← ArchiveAdvent 2017Sunday, December 31, 2017DateDecember 31, 2017Speaker—Text—Passages in this sermon2 Kings 143:49Genesis 327:22TranscriptClick any line to jump there.0:00*Dramatic music*0:30*Dramatic music*1:00*Dramatic music*1:30If you would turn to guess what? Jonah. And if you don't know where Jonah is, it is between Obadiah and Micah, along with all those other books that sound like Star Wars names. Three reasons why I'm really excited about this particular series as we start this series is, is one is the book of Jonah is, it exposes our sin.1:54Two, it also exposes self-righteousness, but it also gives us a burden for our cities. And so those are the three real reasons, and let me just say this, Jonah is a very straightforward book about the gospel.2:20The gospel is all in this book, and I'm very, really excited about it, especially this first chapter, as we're just going to look at the first six verses of Jonah. And so if you have found it by now, hopefully you have, it is okay to use your table of contents, okay? And if you use your table of contents and the guy next to you or the lady next to you kind of smirks at you, slap them.2:46Okay, because it's okay to do that, to use your table of contents, because it is a very small book. Obadiah, Jonah, Micah is there, Chewbacca, Obi-Wan. All of those are there, not really, but anyway. Okay, let's dive in, no pun intended.3:12And I'm reading from the ESV. Now, the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, and said, "Arise, go to Nineveh." I'm going to stop right there for a second. Let me try to, the best I can, give you a description and a little bit of a biography of Jonah. He's kind of an obscure character in the Bible. There's not much about him. We don't know his birth or anything like that. We do know that he is the son of Amittai.3:39And so, there's obviously a whole book about Jonah, but it does really talk about his history there. If you really want to know about Jonah, you can look at 2 Kings 14, which we're going to reference to a little bit today. But it really does talk about his life. Jonah is a prophet of God. And so, a prophet is one who has privilege and a calling to hear the Holy Spirit. And so, that was the word of the Lord coming to Jonah.4:05Arise. And so, we know that the Lord talks to him. And he hears him. And hopefully, responds to him. And so, one of the leading prophets of Israel is where Jonah was. As a matter of fact, if you had a book of the leading prophets of Israel, Jonah would be on the first page. He was a superstar in Israel. He was this incredible religious superstar.4:34And so, people around Jonah, they respected him highly. He was a man of respect. He was a man of extreme spiritual and religious leadership in places that he's around. And let me just say this about a prophet. If you were a prophet in the Old Testament, the way that you found out you were a prophet is whatever you prophesied come true. If it didn't come true, you got stoned. Okay? And so, it's kind of a big deal.5:03So, he was a prophet. And so, whatever he said, whatever he prophesied, it came true. And so, he was a very respected man. If people know anything about Jonah, they know that it's got something to do with Jonah telling God, "No." About going to Nineveh and then being swallowed up by a big fish. That's what we know about Jonah. We see this story all the time.5:32As a matter of fact, I don't know why they put it in children's books, but they do. It's in children's books along with all the other weird things. You know, Noah's Ark is in there. And if you ever try to read about Noah's Ark to a three-year-old or a four-year-old, it's like, "Yeah, they died. Sorry." This flood killed everybody. And so, Jonah, this big fish, swallowed him. And then you have the kids looking at you, "Really?"6:00And so, and he stayed alive for three days, by the way, in this fish. And so, but the story is not about some kind of big magical fish. The story is about God. And we have to remember that God's Word is true and it's always true. And we've got to hold on to that. We've got, we have to continue to teach our children and teach our students and teach God's Word as God's Word.6:25Infallible. Never changing. Our methods may change. The way we do things may change, but God's Word is constant. It stays the same. Luke, a couple of weeks ago, several weeks ago, as a matter of fact, I think my mom was, was, was with us. As a matter of fact, she's right there. She can contest this. And if you, and mom, if you are not with, with us, just correct me later.6:54I think she was at the dinner table with us. And, and, and Luke and Lane are just, they're just kind of talking everything. And I'm usually got to stick out, you know, hitting them a little bit. You know, you better eat your green beans, you know, or, or else. And, and so it's one of those moments. And, and, and, and, you know, we're just kind of, just kind of talking as a family. And Luke's been asking a lot of questions. Um, and, and one of the big questions he's been asking is, Daddy, how old is Jesus? How old is Jesus?7:22Of course, Jessica gives me this look. What you gonna do about that one? And I said, well, Luke, he was 33 when he died and he rose from the dead. And so he's 33 in heaven, but he's 2000 or something years old. And he goes, well, which one is it, Daddy? So we've been asking this kind of question. So he's at the, he's at the dinner table. And all of a sudden he asked this very interesting question. And I did not know where he was going with this. Daddy, is there cell phones in heaven?7:51And I'm like, where in the world did that come from? And of course, Jessica's like, you have a master's degree in this, right? You should know. And so I'm like, no, buddy, there's, there's, there's not any cell phones in heaven. He goes, well, why? Why isn't there cell phones in heaven? And my three year old is there. He's listening intently. He's just kind of like listening in. And, and Luke is like really engaged. So why isn't there cell phones, Daddy?8:20I said, well, but that's just not how it works. Well, didn't you say that Jesus can do anything? Yeah, I did. Well, didn't he, he's the creator of the universe, right? Yeah. So why can't he have, why can't he have cell phones in heaven? Oh, buddy, why are you asking this? Cause I want to talk to my poppy. And I went, oh, my heart just went, oh, my mom's there.8:45I'm thinking she's going to start crying and everything, you know? And, and, and, and so Jessica, she, she, she teared up a little bit and everything. And I said, well, buddy, I'm really sorry, man. That's just not how that works. It's just, so I can't talk to my poppy. I went, no, buddy, we, we can't just, so Jesus ain't gonna let me talk to my poppy. No. To which my three-year-old is listening. And he goes, well, I'm going to punch Jesus in the face.9:13And so I have this theological mess at my table now. I have a seeker and an atheist. And I'm like, how in the world, how am I going to fix this? And so I say that this morning to say that God's word is consistent. We always have to go back to God's word.9:41Even when the questions are crazy, we always have to go back to God's word. Well, buddy, this is what God's word says. This is what we have. This is what has been given to us. This is what has God has given us as our instruction book. And so we have to stay consistent with God's word. And so the book of Jonah and this big, well, it's not a myth. I know a lot of people, if you, if you, if you get your theology from Facebook and the history channel, you've heard this. This is a myth.10:10It really wasn't a big fish. It was something else. And so if you believe in a God who spoke everything into existence by the word of his mouth, you believe some things that are difficult for our finite minds to understand. And there's no way to escape that unless you want to get rid of altogether the truth of that God created the heavens and the earth. This is what we believe. This is what we believe. We believe that God created the heavens and the earth. And we also believe that, that Jesus came born of a virgin, son of God, lived a perfect sinless life, died, was crucified, died, rose again from the, from the grave.10:38And he's going to come back again on a white horse to save us all. That's what we believe as Christians and to the world is foolishness. That's what God's word says is foolishness. And so when we hear people say, well, that's just, that's just a myth.11:05We have to go and say, no, that's, that's God's word is truth. The best, the question is God's word true. And is he in control today? Is God's word true? And he, and he, is he in control today? If so, then the big fish isn't a big deal. The big fish is, yeah, he can do that. Absolutely. He can do that.11:34Verse two, arise and go to Nineveh, the great city and call out against it for their evil has come up. Before me now, a little background of Nineveh, Assyrians. If you hear anything about Assyrians, you know that Assyria was the arch enemy of Israel. These guys fought it out a lot. They hated each other.12:03They did not associate with you. It'd be like, it would almost be like what we have now modern day Israel in Palestine. Or modern day Israel in Iraq or Iran. They're enemies. There's just, it's just cut clear. They're enemies. And so, Nineveh literally means, this is a really interesting little side fact here. The name Nineveh literally means fish town. It means fish town.12:32The history of the city of Nineveh tells us that they worship many different gods. And one of those is a Greek god that was half fish, half man, and had come to Nineveh from the sea bringing all kinds of arts and sciences to the city. So now, under the sovereignty of one true God, a prophet of God, that was allowed to be swallowed by a fish, comes to a city called fish town. Don't you love God's word? Isn't that just ironic that that happened?13:00Swallowed by fish, gets vomited on fish town. So, Nineveh is a great city. It's a very wicked city. It was huge, about 60 miles in circumference. Jonah says it took three days to walk from one side to the city to the other. Historians tell us that the walls of Nineveh were big enough to ride three chariots across it. Huge, big architecture. It was the center of just the arts.13:28They had the best singers. They had the best food. It was a megaculture. It's estimated there are two million people living in this area. That's just an estimate, but that's just a huge, gigantic city. And where there's a huge city, there's usually sin. There's usually desolation. There's usually a lot of people, and there's usually a lot of sin.13:54And so, second, it was extremely wicked. The Ninevites were known as some of the cruelest people in the ancient world. Nineveh boasted in their own histories about how cruel they were. I was reading a little bit about some of their practices as far as how they would treat their enemies. They would literally treat their enemies lower than dogs. If you were captured, especially if you were an Israelite or if you were an enemy of theirs.14:23If you were captured, they would skin you alive, bury you in sand, pull your tongue out, and nail it with a stake. And at night, they would play Backstreet Boys songs over and over again. They really didn't do that. They just kind of have to drive home the point. But they're extremely cruel. Their practices were extremely dangerous.14:50And so, they're just very evil. And so, when they would conquer another city, they would literally go in like locusts and destroy it and leave nothing there. So, my prayer this morning is this. Is that the Lord would be merciful and rip away whatever we're running from. Whatever we might be running from this morning.15:19Or, whatever we may be hiding from. Most of us here this morning, there's some things in our life that we're saying no to. There's some things that God either has placed, either has given us, either there's talents, there's things, there's service, there's all kind of different things that we're saying that we may be saying no to. And so, I'm praying that the Lord rips that apart.15:46And I hope that you respond in one of two ways this morning. If you're honest with yourself and every single one of us, you're either going to repent and you're going to say, man, that's right. That's sin. That's idolatry. That's pride. I've built my identity on that thing and not Jesus. And you're going to repent. And you're going to walk out of here different. Or, you're going to do what Jonah did.16:14With his self-righteousness that was exposed. And you're going to run away. And you're going to try to hide. But you're not going to get far. Especially if you're a child of the king. And so, back to chapter one, verse three. But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.16:40And so, God reveals that your identity is not in me. Your identity is in what you do and being religious and he runs away as far as he possibly can. And he was a religious man. Remember, he was a prophet. Trained well. Men of God respected. And he heard about Nineveh from God and he ran. Now, I'm going to be really transparent with you this morning.17:08I would probably have ran too. Think about God calling you to an area where death is certain. Leaving everything that you've got. Everything you have. I don't care who you are. If you're honest with yourself, that would be hard. And so, don't throw stones at Jonah and say, man, I can't believe he did that.17:37Put yourself in that position. Think about going to the middle of Iran, knocking on the door and say, hey, I know you guys are wanting to blow us up, but I've got to plead with you about Jesus. Think about going to North Korea. Knocking on that door. Knocking on that door. He goes, I know you guys have been teaching your children for generations that were monsters. But I've got to tell you about Jesus.18:06It would be difficult. It would be very hard. And so, before we go all down on Jonah, we need to understand where he's at. These were enemies of his. There's some pain there. There's some personal pain there. But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish. So, this is where the story begins to spiral down. God clearly told him to go, and he ran the other way.18:35Remember, Jonah was one of Israel's most successful premier prophets. And there's two. There's a couple things I want to point out here. We tend to evaluate our walk with God by comparing how godly we are to others. That's how a lot of us do that. I go to church more. I give more. I'm more moral than you are. But here's the deal. But lordship is one of those things that is not absolute and total. It's not real. It is self-righteous.19:04And there's a lot of godly people who look like they are walking with God in every way. But there's some area of their life where they're saying no to him. They're saying no to the Lord. And so, what are you self-righteous about this morning? By the way, every single one of us in this room, we're self-righteous. I put myself in that category. There's something that we're self-righteous about. And if you're not self-righteous about being self-righteous, you're self-righteous about that.19:33There's something that we're caught up. No, whether it's your team is better than the other. We're self-righteous about that. And so, every one of us in the room, we deal with that. We struggle with that. Especially in this area called the Bible Belt. Especially in Alabama, where you can't sing a dead cat and not hit a church. We're very religious.20:03Those of you that are not from here, you're from other areas of the country, you know. This is hard ground because everybody says they follow him. And so, we have a tendency to build our identity around that. Yeah, I go to church. My parents go to church. My grandparents went to church. There's a tombstone out here that says faithful church member. I wonder if they were believers.20:35And so, we tend to build our self-righteousness around that. And so, self-righteous people have to work hard for that image. They always have to think about what's going to make them look good. It becomes an idol in your life. And then you have to put others down so that you can be lifted up. It's a game. It's a dangerous game. And it happens all the time. And so, the other side of this coin is, I can't just tell you how many conversations I've had with people that are doing something clearly out of the will of God.21:06And they're like, but look, it just worked out. It just worked out. I mean, I was unhappy in my marriage. And, man, this other girl come along and it just worked out. And so, you know, God put her there. Right? I mean, it just kind of worked out. I mean, I still love Jesus and everything.21:34But I just wasn't happy. God wants me to be happy. How many times have we heard that? God wants me to be happy and so I'm not happy here. And so, man, I have this escape. I have this ship. This ready, this loaded. And so, I'm going to open that door. God just opened the door. And Jonah goes down and guess what?22:03Guess what happens to be waiting at the knock? A ship. There will always be a ship in your life. There will always be something waiting for you to go to. There will always be that escape. The question is, are you going to be obedient to what God's word says? Are you going to be faithful to what God's word says?22:33But Jonah rose to flee Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. And he went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went on board to go with them to Tarshish away from the presence of the Lord. So the question here is, here's a big question for you. So did God just open the door to the ship to Tarshish?23:01Think about it. Did God open the door to the ship to Tarshish? Here's the answer to that question. Well, in his sovereignty, yes. But, did that mean that Jonah was being obedient when he walked through that door? No. He was blatantly sinning. There's going to be ships that are waiting on you.23:34That are there. Just because you opened the door doesn't mean it was God. And there's a lot of marriages, even in this room. There's a lot of families, even in this room. Then you say, well, there's doors that are opening. Is it the Lord? Is it the Lord? And so if you're basing,24:02hearing that the Lord on how many open doors that you're able to walk through, that's a dangerous place to be. It's a dangerous place to be. And let me just say this. Once again, there's always going to be a ship to Tarshish. The easy way is not always the right way. And then we live in a generation, we live in a society that just takes the easy way. It takes the easy way.24:31The divorce rates is out the roof. If we, you can't watch the news and see the depravity that's there. Churches are in decline. Churches are in decline. And there's pastors and ministers that are leaving the faith, leaving the church on a record level. Because they're tired.25:00So just because it's easy doesn't mean it's the right way. Rebellion or disobedience is simply saying no to God. It's as simple as that. It's simply saying no to God. You're never further from God than when you're close to Him saying no. You're never further from God than when you're close to Him saying no. So what are you saying no about?25:30You young ladies over here and up there. I have a lot of our college students that are up here. And if there's young ladies that maybe you're single here. If you're that lonely, there will always be a boy in that gap. He'll always be waiting. Young men that like to fantasize on your thoughts, there'll always be a computer there.25:53There'll always be an avenue there. You have an enemy whose role is to ready the ship to disobedience. Students I tell you this all the time. What's the three-fold role of Satan? Steal, kill, destroy. That is his purpose. That is what he does.26:22And he readies the ship to do that. And when you run from God, you run into an open door. Just because it's easy doesn't mean it's right. You have an enemy that's ready. And I've heard this one too. Well, I had peace about it. And I had peace about it. It's okay because I have peace about it. Again, that's that self-righteousness that we know better than God.26:49And so, the peace in your heart changes depending on what you eat and your mood. So, it's not always God that the peace is coming from. And so, one of Satan's primary roles to give you peace about doing the wrong thing. He did it in Genesis.27:19That's what he did to Eve. In Genesis chapter 3. He gave her peace about what she was doing. No, it's okay to eat the fruit. You won't die. Surely. And so, that happens today. That was happening here in Jonah. You have peace about it. It's okay. Don't look to peace in your heart as a guide for your life.27:43Look to God's word. Look to God's word. One of the most profound things that you can know about yourself is how specifically and uniquely you run away from the Lord. I mean, I taught our students about this all the time. We have this intrinsic bentness towards sin. Some of us, it's different.28:14For some of us, it's that drug. It's that alcohol. It's that substance. For some of us, it's that lust. It's the pornography. It's the look. For some of us, it's the greed. It's the more. It's the gamble. It's getting that sale and buying that thing. So, we all have this bent. And the best way that you know how to control that is to know how you're bent.28:41And give that to the Lord. In other words, if you're an alcoholic and you've had a bad day and you know there's a liquor store on the way home, find another way home. Even if it takes you a few hours. Stay away from that thing. That's where, and if you know me, if you guys know, that's where I'm bent toward. As a matter of fact, when Josh and I, I think I may have told this story, when Josh and I was in Boston. We were on the plane.29:11And I don't care how many times I've flown all over the world. But they still make me nervous. I just don't know why. It's just the whole fact of flying. It's not natural. You know, we were made to walk and run and jump. And that's about as high as we were supposed to get. And so when we take off on these planes, it's like, this is just not right. And so I get a little nervous. And all of a sudden, I'll never forget this. He told Josh, the drink started coming. And I thought to myself, man, I take the edge off.29:38I told Josh, I said, man, I'm struggling right now. I'm struggling right now. Because I'm bent toward that. That's the way I'm bent. And so I know that. And so I try to find accountability. I try to find those areas where I can seek that help. So where are you bent toward when you're weak? What do you do when you run?30:07Where do you go? Because it's going to be ready and waiting. Every time. Every single time. Know your struggle. So up to this point, we've seen concrete examples of sin. Where you and I live daily running away from the Lord. Hearing from the Lord. Running away from the Lord. Doing it our way. Thinking our way is better. This is Jonah. And in verse 4 through the rest of this entire story we're going to read this morning.30:34You're going to see examples of God's love. A lot of people don't see it. A lot of people don't look at the storm as God's love. They look at it as God's love. Let's read this. But the Lord hurled. I love that. Like he just kind of slung it out there. But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea. And there was a mighty tempest on the sea. So that the ship threatened to break up. And this is pretty bad. Okay.31:03Okay. This is pretty bad. A lot of people read this and they say this is the beginning of the wrath on Jonah. God's wrath on Jonah. It is not God's wrath on Jonah. This is God's wrath. On Jonah. If he would have let him go to Tarshish. And stay there. Never use him again. Put him on a shelf. Because he's a prophet of God. And a prophet of God never used by God. Is miserable.31:33Is miserable. Is miserable. So don't think for a minute that the storms that you're going through is God's wrath. It may be just God trying to get your attention. That's grace. That's God's grace. So don't mistake the wrath for God's grace. He chases after those he what? Loves. Don't forget that church. He chases after those that he loves. So no matter how hard you run. No matter how hard you try to hide.32:02He chases after those that he loves. So. God's mercy. He sends a storm. On the boat that Jonah is on. Verse 5. And the mariners are afraid. The mariners kind of throw me off. When I start looking at that. What is. What is that? Okay. These guys are like deadliest catch kind of guys. If you know what I mean. Discovery Channel deadliest catch. Never mind. Anyway.32:31Anyway. They're hardcore. Okay. These guys are hardcore. For them to be scared and afraid. It was a big deal. Now I don't know if you have ever been on a boat before. Dinner storm I have. My dad used to live in Tampa Florida. My grandparents. My granddad and my uncle went down there. And he wanted to take the sailboat out. He lived on a sailboat. And. And so we was in this middle of the storm. And all of a sudden this thing called a squall came up.32:59I didn't know what that was until that point in time. And it just came up. We didn't drop sail quick enough. Just a bunch of Alabama boys. You know my dad had been there for years. He knew what to do. He'd been through storms. Okay. He was hardcore. He'd been through storms. And I don't see my dad scared a lot. He was scared. And guess what that did to me. I couldn't swim. Okay.33:28Okay. I just learned how to swim last year. I'm 43. Don't laugh. I couldn't. I couldn't swim. And so this whole entire boat tilted this way. And the mass is in the water. I was watching lightning hit the water and fish going like this. And my dad makes this statement. We're fixing the flipper. To turn her. I went. I'm looking up at him. And the water is here. And my life.33:58And I think I was 13 years old. Flash before my eyes. It's frightened. This boat. This boat. Was about to break apart. They were scared. But God sends mercy. In the storm. That the boat is. That the boat Jonah's on. So the marinas were afraid. And each cried out to his God. Remember these men were pagans. And they hurled the cargo. That was on the ship. Into the sea.34:27To lighten it from them. For them. But Jonah had gone down. Into the inner part. Of the ship. And he had laid down. And was fast asleep. Think about that for a second. How ironic is that? They're up there. Having a theological discussion. About the prophet. About. About God. And what should they do. And the prophet of God. That's been given a message of God. Is asleep. So. Again. There's this.34:56There's this. There's this sin. There's this self-righteousness. That's there. And I want to say this. Sometimes when we run so far from God. We're so miserable. We get depressed. And that's what we want to do. Sleep. We don't want to hear it. And so we sleep. There's a play on words here also. See the word down. Jonah is full of this kind of stuff. The word down is being repeated. Jonah goes down the Joppa. Down to the inner part of the ship. And down into his sleep.35:25There's this. There's this spiral. And if he doesn't. God don't get his attention. He's going to keep going. So you're getting a picture of this downer progression. And it starts with small disobedience. In other words. Teenagers. College students. Again. Adulterous relationships at 40. Begin at 16. With pornography. With pornography. Adulterous relationships at 40. Begin at 16. With pornography. It starts small.35:54And it blows up. Eating disorders in college. Begin with jealousy. In high school. An imperative rebellious heart. At 50. Starts. With young ones. If that's not bridled. If that's not controlled. If that's not. Submitted to the Lord Jesus. Remember. Know your struggle. Give it to Jesus. Know your struggle. Give it to Jesus. Verse 6. So the captain came. And said to him. What do you mean?36:23You sleeper. Arise. Call out to your God. Perhaps the God. Will give you. A thought to us. That we may not perish. So it took a pagan captain. To remind a prophet. About God. Sometimes it takes a storm. Sometimes it takes others. Some of you this morning. You may be in the same place. At Jonah. And there's a place in your life.36:52Where you're saying no. To God. And some of you are in a storm. Because. God is trying to get your attention. Some of you are so mad. You just want to punch him in the face. But he loves you. No matter what you've done. He loves you. No matter where you've been. He loves you.37:22Then count it joy. That he's chasing you. That he's chasing you. The storm is not designed. For wrath. It's designed for restoration. Instead of continuing to fight. Why not get down. On your knees. Even now. And surrender. Even now. Surrender. So I don't know where you're at. Church.37:51Church. I don't know where you are. This is. The 31st is the end of the year. We have a new year upon us. So why not close this year out. Right. Why not close this year out. You know what. There's this thing. It's keeping me up at night. There's this burden. There's this. This itch. There's this thing. I've got to submit to the Lord. Let's pray.38:23Let's pray.← Previous in Advent 2017Sunday, December 24, 2017
