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We've all been hurt.

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We all have scars.

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And through our relationship with Jesus Christ, we can all overcome and we can all be healed.

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Welcome to Healing Scars with Pastor Burton.

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Hey everybody and welcome back to the Sanctuary.

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So just a quick reminder, you can learn more about us and our ministry at BeTheLightSanctuary.org.

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And if it's on your heart to give, even if it's just to the podcast, you can do so either

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on the website or if you go to BuyMeACoffee.com slash Healing Scars.

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Now with that said, we're going to be spending some time in Jonah.

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As a matter of fact, we're going to spend at least two weeks going through this book.

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It is another one of the short books of the Bible.

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However, it's not going to feel that way because it's very rich in what it has for us.

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Jonah, the son of Amittai, he wrote this book around 785 to 760 BC.

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Now keep in mind, this is BC so those numbers get smaller as we start counting down.

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Now this book itself, it was addressed at the time to the people of Israel and it was

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written as a message of salvation for all people, everyone, and to show the extent of

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God's grace.

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This book, however, it is different from other prophetic books because instead of focusing

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on the prophet's prophecies, it focuses on the prophet himself.

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Now we know sin runs rampant.

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It's a part of daily life.

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There are definitely times when it seems like it's just getting worse.

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The news, social media, it's everywhere.

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You don't have to go far.

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Even if you don't want to look at your cell phone, just go sit somewhere and watch people

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for a little while and you'll see something soon enough.

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It won't take long.

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It was no different back in Jonah's day.

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In fact, one of Israel's greatest enemies was Assyria.

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Now Assyria was an empire that was so evil that they actually took pride in flexing their

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power to taunt God and the rest of the world.

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So as we see, when God told Jonah to go and tell them it was time for a change, that they

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needed to repent, Jonah was like, nope, that's my cue to leave.

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Exit stays left.

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He didn't about face forward march and tried to run as far away from them as he could possibly

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get.

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But the bottom line at the end of the day is that when God wants to use you for something,

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it is going to happen one way or another.

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Now for those of you who follow along in your Bibles or those of you taking notes, we're

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going to be specifically looking at Jonah chapter one today.

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So join me now, Jonah chapter one, and we're going to go to the very beginning and we're

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going to start with verses one through three.

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So Jonah one, verses one through three, the Bible says, the word of the Lord came to Jonah,

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son of Amittai.

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Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because its wickedness has come

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up before me.

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But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed to Tarshish.

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He went down to Joppa where he found his ship bound for that port.

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After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.

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All right.

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So he's been told, hey, you're going to go to Nineveh there in Assyria and you're going

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to tell them, hey, you guys need to stop.

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Enough is enough and it's time for a change.

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And Jonah was like, nope, bye bye.

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And for those of you who are keeping tab, this is not the first time Jonah has been

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mentioned as a prophet.

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If you go back to second Kings, you'll find that he prophesied during the renaissance

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of Boam the second, who was the king of Israel from about 793 to 753 BC.

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He's also mentioned in the books of Matthew and Luke.

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So he's not new to the game.

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He is a seasoned vet, if you would.

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So God told Jonah to go to Nineveh.

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Why Nineveh?

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Well, because it was the most important city in Assyria at that time.

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As a matter of fact, it would later become the capital city.

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Now Jonah doesn't say very much about how messed up Assyria was at that time.

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And I'd eventually chalk it up to the whole, if you can't say anything nice, then don't

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say anything at all.

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However, it wasn't a nice place.

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If we look at the book of Neum in chapters 1 through 3, we can see that Nineveh was most

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definitely spiraling down the drain.

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You see, they plotted against God.

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They exploited helpless people.

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When it came to conflict, they were extremely cruel and they were deeply rooted and involved

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in things like idolatry, prostitution, and witchcraft.

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Needless to say, they had a lot of strikes going against them.

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And Jonah was told to go and warn them that they were going to be judged by God unless

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they repented of their evil ways and made a change.

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Now, Jonah, he was a lot like all Israelites at that time.

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He'd grown up knowing how twisted the Assyrians were and he hated them for it.

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He hated them.

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His hate was so deep, it ran so deep that he didn't believe for a second that God should

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show them mercy at all.

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Now, he didn't doubt that God could, nor did he doubt that God would.

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He only doubted the simple fact that he should.

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And a lot of us are like that today.

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We're abused and we're hurt by someone so badly that it shakes us to our very core.

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And we allow our hate and our discontent to well up so much that we find ourselves sinning

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simply by not forgetting them.

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After all, Ephesians chapter 4 verse 32, the Bible tells us, and be kind to one another,

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tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.

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Now, this doesn't mean that we should stay in toxic or bad situations.

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We shouldn't.

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However, we need to remember that forgiving people is just as much about you and just

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as much about me, all of us, if not more than the offender.

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So instead, here we are and we stand ready to pass judgment on others, not stopping to

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take the plank from our own eyes as the Bible tells us we should.

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Jonah's attitude was exactly the same.

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He was afraid that if he did go and do what he was supposed to, that people would repent

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and they would receive God's mercy.

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And this was an attitude that mirrored that of the Israelites and how they felt, which

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in turn created this hesitance, this reluctance in sharing.

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Matter of fact, I should just say outright refusal to share God's love with others.

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But I'll remind you that sharing God's love has been a part of the mission since the very

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beginning.

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Matter of fact, the Israelites were even told back in Genesis chapter 12 verse 3, however,

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they didn't want to share with any of the Gentiles because they believed they were the

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only ones who could receive it.

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So they didn't want to waste their time, they didn't want to waste their energy in trying

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to explain to the Gentiles something that they felt they wouldn't understand and couldn't

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receive in the first place.

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Now Jonah knew that God wanted him to do something very specific, but he didn't want to do it.

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Instead, knowing what he did of Assyria, he decided to do that about face, forward march

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and head in that opposite direction.

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And we all do this at various times in our lives.

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We know what we should do, but we're stubborn, fearful, prideful, doubtful and just downright

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pig headed.

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We run instead of doing what we're supposed to.

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A reminder, we've all fallen short of the glory of God.

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But as we're about to see, when it comes to your obligations to God, you can't run from

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them, you can't shrug them off.

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And if you try, you're going to have to pay the piper.

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And as we'll learn going through this book, it's better to just do what God asks of us

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to begin with.

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So let's pick the read back up.

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Verses 4 through 8, the Bible says,

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Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship

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threatened to break up.

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All the sailors were afraid and cried out to his own God.

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And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship.

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But Jonah had gone below deck where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep.

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The captain went to him and said, How can you sleep?

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Get up and call on your God.

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Maybe he will take notice of us so we will not perish.

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Then the sailors said to each other, Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible

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for this calamity.

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They cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.

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So they asked him, Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us?

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What kind of work do you do?

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Where do you come from?

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What is your country?

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From what people are you?

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Uh oh.

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Jonah done messed up.

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Look at this.

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This is a violent storm.

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Violent storm.

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So much so that the sailors were afraid that they were going to go down.

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This ship is going to sink like the Titanic.

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They were all crying out to their own idols in an effort to try to make the ship wider.

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They were throwing stuff overboard, which is probably also a good indicator that they

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were taking on water.

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And what did Jonah do?

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Ah, time for a nap.

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Bye bye.

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See God was already warning him that he better get his head on straight and get to work.

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Again, Jonah shrugged it off, went below and decided to take a nap, even though the ship

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was in for some chop.

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Now saying that, some people might think that he didn't have a guilty conscience, that he

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felt like he was right, he was justified.

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Let me tell you something.

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Feeling guilty or not is not always the best litmus test in life, because we can deny the

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Lord and we can deny the reality that is in front of us at any time.

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And we see it all the time.

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People do it constantly.

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See it doesn't matter what we feel when we aren't comparing what we're doing with what

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God's standards are for us.

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It's the whole argument.

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Oh, I was born this way.

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God made me like this.

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No.

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He did not.

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That is the impact of sin in our world and our lives.

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We all have things we feel we're predisposed to.

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Sure, yet it's on us to recognize the bad for bad, the sin for sin, and not fall into

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those traps.

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We have to choose God and we have to choose His way.

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I've said it before and I'll say it again.

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You can hurt others not only through action, but your inaction.

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And that, that is exactly what Jonah had done to the crew of this ship and to the Ninevites

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he refused to go warm as God had told him to.

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We need to understand something here.

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We need to understand that as Christians, as followers of Jesus, we have a great obligation,

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a great responsibility to be obedient to God.

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Our actions have consequences and we can put others into jeopardy because of it.

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The whole, what is it, Spider-Man, what does it say, with great power comes great responsibility.

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Guess what?

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That's what this is.

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Like I said, this storm, this storm was so intense that this veteran crew knew something

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was wrong and they were taking actions to mitigate it.

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Now I'd like to point out here, the crew cast lots to figure out who was at fault for

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this issue.

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They used a pagan superstition, they were gambling, they were throwing the dice.

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Let's see what Chance has to say.

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Remember we just talked about this.

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Remember these were pagans, not Christians.

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And the only reason why it worked was because God wanted it to.

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God used it to intervene.

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God did that.

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God was in control.

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God's always in control.

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But God was using this as another tool to tell Jonah that running away wasn't an option.

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When things are good, it is so easy for us to stand tall, you know, sucking that gut,

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chest out, chin up.

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But remaining there gets a whole lot harder when things get tough.

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And people in general tend to turn the other way.

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People prefer the path of least resistance.

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That's the way of the world.

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That's human nature.

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How can I do the least amount possible and still get paid that top dollar?

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But it isn't the right way and it's not the Lord's way.

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When we're called to work, it's time to work.

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As my grandpa used to tell us all the time, and this is good advice to write down, there's

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nothing so important that you can't take the time to do it right.

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I can still hear his voice in the back of my head saying that.

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Now let's go back in the scripture.

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We're going to be looking here now at verses 9 through 12.

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And the Bible says, he answered, I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven.

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Who made the sea and the dry land.

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This terrified them.

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And they asked, what have you done?

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They knew he was running away from the Lord because he had already told them so.

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The sea was getting rougher and rougher.

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So they asked him, what should we do to you to make the sea come down for us?

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Pick me up and throw me into the sea, he replied, and it will become calm.

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I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.

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Jonah knew he was sinning by disobeying God.

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He knew he was sinning by trying to run from his obligation.

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He knew that the storm was his fault.

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No matter how hard we try, we cannot look for God's love and God's mercy and God's

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grace and try to run from him at the same time.

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It's schoolyard shenanigans.

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It's like the little girl who likes the boy, so she runs up and she hits him to get his

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attention and then runs the opposite way.

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See, you're either following God or you're running from him, but you can't do both.

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Jonah, he was finally starting to realize that no matter how hard he tried, he wasn't

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going to outrun God.

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And neither can we.

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God's here with us 24-7.

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He's always with us.

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If you want his love and you want his mercy and you want his grace, you need to do what

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he has told you to do, whether you like it or not.

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He's given us all tasks that need to be done.

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Now don't twist this up.

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Don't get it wrong.

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I am not saying that works will get you into heaven.

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No, that's not what I'm saying.

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We already know Jesus is the gateway that we go through.

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Jesus is the only way to get there.

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However, each of us has been put here for a reason and we need to do what God tells

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us to when he tells us to.

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You can't say that you're a follower of Christ when you don't do what he says.

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First John, verses 3-6, the Bible says, we know that we have come to know him if we keep

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his commands.

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Whoever says I know him but does not do what he commands is a liar and the truth is not

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in that person.

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But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them.

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This is how we know we are in him.

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Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.

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So Jonah was fully aware, he knew that he was being a practical son at this point and

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he needed to return to the Father.

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His struggle was with the fact that his mind was poisoned.

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It was poisoned by his hate for the Assyrians and it was poisoned by the fact that God still

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loved them.

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It's like really?

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Why?

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Look at them, they're jerks.

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Look what they do to us, look what they do to everybody.

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They're horrible, they even taunt you.

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See his view was distorted from what it should be.

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And it's so, so easy for all of us to fall into these traps because hate and anger and

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sin they're all consuming.

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They're a virus in our lives.

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And ultimately Jonah finally realized that he had endangered this crew.

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He was convicted of his sin and he wanted to save them.

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But this is how distorted the lens he was using was.

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He felt that it was better to sacrifice himself in order to save this pagan crew of sailors

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than it was to lift a finger to help the Ninevites.

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It was a lesser evil to him.

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So he was starting to come around to the right way and the right thing and the right way

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of thinking but he wasn't there just yet.

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Have you ever noticed it's the same way for us?

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People are more than happy to donate various good to churches and charities for things

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like homelessness.

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This is a great example.

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But if a homeless person approaches them suddenly that person is being treated like they had

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the plague.

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Like whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing?

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Back up.

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Nope.

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Go away.

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Rolling that window up.

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I've even heard another pastor say, and I hate to say this, but I've even heard another

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pastor say, why should I give them my hard earned money?

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They could get a job like anyone else.

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Say, dude, you're missing big parts of the word in your life if that's the way you're

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thinking.

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Big parts.

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That itself is a sermon for another day because that itself is a full sermon.

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I'll tell you what.

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I could probably make a series out of it.

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Rabbit trails.

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Okay.

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So now let's take a look real quick.

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Ephesians chapter 4 verses 17 and 18.

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The Bible says, so I tell you this and insist on it in the lore that you must no longer

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live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking.

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They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of

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the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.

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You see, as part of the human condition, we like to think that we always know what's

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best, even when it comes to God.

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Instead of actually putting Him first and listening to Him.

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Things like human pride and excuses, they pull us away from Him.

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They really tend to rip us away from His grip.

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Those are times we can't blame Satan because we're doing the work for Him.

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We are our own worst enemy.

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And instead of listening to God, we let that poison sink in, that poison the world, and

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we let it corrupt us.

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And our understanding starts to darken just as our hearts start to harden.

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Make no mistake about it.

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There is a war on for our hearts and our minds.

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And we need to be vigilant to ensure that they don't fall to the enemy.

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Going back into Jonah, again, we're still in chapter one, so now we're at verses 13

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through 16.

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So Jonah 1, verses 13 through 16, the Bible says, instead, the men did their best to row

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back to the land, but they could not.

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For the sea grew even wilder than before.

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Then they cried out to the Lord, Please, Lord, do not let us die for taking this man's life.

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Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man for you, Lord.

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Have done as you pleased.

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Then they took Jonah, and they threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm.

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At this, the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and

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made vows to him.

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Wow.

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So the sailors, even after hearing Jonah's confession and hearing what he had to say,

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they still did their very, very best to try to save him.

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It's pretty heroic, isn't it?

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They showed more love for their fellow man than Jonah did.

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Remember, Jonah turned his back on the Ninevites.

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And for believers, this is downright embarrassing, and it should be.

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Here non-believers, pagans, are showing more care, more love, more generosity for their

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fellow man than the believer.

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They're loving their neighbor when the believer is not.

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We have to remember, God wants us to care for everyone.

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It doesn't matter if they're saved.

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It doesn't matter if they're lost.

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God wants us to care for everyone.

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E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E.

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Everyone.

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Remember, what many people know and see in you is all they may ever know of God.

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So you need to ask yourself, are you being a good ambassador?

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Be honest with yourself.

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Are you being a good ambassador?

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See, especially today, being a Christian is an awful lot like being in law enforcement

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in the sense that everyone is watching you.

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They're paying attention to what you do.

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They're paying attention to what you say all the time.

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It's like being in a big fish tank.

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People love to stop and see what's going on in a fish tank.

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And people always want to know what's going on with those Christians.

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So here we are.

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We're in the middle of the storm, and Jonah's finally getting his head on right.

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And things are starting to realign, and they're starting to come into focus for him.

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It was time for him to come to a complete halt.

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Just stop right where he was and submit to God.

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He knew it was time to pay the piper.

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The tab was due, and he was ready to finally make payment.

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So he told these sailors what needed to happen.

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And what happened next is absolutely amazing.

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Because it wasn't just a matter of dotting the I's, crossing the T's, hitting the check

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marks, going down this to-do list to save themselves.

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What we see here is lives were changed.

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Lives were changed.

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They were saved.

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God took something that was really bad, and he used it to reach others.

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What we see here is that after talking to Jonah, the crew began to worship God.

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And as they followed through on the instructions that Jonah had given them, they saw God's

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power.

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They saw God's power as the sea suddenly became quiet.

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Came to a halt, chilled, right?

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Isn't that amazing?

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These sailors were doing what Jonah and the entire nation of Israel, for that matter,

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refused to do.

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They prayed to God.

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They vowed to serve him.

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This is proof that God can take anything and use it to reach others.

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He can use all of us as a tool.

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And Jonah had made a mistake, and we all make mistakes.

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And admitting it when it happens can be hard.

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Sometimes it can be downright painful.

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However, admitting our mistakes, admitting our sins, is also a very powerful example

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and a testament, for that matter, of our faith for others, especially nonbelievers to see.

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Remember, we're all a light on a hill.

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At the end of it all, try as we might, none of us can outrun God.

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He's always with us.

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Throughout the Bible, we've even seen people try.

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Even Moses tried.

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However, when God wants us to do something, we're going to do it.

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We can either submit and do it the easy way, or, much like Jonah, he can do it the hard

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way.

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See, God will often call on us to get out of our comfort zones to go and do something.

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In fact, just like he did, as you recall, with the Jews back in the book of Haggai,

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things like letting go of fear, letting go of doubt, letting go of hate, letting go,

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just letting go, is the hardest part.

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However, you cannot take a leap of faith without trusting in the Lord completely and letting

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go.

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You need to remember, he loves you entirely too much to let you fall.

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He's not just going to catch you, he's going to hold you.

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And because he won't let you fall, and because he's going to hold onto you, he is going to

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use you to do tremendous things, just like we've started to see him do here with Jonah.

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Remember, you matter and you are loved.

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Thank you for tuning in to Healing Scars with Pastor Burton.

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If you would like to know more about our ministry or how you can support us, you can find us

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on Facebook at Be The Light Sanctuary or you can go to our website at BeTheLightSanctuary.org.

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Thanks again for tuning in and we'll catch you next time.

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God bless.