The Moment of Crisis

JD Greer God had not put Jonah in the chamber you put him in a cost to awaken his soul. When there is a huge difference. God doesn't put you there to pay you back put you there.

Bring you back. God is relentless pursuit of those that he loves and I'm your host Molly events okay. I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but don't like storms. It's really easy to think that God is not something wrong that we made a mistake or did we take an intentional detour will today. Pastor JD explained that God uses our troubles for restoration, not retribution, wearing a new series titled Castaway if you missed any of the previous messages in a series. Listen online@jdgreer.com. Now here's Pastor JD with a message titled the moment of crisis shepherds judge up to a July Jonah 1 hour Georgia portage upper division of the Bible. I would've whichever division right above her 17 but I'm not in charge of that so Jonah 117 is where chapter starts in my book right Jonah 170 the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah just to review, equate general driver got a disobedient God told Ned about Janet and want to go to God some stormy Herlihy appointed a storm to to do just about kill everybody on that boat so they take Jonah and they throw him overboard. Jonah hits the water. The water goes. Call Jerry thinks everything is cool when all of a sudden out of nowhere this huge fish comes swallows up Jonah and is about to take him to the bottom of the ocean for three days and three nights now, you may look at that at first and say why is it that God is doing that. It seems like Jonah had only learned his lesson right and you get thrown overboard. All the sudden the storm dissipate you think Jonah had gotten the point, but you're about to see her in a moment. Jonah had not gotten the point, God had not fully gotten his attention, yet what you're seeing here is not meanness it's mercy because Glisson God is relentless in pursuit of those that he loves and guess God will do some things in your life and for some of you has been doing them attention.

Yet, keep doing it because he is relentless in pursuit of those that he loves is not that God is take Jonah and is paying him back for his sin… Pain Jonah back is bringing Jonah back pay Jesus back for his sin is the ultimate fulfillment of the story what God is doing in the storm is not meanness and punishment.

It's mercy what God is doing in your life is mercy try to wake you up. Jonah hasn't woken up yesterday.

Chapter 2 verse one and Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights now, to say the least. This would've been an awful experience right you have anything else to do and there we got time to think. Zachary, thanks for three days and three nights. Look at the next word. It's a very important word then Jonah prayed to the Lord is God from belly, the fish was now 21st of swallow.

After three days and three nights. Then he finally is broken down, which gives you a picture of the depth of struggle that Jonah is in with obedience to God because what God had asked Jonah to do went down to the core of who he was just a God told Jonah to go to the Ninevites might actually you the Ninevites were the coolest people on the planet. They really were. So God said Jonah go to Bim and preach explained to you that in their own histories in their own own accounts. They wouldn't they would boast about their cruelty. They boasted about the rape of little girls. One of the leaders about the coldness of this week. A guy by the name of as her master Paul. His nickname was as her nausea. Paul recounted after he conquered a city talk boasted about taking a lot of the men a lot of leaders and scanning them alive and intake and there stands a put them all around the city gates putting them on flags that would would be like you flags of people stands just to demonstrate his power over these people. Now I told you who was one of the main targets the Israelites, God tells Jonah to go to minimum. This is not a trifling issue.

This is something to Jonah's personal this is the Jew being asked to go to Berlin in 1942 to stand before the SS and Hitler and proclaim to them the mercy and the compassion and the lovingkindness of God, anything I would've been like talking keep its use for Jonah Jones in a dilemma because want to do things a good happen. One thing is Jonah goes to Nineveh and they reject his message based on what you know what the Ninevites how you think it's a workout for Jonah poorly write me. Many people like you that they don't treat you kindly write so he will lose his life. That's what action the other option is that you listen to them and endure. And then they receive the lovingkindness of God. Jonah don't want that either. So Jonah is in a dilemma and I explained to you that what that is is a picture of religious people, how we sin because most of us will obey God, up to a point that it touches the core of who we are. Explained to you that a sinner sit with somebody somebody that says no to God. You're never far different God when you're close to him and you say no I'm talking to many people in here that are exactly like every part of your life is under the authority of God except for the one that matters most to you. For example, there are some of you will obey God in every area except for the area of romance. Every other area you will obey God, but that what is so important to you. It is so essential for you and having a good life. You think that you will not take your hands off of it for something you you will do what God is telling you to do in your marriage because you know I let God have that because I've got a control that I've got to protect that that's the core of who I am.

Some of you will obey God near your money.

Every other area but you will be generous, you will give up certain luxuries to invest in the mission of God, you will hi because money is the thing of the core of who you are, that determines your meaning and your significance and your security in life. Some of you will obey God in every area but you will not release your kids to the will of God. Some of you won't obey God about how much you work, you won't turn it off even when you know it's horrible for your family because your career success is at the core of who you are God to speak into that area. Someone who is in rebellion against God is somebody who often is close to him and just says no. Like I explained you lordship is one of those things that has to be total if it is real at all. Jesus said if you follow him.

You come to him, take up your cross and you follow the cross meant total domination, total debt, it meant that there is nothing off-limits to God's unconditional surrender is a blank piece of paper forgot where you say, God, you tell me where to go and what to do because you are the core of who I am now you are the source of my identity. My source of my meeting and the source of my security God is going after the court who Jonah is right. So Jonah finally turns in repentance and you see that in verse three I'm a show you in the next several verses. Three things that Jonah's repentance was built upon which every forever.

Penance is always built on these three things okay verse three you cast me into the deep into the heart of the seas and the flood surrounded me all your waves and your bill is passed over me that I said I'm driven away from your sites waters closed in over me to take my life. The deep surrounded me. Weeds were wrapped around my head at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land bars closed upon me forever.

Here's the first thing Jonah realizes puts into an expression write this down on the futility of life without God you realize is one the futility of life without God. Jonah was finally in a place of absolute hopelessness, believes he says like change or wrapping around his head. The bars like a prison closing around him forever and that's what it takes for lot of people to finally have their foolish pride shattered to where God finally demonstrates to you that there is nothing in your life that you can boast of and call your own.

It could not be taken from you in a moment.

I know people who God never got their attention until their marriage finally was destroyed. There's a lot of people that God will get your attention until the accident. A bad health report and addiction that you just can't shake a job that you lose being humiliated by being caught in something.

I know people in our church who God did not get their attention until they went to prison now. I've heard people criticize decisions for God made in a time like this is a like well you know I'm equal you're a jam you bought your things fall apart so you know you got it you got to get right with God and use God as a crutch to get you out of the situation, but that's as it is not real because you when you get out of that situation and elegantly got to be honest with you I kind of agree with with their critique a lot because a lot of people use God to get out of a situation out of a jam, and among the situation changes that they have no more need for God. However, there are a lot of times when life falls apart around you and what it allows you to simply see is the hopelessness of life apart from God. You see that nothing you can boast and you can really hold onto what you built your whole life can't sustain you and then in that moment.

It's like you wake up from a dream.

You remember when you came to Christ with God finally got your attention, but in some ways it was like waking up this finicky is just so unreal when you dream you when you dream. It's like completely vivid and real and you have a hard time you wake up like that was a real average rent. That's what you drink, I hardly ever drink, but when I do it is a doozy and it is now a cover of like him and is a like what what what will what's real, what's what's false. It is so real in the moment that I'm in the dream when I wake up it's like it's just crazy. All of a sudden, God does something that wakes you out of this dream because you realize that one bad health report and everything that you built your life on this destroyed marriage crumbles and you realize that everything that you found security and could be taken away from you in any moment and it's like waking up out of the dream because God has finally shattered the pride by the way it always happen something dramatic like the fish for some of you may not be like that at all that it might just be little signs in your life, like the pit of a fisherman. If you let me speak metaphorically. There's no joy in your life. Maybe more, more.

Your life is given to what I would call numbing activities you watch too much TV now because you're addicted to the content because you're addicted to the estate that TV gives to you. Maybe you spent endless hours on the Internet because it's just a way of escaping boredom, pornography maybe to find waste too much pleasure in food or alcohol.

Maybe you become very susceptible to all kinds of temptations that you can't say no to certain temptations anymore. What's happened is you see, when your soul is starving is like when your body started by starting elite anything when your soul is starving it will go after anything and you become susceptible temptations because of the state of your soul. Maybe it's maybe it's if you're finding your email would envy you look around at others and they seem to have been given all the things that you want to be like God, did you get the wrong address similar things in my house and be dissatisfaction worry always think maybe your older and you find yourself in it. We just got a growing sense of panic about what you're losing a total guy this week you said you said you not know that you have a lot of younger people your church can always are you talking about warning them not to give their lives to idolatry because it is been unsatisfied since you also know that you got a hold another group of people your church or on the other side of life. Many of them are not really hewing place for this question is do I give myself to idols or not. It's what I do now that I seem to be losing everything so that the whole Bible, the whole life of my career and now middle place in my career was sort of a marginalized people think of me as best as necessary as they used to. How much and what I built be undone. I'm watching my parents age and scares me about what I'm going to be like when I heard a guy say that I must get Dino to start getting older. Because what happens when the help of my body disappeared to see friends die. You see everything that you built your identity on everything that you build your life on begin to unravel whatever it is.

Listen.

Repentance always begins in a note of despair and it is God's mercy that shows it to you before you die. We can see there is a time coming when you will stand before God and in that moment, if you stand before God and you were not right with him you were not in fellowship with him, then everything you've accomplished everything all your career, how good your marriage was a matter how well your kids turned out matter how many praises you receive or what accomplishment you achieve. It's all meaningless.

If you die good health and it is God's mercy that allows you to see that before you die and God will arrange the circumstances to put you there to say which you wake up out of your stupid pride got kids and parents are as of the were stupid stupid show abuse about this kind of stuff. This is stupid.

If you have that kind of pride is just idiotic and God put you in a place where you finally yet Jonah says you brought up my life from the pit Lord my God, she Jonah felt like there was no hope.

But there was here's a question, did Jonah feel abandoned by God is not a trick question about you say something like get around okay Jonah feel better by God. Yes, once he abandoned by God. No, God had not put Jonah in the chamber of death. You put him in a hospital to awaken his soul. When there is a huge difference. God doesn't put you there to pay you back put you there to bring you back. God is relentless in his pursuit of those that he loves some of you feel like you are in a place of no hope. What you're not. God is beginning his greatest work in your life. Verse seven when my life was fading away.

I remember the Lord my prayer came to you. It came in your holy temple. It was interesting to me is that Jonah is celebrating what's this is deliverance. Before he gets out of the belly of the fish you want to know why you know why there is a greater deliverance, the deliverance from bad circumstances is the deliverance from sin, Jonah is realizing it is better to be united with God.

Even in the belly of a well that it is to be on dry land without him. The real pit. He's been delivered from is the pit of being apart from God. That's the pit is talking about. So we talk about you deliver me for the pit before the fish ever vomits about in the land. That's when you're really delivered when you realize I'd rather be anywhere with God anywhere without them well with God that I would be a palace without a you realize that God is more valuable than life, God is more precious than anything you set your hope to attain different masses. Jesus plus nothing equals everything, everything, minus Jesus equals nothing when you come a point where you realize that that's when repentance is very close. Verse eight. Those who pay regard to vain idols forfeit the grace that could be there's the verse from the NIV everything else from the ESV but I memorize a verse in the NIV and I think that the best translation of that verse says, those who pay regard to vain idols forfeit the grace that could be there's this is the key verse in Jonah. There 24 verses in Jonah before this one and there are 23 accurate this is right smack dab in the middle.

It's a remarkable verse scholars tell us, because a couple of things are happening. The first thing that you need from the red.

The first thing is you asked was that verse talking about right because I don't so who is it that worships idols Israelites and prophets always told by other nations as one's worship idols. This is really now the idols they bow down to write, so you so you only think that you think in context digs pagan sailors. You're just one little ones are bound out idols and caught up deliverance and he says that's worthless right but that word grace or steadfast love. In the Hebrew that is the what has said and has said means covenant love and Israelite prophets never talk about that in context with patients. Here's a question you got past that which wise the Israel within you got idolatry which applies to everybody else is talking about scholars to be remarkable is happening.

Members number one God applied idolatry to the sins of Jonah.

Jonah acknowledges that his sin was birthed in idolatry. Jonah had clung to what I don't know little statue, but simply the idea that his way of life was better than God's way and God calls that a travel idolatry.

So God applied idolatry all sit the second thing that happened is God's express that he desires has said he desires covenant love with all people everywhere. All idolaters that's a huge turning point in the Bible because Israel is finally being taught. This is not just for his was for everybody. All sin begins in idolatry.

That is what somebody repents, understands this is number two, they realize the emptiness of idols. They realize the emptiness of idols. Megan, I thought we we learn this before.

Here, the summa church. Let us take a couple moments in flesh this out for you all sin, all of it, all of it ultimately begins in idolatry and you might have trouble seeing it that way because you like well I see him, but I will annual statues of my house that your bow down to your own family what idolatry is and I don't listen. I was anything you love more than God. Trust what a God or you crave more than God, and I was anything you love more than God, anything you trust more than God, anything you crave more than God. The English word for worship comes from worth ship if whatever you put worth on what is it that has ultimate worth in your life. What is the thing that you pursue the hardest because what you prize the most. You pursue the hearts. Whatever you make worthy is what you give your life to Paul. Romans one says that the original sin was idolatry. God will see in the garden of Eden bound out a little scheduling a little statue we were to get to the tree of life. We worship you treat what they did at that moment in the garden of Eden. If you recall the story as they determined that whatever the tree of life could or should be the tree of the knowledge of good and evil could give them was more valuable to God, and they put up a warning us on that tree that they took away from God and that's false worship to make sense. Here's another word in Hebrew for worship about how boat means weight when you give something glory.

You literally give it weight. What has the most weight in your life. What is so significant to you that you could imagine life without it. What is the one thing you looking to the future you like that's gotta be there in order for me to be happy.

That's what your idol is it me do some for Martin Luther, the great German reformer. Here's what he says in his larger catechism is whatever we look pretty good thing and for refuge in every need. That is what is meant by God, whatever you give your heart and entrust your being that I say is really your God, what is it that you look to in your life as the primary source for good things. What is the one thing that if it's called you think most good things are going to depart from your life. What is it that you could live without his marriage is good marriage is it money is its success is a certain stature in people's eyes.

Is that your kids turning out okay living close to you would have enough really happy family not argue those bad things of course not. Idolatry is what a good thing becomes ultimate thing is when a good thing becomes a God thing becomes a bad thing.

It's when you take something to give so much weight so much worthiness that it matters more to you than you or something that you way more than God's counsel in nearly it's time to write that set your listening to Senate life with Jeannie Greer.

We are in a series called Castaway and were learning about the life of a runaway prophet named Jonah. If you miss any part of this study. You can find all the messages free of charge. Jeannie Greer.com. We exist to bring the gospel to many people as possible for the radio podcasting and land. We'd love to have you partner with us to help more people died into the gospel through these channels when you get to Senate life mission your supporting and is a little expression of our thanks. We got a unique resource that we put together just for you. If the 2021 Summit life day planner. This is the final week to get this resource had to miss your chance.

No matter what you do, you can't anymore second-tier day. So how do we make the most of our days and use them well will it take some forward thinking. So to help you do that we've put together a day planner and setting health goals education goals financial goals all great but the most important thing that we can do with our time is invested in spiritual things. So we've also included a Bible reading plan to help you maintain that most important spiritual discipline.

We hope will be a daily reminder to stay in God's word to make him the center of all your plan were so grateful for you and your partnership with that as we begin a new year of ministry together. You know, as important as this one time guests are the foundation of this ministry comes from the ongoing support of our gospel partners.

Those who commit to regular monthly giving for the Summit life, day planner, gospel, partner, or when you get a single gift of $25 or more. Call 866-335-5220 866-335-5220 or you can give online@jeanniegreer.com. If you are signed up for our email. Best way to stay up-to-date with the latest and to make sure you resource. It's quick and easy to sign or clear.com I'm only if it's so glad doing this today and through the motions to do something you really don't want to understand Senate passage he intended to illustrate this point because we feel like I really mean work from the heart pounding methods Thursday on Senate life Jeannie 19