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This week we're going to continue on.
We're actually closing out our series through the book of
Jonah. It's a book of four chapters,
but we've been walking through this is the 6th week of the book
of Jonah. And one of the things that we
have seen throughout this throughout this entire series,
we have learned truths. God is tall as truth, pointed us
to the truth in his word that the different opportunities that
that that may arise in our lives for us to be disobedient to God,
that they're they're not accidental and they're not
coincidental. They're very strategic.
In other words, God has a plan for for you and I God has a plan
for every single one of our lives and every single one of
us. We're tempted to turn away from
that plan. Those temptations, they're not
accidental, they're not coincidental, they're very
intentional and they're very strategic because we have a very
real enemy that does not want us to live in alignment with the
heart of God. We've also talked about we've
also looked at how through the life of Jonah that so many of
us, I think every single one of us at one time or another, we
ran from the plans that God had for for us and, and we we walked
in disobedience to God. And but God loves us so much
that he will go to great lengths to get our attention to draw us
back to his heart. And then we looked at one Jonah
was in the belly of that fish for three days and three nights.
We've looked at how grace or we can find grace at rock bottom.
If we look at our rock bottom through the lens of I can be
frustrated, all the things that I can't control, but I can also
look at all the things that I can't control and realize that
God never lost control of those things.
That's when panic turns to prayer and that's when I can
find actually God's grace right there at rock bottom.
We talked about how God is a God of, of second chances.
If you were here with us last week, we took a look, an in
depth look at how there's a distinctive difference between
remorse and repentance. And, and, and Jesus calls us to
repentance, not just remorse. And there's a huge difference
between the two. But this morning we're going to
be taking a look at Jonah chapter 4.
This chapter is what author and pastor Tim Keller refers to as
the most forgotten and the most unexpected chapter of the entire
Bible. And this is what he means.
I I agree with him, but this is what this is what is meant by
that is most everybody has heard of Jonah and being swallowed by
a fish. Most people, they, they, they
know that Jonah was swallowed by a fish.
They've heard the storage on a swallowed by a fish that he
repented and then he was released from the fish.
Most people think that that's where Jonah's story ends.
Some, however, they know where we spent the last two weeks.
They know that after being released from the fish that that
Jonah goes into Nineveh and and tells the people of Nineveh the
message that God gave him. And the revival fell that day on
the capital city of the Assyrian Empire on the people of Nineveh.
Very, very few people know how the rest of Jonah chapter 4
ends. Most people just assume that
revival fell on Nineveh. Jonas celebrated revival,
celebrated this great movement of God with the people of
Nineveh. He probably went to a potluck
dinner, probably brought a casserole.
And then he went skipping out of the city limits all the way back
to his hometown, telling everybody about this great
movement of God that he was able to be a part of and what he was
able to see and, and just excitement everywhere.
And then he got back to his hometown and he he, he stood up
in church and he gave the report and he ended up writing a book
and going on a conference, sticking to her and probably
even started a podcast. That's what most people assume.
That's not what happened. That's not at all what happened.
To give us a little bit of context of what happened at the
book of at the end of the book of Jonah, I want to ask that
you've joined me in Jonah chapter 3, verse 10.
There's going to be a little bit of an overlap to give us a
fuller view of the context. But Jonah 310 says when God saw
what they did, the people of Nineveh, how they turned from
their evil way, God relented of the disaster that He had said
that He would do to them, and He did not do it.
Jonah 414 verse one. But it displeased Jonah
exceedingly. And he was angry, that phrase,
and he was angry. We're going to come back to that
in just a second. And he prayed to the Lord and
said, O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my
country? That is why I made haste to flee
to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and relenting
from disaster. Therefore now, O Lord, please
take my life from me, for it's better for me to die than to
live. And the Lord said, Jonah, do you
do well to be angry? Jonah went out of the city and
sat at the east of the city and made a booth there for himself
and he sat under it in the shade till he should see what would
become of the city. Now in case you missed anything,
let's kind of review and unpack what just happened.
God sent his chosen prophet and preacher Jonah to preach the
message. Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be
overthrown to the people of Nineveh.
Jonah goes 1/3 of the way into the city, gives that message.
Revival falls on to the city. Jonah, this prophet of God, this
chosen preacher of God, he gets ticked, he's furious, he's
angry. We know that the Old Testament
is written in the Hebrew language.
Remember that phrase that I told you come back to and he became
angry. Jonah chapter 4 verse one.
The Hebrew for that is by you Char value char, emphasis on the
char there because it literally means to be burned up, to be
kindled with anger. He was ticked.
He was ticked that God did not destroy the people of Nineveh.
And not only was he ticked, he told God all about it, right?
He told God all about it. And he even goes to the links of
saying, hey, God, I would rather die than live in a world to
where you show grace and mercy to the people of Nineveh.
And then we read about how Jonah storms out of the city, climbs a
hill, the tallest hill overlooking the city, basically
lays out a blanket, sets up a picnic for himself so he has the
best seat in the house. Hoping that God would finally
come to his senses and start raining fire down from heaven
and destroy the city, Jonah got a bird's eye view of the
impending destruction that he was hoping would come.
Now a lot of us are sitting here thinking, wow, I had no idea.
That's how the book of Jonah ended.
And then we were left with two questions.
Then was Jonah really that big of a jerk?
And the answer to that question is yes, Yes, he was.
But then the the most overarching question is how
could a prophet and a preacher of God prophet and a preacher of
God, How could he ever become so hard and calloused towards
people? How in the world could Jonah
ever become so hard and calloused to where he was so mad
that God didn't destroy every man, every woman and every child
in the city of Nineveh? And then goes and sets up
basically a picnic for himself, hoping to get like the best seat
in the house to watch the destruction happen, to watch
Nineveh burn and all the people be incinerated and die.
How in the world could a prophet and a preacher of God become so
hard and callous towards people? I believe that Jonah believed a
lie. That's so easy for us to fall
for. Here's the lie if you're taking
notes with us. Whatever matters most to me must
matter most to God. Whatever matters most to me,
man, that most that that must matter most to God.
What mattered most to Jonah? People of Nineveh, they get
what's coming to them. So that must matter most to God.
So when God didn't do what Jonah thought that God should do,
guess what? Jonah gets ticked off with God
never taking a heart check, never taking a heart check.
And this is where you and I, this is where we're going to be
wrapping up this series this morning.
It is really asking God to do a heart check, to do a heart check
to where we do not fall for the law.
Hey, whatever matters most to me, it must matter most to God.
I believe that there are three different categories, 3
different areas that matter most to most people.
If you take a notes with us, here's the first one.
It's our passions. It's our passions.
What I'm most passionate about, that must be what God's most
passionate about. But I think Jonah goes a step
further. You see Jonah's passion or his
calling was to be a prophet of God.
He was, he was hand selected by God.
He was God's chosen mouthpiece as a prophet.
Now in the Old Testament. Now now like pass a New
Testament, we don't have prophets with capital P anymore
because we have like the full word of God.
We have all 66 books of the Bible.
We don't need prophets with a capital P.
But way back in the day, Old Testament, you would have these
prophets, capital P prophets, that their job was to hear
directly from God and then to say that message from God to the
people of God. So a prophet, Jonah was directly
responsible for pronouncing blessings on the people of God
and rebukes on the people of God.
That meant that Jonah wasn't the most popular guy in his
neighborhood, right? But here's where I think that
Jonah started to go sideways. Jonah started to believe.
I believe Jonah started to believe that God needed him,
that God needed his input. God needed his take.
God needed his advice on what God should do.
Hey, God, I feel like we've been in this relationship long enough
to where I can predict what you're going to say.
And here's some advice. You didn't ask for it, but I
think this would be a good idea. It's that's not how it it's not
how it works. And I don't know about you, but
it's really easy. It's really easy.
The the longer you've walked with God, the longer you've been
in a relationship with God, the easier it is to exchange Jesus's
call to ask, seek and to knock. We replace the ask seek knock
with tail point and walk away in in other words, I think a lot of
us we we're so guilty. I know that many times I am
we're so guilty of saying, hey God, this is what I'm going to
do today. This is what is is involved in
my day. I just need you to bless it all
along the way instead of hey God, how can I bring glory to
you today starting my day off with God, today is the day that
you have given me. How can I bring the most glory
to you? Most of the time, if we even
think about spending time with God in prayer at the beginning
of the day, it's kind of like, hey God, I'm looking at my
calendar. This is what I know that I have
coming up. I just need you to bless it.
And that's where we start to go a little bit sideways.
And when we start to live that way for a stretch of time,
here's what happens is the inevitable hard times will hit.
Things won't go our way and predictably, we will start to
get really mad, furious, angry, and ticked off at God for not
coming through on something that he never promised to do to begin
with. And we could have avoided the
whole thing because we fell for a lie that, hey, what matters
most to me must matter most to God.
It's our passions. I think second, the second thing
that matters most to most is people is people.
Let's go back for a moment. Little 8th century BC
geopolitics there. Sounds like a double jeopardy
category, doesn't it? If you go back to the very
beginning book of Genesis, you got this guy by the name of
Abraham. Abraham and Sarah, they're
elderly and they have no kids. And yet God tells Abraham, hey,
through you, I'm going to create a, a, a nation that will be my
own and it'll outnumber the stars in the sky.
And Abraham and Sarah, both around their 70s, are sitting
there going, OK, God, cool. Can we just start with one?
And if you, if you know the story about Abraham and Sarah,
you know that Sarah miraculously gets pregnant in her old age
with Isaac. Isaac is born and then he gives
birth to, he has some kids. Two of those kids are Jacob and
Esau. God changes Jacob's name to
Israel, and then Israel's going to have a handful of kids, two
handfuls of kids. They're going to go on to become
the 12 tribes of Israel. So from the very beginning, you
have the Israelites or the Jewish people.
Those are God's chosen people. Those are God's chosen people.
So God, throughout the history of Israel and the Jewish people,
God will select a prophet from the Jewish people to the Jewish
people. It was very Jewish centric, if
you will. That was for Jonah, the Jews,
those were his people. It was the Jews.
And then it was all outsiders. It was US versus them.
And then to make matters worse, the Assyrian Empire, they pose a
great economic threat to Israel, to the people of God.
And they, they, they, they, they pose a great military threat to
Israel, to the people of God. As a matter of fact, we know
historically, 50 years after the book of Jonah under the, the,
the King's command, a God by the name of Shalom answer the fifth,
he sends one of his most prominent generals, a God by the
name of Sennacherib. He goes to the northern capital
city of Israel, Samaria, and completely ransacks it and then
brings all the people. If they don't, he brings them
all back to Assyria, back typically to Nineveh as slaves.
So this people, the Ninevites, the Assyrians, they're a nasty
group that pose a great, great threat to the people of Israel.
And here's the thing that we see happening here through the life
of Jonah. Jonah allowed his patriotism to
usurp his prophetic call. He allowed his patriotism to
usurp his prophetic call. Now if you know anything about
sociology, sociology is basically the study of people
and how people interact with other people.
And a main branch of sociology has to do with how groups
interact with different groups. And basically, to summarize it,
I had to make sense because I graduated from Dacula High
school, class of 97 go Falcons. So I had to like read like the
dumbed down version of it. But this is what I understand
that every single one of us, that we are prone to be drawn to
people who like us and who are like us.
And we kind of call sociologists, call those groups
of people our tribe, if you will.
And there's nothing wrong with our tribes, but our tribes will
inevitably and inherently tint the lenses through which we see
other people who are not like us.
Let me give you some examples. Generational lines.
If you're young, if you're of a younger generation, it became
very vogue to, you know, if somebody that was older than you
said or did something that you didn't like, you is go, OK,
boomer categorizing the boomer generation.
If you're older and you're looking down on a younger
generation, you just shake your head and you go, ma'am,
millennials, what's up with millennials?
Generational lines? They, they, they, they color our
perspective, our tribe, our personal tribe colors and tents,
the lens through which we see groups that aren't like U.S.
team affiliations. So if you are of the Tribe of
Georgia Bulldogs fans, you know that if you're a Georgia Tech
fan, that you've given up on football.
If you are of the Georgia Tech tribe, you know that Georgia
fans, the Georgia Tribe, they've given up on speed limits.
But we also have these other lines like play place of origin,
NS with American, international, European.
We place of origin, language, culture, religious background.
We have all different groupings of people.
And here's what I would tell you.
Even though our gravitating to our tribe is not inherently
wrong, we have to be very, very careful that two things don't
take place #1 that we don't start mistakenly assuming that
some people actually deserve God's grace more than others.
And #2 we've got to become very, very careful not to step over
into just outright racism. So when we look at the things
that matter most to most people, we can see like how our personal
passions or how our people, our tribes impact or matter most to
most people. But then there's a third
category, and that's our preferences.
That's our preferences. All right.
So going back life of Jonah, prophet of God, Jonah had been
had been journeying with God for years before the book of Jonah
has ever written. So he kind of has a template for
how God worked in the past. And typically the template that
Jonah had seen was chosen people of God, Israel, other people
groups or nations don't like Israel.
So God pronounces judgement on the other people and he
basically rains down fire and destroys those other people.
So Jonah is called to the capital city of the Assyrian
Empire. Nineveh said 40 days, yet 40
days and Nineveh will be overthrown.
And Jonah's probably setting his clock going 39 days, 38.
And the closer it's ticking down, the bigger his smile gets.
And as a matter of fact, Jonah goes to the outskirts of the
city like we just talked about. Gets a bird's eye view best seen
in the house to watch the destruction the the the hopeful
and pending destruction. Almost with this thought, Hey
God, let's get this smiting thing over with man, y'all about
to get all lit up y'all, Y'all think y'all seen fireworks?
Y'all ain't seen nothing yet. God is about to rain down fire
on y'all. Why?
Why did Jonah take that attitude?
Because I think that he had seen it before.
Jonah didn't have a category for, hey, what happens if the
people repent? What happens if the people
repent? You see, his preference was
based on what he had always seen.
I think that his preference was based on like maybe even
something that he experienced at a very formative time in his in
in his spiritual relationship. I think that's how all of our
preferences start. By the way, there's nothing
wrong with personal preferences. I think that all of our personal
preferences start by going back to a point in time to where God
had the biggest impact and moved the most powerfully in our
lives. So let me give you an example.
For me, you'll know the song Shout to the Lord.
Shout to the Lord might as well have been the soundtrack to
several mighty moments of God moving in my life and working in
my life in my high school years. As a matter of fact, if it were
up to me, I'd have the lyrics of Shout to the Lord printed in the
back of every Bible. I think that it's almost
inspired by God. I will tell you just how foolish
we were. The guy that would always lead
shout to the Lord for our retreats.
We were convinced that he was the one that wrote it.
So imagine like my shock, I was like, who's Darlene Scheck?
Like they're writing worship songs from Australia, Huh?
Who knew? But that's my that's my
preference. A lot of times our preferences,
especially when it comes to music, if you think about it,
the songs that we gravitate towards the most are the songs
that were almost like the background soundtrack four times
that we experienced the movement of God the most in our lives,
right? And there's this assumption
again, there's nothing wrong with that, but there's this
assumption there that if we just go back and do now what we did
then, then God will move now just like he did then.
And there's 2 problems with that.
Number one, who gets to determine when the when is and
then #2 is. It makes God very formulaic.
It, it, it, it is almost our attempt to like harness the
power of the Holy Spirit. It makes God, tries to make the
Holy Spirit of God predictable and tameable, to which he's not.
I believe that one of the reasons that that Jonah raged
against God is because Jonah accepted this law that what
mattered most to him must matter most to God.
And when Jonah's, when his personal passions and his own
people, the view of his own people and as it conflicted with
God's view of people and his own preferences, when that clashed
with God, that's when Jonah raged.
So here's my question to you. What's our recourse?
What's our recourse to keep that from happening to us?
What is our recourse to keeping our hearts so that God can keep
our hearts tender and soft towards other people that aren't
like us? I want to show you where we left
off in the book of Jonah. That's not how the book of Jonah
ends. I want to show you let's go back
to Jonah, Jonah chapter 4 and let's go back and let's read
through how the how the back half of Jonah 4 ends.
It says Jonah went out of the city and sat down to the east of
the city and made a booth for himself there.
He sat under it in the shade till he should see what would
become of the city. Now the Lord appointed a plant,
and made it come up over Jonah, that he might be, that it might
be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort.
So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant.
But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that
attached the plant, so that it withered when the sun rose.
Got appointed A scorching E wind and the sun beat down on the
head of Jonah, so that he was faint.
And he asked that he might die. And said, God, it is better for
me to die than to live. But God said to Jonah, do you do
well to be angry for the plant? And Jonah said, yes, I do well
to be angry, angry enough to die.
And the Lord said, you pity the plant for which you did not
labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night
and perished in a night. And should I not, should not I
pity Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than
120,000 persons who do not know the right hand from their left,
and also much cattle? And that's how the book of Jonah
ends. That's how the book of Jonah
ends. He may say, OK Ben, So if what
matters most to me must matter most to God, if that's the lie,
what's the truth that God was pointing Jonah towards?
If you go throughout the entire book of Jonah, you'll see
several, you'll see a pattern. There's 4 chapters in the book
of Jonah. And in those four chapters we
see where God appointed says that he, he appointed a great
fish, He appointed a plant, He appointed a worm, He appointed A
scorching E wind. What was the point of God
appointing those things to get Jonah's attention?
And I think that the what God was trying to get Jonah's
attention for and pointing him to was a truth that he wants us
to know this morning. Here it is if you're taking
notes with us. God's calling me to step out of
my box and into His global mission.
God is calling me to step out of my box and into His global
mission. Let me get you to do me a favor.
Think back when you were a kid and you'll go into your living
room and and you would make you make a pillow for it.
Good days, right? You would take all the cushions
off the couch and out of the chair, and your parents would
find loose change. But you you take those cushions
out and you would arrange them. You'd set them up on their side
to where they would form the walls of your Fort.
And then once you got the walls set, then you would go gather up
like the blankets or the sheets. And then you would drape those
blankets and sheets over your Fort.
And, and before you went into your architectural masterpiece,
you would go into your room and you'd get your favorite like
toys and you'd bring them in both arms and then you'd like
shove them into your Fort. And then you would go into your
Fort. And that's that's where you
would play with like your favorite toys, right?
You'd hang out you you'd play it, it occupy you for, for at
least a few hours. Man, that was the best, right?
Well, kind of. At least it once was.
You see, a few years after that, several years down the road from
making pillow forts, you would experience for the first time
the exhilaration of being able to drive down the road with your
windows down on a nice day and feel the wind whipping through
your hair. Or you would you would discover
just the awe of the ocean, or the OR the mountains.
Maybe, maybe you would stand. Years later, you would stand at
A at an altar across from the love of your life and you'd
exchange vows to one another. Or you would be in a hospital
room and that doctor, that nurse, for the very first time,
would place that newborn baby into your arms.
Your new dad, your new mom, and thousands of other wow moments
that would all make the memories of how great we used to think
the pillow forts were pale in comparison.
Here's my point, Church. I'm convinced that a lot of us
are spiritually stuck in our pillow forts when God's calling
us to step out of our pillow forts, step out of our box, and
step into His global mission. So in order for us to step out
of our box, to step out of our pillow Fort and step into His
global mission, there's three choices that we've got to make
and we've got to make them this morning.
Here's the first choice is I've got to allow God to order my
life and to trust him with what follows.
I've got to allow God to order my life and to trust him with
what follows. Let me ask you a deeply, deeply
personal question in the room and online.
When's the last time that you just sat down with God in a
quiet space, in A at a quiet place uninterrupted and just
said, OK, God, here, here I am. I'm laying my whole life in
front of you. I'm laying it down like I'm not
holding anything back from you. God, you have my permission.
God, I'm asking, I'm begging you for your Holy Spirit to go to
the deep places of me that only your Holy Spirit can access.
And God, I want you to show me here in this, in this quiet,
just me and you. I want you to show me what in my
life needs to leave, it needs to go, what in my life needs to
stay and what in my life needs to needs to change that right
there. That is openness, vulnerability
and full on surrender to God. God here I am laying my life out
completely before you, holding nothing back.
God, you, you have, you have an all access pass to every part of
my life, not just like the highlight reels of me, but the
really nasty, dirty parts of me. God send your Holy Spirit to go
to the deep places that only he can access, that only he can get
to and show me the parts of me that need to change or that need
to go, that need to stay and need to change.
And I think it's out of that. I think it's out of that that we
begin to allow God to properly order our life and trust him
with what follows. Because the alternative is this,
Hey God, this is what I'm doing, will you bless it?
Church, can I challenge you with something?
We cannot afford to waste any more time wondering if we're on
the right track yet asking God to bless the decisions and the
choices that we've already made. If we understand that there's a
community around us, that there are people within our homes,
people within our families, people within our friend groups,
people within our community that need Jesus, that need the hope
of Jesus, we cannot afford to waste any more time wondering if
we're on the right track while at the same time asking God to
bless the decisions that we've already made.
You see, so many times, we'll get it out of order.
Hey God, this is what I've already decided to do.
Would you bless it along the way?
Well, what if that's not what God wants you to do?
You see, the first choice is this, allow God to order my life
and trust Him with what follows. Second decision is this.
Live like every person is made by God and is in need of God.
Have you noticed that we live in a culture that is really
effective in monetizing division?
One of one of the buzzwords around church is this
discipling. Did you know you might you this
may be your first time in church and if this your first time in
church, welcome. Thank you so much for being
here. But did you know that you've
been discipled? You are being discipled.
Every single one of us is being discipled by something or
someone. And, and here's what we see to
be true is many, many people are discipled through cable news.
Many people are discipled by the algorithms of their social media
feeds and, and, and reels. And when we are become discipled
and when we become saturated and cable news and social media
algorithms and reels, here's what we tend to do is we start
to look at the people who don't like us and who are not like us
as issues to fix rather than people to love.
So in order for us to make the transition, to live like every
person is made by God in his need of God.
That means that we've got to pray differently.
Let me give you some handles of how we can pray differently.
It means that we pray differently for every single
person that we may encounter. In other words, the people that
like me, the people that they like me, I view that person not
as like necessarily, just first and foremost as a friend or a
fan or anything like that. I view that person as somebody
who is made by God in the image of God and in desperate need of
God. So I pray for them that way.
Or when you come across people who are like you, similar
interest, geography, political, whatever, similar interest, the
people who are like us, we've got to see them as people that
are made by God, in desperate need of God.
How about this, the people who don't like me?
He may say people don't like you.
Oh, yeah, I give people all kinds of reasons not to like me.
My mom will fight you. But no, the people that don't
like me, those aren't my enemies.
Those are people that are made by God in the image of God, in
desperate need of God. They're not in desperate need of
God because they have a bad opinion of Ben Wallace.
They're in desperate need of God because they're in desperate
need of God. Or how about this, the people
that are not like us, that that think differently, look
differently, talk differently, vote differently, the whole 9
yards. The people who are not like us,
they are people made in the image of God, made by God, in
desperate need of God. So guess what we do?
We go out into Jesus name and we lift up the gospel.
We we point people to the hope of Jesus, to people that are
hopeless. And guess what?
The people who like me, many of them are hopeless.
The people who are like me, many of them are hopeless.
The people who don't like me, many of them are hopeless.
The people who are not like me, many of them are hopeless.
Listen, it is about keeping Jesus first and foremost.
Paramount above it all, paramount above it all.
But I've got to live like every person is made by God and is in
need of God. Third this morning is exchange
my preferences for Kingdom effectiveness.
I've got to exchange my preferences for Kingdom
effectiveness. River Bend Church, one of my
honors, and I say this with with complete honesty, one of the
true honors of my life is to be able to to journey alongside and
to serve alongside of you. Do me a favor.
If you're in here, raise your hand.
Didn't do this in 930 service, but raise your hand.
If you have started coming here within the last six years, raise
your hand. Awesome.
If your hands raised, you've always known these seats before
these seats were here. You know what was here?
Pews. You know where the pews went out
those doors. Not because we tried to be cool
or, or contemporary or anything like that.
You know what we just started to realize is listen, if the church
exists, not for the church, but the church exists for the
community, the, the, the biggest flat area in on our entire
campus is in this room. And it's really hard to host
other people with pews in the way.
So what do we do? We remove the pews.
We put in chairs to where we can stack the chairs.
We can put the chairs against the wall.
We can rearrange the chairs however we want.
We need to rearrange the chairs. Do you know how many people
would prefer the pews? A lot going back to the going
back to the analogy that, that, that I gave, you know, shout to
the Lord. I think that the Holy Spirit of
God moves during that key change.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, go listen to it
and you'll get saved again. Can I let you own a secret?
I'm not the biggest fan of every song that we do, every song that
we sing here. But you know what?
It's not about me. It's not about me.
It's not about my preferences. It's about Kingdom
effectiveness. Listen, if, if, if you were to
look around this room, you would see the faces of men and women
that have chosen, that have lived so sacrificially and
they've laid down their preferences all for the sake of
Kingdom effectiveness. I would put Riverbend Church.
I would put you up against any church I've ever encountered,
any church that I've ever known of when it comes down to laying
down personal preferences and picking up Kingdom
effectiveness. But I'll go ahead and tell you,
sometimes it's very easy for that bug to kind of like jump
back up and nip at us. In those times.
I want to give you 3 questions to kind of walk through.
These aren't, these aren't in your notes.
This is really just for us to kind of hear.
If you want to jot them down, you can.
How do I exchange my preferences for Kingdom effectiveness?
First question, am I approaching this service as a consumer or as
a worshipper? That's convicting for me.
Let me kind of let you in kind of behind the scenes as, as I
like prep and plan for, for different series and different
messages. God gets to beat up on me a lot
earlier than than the messages preached.
So in a way I just get to pass along God's beating over me,
God's conviction. So these questions, they come
out of questions that God has like really convicted me on.
Am I approaching a Sunday morning service as a consumer or
as a worshipper? In other words, like I could
very easily go, man, I, I just don't, I don't, I don't like
that song, but that's OK. It wasn't sung to me.
It's not about me. I'm not a consumer.
I'm a worshipper. Was God's name lifted up #2
where's God stretching me to grow and guiding me to lead?
One of our, one of our core values as a church is growing
generations in Jesus, bringing people to Jesus, growing
generations in Jesus, sending disciples for Jesus.
Growing generations in Jesus means that there's not a single
one of us that God has finished with yet.
There's not a single one of us that God has finished growing
and stretching and guiding. And then the third question, are
people being transformed? And is God's Kingdom growing?
Are people being transformed? And is God's people, is God's
Kingdom, is it growing? Here's why I would tell you in
in so many ways, our call, our mission as a church is to do the
hard work of, of, of cutting through the noise and drilling
down to the main truths. And these are the main truths
that God loves people. God loves people and God has
chosen, God has chosen the church.
God has chosen us to be His instruments, to bring his hope
to the hopeless, His healing to the hurting, and His salvation
to the lost. So here's where we're going to
be ending things. This morning ended at the same
way 930 is. Our prayer is simply this.
God, would you send God? Would you rain revival down, not
just in Riverbend Church, but in this community?
Would you change lives? Would you change generations for
your glory? And here's where it starts.
It starts with each and every one of us praying for the one or
two people in our lives that we're pretty sure needs Jesus.
God, would you reach them in a way that only you can reach
them? God, I'm so willing to step
outside of my box, outside of my comfort zone of my own passions
and, and, and my own people and my own preferences.
God, I want to see your Kingdom grow.
God, I want this person to be a part of your Kingdom.
So here's the twofold call as we come to a close this morning.
Number one, I'm going to challenge you.
Lift up at least one person by name that you know needs Jesus.
Now here's a caveat. Some, some, we may struggle,
believe it or not, we may struggle to think of someone in
our lives that we're close to that needs Jesus.
That means that we've insulated ourselves way, way too much.
So our prayers, if you're struggling to, to, to name
someone in your life that needs Jesus, God, would you bring
somebody into my life that needs you?
That's your prayer. God, I want to pray for this
person by name. That's phase one.
Phase two. God, would you set a divine
appointment for me to where I will have the opportunity?
Will you set the stage for me this week so that I will have
the opportunity to share your hope with that person as your
pastor? I dare you to pray that.
Because the people that we love,
guess what? God loves them more.
And as much as we want to be used as instruments in the hands
of a holy God, God desires to use you more.
But it's always going to start with prayer.
So would you pray with me? I'm going to pray over us.
And then we're going to open up this altar.
If you want to come down, pray for somebody by name.
If you want to stay where you are, pray for them by name.
But again, twofold prayer. Pray for the person by name.
And then God, send me. Excuse me.
God, we love you and we thank you for your word.
God, we thank you as we come to the end of of the book of Jonah
God, that through the life of Jonah, God, you show us a mirror
of how easy it is for us to wrongly assume that what matters
most to us must matter most to you.
God, would you help us to understand that what matters
most to you or or or or people? The people who like us, the
people who are like us, the people who don't like us and the
people who are not like us people.
There's not a single person on this planet.
There's not a single person in our neighborhood.
There's not a single person in our family.
There's not a single person in our workplace.
There's not a single person that we will cross paths with today
or this week that is not made by you in your image and therefore
precious God, would you help us to cut through the noise of
divisions and unnecessary barriers so that we can see
people as treasured masterpieces created by you that are in
desperate need of you. So God, in this time, God, we
lift up by name. The men and the women and the
students and the kids that are already close to your heart got
us. Lifting them up by name is US
simply putting ourselves in alignment with your heart and
God not just stopping there, but understanding that you have
chosen us to be instruments in your hands to reach that person.
So God, as we lift them up by name, God, we also follow up
that request by you by asking you to set a divine appointment
for us that we would have the opportunity to give your hope to
someone without hope, God, to be able to point someone that is
lost to a life that can only happen through you.
And it's in Jesus name that we pray.
Amen. Thank you for listening to the
Riverbend Church Podcast. Learn more about who we are as a
church and how to connect. You can head over to our
website, Riverbend Church dot Life.