Read-along
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Hey. It's it's good to be here. I my my wife just got back from being in Albania for the last almost two weeks, and my whole family was gone. So I'm done being a feral human. I was living all by myself. I survived
and, you know, binge watched some shows. And I actually was able to exercise a little bit more intensely if I wanted because he and I had more free time. I was by myself. And and I do a lot of exercise, but one thing I will not do is run. Any runners in here? Anybody like to go running? Oh, man. You guys need counseling.
But no. No. I I I don't run because I don't run well. I mean, I I I look like a pregnant sasquatch and everything hurts. Matter of fact, when it comes to running, this is true of me, this meme here I found. Whenever I go running, meet new people, like paramedics. Literal picture of me running once. No. I
go and and I go, you know, you like to run. I I I don't run, except for the refrigerator maybe. But but, you know, there is something that if it counted as exercise would be really cool. And that's this meme here. It's like, does running away from problems count as exercise? Because I nail it.
I don't know about you. Maybe you don't well, I don't physically run, but maybe you tend to be someone that, hey, when there's a problem, I'm just gonna run away from it. It'd be really cool if that burned calories, but but it doesn't.
But the reality, I'm I'm wearing running shoes talking about running is that's what we're gonna be talking about in this about a guy named Jonah because this and about how many of us run from God. We run from what God has for us.
And and that's actually can be summed up. I've never had a meme completely sum up a sermon series before, but this does. And it's God saying, hey, Jonah, can you go to Nineveh? And Jonah's saying, I'm gonna make this way harder than it needs to be.
That's the story of Jonah right there. In a nutshell, that's what we need to talk about is how
God calls us to stuff that he loves us. He he loves us. He died for us, but he's called us to ghost places to get up and go and and do some stuff. And it it'll be for our good. It'll be for our blessing. It'll bless others. But for some reason, we often run. And that's what Jonah does.
That's what Jonah does. The story of Jonah. He's a prophet in the old testament, the time when the kingdoms were split in two. He's at the Northern Kingdom. The kingdom was prosperous, but but God calls him to go to this the Nineveh, which is the capital of the Assyrian Empire, which is the number one threat to the Israelites. And Jonah doesn't like the Ninevites, but God calls him to go preach a message to them. And they're brutal people. They're an ungodly people. Matter of fact, they invented
the way of how to torture someone to death by skinning them alive and keeping them alive for well over a week.
And and so they're they're not pleasant people. And God says, hey, you're gonna go pronounce this prophecy to him. And what's interesting, though, is of all the prophets you've been reading through the bible that we have all the prophets who are people that proclaim god's word. Oftentimes, they predict a future, but not much. They're most of what they do is is what I'm doing right now, proclaiming the word of God to people that need to listen to it. And so if you read all the other books, the prophets, they center on who the prophet is talking to and what the prophecy is. Like, what is God saying? The book of Jonah doesn't do that. It only has one line where God says, go tell him this, And one line where Jonah says when he's in when he eventually gets to Nineveh,
the book of Jonah is about Jonah's story. It's about the prophet, not the prophecy.
And it still teaches us a lesson about when God is called. Because here's a guy that has been faithful. He knows the Lord. He declares his faith in Lord. But it when something God asked him to do, he didn't understand it. He didn't like it. He he he wasn't comfortable with it,
which if you wanna know exactly why, go ahead and read it yourself. We'll get there in three. But there's only four chapters. It's three pages. You can jump ahead. Somebody like, nope. I'm committed. Don't no spoiler alerts. I'm waiting till last week. But that's a lesson for us too
on this idea of running and and and honestly, I really believe many of us in this room right now are probably actively running from God's call in your life. And we gotta make a decision on what we're gonna do with it. You you you decide.
And that's what I hope you think about. You listen to Holy Spirit. My prayer for you is this, one of our worship leaders. You stand right here, Peter, dressed in all black like Johnny Cash led the first song. We do a devotion time and then pray for you guys every weekend before we do the weekend.
And he led the devotion this week and he was talking about his life and these key moments where he had these moments had make decisions and how it changes your life. But then he was recently walking along and he saw this quote on bridge written and it just says, you're only one decision away from changing your life.
Anybody ever heard that quote before? Now you think it's like powerful, right? Like I'm one decision away from getting victory, right? But if you step back, I said to him, go, you ever think that that's a neutral quote? It goes both directions. It's a warning and an encouragement.
You're one decision away from changing your life. Which direction you change it depends on what decision you make. You can destroy your life or you can watch your life going in an incredibly new way. And that's my prayer. Like when it comes to what we're gonna be talking about this week in next few weeks.
There are many in this room that you are one decision away from changing your life and you're gonna say it upfront. That decision is am I gonna run away from what God's called me to do?
Or am I going to run with God? You're gonna run away or you're gonna run with? And and that's what we got to see. Because today, what we're gonna see in chapter one of Jonah is this big idea. You can run from God, but you can't outrun God.
You can try to run, but you ain't gonna get up very far. You're not gonna get away from them. And and and it's true.
And so let's look at this. So like I said, Jonah, God tells him to go to Syrians. We're gonna see that. And what I wanna look at in this first chapter is there's two running patterns we have. There's two things that happen when we choose to run from God's call. And we're gonna see it right in this first chapter. And the first one we find in these first three verses, it says this, the Lord gave this message to Jonah son of Amity.
Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh. Announce my judgment against it because I've seen how wicked the people are. But Jonah got up and went in the opposite direction to get away from the Lord. He went down to the Port Of Joppa where he found a ship leaving for Tarshish.
He bought a ticket and went on board hoping to escape from the Lord by sailing to Tarshish. So there you go. So God says, get up and goes. I want you to take this message to these people in in in Assyria, Nineveh. And he goes, alright. I'll get up, and I'm gonna go completely the opposite direction, which
is crazy. I I I got a a map. You're not kidding about opposite direction. If you look at this map, Joppa's here. I've been there,
several through. You guys saw it too. You were with us. You can actually look out and see the old harbor, like, where he would have left from. And God he's here. And God says, I need you go about 550 miles this way. And he goes, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna I'm gonna try to go 2,500
miles that way. That's exactly what he does.
This is nuts. And matter of fact, at this time, in this era of time, from here, this was the end of the Earth. That was the furthest you could go. So he basically, give me a ticket to the end of the line, and I'm going there. It's in Southern Spain.
And and and that's where he was trying to go to, sailing through all these dangerous waters and all of that. And what this kinda shows you when you read this, the the first thing about what we do when we're runners is you look at that map, when we choose to run from God, people who run run to the strangest,
most dangerous places. When we run to God, we don't just go a little bit away. We always end up getting ridiculously far away.
And it's almost like we run as fast and as far away as we can. It's like, alright. I'm done with this. I'm sick of God telling me. I'm not gonna do this. Like, people sitting here is like, hey. God's word says, if you're a believer, you need to this. You need do this. There are some of you in this room that that if I was to use the prophetic gift,
not that I know the future, but I can pro I can proclaim God's word, there's probably someone in this room sadly to say that you believe you're a believer. You've been in church a long time. I'm gonna challenge you to do what God said to do, and you're not gonna do it. And you're gonna be so fed up with me and so mad at God and so confused that you're gonna run, and you're gonna run out of this room. You're gonna stop coming to church, and you're gonna blame it on what I just said. You're gonna blame it on And you're gonna run. And you're not only gonna stop coming to church, you're gonna get ridiculously stupid in the places you go.
And you're gonna run far away because that's what we do. We go the opposite way. We're like, I'm out of here. Not only don't wanna do that, and we think we can get away from God. And you know what's crazy about how how what this what it means. There's something symbolic in this. He gets on a boat and goes over the ocean.
And that's weird because the Jews, their words and how they described, they believed the ocean was chaos. They defined the ocean as chaos. When they talked about that was their symbol of the ocean representing chaos. Storms, you don't know what's underneath. You can drown. It's dangerous. It's mysterious. It's chaos.
And so what does he do? God says, I want you to go here and serve me and share my word with others. And he goes, I choose chaos instead. I choose chaos instead. And you're thinking, I don't know. That's crazy, but stop and think about your own life. Are we choosing chaos over trust?
And what do I mean when we run to strange and dangerous places? Well, oftentimes we'll do stuff like I'm alone. I'm tired. I'm sick of being lonely and we'll run to an unhealthy relationship. We run back and say that's that's like that's that's a plot line for movies. It's so common.
Why are you back with him? Why are you going back with her? Well, I don't wanna be alone anymore. So it was horrible and made your life worse. And now you're alone, and your choice to make it better is to go back to what you already knew. It was horrible.
That's what we do when we run. We run to a relationship. We run we run to unhealthy things. We run to unhealthy coping mechanisms. We run to habits. We run to to to to
we run to to to retail therapy. We run to all these things that we're like, I'll get the next thing. I'll buy something. I'll make myself happy. I'll I'll spend money. I'll do this. I'll get a bigger house. I'll I'll I'll move. I'll I'll I'll go here. I'll get a nicer car. That'll make me feel good for a while. I and then the other thing a lot of people end up recovery for is, you go, hey. I can't handle the pain. I can't handle the chaos in my life. I can't handle the struggle. I can't, You know, I'll drink more because when I drink, I can forget.
Take drugs. Even overeating.
Stress eating. That's me. All stressy. I I know the difference between just eating like because I was a youth pastor for ten years and eating because I'm stressed. Because sometimes I'm just. Life is disappointing. It's not good right now. I don't like it. But you know what? If I eat all of that, I'll feel good while I'm eating it.
The problem is where does that end? See, they're called unhealthy coping mechanisms because they only mask what's going on and it always comes back stronger afterwards. And not only does it come back stronger,
you now have the problems that are now created because of the unhealthy coping mechanism. Now you have alcoholism. Now you have diabetes. Now you have you know, you kill yourself.
That's why it's strange. We run after something because we're afraid of what God's called us to. We're afraid we can't do it. And then we run what we run towards destroys us. And we get stuck in that trap. We get stuck. And here's the crazy thing. There's always, always another boat
going the opposite direction of what God wants. There's actually more boats that you can hop on that go the opposite way of what God's called us to. Jesus said it this way, wide is the road that leads to destruction. Narrow is the road that leads to life. Why is it narrow? Because it's harder.
Super highways always, let's take the big wide road that has, know, no lights and all that. I don't wanna take that old back road. That's like the scenic route that's going to take forever. I don't want to, you know, but when we take the scenic route, God shows us stuff and we get to see stuff we would never see.
We like the Superhighway to quick feeling better to quick having something to quick getting this, to quit. And God's route always is the scenic route. We don't like that. And so we struggle with this. We we we run to dumb places. But why?
Because when you look at it, why would we run to some place that when people come back from running with God, we usually come back with relational scars, physical issues, and financial problems. It always leads to a worse place. And we know it. So if we know it, just like Jonah knew God, why do we do it?
I don't know. I wrote some reasons down on why I do it, Why I'm tempted why I have the same wanting to put my running shoes on and run away from God sometimes rather than run with him. I mean, this is like I said, you're one decision away. This happens all the time. Jonah's
been serving God. He's been following God and then one day. I don't like that. I don't want to do that. It can happen in instant. You're not like, I finished. I completed Christianity. I got 100. Some of you are trying to audit the course, but
I just want to hear the information and apply what I want, but I don't want to get graded or pay for it or anything like that. But what we have here is some of the reasons I wrote down and I consider myself normal, just like you guys, just better looking than you, but and humbler. No.
That was Randy. That had to be Randy Deal out there last year somewhere. But here's some of the reasons for me, and maybe you can relate, why it's easy to run.
I'm afraid of missing something good.
Sometimes what God asks us to do is involving sacrifice giving up something in order to go where he wants us to go. And we're like, well, then if I do that, I don't get to do this.
Yeah. That means you need to trust God.
That's why God asked us to give financially. God doesn't need our money. He can make it rain if he wanted to. So why does he ask us to do it? Because it's a gift to us. We get to be a part of what he's doing. But also giving is the only way to control our desire to run down the road of materialism.
But I get it. I preach it, but I still struggle like I'm gonna do another building campaign. You know, I mean, I've I've been doing them for twenty straight years and and and I got to make a choice because I like I could give to that or I could buy a car.
I could do this or I could do that. That's why God what God wants us to do to to tithe, to give, and then to give above and beyond. It's an opportunity to be part of what he's doing. That's the blessing.
But it's also a blessing and that what it does is it teaches us that guess what I made it and not only was I blessed by that. I was able to live on something I thought I couldn't live without
and next thing when you do have a financial crisis or something goes bad. You don't worry about it as much. You know why? Because now I know that it's God that gives me life, not my job, not my money, not my stuff. It breaks you free from that slavery.
But here's what's funny. That very slavery is why most of us won't give. I can't. You know why you're saying you can't? It's because it means you would have to stop something else in order to start giving. You would have to literally change your lifestyle. You would. And that's uncomfortable, and I don't wanna do it.
And then we blame God. Say and then we think so there's this chaos. I mean, Well, God, you're just you're causing this chaos. And and and why don't you you know, whatever the reason is. He's like, you ever thought maybe the chaos would get corrected if you just trust me and listen to me and
do the scary thing I'm asking you to do.
See, yes, We will miss out on something that sounds good. But we'll get to participate in something that's better. And we have to trust that we have to be willing to do that. We got we got to go for
And yeah, you're going to replace thing. It's like you see we keep thinking that what God asked us to do is well, I have to add that I gotta add serving out. Add this. I gotta add this know you got to replace things.
Matter of fact, I remember we had somebody couple of campaigns ago. This is I have no money. I can't give to this campaign at all. I only make this much and then then they went and prayed about it instead of yelling at me about it and found out they went to Starbucks every day to get their coffee.
They started making their own coffee. And and if you get Rock Point coffee, that's a special dispensation, but no. No. But they went every day. Sometimes twice a day. They stopped for the two years of the campaign. They gave over $5,000 to the building by just not buying coffee every day.
You could get creative. You could figure out things that you probably spend. If I stopped Uber eating, I could probably pay for the building by myself, to be honest. So I did. That's why I've lost weight. But think about it. It is a hard thing, and that's one of the reasons I and I'm telling you, this is my list.
I actually wrestle with this. If I do that, I don't get to do this. And then you're like, God, that's unfair. What if that's God's plan? I need you to not do this because not doing that's better for you. And doing this is better for you.
What would happen if you just decide, okay. I'm gonna trust you, God. Same with me. The other one I get is life is disappointing, and I confuse life with God. You go through seasons that are disappointing, and then somehow I confuse that with God.
Another reason I'm glad we're talking about running and I started wearing my HOKA running shoes because they're dorky looking shoes. So I'm not stylish. I'm not gonna get on preachers with sneakers with these. But you know what? My feet don't hurt as bad at the end of the sermon.
And as I've gotten older, I've had issues like my knee hurts, my knee, my back. And I could sit there, my shoulder and I go, gosh, God. Why do you hate me so much? He goes, you're getting older. You just got older on Friday. You turned a year older. That's not me hating you. That's that's that's your body hating you at this point.
But we get in these moments and we just assume that at least I do. I keep saying we. Maybe it's just me. But I start to confuse God with my circumstances. And and that makes me not wanna run and go forget it. Forget it. I'm out. Sometimes I just don't believe enough.
The reason I hit money so hard is that was my hardest thing after I I'd already in ministry. My wife wanted to give and I didn't want to because I was a youth pastor. Church didn't even pay me enough to live on.
I had all the reasons of the world and then she goes, but that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. And the guy who cackled Randy deal actually got in my face years ago and said, it's not about you and the church or you and your money. It's about you trusting God.
I started giving, not to brag, but to be honest, when on paper, what I made had kids, had a kid at the time and my wife are after tax income didn't even cover our bills.
And I decided I'm all in I started giving 10% before taxes when I couldn't even cover my bills. You know what happened? I went to prison for defrauding and I and I suffered for years and I almost died. I was clinically dead for ten minutes, and then they brought me back. No. I didn't die.
I was here. You know what's weird? Is God has this power that all of sudden, out of the blue, all of sudden, I get a huge tax rebate that I wasn't I don't know why I should have got it. And then I got something else, and then something else happened. And it's just out from the weirdest places, I got support.
It it it it makes no sense. God's economy doesn't make sense.
But that's what I have to struggle with. And I still struggle with it. I did it once. It's it's it's it's easier every time. But do I believe him enough? Do I really believe that he's the one that gives me life? Or do I believe he's the one that gives me the things that gives me life?
And that's the last point. The one I wrote down, my last one that maybe relate to is, I'm just afraid of hard things.
Now I was raised by two parents that taught me to do hard things and I raised my kids to do hard things too. And I am a very disciplined person. People see that. You got this one. I am a disciplined person.
But I never said I like to be a disciplined person. You're like, it must be nice to be happy that type of disciplined person. You watch people do, oh, it must be nice of discipline. If you talk to most people, there are some of you that are naturally weirdly
freakishly gifted in a way like you just love the discipline. Then there's the rest of us. And the truth is most people that have discipline didn't do it because they were lucky and blessed with it. It's because you had to learn it. I am only disciplined
because I know what's on the other side of discipline is way better than staying on this side of discipline. And a lot of us, you've grown up in an era and where however you raised and whatever you've done in your life, you run from hard things always. That's all you know how to do is avoid hard. Kids do hard things.
And don't think that God is cursing you. You're getting stronger when you do hard things. And some of us, including me, sometimes I just don't wanna go where God calls me to go. That's I avoid I didn't wanna plant a church at first. You know why? Not because I asked God, not because I looked at my giftedness.
Not because, like, I just said, I wanna go and establish church. There's already a building. There's already money. There's already people. Starting a church sounds crazy. I go from a low paycheck at the church I'm at to no paycheck. I didn't wanna do it. Only because it was hard.
It was my wife that told me we should do this. And I was like, wow. If that came from you, that had to come from God because you never like to do anything scary like that.
So, these are all these reasons. I don't know what yours are. Maybe they relate to those. Maybe they're the same list as mine. But we got to choose it because otherwise we'll run to dumb places. Let's finish the story though.
He's only three verses in. Come on. Throat punch is coming hard and fast. Well, buckle up. It gets worse. But the Lord hurled a powerful wind over the sea causing a violent storm that threatened
to break the ship apart. Fearing for their lives, the desperate sailors shouted to their gods for help and threw the cargo overboard to lighten the ship.
But all this time, Jonah was sound asleep down in the hold. So the captain went down and after him. How can you sleep at a time like this? He shouted. Get up and pray to your God. Maybe he will pay attention to us and spare our lives. The crew cast lots to see which of them had offended the gods and caused the terrible storm. God made this work. And so it says, when they did this, the lots identified Jonah as the culprit.
Why is this awful storm come down us? They start questioning. Why is this awful storm come down us, demanded? Who are you? What is your line of work? What country are you from? What is your nationality? Who did you vote for? Did you get the vaccine? What do you believe? No. Didn't do that.
But they started grilling him. And he says, Jonah answered, I'm a listen. He actually answers very faithful. I'm a Hebrew, and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven who made the sea and the land.
So he looked at all these pagans that had all their other gods they're shouting out to, he's the one that it's his fault that this is happening. He's running from God. But as he's running, he looks at me and say, I worship the real god, not the ones you guys are worshiping.
He basically had this faithful statement that said, I believe in the one true god. You're not talking to him like we were talking our fake gods. You're not even listening to him. You're running the other way. And you're like,
how dumb is that? That proves my first point. We run to weird, strange places. You run to a place where you're still claiming this faith in the one true God while absolutely running from what he's called you to do. You're like, how dumb is that? Look at a mirror.
How many of you are sitting here week after week saying, come here to declare that I believe in Jesus? You get up and you ignore everything we just talked about.
You believe in the one true God. You believe that Jesus died on the cross and then I spend the rest of my time running from what he's asked me to do. That's what he's doing.
He says the sailors were terrified when they heard this. He'd already told them he was running away from the Lord. So he told them, I'm running to the Lord, but I believe that this God's better, he's real and yours isn't.
Oh, why did you do it? They groaned. And since the storm was getting worse all the time, they asked him, what should we do to stop the storm?
You would think he'd say, let me talk to God. Can we maybe turn around? I know if I get out of here and go back the other way, all will be fine. No. You know what he says? Throw me into the sea, Jonah said, and it'll become calm again. I know this terrible terrible storm is all my fault. Hey. Yeah. You admitted it. Good. You confess.
But you're not gonna change. Yeah. I know I'm not doing it.
But you know what? I'd rather die than do what God wants me to do. So just throw me in storm. And you know what? A lot of you sit out there. There are lot, especially guys, little throw punch for the men. So many men go, he's right. I should serve. You're right. I should do this. You're right. I should do that. You agree.
And then you basically say, but I'm not going to. Apathy. I'm just not gonna do it. You know, it's the opposite of, you know, the anti Nike shoe. Just don't do it.
So then he he he says that he can just throw us in the storm. But look what they they do. Instead, the sailors rode even harder to get to the ship to land. They're like, no. We don't want you to die. We're gonna try to save you.
And it says, but the stormy sea was too violent for them and they couldn't make it. Then they cried out to the Lord, Jonah's God. Wait.
Who's the first people to pray in this whole story? The prophet of God who believes in the one true God that just told a group of people I believe in the one that created everything? Is that the first guy to pray? Talk to God? No. It's these pagans. Now they're praying to God.
And and and they reach out to me. They said, oh, Lord, they pleaded, don't make us die for this man's sin and don't hold us responsible for his death. Oh, Lord, you have sent this storm upon him for our own good reasons.
Often wondered, did God send what happens next because they prayed that he they wouldn't be responsible for his death?
No. He already had the plan. Says then the sailors picked Jonah up and threw him into the raging sea and the storm stopped at once. This is nuts. Look what happens. The sailors were awestruck by the Lord's great power and they offered him a sacrifice and vowed to serve him. A boatload of people just turned to the Lord
because Jonah was running. So God used even him running. God plays three d chess. God will get his will done whether you listen to him or not. You're just gonna get left out of the blessing and all of it Because Jonah wasn't even on the boat anymore to experience that. So Jonah you God used Jonah, his disobedience,
to lead a boatload to people, but now he's down in the water.
And that's what happened. God will still get things done around you, and you're still bitter. You're still diving into the ocean of chaos. You're still doing that. You might have the I believe in God and all that. I'll sacrifice for you, and you'll say a few choice. You'll say the words, but in the end, you're just diving into the chaos and ignoring what God called you. He still does something. And here's the problem. Okay. So because he ran a boatload of people come to the Lord. But what God wanted him to do is reach an entire city.
And so it says he gets thrown overboard, and now they're gonna vow to serve him. And then verse 17, now the Lord had arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah, not a whale.
And Jonah was inside the fish for three days and three nights. That is crazy. I get I just always wonder about this verse 17. Now the Lord arranged, meaning he planned it. The fish was already there. He knew what was gonna happen.
And he arranged it. I don't know. Did he call like Uber Ocean? I need a giant big fish that can hold a person. Keep them alive for at least three days. And and and then send it? I don't know. Did he ask his assistant? Peter, get on the line. We need a fish. Is he aqua Jesus? Did he dive into the water?
Talk to the fish? And the fish and went? I don't know. All I know is he already knew. He already had a plan. He was already there. He already arranged it.
And hold on to this thought because you've probably heard the story if you grew up at church, you think, look at God being scary.
Was he he arranged this just think about it. He wasn't being scary. You'll see that in a minute. But when we see this what's going on see we will run to strange dangerous places. But the second thing we got to remember here from the rest of the story is runners are the last to make the connection.
What connection two things that we see even in the story when we run were the last to recognize the connection between the chaos in our life and our running. We don't put the dots together. We don't realize that that chaos was caused by us.
We use the chaos as a reason why I can't trust God or I can't serve him. I can't well, all this chaos. Like, have you ever thought that you're causing the chaos? Now God could make it happen because he's trying to get your attention. But it's because of what you're not doing. It's how you're ignoring, how you're running away from him. And now you're saying, can't listen to God because of the chaos.
And like, no. You're in the chaos because you're not listening to God. That's the problem. And then you're like, well, once the chaos clears, I'll follow God.
Do what he says, and the chaos will clear. If that's how it works.
And and and we get but we're the last one to realize it. Just like he was the last one. He's down asleep. Wake it up. What's going on? You don't know what's happening. Why aren't you praying? We're all freaking out down here. Oh, alright. And then he finally, after they draw us, it's you. Yeah. You're right. I guess it is me.
And what's even worse is we are the last to recognize and runners always the last one to see the chaos that our running is creating in those around us, the people closest to us. When you run from God, you cause chaos in your home, and you're usually the last one to realize the chaos you're causing.
When you run from God and don't do what he asked you to do, cause chaos in your church. Because everyone's desperately trying to do something to help you. They're desperately working and try to get through a storm and you're not listening to God.
And you don't even think about it. You know why? Because we're Americans. We have rugged individuals. As long as I didn't rob you, from you, kill you, or punch you in the face, whatever my actions have done haven't hurt you at all. Well, you might not done action hurt, but what you're not doing hurts us all.
That's the truth when it comes to a church. That's a tough story. That's what you learn. We learn we have to learn to recognize that when we run from God, we are not seeing things clearly. And so we start to say the chaos is the reason I can't follow God when the chaos is really the result of not trusting God.
And the way out of that is to turn and start trusting God not to dive into the ocean like he's like I'm just gonna he did the nest sea plunge. Just let me drill right into there. I'll just dive headfirst into the chaos and that's not what we need to do. We need to turn around and trust God.
If you look at it, look what he he finally does get this and how this whole thing works. If you look at chapter two verse one, as far as we're gonna go into chapter two, it says, then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from inside the fish. Then after all this happened,
now he decides to talk to God. Next week, we'll look at that prayer. But you know what? By choosing to now finally stop to talk to God, he finally had this observation. You can run from God, but you can't outrun God. Back to the big idea.
He finally realized, I'm not gonna get away from him. I can't run from him. I better deal with it. I better have a conversation. He finally learned what King David knew. We went through that series. We're talking about David. He was called a man after God's own heart. Why? He still sinned. But the thing that set him apart was he would when he was confronted, would confess and then turn and repent. And he would say he wouldn't try to avoid it. He wouldn't try to keep running. He wouldn't try to make excuses. You know why? In Psalms one thirty nine, he wrote about it. Because he said, where am I gonna go?
If I go to the tallest mountain, you're already there. If I go to the depths of the sea, you're already there. If I try to get to Tarshish, you're already there. Here's the problem. We think we can run from God. But how are you gonna run from a God who's everywhere? The Bible says his abode is the entire universe. So wherever you go,
there he already is. You can't run from him. We sing that song about him running to us. We say it that way for us to understand from our perspective in our brains. God doesn't need to run for us to us. He just waits. He's kinda like this Chuck Norris meme. Chuck Norris doesn't sleep. He waits.
That's true. God doesn't sleep, he waits. It's absolutely true and biblical of God. The problem is this is trying to show Chuck Norris as a threatening menace that he goes, go ahead. Try to be his enemy, but he doesn't sleep. He's waiting. He's waiting to get you back. He's waiting to destroy you. That's not what God does. That makes it like God and that's what many people when we read this. He arranged for a fish. He's in the belly of it. This great storm. All this stuff got loud. You think that it's God sitting there going,
hey, Jonah. It's me, the Godfather. And you guess what? You not be listening to me. You keep running. You keep running. So now you know what? He's gonna sleep with the fishes. That's not what he's doing. He doesn't
sleep. He waits. He's always working. He's God. But what is he waiting? He's not waiting to pay us back. He's waiting to bring us back.
And then when you think of the scary way, that was a scary moment. God put him in this dark. He was stuck inside. So it's a miraculous thing. But the thing he probably thought about is I should be dead. You ever think about that? Should be dead.
This miraculous fish, it makes it sound like if you read the the scripture, it's like, this isn't an ordinary fish. This might be a God created thing. It's it's out of the ordinary. So he's like, what the heck? He expected to drown, and God didn't let him down. He's like, God will kill me, and then, you know, it'll be done. But no. He falls in the water, and God swallowed already had a fish here. He already knew what he was gonna do. He rescued him. The fish saves Jonah.
It's not there to destroy him. It's there to discipline him. It's not there to pay him back. It's there as a vehicle to bring him back. It's the process. It's the vehicle to take him back. That's why he's in the fish for three days. That means the second he swallowed him, that fish was heading straight towards where Jonah was supposed to. Because we'll see that he spits him out on the land in the land of the Ninevites. He's now closer to Ninevite than he was before. God used that to get his attention, to get him to sit still. He gave him a time out in the belly of the fish to think about where he needs to go.
It's like when your kid fights you and fights you. You finally get him in the car. You go sit in there in a time out and think about it as you drive them to where they need to go. And that's a good thing.
Maybe God is allowing crazy cats. Maybe you're in a dark place right now. Maybe you're stuck in a place you can't move. It's dark. You don't know where to go. And maybe God put you there to save you.
And he wants to talk to you about your trust of him.
And maybe you realize that I caused all this chaos, and God is still rescuing me through it and bringing me back. He's bringing them back. That's what he wants to do with you and I, but you gotta turn.
You got to be willing because the truth is God waits because he's already there. God will put you in these moments to guide you to discipline to turn us back. And you're now back to your one decision away from changing your life.
Which one do you want it to be?
I understand this story because I had kind of my son ended up having a Jonah moment and and and mom and dad were parents trying to help him grow through something to do something he didn't wanna do that was uncomfortable that he's called to do that he needs to do. And even if he doesn't understand it, he needs to honor his mother and father and trust us, But he didn't want to. It was about school.
When he's in kindergarten, he didn't like to go to school. Now he liked to go to the school. He just didn't like to go to school.
Meaning, his kindergarten was across the street from a house. We'd walk over there at a playground area. They had this gate that would be open, and you could come early. Some parents are dropped off, and we get there early. And then they'd wait, like, technically, because you're supposed to be at a certain time, but they let him be out there for about another ten or fifteen minutes, and then they went. So by the time we took him over there, he got to be out there for twenty, twenty five, thirty minutes playing with everybody. And he loved that. He got up he was ready to go to school every day.
He had no problem going to the school. It's when it was time to line up and go to class that he freaked out. Grab ahold of your leg, you're walking like a pirate. Gar. I lost me leg to a giant fish. I heard some guy screaming from within it, but I got out of there. Little meta joke there.
But he he he wouldn't go in. He didn't wanna do it. He didn't like it. And he'd argue with us. He's like, I don't like it. It's dumb. It's boring. It's this. Blah blah blah. Had a million reasons why he shouldn't get an education. And it made sense to him. And we were mean for telling him to do it.
But we had to get him to do it. So we start talking, there's gonna be consequences if you go in there and give your teacher our time and keep holding on us and don't go in where you're supposed to. So finally, one day, he got in line. He started walking. He said, great. So she left. She'd walked him that day, but she had to go somewhere. So she had driven him over even though it's across the street because she's gonna leave. And she goes, I forgot something at home. So she goes home. And what had happened is as as she left, as the class started to line up, they're walking in. Everyone's going to the building. He was last in line, of course. He's waking in line. And once the last kid went in, he's like, boom. He broke off and he ran. And he saw that they hadn't closed the fence yet. The the the guy that used to close that and went out. He bolted. He got out of that fence before they closed it and just took off and ran in the opposite direction of the school. He's like, I'm gonna get so far away from my mom and dad told me to do. I'm gonna get so far away from this place. I don't like it. I don't wanna be here. It's uncomfortable. I hate it. I'm not gonna be here. I'm going the other way. And he ran, and he just went as fast as his little legs would take him. And he goes, he went as far into the unknown that he could he got bought his ticket to Tarshish, and his Tarshish was all the way back to our house.
Because that's as far as he knew. And so he ran as far as he possibly could run and runs right at the house, right as Carrie pulls up. What are you doing here? You're supposed to be in school, but I don't wanna go to school.
And you know what? That's the point. When you can run from God, be count run God. Because guess what? Wherever you run is his house. Wherever you go, he's there. It doesn't matter what you do. He's already there. And you know what? Did we say, fine. Don't go to school?
No. Carrie put him in the car in the belly of a great fish and said, you have got to change your attitude. Things are gonna happen. Took him back to school. He still caused a problem. He's worse than Jonah. So then when he came home, alright, we're now taking away photos. You are coming home and then every
day when we get a report for your teacher, if we find out you fought it, tried to get out of class, did something, you are gonna go right to bed when you get home. We'll bring you dinner, but you're staying in your room until the next morning and you go to school. No playing. No nothing. No TV. So we put him in there. And you think he would have his Jonah moment and start talking about it. No. He's worse.
He doubled down. He goes he just went in and started playing with all his toys. Act like it's no big deal for a day or so. It's like, well, we gotta do something. Took all his toys out. Well then, when he didn't have any toys, he started pulling clothes out of his drawer and using those.
Talking to him, making him be people and all that. Put tied one around, tied his shirt around and pretended like he's Superman. So then I took all his clothes out of the drawers.
Then I heard him playing over there. He pulled a drawer out, sat in it. It was a race car, then it was a boat, then it was a spaceship. I'm like, man, I'm so mad, but he's pretty creative.
So then I took all of his drawers away and took the door off of his room. He had nothing in his room. I even took his sheets in his bed, and he got a blanket when he went to sleep. It was like nothing. He found an old waffle that had fallen behind his bed,
and he chewed it into the shape of a gun. And they were like, pew pew pew pew pew. And I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. So we took that. So that was like three days in. He went another week with nothing until he finally got the good report that he stopped fighting. His attitude changed. In his mind, we were mean, unrealistic,
expected something from that was unfair making his life terrible. But if you're a parent, you know, what would have been like if I said, yeah, you're fine. You don't have to do that.
I am challenging us. I'm challenging some very specific people in this room. I understand why Jonah wanted to run from this.
Because I have felt called by God, and you might have sensed it if you've been here for a while. But the last three sermon series, have felt like I have had to throat punch like there's no tomorrow and I have been on a soapbox going after a specific person in this crowd. You know.
I was getting too serious. Consumer Christians. What do I mean by that? Those of you that come to church, you believe in Jesus, you might have grown up in church, but you come here and you consume. You like the service. You say you believe in Jesus. But when we ask you to serve, you don't.
When we say we need everyone to engage financially, you won't. And when I talk about it, you get mad at me. How dare you? Especially men, how dare you? How dare you rattle my cage? How dare you stay in a cage?
I gotta rattle your cage because you're sitting in one. I need you to realize you're in one. Be free. Do what God wants you to do.
And I don't know why, but God says, you have got to keep pounding this. You have got to be serious. I don't know if we're at a season in the in life. I know in our church in The United States, we have an opportunity. I'm more worried about the positive side. We have an opportunity. We are reaching people like there's no tomorrow.
But that's hard. We went out of room. We went out of room. We need more room. We need to pay for it. We need to get more room. And when I get thousands of people that say they're Christians, that you've been in church forever, that refuse to engage in what our mission is, which you're called to be a part of a church. We have a leadership structure. God has ordained me to be the main leader of this church. We have a plurality of leaders. And here is what God has called us to do. And if you are a part of this church, you're supposed to go with us.
You can't just treat this as a cafeteria. You come in, I'm gonna get what I want here. I go over here. I listen to this guy on the Internet. That's not being a part of a church. That's just getting Christian information.
We are supposed to be an army of the Lord that is united as the body of Christ, that is going to the Nineveh around us and preaching the gospel.
And it's working, but it's getting harder because I get more and more consumer Christians. Some of you here have not doing anything and you think you're mature. And you sit in here week after week, and you will not do what we're saying that needs to be done for whatever the reasons we just talked about.
And you're missing the love of God. You're missing the opportunity. You're missing you would rather die in the chaos. Blaming God on the chaos and telling me I'm unrealistic to challenge you.
And that's what God has been telling me to say. And I don't like saying that. I've gotten good at it. I'm I'm pretty willing, but I'm not wired this way. I hate this. I've been praying God. When am I gonna release? When can I stop having to hit this this this same thing over and over again?
And basically, just keep her saying when it's finished. So if that's you, help me, help you, help me. Surrender. Stop it. Because guess what?
Our chaos, our sin, our running from God will stress everyone around us. Running with God blesses everyone around you, including yourself.
Be willing to do it. And I know there's some you are mad at me. Some of you like, you've been here forever and I'm calling you out. If you've here forever and you know what I'm saying, you're just not going to do it. I need you to do something. Make a decision.
Either go all in or go to another church. Not in this way. What I mean is if you've been here a long time and you're just not going to do God is not using my voice in your life. Go someplace else. Or maybe just maybe there. You'll hear God's voice.
But just know this wherever you go, there you are. And there is God and there is God's word. And I have not said one thing that I've challenged us to do that isn't biblical. So get mad at me if you want, But I want all of us to be blessed.
I want all of us to be where God wants us. I don't want us all going to Tarshish and celebrating and saying I believe in the one true God is we're heading down a road of destruction.
I want God to use us to save a city. Don't you? Don't you? God, I thank you, Lord. I thank you that you love us more than we love ourselves. Lord, I thank you that you will send giant fishes to swallow other lives, to get our attention, to take us where we need to go. Lord, I pray right now for everyone myself included
that we would just get alone. We would get to a quiet dark place that maybe you didn't force us into but we choose to sit alone. And just ask you to search our hearts. Search our lives and reveal to us as your servant David said anything where we are running from your call in our lives. And may we simply surrender.
May we simply turn. May we simply say, I want to run with you Lord, not away from you. I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Hey. I love you guys. Hope you know that. It's a pleasure to be here.
Hey. Thanks for joining us online this weekend. Let us know if we can help you in any way. And make sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on the We Are Rock Point app for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.