verse ten middle school verses of the century. And the Lord commanded the fish and he vomited Jonah up on to dry land, which by the way, happened in 2021 You can look up that story. Okay. Another story, right? The last five verses of the last five words of verse nine is the message of every single passage in scripture. Let me read it again. Salvation comes from the Lord. Comes from the Lord.

You know, there's really only three kinds of people on this Earth, right? Number one, there's irreligious people. These are people that believe that they don't they don't have a need for salvation and God to deliver them. Number two, there's religious people. Religious people believe that God owes them salvation because of what they've done. Right. And then number three, there's true gospel Christians. And these are the people that believe that salvation comes from the Lord. These are the people that live in the tension that seems mutually exclusive on the earthly front of humility. And confidence. You see their humility. They know that that they have to have Jesus to save them, that there's nothing that they can bring to him other than him. But they live in confidence on this, in saying I have everything to offer because of him. You're seeing both of these in the life of Jonah. Now, Jonah is recognizing that I'm nothing before the king.

I've been into the deep despair. He could have killed me I am nothing. But God has given me a mission and a mandate to live out his gospel. You do realize that the good news in the gospel is that you are more wicked and more undeserving than you even realize. But then on the other end, you are more in possession of God's love than you can even fathom. Let me close with this as we wrap up this chapter, just like I did last week. I need you to ask yourself this week. Am I Jonah? Am I Jonah? Am I running? And I am I in despair? Have I lost my sense of the missional movement of Christ? And do I finally need to come to my senses and say Yes, Lord, Jesus? God, this morning, as we come to this time of invitation. Lord Jesus, I'm just asking every single person that is in this room to do a self-examination of their hearts. God, I don't know where people walk this week. I don't know. But about 10% of the situations that you have people in this week. But I do know this God, you are one word away from rescuing us. And God, I know this morning that there are people here that they don't have a personal relationship with you. They may be good church people. They may be great people. But God, they've never come to the point in their life where they realize their sin has separated them from you and they have called on you. 

Lord, God Almighty and repented of their sins and said, Yes, Lord, I'm yours. In fact, in the quiet of this moment, I just I just want you to examine your heart, as Paul would say, and see if you're in the faith Not that you do things, But have you ever submitted your heart to Jesus? For real? You see, Jonah had done things, but it's at this point he said, yes. Do you need to say yes to Jesus today? And invite him into your life? Man, how do I do that? Well, in just a minute, we're going to sing together. And you got two ways you can either jump on the app and fill out the next steps form, or you can from wherever you're at in this room, as soon as I say amen, walk to the front of this room, look me or one of these counselors in the eye and just say this. Hey, I need Jesus for real. What do I do? And we'll walk you through it right here. But here's what I know. A lot of you know Jesus. But today you need to say, yes, Lord, here I am. God use this moment. Move in this place. May repentance love and mercy reign. It's in your name. Jesus. 

Amen. 

Let's stand and sing right now. Move if you need to. Here we go.