Thank you for listening to Riverbend Churches Podcast.
To find out more about this message or Riverbend Church,
connect with us online at Riverbend Church dot live.
This morning, if you're new to riverbed or maybe just new to
the series, we're going to continue on week five of a
series that we started through the book of Jonah.
It is called God's mercy in my mess.
And and if there's anything that moms or are most acquainted
with, it's messes, right, God's mercy in our mess.
And, and one of the things that we keep coming back to is no
matter how big your mess may may be, it, it, it doesn't, it
doesn't call it God to turn away.
It doesn't cause God to look at you any differently.
As a matter of fact, there's a theme and an overarching truth
and what we call the big idea throughout this series that if
you're new to the series, I want to introduce you to and I want
to get to invite you to just, if you're taking notes with us,
just jot this down. God's mercy is always greater
than my mess. God's mercy is always greater
than my mess. Again, that is without fine
print. That is without exception clause
that is without caveat, no matter how big your mess is, no
matter how long you've been in that mess, no matter how complex
that mess is. Listen, the hope is this is that
God's mercy is always greater than your mess.
God's mercy is always greater than my mess.
And we've been seeing this play out through the life of a man by
the name of Jonah And we we see God's faithfulness there in the
life of Jonah then and there. And one of the things that we're
going to look at this morning is how that same truth not only
applied to Jonah then and there, it also applies directly to us
here and now. So I want to invite you, if you
have a Bible with you to find Jonah chapter 2.
If you don't have a Bible, no worries.
Passage is on the note sheet at the top of the note sheet.
And it's going to be on the screen.
And we're going to pick it up in verse 10 and we're chapter 2,
verse 10. But we'll read through this and
I want to give you a little bit of background info and then
we'll kind of summarize it to see how it actually matters to
to my life and to of your life this morning.
So here we go. Jonah 210 says the Lord spoke to
the fish. Jonah had already been in the
belly of the fish for three days and three nights and it vomited
Jonah out upon the dry land. Chapter 3.
Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time saying,
arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it
the message that I tell you. So Jonah rose and went to
Nineveh according to the word of the Lord.
Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, 3 days journey in
breath. And we talked all about that
last week when we talked about the God of second chances.
But this we're going to continue on just to give us a greater
context of what we're going to be talking about this morning.
First four Jonah began to go into the city going a day's
journey and he called out yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be
overthrown. Verse 5 and the people of
Nineveh believed God. They call for a fast, and put on
sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least of them.
The word of the Lord reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose
from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with
sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he issued A proclamation and
published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his
nobles. Let neither man nor beast heard,
nor flock taste anything. Let them not feed or drink
water, but let man or beast be covered with sackcloth and let
them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from His evil
way and from the violence that is in His hands.
Verse 9. Who knows?
God may turn and relent and turn from His fierce anger so that we
may not perish. Chapter 3.
Verse 10. When God saw what they did, how
they turn from their evil way, God relented of the disaster
that He had said He would do to them, and He did not do it.
Now give you a little bit of background info.
You got this guy by the name of Jonah, 8th century BC prophet of
God. God's already called him once to
go to the people of Nineveh. Jonah said absolutely not,
actually went down to local seaport, booked a cruise going
in the opposite direction. But because God loved Jonah so
much and because God loved the people of Nineveh so much, God
sent this massive storm on the sea while Jonah was on a ship
heading 2500 miles east or West to where God had called him to
go. God sent that mighty storm
knowing that Jonah would end up being tossed overboard.
And then we read and and, and, and at the end of chapter 2 to
where God or the end of chapter 1 to where God appointed this
like great fish to swallow Jonah because God knew that Jonah
being in the belly of that fish, there in the belly of the fish,
Jonah would hit his rock bottom. And in the rock bottom moment of
Jonah, Jonah learned what it was like to let go of perceived
control. And something that we've been
coming back to throughout this series is somewhere in that time
period of three days and three nights in the belly of that
fish, Jonah looked at all the things that he could not
control. When he looked at all those
things, he began to panic when he realized that all those
things that he could not control God never lost control over.
He switched his panic over to prayer and by in in so doing, he
learned what it was like to be fully dependent on God.
Now, completely unbeknownst to Jonah, God was actually guiding
that fish back in the direction of Nineveh.
We we read, we just read and Jonah 210 to where the fish
vomited Jonah up. Raise your hand in here if you
had fish vomit on your Mother's Day bingo card.
Nobody. Pretty nasty one.
Gotcha. Awesome.
I thought it was 2 but they were scratching their head.
But God used that fish to be the nastiest, smelliest, smelliest
Uber in the history of mankind, deposited Jonah up on the Syrian
shore. And then from there, Jonah went
into the city of Nineveh. Now, just interesting side note,
maybe it's just interesting to me.
The people of Nineveh, they, they didn't worship God.
They actually worshipped a false God by the name of Dagon.
Anybody, anybody know what, how Dagon was most often depicted?
He was most often depicted as half man, half fish.
Also kind of interesting side note is Jonah being a being of
Middle Eastern descent, he was not white, all right.
So he had olive complected skin and most scholars believe that
that skin after after Jonah was in the belly of the fish for
three days and three nights. It's very, very likely
improbable that Jonah's skin was was forever permanently marked
and and some somewhat bleached, which me, which means that he
was really hard to miss and almost impossible to ignore.
So here you got this guy walking into strolling into Nineveh, you
know, with a, with a word from the Lord, who is absolutely
impossible to miss and really hard to ignore.
But the passage that we just read is Jonah goes into the city
and, and, and what was his message?
What was the message that God gave to Jonah?
Go, go back to Jonah 3 to where it says in 40 days, yet 40 days.
Keep going for me, Chris. There we go.
Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
That was the message. That was the message of Jonah.
And then what do we see happening?
We see, we see the people of Nineveh actually believed Jonah,
believed God. And then they started to change
their actions. They started to change their
ways. And the Bible tells us that that
God saw that they believed him and God saw that they had turned
from their ways. So he relented from his plans to
destroy the city. Now here's what I'll tell you
the main message. If I were to summarize Jonah's
message here yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be destroyed.
If I were to summarize it into one word, it's the word repent.
It's the word repent. You see, 750 years after this
message was preached to the people of Nineveh and revival
fell on the city of Nineveh, Jesus of Nazareth is going to
start his ministry. He's going to come out of the
wilderness after being tested for 40 days and 40 nights.
And his message is this, repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at
hand. And then he's going to say, he's
going to go on to say things like, hey, unless you repent,
you likewise will perish. Now here in lies, probably the
greatest lie or the nuances of the greatest lie that I believe
that, that that, that that mankind has swallowed and
believed. And I believe that this lie is
probably responsible, the most responsible for sending more
people to hell than any other, any other lie.
If you're taking notes with us, let me show you a lie that we
often believe. Here it is the lie that we often
believe is remorse is the same as repentance.
Remorse is the same as repentance.
Let me let me kind of unpack remorse for just a moment.
Remorse is it is an emotion. Remorse is, is a weight of
guilt. It is a weight of maybe shame,
maybe, maybe a guilt of, of a weight of consequences.
Maybe it's even the, the, the weight of embarrassment we've
all experienced. Remorse, like remorse is
communicated through our words. Like, man, I really, I really
wish that that hadn't happened. Man, I really, I really feel bad
about that. I wish that, I wish that they'd
gone a different way. And even though there's so many
tag lines and so many phrases that we can speak to the heart
of remorse, I think that remorse most often shows up in our
actions, in our actions. If you're taking notes with us,
I want to give you 3, three types of actions of our remorse.
And I just want to see if they it maybe maybe with you this
morning in the room or online, maybe maybe some of these
resonate with you to where you will find that you have been
taking these actions of remorse and you've been equating them
with repentance. And like I said, the law is
remorse is the same as repentance.
So let's kind of unpack the three options or the three
actions. Here's the first one.
Apologies, apologies. It is the quick to say, hey, I'm
sorry. It's the quick to say I'm sorry
without deeper conversation. It is the IT is the quick to
move on and and just try to get closure.
Dudes are great at this, Like, like, if we feel really
remorseful or really bad, here's what we do.
We just go up somebody and go, hey, man, we're good, right?
Yeah, we're good. And we think that we just had
some emotional bonding moment. Listen, apologies, apologies.
We should become very, very well acquainted with this notion of
saying, hey, listen, I'm sorry I blew it.
Apology should always be the starting point because if
apologies are just the starting point, but yet the stopping
point, I'll go ahead and tell you nothing really ever changes,
right? And we all know this to be true.
Like we all have relationships, maybe friendships in our lives
or maybe even former friendships in our lives to where an
apology. It was a starting point, but it
was also the stopping point. And you know from your own
personal experience that nothing ever changed.
The the second way that remorse expresses itself through action,
not just apologies, but also avoidance.
Avoidance. You ever know that you really
like messed up a situation or you said something that you
shouldn't have said or you didn't say something that you
should have said, or, or you did something that really hurt
somebody or offended somebody. And, and you just kind of sit
there and go, hey, they're, they're across the room.
I'm going to like hug this wall over here.
You try to avoid them, you just don't go near them.
And, and one of the things that our culture swallows hook line
and sinkers this notion, Hey, Tom heals all wounds.
And we, we, we believe that. We start to internalize that and
we start to believe that to where we sit there and go, Hey,
listen, if I just wait out the situation, it's really weird and
awkward now. But if I just wait it out, maybe
he'll forget or she'll forget and we can just act like we're
good like high 5 again later on. Avoidance also looks like trying
to avoid or intentionally avoiding any type of of deep
connection with somebody getting at the root of an issue.
And it also always includes the avoidance of any type of
accountability that that's, that's avoidance.
Listen, here's where I would tell you distance.
Distance is, is easy. Distance is easy.
Change is hard. Transformation is hard, but a
lot of times we, we, we sit there and we just avoid the
person. Why?
Because we feel deeply remorseful.
And I think there's a third way that that our remorse kind of
comes out through actions. And it's adjustments.
It's adjustments. Here's what I mean by
adjustments. It's this, it's this decision.
And maybe you've been here on a Sunday morning to where you have
really felt God moving in your spirit.
Kind of there's this moon tugging on your heart and
instead of surrendering to him, you just make the decision.
Hey, I'm just going to try harder.
I'm going to be better for a short amount of time.
I'm going to white knuckle it. And here's where I would tell
you if minor adjustments actually brought about true and
lasting transformation, you would have already done it by
now. So again, the law that we so
often believe is that remorse is the same as repentance.
And here's why I would tell you it most definitely is not.
That is the law. But what is the truth that God
wants us to see this morning? Here we go, here's the truth.
Repentance is always faith-based and action evidenced.
Repentance is always faith-based and action evidence.
Don't miss this in that order, in that order.
Here's why it's so important that it's in that order because
a lot of us, we think that repentance is action evidence
and and throw in a little faith there.
Can I tell you that repentance, repentance is nothing or or
salvation from God is nothing that you could ever earn.
It's not about like trying harder and being better.
It's all about first and foremost faith-based.
Let me show you what I mean by faith-based.
I want to go back, let's go back to Jonah's like amazing earth
shattering revolve city rocking revival message.
Check this out. Jonah began to go into the city
go on a day's journey and he called out yet 40 days and
Nineveh shall be overthrown and the people of Nineveh believed
God. They called for a fast and put
on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least of them.
The message you got this Israelite going into the capital
city of Assyria. And if you if you want to know
more about just how gruesome the people of Assyria were and what
they would do to their enemies, go back to in our archives.
You can go back and listen to week one.
We talked about how the Assyrian army, they were notorious.
They were notorious for cutting off the legs and one arm of
their victims so that they could shake the other hand of their
victim while he slowly died. And yet Jonah is charged, going
into the city with this message of God 1/3 of the way in yet 40
days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
And instead of him being torn from limb to limb, the people
repented. Now here's what I would guess is
that morning before Jonah ever walked into town, the people of
Nineveh, they got up like they had their every single day
before that. They went about their morning
routines. They went about their early
afternoon routines. Not really concerned about a
relationship with God, not really concerned about their
spiritual life. Here's why and don't miss this.
The people of Nineveh had a mistaken interpretation of their
situation. Let me say that again.
When the people of Nineveh woke up that morning and before they
heard the words of Jonah, they had a mistaken interpretation of
their situation. You may say, Ben, what in the
world does that mean? Well, based off of the word of
God, here was the reality of their situation. 40 days,
Nineveh's going to be completely destroyed.
It's going to be wiped out. 40 days, 960 hours, 57,600 minutes,
40 days. Everything that you have worked
for, none of it's going to matter anymore.
Everything that you love and that you cherish and that you've
sacrificed for and you've actually become really good at,
none of that's going to matter anymore. 40 days and all of it's
going to be destroyed. That was the reality of their
situation. Can I tell you this church, I
happen to believe and, and maybe maybe you're here with us this
morning in the room or with us online, that the number one
reason, the main reason that people go unconcerned, maybe the
main reason that you go unconcerned outside of Sunday
mornings about your relationship with God is because you have a
mistaken interpretation of your situation.
It is not the main reason that you go unconcerned about your
relationship with God. It is not the fact that you've
experienced past church hurt and trauma.
It is not the church is full of hypocrites.
It is not the church is seen as judgmental.
And sadly, all of those things can be true, but none of those
things are the main reason. The main reason is because you
and I, we have a mistaken interpretation of our situation.
Here's what I mean, someone with a mistaken interpretation of
their situation. And, and you may be, you may be
in here with us this morning. I'm so glad that God brought you
here this morning because you may have said these things, you
may have thought these things, things like, well, deep down,
I'm, I'm a good person. Hey, my good outweighs my bad.
And that's got to count from something.
My favorite is, Hey, I've never killed anybody, which to that I
say high 5. Or how about this?
How about hey, Ben, God, God knows my heart.
Or then I I'm just not convinced that a loving God would ever
send anyone like me to hell. You see, if you said anything
like that or you've thought anything like that or any
similar phrases kind of like that, I want to as kindly yet as
urgently tell you. You my friend, have a mistaken
interpretation of your situation and just like the people of
Nineveh, every second that that ticks by is a second that we are
closer to standing before a holy God and giving account to to him
of our lives. The mistaken interpretation of
your situation. Let me give you the reality of
your situation. Jonah goes into Nineveh, yet 40
days, Nineveh shall be overthrown.
Here's the reality of all of our situations that every single one
of us, we have sinned and fallen short of the glory or the
perfect standard of God, but the wages or the price of sin, It's,
it's, it's death. But the good news is, is that
God loved us so much that even while we were still sinners, He
sent his Son Jesus Christ to die for us, so that if we believe in
our hearts and confess with our mouth that He is Lord or boss
over our lives and that Jesus rose from the dead, we will be
saved. Why is that important?
Because the Bible is very clear that is appointed for man to die
once and then the judgment. So what does that that that
appointed once to and then the judgement.
Here's the thing, you and I, we have no idea the time of our
passing because what is your life but amidst who was here in
the morning but gone later on in the day.
So what does all that mean? It means that today is the day
of salvation. That is the reality of the
situation at hand. But remember how I said that
repentance is always faith-based and it is always action
evidenced. Let me show you what I mean.
If you look at the top of your note sheet.
If you look at the top of your note sheet, I want you to circle
or to to underline maybe to highlight a phrase It says Jonah
began to go into the city going today's journey and he called
out yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown and the
people of people of Nineveh believed God.
Here's what I want to ask that you do circle or underline that
phrase. And the people of Nineveh
believed God. The people of Nineveh believe
God. Let me kind of unpack what that
means. It means that the people of
Nineveh believed a man that they did not know and they began to
worship. They believed a God that they
had not previously worshipped. It means that for the very first
time, they no longer had a mistaken interpretation of their
situation. It means for the very first
time, they realized in 40 days, this guy's God is going to
destroy us. We believe Him, We believe him.
It is always faith-based. It's always faith-based.
Again, it is a belief that God is God and I am not.
It is a belief that that even though I may consider myself so
unlovable and so far gone from Him, I'm never beyond His reach.
It is a belief that that, that, listen, I may have run 1000
miles away from God, but he is just one step back.
It is faith in God that, that that's, that's where it, that's
where it starts. That's where it starts.
And then it's not only faith-based, but it's actioned
evidenced, it's action evidenced.
Here's what I mean by action evidence.
Look at what the people of Nineveh did.
The king of Nineveh says, who knows?
God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we
may not perish. Here's what I want to ask that
you do. Circle, highlight or underline
those words. Who knows?
Can we just get something out in
the open? You, you, you may not have grown
up in church. You may be very new to church.
You may know a lot about the Bible.
You may know very little about the Bible.
I think that we would all agree in the room and online those two
words. Who knows is not a resounding, A
resounding like firmness of a mature faith, right?
I mean, it's not this like this like, hey, here we stand type of
faith. It's not a mature faith.
I don't even think that it's a fully fleshed out faith.
I don't even think that the king of Nineveh, when he says, hey,
who knows, is the full assurance of faith.
However, don't miss this. It was faith nonetheless.
Can I, can I remind you something?
Can I give you some really good news?
It is not the amount of faith that you have.
It is the object of your faith that makes all the difference.
So you may be with us. You may have grown up in church.
This may be your first time in church.
This may be your first time in a long time in church.
You do not have to wait till you have everything figured out.
You don't have to. You don't have to wait till you
have all the answers to the great existential questions of
philosophy and and theology. It is God.
I believe you. God, for the very first time I
believe that I have been living with a mistaken interpretation
of my identity and I need to turn to you.
God, I believe you. But listen, it doesn't just stop
at faith. It doesn't just stop at faith.
Our faith is always evidenced by our actions.
Let me show you what I mean is the people of Nineveh.
I love how the king of Nineveh, he puts it in at towards the end
of Jonah 3 to where he says these words.
He says, by the decree of the king and his nobles, let neither
man nor beast heard nor flock taste anything.
Let them not feed or drink water, but let man or beast be
covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God.
Let everyone turn from his evil way.
Check this. Let everyone turn from his evil
way and from the violence that is in his hands.
Who knows, God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce
anger so that we may not perish. You see the people of Nineveh,
they realize that what they were doing was sinful and evil.
You see, the first step of repentance is acknowledging and
believing God. The second step is acknowledging
that what you and I are a part of apart from God is sin and
it's evil. The the, the truest definition
of repentance is going One Direction, stopping, and then
going the other direction. Can I tell you this?
Remorse. Remorse may cry over sin.
Repentance leaves sin, it leaves sin.
Think of it this way. Repentance is actually trusting
God enough to change and and here's here's the simplicity and
the beauty of the gospel. Repentance is faith-based and
action evidenced again in that order.
But you can actually reverse engineer that and go, hey,
listen, I'm, I'm not sure if I'm truly a follower of Jesus or
not. Well, here's what I would ask
you, has your, has there been life change?
Has there been life change? Because here's what I would tell
you. A life that is surrendered to
Jesus, so that is changed by the Holy Spirit of God himself is
never the same, is never the same.
You may have had a deep moment of emotional remorse to where
you felt really bad about some decisions of your past, but
remorse is not the same as repentance.
Remorse is not the same as repentance.
Let me tell you kind of how this story is going to go on to end.
This is this is well on the well on past the pages of the book of
Jonah, 50 years after after revival fell in Nineveh, Assyria
had a king by the name of Shallow Man Sir the 5th Shallow
man Sir the 5th led his armies for modern day Mosul, Iraq West
to the northern Kingdom of Israel and completely destroyed
and sacked the city of Samaria, Jonah's hometown.
And for that reason, there's a lot of writers and scholars and
preachers and teachers that they would argue that revival didn't
really fall on Nineveh that day, that it was more of a remorse
thing than it was a repentance thing.
I don't agree with that. And here's why I don't agree
with that. It's because the two core
elements of repentance, believing God and turning from
your sinful, evil ways. They did that.
Here's what I believe happened. Church.
I believe the revival generation of the people of Nineveh in the
days of, of Jonah, man, it was greatly celebrated.
But those people that experienced revival on that day,
they failed to pray it, pray it forward and to pass it on.
And because they, they failed, that generation failed to pray
it forward and to pass it on. Guess what?
They're kids. They admired what God did in the
life of their parents. And then the next generation to
come on the scene, they completely abandoned the God who
had shown great, such great mercy and grace on their
grandparents. And, and so doing they return to
their former, former, former sinful ways.
Listen to me very, very closely, Church.
We are always one generation away from just mere admiration
of God and always 2 generations away from complete abandonment
of God. That leaves us, every single one
of us in the room, every single one of us online.
That leaves us in one of two camps.
Here's camp #1 camp number one. I am in personal need of revival
in my life. I personally need revival.
Then I have, I have thought. I thought maybe for years, Maybe
I've thought for the very first time that I truly repented.
But now I can tell that there's been no life change.
And because there's been no life change, I can tell you it wasn't
repentance, it was remorse. Then I, I, I need to let go of
that lie. That remorse is the same as
repentance. And I need to, for the very
first time, I need to believe God.
I need to trust God. I need to surrender my life to
God. In just a moment, we're going to
pray and we're going to have some pastors down here at the
front that would love to pray with you and to walk with you
through that process. And I would even acknowledge
that on a day like this and with this many people in the room and
join us online, probably many of us would sit there and go, yeah,
I've surrendered my life. I've, I've repented.
I'm, I'm not perfect, but I've, I've repented.
Here's my challenge to you. Would you?
I'm going to make it like, let's make it uncomfortable.
Would you believe God enough to realize that He has created you
for this moment, for such a time as this, to where the reality of
the fact that we are one generation away from just mere
admiration of God and two generations away from complete
abandonment of God. Would you be willing in just a
moment to get up out of your seat, to come kneel and to pray
for revival to start in your home, in your family, in your
neighborhood? You may be like Ben.
I don't, I don't know what's more important, your
uncomfortableness, A revival coming to the people around you.
So we're going to give you an opportunity to do just that in
just a moment. Would you pray with me, God?
You are the God who is holy and who is just.
God who does not tolerate sin. God, you, Your offer of
salvation is not to sweep our sin under the rug.
God, your offer of salvation is for us to exchange your judgment
for Your grace. And just like the people of
Nineveh an 800 BC God, all that requires it is for us to believe
that you are the one true God and that you loved us so much
that you sent Jesus into this world to die for our sins.
That if we believe in our heart that Jesus is Lord and we
confess with our mouth that you raised him from the dead.
God, you promise we will be saved.
God, would you help us to realize that repentance is far
deeper, yet is the only way that we can experience true
transformation, true rebirth, true new life.
God, remorse may make us feel good in a moment, but it brings
about no change. God, what you offer to us this
morning is a deep soul level change, but God, it requires our
surrender to you. God, for those who have
surrendered their lives to you. God, you have placed every
single one of us in circles and spheres of influence, whether
they be in our own home, in our own neighborhood, in our own
workplace, in our own family and our own friend group.
God, our call this morning is not that we would just come and
meet on a Sunday morning, but God that we would be the
beginning Ground Zero of a great revival that sweeps our area.
And God help us to understand that that revival, it starts
with us. It starts with us on our knees,
praying that you feel us, that you revive us.
And God, that that revival within us becomes an overflow to
the people around us. God, I pray that you would help
Lord the the the vision of changed lives in a changed
community and forgiven friends and forgiven family members.
God their eternity with you. God, that that would far
outshine any of our hesitations, any of our concerns, and any of
our pride. God, that that would drive us to
our knees in full surrender to you.
God, we pray that revival would come and it's in Jesus name that
we pray. Amen.
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