Morning. All right, so our Scripture
reading this morning will be Jonah 3 and 4.
All right, bear with me. We're going to be in pages 727,
or depending on the version you have, it might be 10 pages
forward or ahead. OK, let's read together Jonah 3.
Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time,
saying, arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and call out
against it the message that I tell you.
So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of
the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly
great city, 3 days journey and breath.
Jonah began to go into the city, going 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 word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his
throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth
and satin 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 and 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. Who knows, God may turn and
relent and turn from His fierce anger so that we may not perish.
When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way,
God relented of the disaster that He had said He would do to
them. And He did not do it, but it
displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.
And he prayed to the Lord and said, O Lord, is this not what I
said when I was yet in my country?
This 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 and
steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.
Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life for me, for it is
better for me to die than to live.
And the Lord and the Lord said, Do you do well to be angry?
Jonah went out to the city and sat east of the city and made a
booth for himself there. He sat under in the shade till
he till he should see what would become the city.
Now the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over
Jonah, 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 attacked the plant so that it
withered when the sun arose. God 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, 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 he 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,
for which into being in a night, and perished in a night.
And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city in which there
are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand
from their left, and also much cattle?
This is the word of the Lord. What's going on, Port City
family and friends, How we doing?
Good. My name is Tanner.
Happy Easter to you. And I don't know about you, but
I grew up thinking that Easter was like a national holiday on
the calendar. You know, like, let's remember
it like a banking holiday or something.
Let's eat something and then let's get on with our lives.
But what the church has traditionally thought of with
the Easter season is that it's more like a, a play that you're
attending where you are watching something reenacted through your
reading of the scriptures, your prayer and remembering what
Christ did. And the goal by the end of the
season is that you, the hearer, listener, reader, would actually
get in the play. Like the the goal of like
reading the word through the eyes of faith and coming to know
the Lord relationally is that he actually brings you into it.
You're not a spectator, but a participant.
So the goal of Easter isn't just that we would throw a party and
then leave. It's that we would actually
become a part of the Easter story itself because every day
is Easter because Christ is always risen.
Amen. So hopefully this year is the
year that it goes from a day like a calendar on the holiday
that you remind yourself, oh, that's coming up and it becomes
a season that you find yourself participating in and a God you
actually know. Amen.
So what I want to do is pray for our time and that that today God
will make the book of Jonah pot for us.
OK, let's pray. Our Father, we're so grateful
for this time. God, it is true that that Jesus
has risen, that he reigns right now.
And Lord God, if we're honest, the world is still broken, it's
still busted, we're still sinful.
And God, we see in Jonah this mess, we see a semblance of
resurrection. We see things here.
God, would you connect the dots for us?
God, would this be the year that that Christianity goes from
something that doesn't make sense to something that does
that it goes from tradition to real living faith for people in
this room. God, clarify things.
And may we walk out of here truly resurrected because you
are. And we pray this God believing
that you're going to come. God, would you make this a fresh
word? God, I've prepared, it's your
word. But God, would you do something
new, something fresh? So God, what we know not right
now would you teach us? Well, we have not.
Would you give us who we are not Would you make us?
And let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in your sight? And everybody who agree with
that said, Amen y'all. One of my favorite movies is Men
in Black, OK. And one of my favorite actors is
Will Smith. There's this scene early on in
the movie where the the potential alien cop candidates
are doing some target practice. OK.
It's like a dark room and all the candidates are running
around shooting pretend cardboard aliens.
OK Now Will took a different strategy.
Will just stands there the whole time like this, just looking
around. He's like analyzing and
assessing the situation. And at the last second, he
raises his gun and shoots one bullet.
They stopped the training exercise.
And the guy goes, uh, Edwards, what made you think little
Tiffany had to die? He had shot the one human and
the whole thing, it was a little girl with pigtails.
OK, again, cardboard cut out people.
And he goes on to say, well, I realize these monsters are
misunderstood. Like my man right here is
working out. And that one over there, he's
not snarling, he's sneezing. And and then I looked at this
girl and those books are way too old for you and it is midnight.
You are up to no good. And that's why he chose the
shooter. Now will get selected as the
candidate, not all the other people.
And ultimately the reason he selects will is because he saw
what nobody else could see. He had a unique perspective.
You know what I want you to have today is unique perspective on
Jesus, OK, on the Bible. It's not unique in world or
global history. People all over the world have
this perspective. I will tell you it's unique in
the modern Western secular environment we're in.
Y'all in a world that celebrates your truth is your truth.
It is possible to have capital T truth to have conviction and
still be kind. You can have that and not be a
jerk. We've been told you get one or
the other. You're either nice and it's
relativism, or you believe in something strongly and you're a
jerk. It is possible to have
conviction and clarity on capital T truth and not be a
jerk. To be compassionate and kind in
a world that believes that people are basically inherently
good and they just need a little therapy, a little coaching, and
a little help. What we're going to see is that
we need radical mercy. We need mercy because we need
more than anything we can provide for ourselves.
We need intervention and even in a church culture that can
celebrate through things like video and testimony, which are
great. And I have a testimony that once
you know God and you have trusted in Jesus, life is easy.
We can look at Jonah's story and say y'all, we will never have
this God figured out. We know him.
We see dimly as First Corinthians 13 tells us we have
plenty of. Not like we don't need more
knowledge, but you will never be in control of him.
He is untamable. He is the God.
He is the God who dispenses mercy as he pleases, and
sometimes even to our enemies. Your life is falling apart and
God's enemies are getting the gospel.
That's that's the God of the Bible.
He's good, but he ain't safe. Amen.
So y'all, what we need is the book of Jonah.
What we need is the God of Jonah, a God who gives us
clarity and keeps us kind, a God who calls us out and affirms us.
A God who is merciful even to the worst of sinners like me and
like you. And what I hope you walk out of
here believing is that you need mercy.
You need it really bad. And in Jesus you have it.
And then once you are resurrected and in life with
Christ, you join some other Jonas called the church.
And then you love on your Nineveh, which is the great city
of Norfolk. OK.
Every city is in a baby, OK. And we've got the opportunity to
do it together. All right, So to get there,
we're going to have two points, the mercy that seeks you out and
the mercy that won't let you go. If you are ready, let me hear
you say I'm ready. All right, point #1 the mercy
that seeks you out. Does anybody remember last time
you lost a pair of keys? Anybody in your house?
You were searching your house for him.
OK, on the count of three, everybody say the person in your
family that is most likely to lose that, kids included.
OK on three, say who it is 123 me.
OK, it is me. My kids just said that.
Shout out to my wife who's very patient.
Y'all what the Bible teaches. This is crazy.
This is not our natural view of God.
OK, the Bible teaches that God is seeking people more
passionately than you. Search for those keys when you
lose them. Did you know that that God is
seeking people? He is seeking you, OK?
And in this text it's clear he's seeking Jonah, but he's also
seeking 2 kind of profiles of just totally lost, not looking
for the Lord at all. Gone people.
OK, we got the sailors, we got the Ninevites.
Two different profiles of lostness.
So let's look at the sailors and the Ninevites.
Let's start with the sailors. I call them spiritual but not
religious. Has anybody heard that phrase
before? Are you going to hear that one
more and more and more especially on the great
Instagram? OK, let me show you.
The sailors are spiritual but not religious.
And verses 6 and seven, once they find out that Jonah is on
their boat and they know that he's running away from the shout
out to all the kids doing their hands up and down.
Isn't it crazy how often that happens?
I promise you I did not mean for it to be.
Verses 6:00 and 7:00 But they find out that Jonah's on the
boat, and this is what this is what they this is what the
captain says. So the captain came and said to
him, what do you mean? You sleep or arise, call out to
your God. Perhaps the God will give a
thought to us that we may not perish.
And they said to one another, Come, let us cast lots that we
may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.
So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.
You know, spiritual but not religious is filled with two
things. There's relativism and
pluralism. OK.
It's this idea that nobody can really know.
Truth is not certain. It's relative.
It's your truth is your truth. You got a God.
Everybody's got a God. And much of the world still
operates this way. In a pluralism headspace.
There's thousands of gods, maybe millions.
And in relativism, it's whatever you say.
Who can know, right? And this is alive and well in
our culture here today. And So what happens in this
story is that this spiritual but not religious headspace gets hit
with reality a little bit, right?
Like God is seeking out these sailors.
And let's think for a second about how that happened.
How did they, how did God seek these sailors out?
He sought them out by providing them clarity.
Mercy to ignorance looks like clarity.
OK, Mercy towards the ignorant looks like clarity.
They just didn't know. I remember one time I was at a
basketball camp. I was 10 years old.
And I remember there was this drill early on in the camp where
you're you're facing forward, you're chopping your feet.
The the coach will blow the whistle and you're supposed to
turn your hips. Beep, turn, beep, turn.
I was behind a kid who would do this.
Beep, look right. Beep, look left.
And so guess what 10 year old Tanner did?
I was, I was behind that guy. I didn't know.
I was ignorant. Beep.
And I'm doing this. A coach comes up to me and he
goes, hey my man, that guy's been doing that all week.
Watch him over there. Turn your hips, not your head.
And I was good. I started turning my hips.
I just didn't know. You know what I mean?
Sometimes we just need clarity. OK?
In one of the first sermons ever recorded in the city of Athens,
Greece, the apostle Paul, he's providing some clarity to some
religious, spiritual, but not religious thinkers, OK?
And this is what he says. Check this out Acts chapter 17.
He says the times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he
commands all people everywhere to repent because he has fixed a
day on which he will judge the world of righteousness by a man
whom He has appointed. And of this he has given
assurance to all by raising him from the dead.
So what Paul says is is he says, look, the times of ignorance are
over. And I don't get the sense that
Paul is mad. He's just spitting facts.
The fact that Jesus is risen is the ultimate clarity.
Are you with me? He's saying the times have
changed what you thought you could know and it was blurry.
Now it's super clear. Y'all in 2026 we need some super
clear stuff. Here's a few.
Karma is not real. Energy does not govern the
universe. The universe is not a living
being. OK.
The questions every human being is subconsciously asking are
where did I come from? You came from a God who made you
in his image. He is Father, He is Son, He is
Holy Spirit. He made you.
What is wrong with us? We are fallen and sinful.
We are broken. There's images of that God still
in us. That's why we're capable of such
great beauty, but it is also the fallenness speaks to why there's
such pain. There's such evil still a large
and at work in our world. How do we get made right?
We get made right through the person and work of Jesus Christ.
God sent himself into the story. He was eternally the Son and he
took on flesh. Jesus has a birth date.
The Son of God does not, OK, He entered his own story to redeem
us. Where are all things going?
All things are going to a new heavens and a new earth under
his reign for those who trust in him.
And one of the questions we're always asking ourselves too is
like, who has it made? Like who's living a really good
life? The Bible's answer to that is
anybody who knows Jesus to truly flourish isn't about your
circumstances. It's about if you know Jesus,
that is the clarity we need. And I pray for some people that
this Easter might just be the time that a lot of this
relativism because there's kind of two types of the ignorance.
Like sometimes we think ignorance is bliss.
Have you ever thought that? I don't want to know, You know
what I mean? Don't tell me how the hot dog
gets made. Just let me eat it, OK?
Just let me eat it. Ignorance ain't bliss though.
Y'all one of my favorite artists who used to say if ignorance is
bliss, it's because he never heard of this.
OK, it's not bliss. But then there's like a hard
hearted ignorance where we can hide behind and find enough
short YouTube clips of somebody saying some stuff that we like.
We're like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why I'm not going to
listen. You know what I mean?
Some of us just need the clarity that a lot of that stuff out
there is trash. Jesus is risen and God is to
give us that clarity. OK, but the second profile of
lostness that God is seeking out in our text is the Ninevites,
right? If the sailors are spiritual but
not religious, the Ninevites are lost and loving it.
OK, They are lost and loving it in chapter 1.
This is the the premise of the whole book is this.
Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amitai, saying
arise, go to Nineveh, that great city and call out against it for
their evil has come up before me.
Let's be clear, they were not looking for the Lord did not
care. They were lost and loving it.
OK, history tells us that the Ninevites were so cruel,
torturous, violent, they flaunted their dominance over
the nations that they took over. They were tried like a world
domination type thing. And it makes sense of why Jonah
did not want to go. This is ethnic, racial hatred,
fear. He does not want any part of
going there. And we learn from chapter 4,
Jonah says, I know you were going to be I knew you were
going to be good to him, you know, and that's why I didn't
want to go. He hates them so much.
He doesn't want God's goodness getting within miles of them.
So he runs. So God's goodness can't get near
them. So let's be clear.
The Ninevites show they they aren't looking for the Lord,
right? So how does God's mercy find
them? In the text, the mercy comes
through confrontation. Mercy to the arrogant looks like
confrontation. In the story, it's a message.
It's a harsh message of judgment and notice to our modern ears.
And y'all, I don't want to be harsh for no reason.
Nobody likes harshness for harshness sake, right?
We tend to think that that a hard message is not kind.
But y'all, the Ninevites hear that they're going to be
overthrown in 40 days and they view it as God's kindness to
them. Do you see that sometimes,
y'all, confrontation is the most kind of thing you can do.
If right now my car is heading off a Cliff, I hope somebody
loves me enough to throw a basketball at my window.
Do what you got to do, OK? Get in front of the car and
scream and wave your arms to keep me from going off that
Cliff. Y'all, There are times where
confrontation isn't just kind, it is the expression of
kindness, right? So I would say that our culture
has told us that love is only affirmation.
OK, y'all biblical. It's a true sense of love.
Not just biblical because what we do is we think things are
religious. It's just truth is that love is
affirmation and confrontation. It's the perfect blend of it.
You don't just need to be affirmed, you need to be
affirmed and confronted. But we also don't want to only
put forward confrontation in the gospel, in the person of Jesus.
We get both, y'all, they needed confrontation.
They needed to be told the truth.
It's a harsh message. And sometimes y'all, we just
don't listen until we're confronted anybody.
I know that's true of me. And Jonah is God's vessel of
confronting them. So for some of us this Easter,
the way God is going to be merciful to you is to confront
you. The Easter message is a victory,
but it's victory over something that currently holds you down.
You see that So somewhat we're like, why are Christians
celebrating? The reason should be some of
them are doing it out of duty because they Mama did hey.
But if we actually know why, it's because we've been gifted a
victory that prior to that something had a hold on us.
So what Jesus defeated, if he hasn't defeated it for you still
holds you. You see how that works?
It's called sin, Satan and death.
That's the idea is that you will die.
You are a Sinner. And you will stand before God
who made you. That's that's the truth.
And Jesus offers victory over that.
But before it's good news, it's confronting news.
Every confrontation has an invitation telling you to stop.
The car is inviting you not to die.
Are you with me? So for some of you, I hope this
Easter, you hear God's confronting news that you're a
Sinner. Behind that is a God saying, I
want to live with you, but he has to confront you before he
can invite you. The confrontation is an
invitation, OK? But the good news in this story
is it's not just a mercy that that finds you, seeks you out.
There's also a mercy that won't let you go.
Let's talk about Jonah. Oh, Jonah.
Jonah.
Y'all. I am Jonah.
Hopefully you realize you are Jonah too.
OK, Jonah is kind of two people in this story.
You got the Jonah who runs away and then you got the Jonah who's
mad. I call him Joe and JoJo.
OK, so Joe runs away and then JoJo is angry even though he
doesn't physically leave. He says I'd rather die than be
here. OK, So what I want to do is look
at the ways that God has mercy on both Joe and JoJo.
OK, let's start with Joe. Jonah the the, the runaway, the
rebel. OK, so Jonah is the despondent
runaway. It says in chapter 1 verses one
through 3, some straight comedy here.
Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amitai, saying
arise, go to Nineveh, that great city and call out against it,
for their evil has come up before me.
But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish, away from the presence
of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found
a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went
down into it to go with them to Tarshish away from the presence
of the Lord. Y'all, Jonah is running away
from the omnipresent God. That means God is always present
everywhere and he thinks getting on a boat is going to get him
away from the Lord. And I remember Jonah was one of
the first sermon series I was really paying attention to once
I loved the word and was was following the Lord.
Isn't it interesting y'all? Just a little nugget that when
you're looking to get away from the Lord, there's always a boat
available. You know what I mean?
When you ready to run, you will find ways to run.
Amen. So he runs.
He runs from the omnipresent God.
Greta alluded to this earlier. We want to show you just
geographically what he was doing.
Check this map out. OK?
So he says, hey, Jonah, I love you, buddy.
So I'm going to use you as a messenger to go after my
enemies. A little bit to the right.
Jonah's like, OK, hangs up the phone and takes the hardest left
known to mankind on a map that is as far as the maps went.
That's as left as you can go. Just a little right.
OK, hard left just appreciate how far that arrow is like just
look at it y'all like just take like an inch and 1/2 that way
I'm going to take 3 feet left. That's that's Jonah's response
OK and he's like I'm out. I want no part of that.
Y'all a runaway What what at the heart of a rebel at the heart of
a runaway is to think you are in the way of my joy right?
It's it's Kevin and home alone, right?
It's the the worst. I wish you were dead.
That's the runaway. The rebel thinks I'm better off
in your world without you in it. Kevin says I want the house, I
want the ice cream, I want my brothers stuff.
I just want them gone right. And that y'all, that's what sin
is, what sin is. Because naturally, particularly
if you, you, you just think of the concept of religion, you
might think of sin as rule breaking, which it is.
It is breaking rules. But even bigger than sin being
breaking of rules, it's the heart posture behind it that
says the path to my joy does not involve God.
The path to my joy involves me at the center.
Do you see that before? Sin is a moral infraction.
It's relational, like abandonment of God.
Does that make sense? It's like I am the key to
happiness. Everybody else, everything else,
it can stay in the picture as long as they Orient around me.
You see how that works? So I just want you to hear.
You all that that heart is in all of us that Kevin from home
alone, like I just I just I just you are in the way.
Like I, I, I can do this better. I, I can live this out better.
I know the way and it doesn't involve you.
Y'all, that heart is alive and. Well, the way that the Bible
thinks about it in Luke 15 is that when you have that heart
and you're a runaway, you got to come to your senses.
Somebody say come to your senses, come to your senses.
Let's think about what it took for Jonah to come to his senses,
shall we? God had to send a storm.
Did that make Jonah come to his senses?
It did not. Y'all are paying attention
because he gets on the boat and is so done with God.
He was asleep on the Titanic. He was like, I'm good, I'm just
going to sleep. He's despondent.
He's out of it. I'm gone.
God then. Puts him in the belly of the
fish for three days and then Jonah gets the message.
OK so the way God sought him was through a storm and a fish.
Y'all sometimes God does seek you through rock bottom.
OK? Let's not glorify the bottom.
The way my brain thinks about it is rock bottom ain't holy, but
it is a hole. OK?
It's not holy. Like it's not inherently better
to be at the worst moment of your life.
Let's not make that holy. What we like to do is on
Instagram, we post starting from the bottom.
You know, like we like to make a journey out of the grind.
I'm at the bottom. That ain't going to help you.
One, one author said it like this.
What what God is doing is he'll bring you to the hole.
What you do in the hole is what matters.
And what Jonah did is he prayed, he repented, he saw the sign.
Are you with me? He paid attention.
So some of y'all have hit rock bottom.
Or are hitting rock. Bottom you're like, maybe
there's a couple more steps to go.
Maybe you're still on the boat. Let me just tell you this.
God is seeking you through rock bottom.
And and the scriptures teach that like God is not punitive.
God is not petty. God is not like laughing at your
pain. God is not wishing evil upon
you. God is not evil.
He's incapable of evil. He is good.
He's the fountain from whom all blessings flow.
But God is so kind and redemptively Like if God wanted
a new world with no sin, he would just take us there.
Now the God of the Bible is able to bring beauty out of chaos,
and he does it in such a way that he's seeking you through
pain that he doesn't want you to experience in using it somehow
for his glory and your good. And he's not the author of any
of the evil that's happening to you.
So you end up in rock bottom. And if you're thinking, whose
fault is it? God has allowed it and gotten
you there. And the question is, what are
you going to do now? So for some of you this.
Easter, it's time to just wake up and smell the fish, you know
what I mean? It took a lot to get Jonah.
There, I'm praying for some of you don't glorify the bottom,
seek the Lord at the bottom, pray, repent, and a lot of
people in this room have hit the bottom and done that and would
love to talk to you about that. OK, But Joe is not done because
he becomes Joe Joe. Let's talk about Jonah the.
Resentful relapser, he relapses. Chapter 3.
Verse 10. Says this when?
God saw what? They did the Ninevites.
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.
But it displeased Jonah exceedingly and he was angry and
he prayed to the Lord and said, Oh Lord, is this not what I said
when I was yet in my country? That's why I made haste to flee
to Tarsus. You know you mad when you're
telling the Lord. That's why I made haste to get
away from you, Lord. I made haste, for I knew that
you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and
abounding of steadfast love and relenting from disaster.
Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life away from me, for
it is better for me to die than to live.
God is so smooth. This is what he says.
And the Lord said, Do you do well to be angry?
Y'all, Jonah is so. Mad he wants to die.
He's thrown a fit. One interesting thing is you go
back and read Jonah. Isn't it interesting that the
sailors say, perhaps God will give thought to us?
Ninevites say, let's repent, perhaps God will have mercy.
Jonah says, I knew you would give it, and he resents it.
Do you see that sometimes the most resentful people are the
ones who know the most about the Lord?
Hey, and the longer you walk with the Lord, sometimes you
think your information is the means by which God owes you
something. You see how that works?
Resentment is the evidence that you don't want God out the
picture. You want him serving you.
You have become convinced that this is some sort of
partnership. This is AI.
Do me. You do you.
And I did me. But you didn't do you.
So what's the problem? Are you with me?
Resentment says you're getting it wrong.
Something's off. I don't like it.
Y'all and the story of Jonah. Teaches us that you can go from
the rescued runaway who is praising the Lord to the
resentful relapser really quick. And let's think about how God
seeks him out this time. Last time he did it through
circumstances. This time all he did was to do
what he asked him a question. Why?
Why you mad bro? That's what he asked him.
He asked Cain that in Genesis 4, and now he's asking Jonah that.
When I teach at summer camps, I start night one every time with
students. I start them with the why
challenge. Somebody say why?
I think that question could change your life.
Why are you mad? Why are you anxious?
Why are you afraid? Why are you this?
Why are you bitter? Why are you despondent?
Just start asking why. And if you get honest about
what's really going on, it could be the path to freedom.
If you're honest, well, we tend to do those.
Coffee didn't work. I didn't like that.
This wasn't it. And it's like if we would, if we
would get honest about what's really going on, so things could
change. Does that make sense?
We like to play dumb, though. So in the text, what we see is
the power of emotions. In the 1st chapter, he's
despondent, depressed. And in the 4th chapter, he's
angry, ready to fight. You see that?
You see how your emotions can be helpful as to what's really
going on. The way I've heard it said is
where there's smoke, there is a, let's say it again, where
there's smoke, there is a OK, if right now the scope arena next
door was on fire, people coming running out of the building
yelling smoke, we would think are weird, right?
If people come out yelling smoke, there's smoke everywhere.
That would be weird. You've never seen that.
What are they yelling? Fire.
Because smoke exists to tell you there's a fire.
So y'all our. Emotions don't control us.
They can lead us to where there's a fire.
The emotions are the smoke. Are you with me?
So what is the fire? The fire is your heart's
propensity, your heart's tendency to find safety and
satisfaction in anybody or anything other than the Lord.
And when your heart does that, the circumstances of life
disappoint you and then your emotions become the evidence
that you feel betrayed. Does that make sense?
It's like our hearts. And just to be clear, you all,
we love to say this a poor city. You are a human.
So the things we're talking about, humans do not just like
people who read religious texts of some kind, OK?
Your heart trusts things to make you safe and make you happy.
And what you go to is like in your heart factory, your soul,
it's it's operating in there. And then what happens through
life, your emotions become like the signal of is that thing
holding up its word or not? Does that make sense?
Is it is it keeping its end of the deal?
OK. And what the Bible teaches that
if what you're seeking to satisfy you and keep you safe is
not God himself a person, not a set of circumstances, that it
will always betray you. And your emotions become a
source of helping you see what's really going on.
Let me show you the theological way Jonah figures this out in
the fish. Jonah chapter 2, verse eight,
one of the the cooler verses in the Bible says this.
Those who pay. Regard to vain idols forsake
their hope of steadfast love. Some of you are like.
What does that mean? Here's a good I was reading.
This with somebody in this room the other day who hit rock
bottom about 3 years ago and now came to faith.
And by the way, he didn't come to faith at rock bottom.
He came to faith, I don't know, 12-18 months later.
But once he connected the dots and saw he read Jonah for the
first time the other day, got to chapter 2 verse 8 and said wow.
I hadn't told him anything. I've told you yet about Jonah
and I said, why you saying wow? He said, well that's me.
And I said, what do you mean? He said, I did that.
Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of
steadfast love. I thought this would keep me.
I thought this would make me happy.
For me, at 18, it was friendships.
It was people thinking I'm good at a sport, people respecting
me, my ability to get relationships through girls and
things like that. I thought that that would make
me happy, but when I started coming to faith, when I realized
who Jesus was. This verse describes your
testimony. You look back and say those who
chase vain idols in their heart, they forsake, they give up their
hope of true love. You are letting go of that which
God wants to give you. So for some of you this Easter,
maybe this is going to happen for the first time or maybe
you're a believer in this room who needs to let go of another
idol. One of my favorite artists used
to say this. My idols are mimicking Jesus.
I bury them in three days, they're back up again.
OK, My idols mimic Jesus. They tend to they tend to leave
and then they come back at opportune moments.
OK. Your heart will continue to be
an idol making factory because you're a Sinner.
Indwelling sin means you're going to continue to be duped,
that something other than the Lord will make you happy.
You're going to continue to be duped that God is blocking your
joy, not the path to your joy. And so we kill idols, but to
come to Christ is for the first time to recognize that's what
you've been doing. Does that make sense?
And you've got to agree with God that that you need that.
So for some of us, maybe it's your emotional life is just all
over the place all the time. And what you don't need is
strategies to manage that. Like if the Norfolk Fire
Department came out the scope that is on fire, where there's
smoke, there's a fire and they just got out a ton of fans.
We got this guys and they just start blowing all the smoke
away. You'd be like.
These jokers are crazy. But y'all, that's what we do.
Some of us, that's what I mean, all that we listen to every
podcast of the world looking for peace, read every book, talk to
every friend, call this person or we do the religious version.
I'll start going to church more. That'll put the fire out.
I'll do this, I'll give some money, I'll do this, I'll do
that. They're asking me to this.
And none of that is going to solve the fire.
The way the fire gets put out is through transformation.
And where does Jonah's? Transformation happen in this
story, it happens in the fish. OK, so let's talk about this
transformation because for Jonah it was a short lived
transformation, wasn't it? He looked different for about 5
minutes and then he was angry. He wasn't running away no more,
but he was still running away just physically staying.
We need a transformation like Jonah had in that fish, but we
need one that's permanent. We need a, a we need this store.
We need somebody who doesn't resent God's goodness.
We need somebody who doesn't run from the Lord.
We need somebody who loves their enemies, doesn't hate them.
We need somebody to kind of be pure and loving.
And it's almost like we need somebody to step into the story
and do it. Y'all, What we need is a truer
and greater Jonah. Y'all, what the Bible teaches is
that Jesus Christ is the one who does this story right.
Y'all? In chapter 1 Jonah is asleep on
a boat trying to get away from God.
Later in the book of Matthew you may know your Bibles.
Jesus is asleep in a storm because he trusts God.
His sleep is evidence of his faith, not of his fear.
Later in the story we see that the sailors ask how can we?
How can we be done with the storm?
The storm happened because of Jonah's sin, but the path to
stop the storm was to throw Jonah in.
Y'all the the New Testament shows us that Jesus is the one.
The storms came not because he was sinful, but the sailors are
sinful. And then he gets thrown in not
because he was sinful, but the sailors were sinful.
The sinless 1 gets thrown in and the storm stops.
Y'all the The Bible teaches that Jesus is not reluctantly taking
the gospel to his enemies. He's eager to.
We see in Jesus a reenactment of this story with purity at every
step. He's the Jonah Jonah should have
been, but wasn't. He is who we should be but
aren't. He's pure, He's faithful, He
moves towards his enemies. He loves God's kindness.
But the Bible teaches that the reward Jesus took for living it
perfectly was to die as if he blew it.
Do you see that? That's the Easter story is that
Jesus lived this out perfectly the way Jonah, you and I failed
to. And then he gifts the victory
that he earned through his sinless life to the spiritual
but not religious to the lost and loving it to the runaways,
to the relapsers. The point of the Bible isn't
here's how all four of those groups get it together.
The point is all four of y'all blew it.
Jesus didn't, and he gives you his victory.
That's the gospel. It's a gift.
Easter is not your Easter is not a season for you to turn over a
new leaf. It's.
Not new year, new you. The the Christian version.
OK, this isn't the start of our calendar, right?
That what the Easter story is, is a celebration of a victorious
life that Jesus lived. We failed to, and He gives it to
us if we will trust Him by faith.
It's Amazing Grace. It's mercy.
You need it. You know, I've been thinking.
About why is grace just not amazing?
It can become a concept. You get like I know I'm not
perfect. So many people live their whole
lives knowing the truths that were just stated, but grace
never pops. I think there are three
ingredients. To Grace Poppin.
So if Grace ain't poppin, here are the three ingredients.
Number one, you dead. OK, What hit Jonah in that fish
was that he couldn't get out. You realize that when you're in
a fish. I just got swallowed by a.
Fish, by the way. Do I think that's historical?
I do. We could talk about that some
other time. Jesus said it was historical and
it pointed to what he would do. Three days not in a fish, but in
a grave. OK but y'all being in that fish
made him realize I'm helpless like I'm dead.
You have to to be a recipient of mercy.
You have to realize you need it. Mercy is you deserve wrath.
That's what your default state is.
You're not just full of. Potential and need some help.
You have to agree that your situation is utterly lifeless,
as good as dead. You're a dead person dying.
That is so difficult to believe, but you can, and many do.
The second ingredient to grace Poppin is that there's nothing
you can do about it. It flows naturally from the
first one. There's literally nothing Jonah
could do. If God did not have him spit
out, guess where he'd still be in that fish, you know?
That's, I mean, y'all there's. Nothing you can do about it.
You need mercy and there's nothing you can do to secure it.
That's that is huge y'all even your understanding of what Jesus
did isn't your you don't get to like that.
Oh look, I earned I it's not about you.
Does that make sense Like it's not what you commit to.
It's not what you say you're going to stop doing nothing.
Jonah did gifted him getting spit out of that fish that make
sense. You are dead and you're helpless
and lifeless. You can't do anything about it.
You need a gift. There's nothing you can earn
which leads to the third one. The third ingredient to make it
pop is you have to realize what it costs to be given to you.
And when you put those together, when you realize that the cross
is as violent as it is because it's how much mercy you needed
that the Son of God himself was stripped of his clothes and and
mercilessly just killed and mocked naked.
Y'all the reason is that. Violent and that graphic is
because it's what we need and it's a gift.
And when you put those three ingredients together, grace can
pop. You can't do anything about it.
You need total resurrection and help.
There's no way to secure. Mercy for yourself.
Jesus is the truer and greater Jonah who took our sinful deaths
and gives us his sinless life. Y'all.
I pray that grace would be amazing for you all this year.
I think the longer I've walked with Jesus, the more I realize
it's tempting to graduate from grace being amazing.
And it can become a story in your chat, a chapter in your
story and not the ongoing song you're singing.
You with me? I'm embarrassed at my sin these
days. I mean, me and Isaac were
hanging out this week. This him and the elders and my
wife are the closest to me. And they see me when I'm
despondent. Jonah, OK, They see Joe and
JoJo. That is Tanner.
And there's something about us. The longer that you walk with
God, you want your brand to be your godliness and you want to
show people and showcase how far you've come and what you get and
what you've learned. But that is antithetical to
grace being amazing. Do you see that?
Because the ingredients we just talked about are the opposite of
that. There's this song by Kirk
Franklin. They go at the very end.
He says, I'm a mess. I make mistakes.
I get mad and say things I shouldn't say.
But your love reminds me every day.
I'm the reason why God made grace.
And then he goes, I'm singing great ace.
Yeah, I'm the reason why God made grace.
Hallelujah. I'm singing great.
Yeah, I'm the reason why God made grace.
Y'all, some of y'all just need to hear that you like grace is
what it's about. It's always going to be what
it's about. It's not about you.
It's about Jesus. And he wants to gift you grace.
For some of y'all, I'll just pray that for the first time
you'll just receive grace. Just receive it.
It is infuriatingly almost humiliating to admit you need
it, but once you receive it, it's the most refreshing release
of all time. Once you actually receive it,
you're like, what was I waiting for man?
Why was I so stubborn and proud for so long?
You just feel relief, like release into your body.
Like I finally received grace. I knew I needed it, but I
resented that I needed it. You need grace man.
You need it bad. So I pray you get some grace.
And then once you do y'all, all the church is is a bunch of it's
just rehab for all. I mean, church is really rehab,
man. It's just a glorified, just
built. It's a programmatic organic
rehab for a bunch of Joes and Jo Joes who all lived together.
We're supposed to be multi generational, multi ethnic,
multi, all the things to showcase to the world.
We are not the stuff. We are all recipients of ongoing
grace. And then we just go tell the
Nineveh that they need grace. And when they look at us and go,
well, who are you to tell me I need grace?
Look at you. We go.
I know. Isn't it crazy?
But we get it mixed up when we think what we offer to the world
is a program to your purity. You'll get more pure.
But we offer not ourselves but Christ crucified.
We what? The message you have to tell
people is that you are a recipient of grace.
OK. And yeah, you got to confront
some people. Jonah is the worst preacher of
all time. I took confidence this week.
No, this is the worst sermon in history.
He said like 7 words and they all repented. 120,000 people.
Y'all. Norfolk is double Nineveh, OK?
And we don't even have any cattle, he says.
And much cattle, he ends the book with.
And also much cattle. No cattle in Norfolk is.
There ain't a lot of HOA, though.
When there's no HOA, you can do whatever you want in your
neighborhood. You got chickens, goats.
It's crazy. Every once in a while I hear
something. So yeah, I pray that this year
you would you would realize you need grace.
And if you're not a part of a local church with some other
Joes and Jonos, I do think you're robbing God of some glory
for your story. And I do think God wants to use
you for some other ninevehs in your life.
OK, maybe this is a year that we we we joined Jesus in this
Easter Easter mission. Let's pray together.
Our Father, we love you. Thank you so much for this true
story. Thank you for truth God, thank
you Lord. We don't have to wonder where we
come from, where we're going, how it gets made right.
You have made yourself known. You've confronted, you've made
clear God, thank you for this story.
Thank you that it's our lives in so many ways and it almost feels
cyclical God that we're never going to just perfectly trust
you every second. Sometimes it seems like we're
running a resentful every moment.
God, I pray first for your church right now.
Got to pray for anybody who thinks you're a blockade to joy.
I pray you would just, God, please have mercy on them and
just bring them once again to realize you're good.
Got to pray for anybody who's resenting and bitter right now.
God, would you just God gift them just as you the book ends
with the question you're just asking.
Will you come join the party? Will you come be with us?
And I just pray God that they would be refreshed today.
And I got I pray for anybody who's been fighting repentance
for months, fighting, turning to you, fighting, giving up their
idols. I pray for anybody who knows
they're not a believer and wants to become one God, that today
would be the day that grace becomes amazing and pops for the
first time. We love you.
We pray these things in Jesus name, Amen.