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March 10, 2020 1:00 am
In the face of God’s abundant mercy to Nineveh, Jonah was angry. So, God illustrated to Jonah, through a plant and a worm, that his anger was selfish and childish. And yet, the book ends with Jonah being confronted, while he is still demanding his “right” to feel comfort.
Click here to listen (Duration 25:02)Race is before us, looking to Jesus phoned her and perfecter. After Jonah preached he got angry and depressed.
Then God sent us England's events to teach the wayward son pointed object lesson today will meet up plans were and a scorching east when the movie church in Chicago. This is Dr. Erwin Sir teaching helps us make it across the finish line looks or how will today's message sum up the life of the prophet Jonah. The remarkable thing is that this book ends with a series of questions and we don't know what Jonah's ultimate bonds was to God. The reason that this story is so powerful is because we get a glimpse into Jonah's heart. He was so prejudiced. He was so angry he was more concerned about himself than he was. These pagans and we can be that way to powerful lessons. You know I hold in my hand a letter that is come to us from a woman who writes my husband and I have grown closer to God and to each other or emotionally damaged marriage is healing and then she goes on to say how much they have benefited from the ministry of running to win just want you to know that this ministry can continue because of people like you.
Some of you been listening to running to win for many years and you'd not connected with us. Would you consider becoming an endurance partner that somebody who prays for us regularly.
Who gives regularly who supports us, who becomes a part of what I like to call the family of running to win to find out more about this. Here's what you do go to RTW offer.com RTW offer.com or you can call us at 1-888-218-9337 thanks in advance for your prayers and for your generosity and now we take another look into the heart of Jonah got a point circumference. He appoints our disappointments, our losses and he also appoints our trials.
Jonah's not handling this trial very well. I say parenthetically and theologically, you'll notice that all are equally appointed by God.
Do we have comforts today.
Can you believe that God gives us comforts we have comforts as human beings in friendships in lobbing an opportunity in close and houses and all of the things that we enjoy and those comforts are God given they are appointed by God, but so are our losses appointed by God, our disappointments, those things that we cannot control the just happened situations over which we have absolutely no control but God brings into our life, probably for the same reason that he brought these things into the life of Jonah.
And then God appoints.
Also, those scorching east winds when we are almost about to die and to see what is in our heart because because it's only these events that really show what's in there.
It's not all the niceties all the pleasantries, when everything is going well. It's how you handle adversity, but each are equally appointed by God. I'm sure that Jonah was very angry with the worm.
I am sure that he had some very choice words for the wind actually is getting angry at the worm notice getting angry at the window because the worm and the wind are both sent by God. It's God that stands behind these events. So God again begins a questioning he picks up the therapy and says I wonder if you're willing to listen to my question now so you'll notice there in verse nine God continues the dialogue. But God said to Jonah deal with be well to be angry for the plant and this time he answered God. You see, the first time got asked the question, it was do you have a right to be angry because the Ninevites repented. Jonah didn't answer that question, but God says to him now. Do you do well to be angry for the plant and without even skipping a beat. He says yes I do well to be angry any angry enough to die. I just think for a moment what it is that Jonah is really saying he's saying I have a right to the comforts that God gives me I have a right to my air conditioner. I have a right to be comfortable and not to be in this heat but I am denying the compassion of God that brings me those comforts.
I am denying the right of other people to experience that compassion I denied the rights of the Ninevites eternal comfort. I would rather see them burn in hell than to have me burn under the sunlight here in a temporary way without a good booth and without a plant and with a scorching east wind so you can see here that Jonah is in the midst of this dilemma and he does not get the lesson at this point that God is trying to teach them so God goes on and he says Jonah that's a lesson in comforts. Now what I want to do is to give you a lesson in the whole business of compassion. So God picks it up in verse 10 and the Lord said to him you pity the plant for which you did not labor. Did you deserve the plan.
Did you created by the way, do we deserve our money.
You say we earned it all really. Did you who gave you the ability the brains and the opportunities to be born where you were to be gifted the way in which you are fuming to say you have a right to this. Believe me, you and I have no rights to any of this but you'll notice that the Lord says you have pity for the plan for what you did not labor. You did not make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in the night. Now comes the really big question, and 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. He maybe talking here about children 120,000 children. If you think about that and you realize that they had parents that you can begin to multiply out how big the city of Nineveh really wasn't God says you had compassion on the plant and you have no compassion for people.
This here you have the clash of of personal comfort and desire. The clash of personal comfort and desire with with the eternal destiny of human beings and all you can think of Jonah. All that you can think of is whether or not you're comfortable where you're sitting in your world ends there. Earlier I spoke about narcissism. If I may use one more illustration of a narcissist. The reason I do that is because I'm always interested in the causes of human behavior and once you're as old as I am. You've heard a lot of stories. The fact that I use another woman in no way indicates that women are more narcissistic than men. In fact, the opposite is probably true. There's much more narcissism out there on the part of our male species, but I am reminded of a man married essentially to narcissist and he went to the doctor for an exam and the doctor looked him in the eye and said, you've got cancer so he calls his wife and says I have cancer. What is the first question out of her mouth, not the second, not the third, not the fourth not the fifth where it may be a legitimate question. At some point. What is the first question not well is it the kind of cancer to think they can curate you think that there is medical treatment.
Know the first question is how much insurance do you have is a true story and no not making this up. What happens is in our lives. It's possible for us to be so focused on self as I mentioned, all of us are born with narcissism and God tries to rid us of it were our comforts, our perspective, our standard becomes the benchmark upon which everything else is judged and there is no compassion there is no pity there is no sacrifice.
All that matters is me and Jonah here wants to create God in his own image and saying God I hate these people and I want you to know that I think that if you were writing you to hate them toe. Why don't you become like me met a man one time and I said you know you want to serve the Lord's, and oh yeah I want to serve the Lord.
I said, how do you want to serve him. He said as an advisor and we become angry because God does not become angry with the people that we are angry at, and God does not exercise his justice that we think you should exercise toward people that we believe a just God should and so we become angry with God because we know that back up these circumstances lies God and therefore we we consider our own point of view, our own little narrow place in this planet. The most important thing by which everything else is to be job finished including God.
Thereto are three very important applications of this passage. The first is simply this, unless we are broken we will never be touched. I need to say this slowly, and I'm gonna say it twice, because if you're in the writing mode you need to write this down unless we are broken we will never be touched by what breaks the heart of God unless we are broken we will never be touched by what breaks the heart of God will not be touched by the hundred and 20,000 children in Chicago and there a lot more children than that and their needs will not be able to look beyond our own little world with our own little comforts in our own little entertainment centers in our own little world in our own little vacation. We will always just be narrowed in unless we are broken we will never be able to. We, or to be touched by that which breaks God's heart and God is compassionate and merciful and full of pity and we won't be because self is on the throne of our lives and all that we care about is ourselves. We look out for number one. With so many people in our churches today in world guilty of this. You know I'm preaching this message to myself to.
I hope you understand that I always preach to myself first.
But with so many people in our churches today who say they love God, but have absolutely no concern about those who are precious to God talk is cheap and so unless were broken will never extend ourselves. You say well I I am concerned about the children in the city but I don't know what to do about it. Well, one thing you could do is to check the bulletin. We need workers in our children's ministries right here. This church God is raising up a marvelous ministry over at Cabrini Green that you've heard about and we need we need to people of compassion. People who care. We need people of sacrifice people who have been able to see beyond their own little precious circle of comfort.
So that's the first lesson is a second lesson and that is unless we are broken we will feel comfortable in our sin and our rebellion unless we are broken will feel comfortable in our sin and our rebellion will of rationalized it will have lived in denial. We will not confront God takes this mirror shoves it in our face to maybe messages through songs that are sung through experiences through people through advanced God takes the mirror and shoves it in our face and we will not see ourselves and we will become comfortable in our rebellion and justify our rebellion and look into the face of God. Like Jonah doesn't say I have every right to be angry, even to the point of death. You see, my friend, what God wants us to do is to allow his mirror to actually show us ourselves so that we can open our lives to God and invite him into every crevice, every closet of our lives looking in inviting them everywhere so that so that he can to show us our great incredible need and at the same time show us his grace so that we are broken before him and our will becomes his wealth. No matter what it is.I take your perspective. I don't understand it but I take your perspective and I bow humbly before it, and I accepted George Mueller who had so many various orphanages in England about eight of them all run by prayer and faith said there came a time when George Mueller die die die to my own ambitions.
I died to my own plans. I died to my own reputation I died to everything that I had been working for and had only one question, what does God want me to do that is broken us was Ned Varley who told DL Moody one day. We have yet to see what God can do through a man who is totally devoted to him and deal Moody said by the grace of God, I'll be that man and he began a Sunday school and isn't it interesting that Moody Church was begun with children and now so many years later. There are so many ministries that God is birthing in this church for children as his vision gets carried out, but that is brokenness that yielded mass you say. Well, did God ever get Jonah. This book ends and you say you know really doesn't have an ending. II want to read more. I don't know about your translation I'm reading the English standard version and it ends there, and that it has room on the page I'm saying hey I want to know more about what happened here.
I want to know whether or not Jonah had anything to say after God was finished at this point, but we don't.
But you know I have a suspicion that Jonah did say yes you know the theme of this message. The series is brokenness how God gets us to say yes and even when I began the series I was saying to myself, will God work with Jonah, but he never did say yes because the pages of Scripture. Just man, I can't prove this biblically, but I suspect that Jonah did say yes and I'll tell you why every scholar, every rabbi scholars throughout the centuries have puzzled as to who the author of Jonah is because were not told, and virtually everybody says it must've been written by Jonah because who else would know all of these details, you know now you tell me something would a man write a story like this that makes himself look that bad unless he had been broken by God, I don't think so because God looks great in this book Jonah doesn't because you see the person who's delivered from his narcissism no longer asks how does it make me look now he's asking a different question. How does it make God look and as you read this book, God looks great.
It's Jonah who's narrowminded. Shall I say pigheaded and very narcissistic. But God comes off wonderfully hand and a man was broken by God is willing to say. I am willing to tell the truth as the truth is, even though I look bad because at the end of my the day. Even my reputation in the lives of others is not as important as telling an accurate story and letting people give praise to God, so he tells the story here without trying to make himself look good. There's no tweaking here some time ago a rather prominent woman wrote her biography and I can't prove this, but I heard that one library, put it in the fiction section. Everything tweaked and worked so that's my point of view so that I come out looking a certain way a person who's broken by God, even as reputation is left in God's hands and he's not always trying to fix it. Appearances no longer become the important thing.
Reality does and it seems to me that anyone who would write a book like this is probably somebody who in the end, said yes to God and finally gave up the fiction of his own will and his own desire. So as I come to the end of the series have a question for you today. Are you broken me ask a different question, what would have to happen in your life in order for you to answer yes to that question. What areas of your life are on yielded un-submitted protected, guarded, rationalized, that would have to be given into the presence of the Almighty.
What would you have to give up who would you have to talk to. What would you have to make right in your life if you are broken.
Remember that God especially blesses those who finally say yes. Let's pray as children bring their broken toys with tears for us to amend. I brought my broken dreams to God because he was my friend, but then instead of leaving him in peace to work alone.
I hung around and try to help with ways that were my own. At last I snatch them back and cried. How can you be so slow. My child, he said, what could I do. You never did let go. How many of you are here today the say pastor Luther today by God's grace I want to let go, would you raise your hands. Please. All throughout the auditorium.
Many are and also in the balcony.
I can see other willing to say God, you've got me. You've got me letting it go unyielding at all. I'm trusting the Holy Spirit of God to grant me the grace to do that, whatever it is that you need to say to God at this moment would you say it in this message. I did not explain that Jesus died on the cross for sinners and that your first step in saying yes is to say yes to him as Savior. So you may be here and you're not connected to God at all you can say Lord Jesus.
I say yes to you as Savior. Those of us who know him have to say yes to him a whole host of other issues. Father we've done what we could do and if the Holy Spirit does nothing and everything is a failure.
But we believe that the blessed Holy Spirit of God has been poured out to changes to work with us, work with us.
Father, grant us that balance between patience and discipline we need to bring us to yielded nest to give up the idea that we can transform you into our image may there be no point in our life, in which we are out of agreement with you. We pray in Jesus name we ask a man, my friend, this is Pastor Sir, have you prayed that prayer is a difficult prayer to pray. We are truly honest, you know, I believe that this series of messages could be a tremendous blessing to you as you listen to them again and share them with your friend. This is the last day that we are making available the opportunity that you will have.
To receive your own copy for a gift of any amount you can go to RTW offer.com that's RTW offer.com and in a moment I'll give you a phone number. Remember, it is our opportunity to serve you. We desire to give you resources to help you run the race of life, and we believe that this sermon series will be helpful as you think back over your own life and see how God led in the life of Jonah. So if you are interested. Remember for a gift of any amount you can go to RTW offer.com or you can call us at 1-888-218-9337 today is the last day that we are making this offer and this opportunity available to you. RTW offer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337 you can write to us running to win 1635 N. LaSalle Boulevard Chicago, IL 60614 running to win is all about helping you understand God's roadmap for your race of life.
Many Christians given politics find themselves increasingly with the culture.
That's because the cross of Christ is inherently is with the culture. Next time I'm running to win. We begin a series on Christians politics and the cross and part journey into faith, politics, and the essential mission of the church. Went to tune in for part one the clash of cross and culture. Thanks for listening for pastor Erwin lutes are this is Dave McAllister running to win is sponsored by the Moody Church