1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,820 Hey everybody, welcome to today's Beach Talk. In Jonah chapter 3, I love to help us understand 2 00:00:06,820 --> 00:00:11,160 every word of God that's in the Word of God. In this chapter of the Bible, it's an honor 3 00:00:11,160 --> 00:00:15,720 to be able to teach you God's Word today. So my objective is always the same and it's always 4 00:00:15,720 --> 00:00:22,480 simple. It's disciples making disciples who plant churches that plant churches so that 5 00:00:22,480 --> 00:00:27,760 Jesus and his teachings can be a grassroots movement all over the world. Now, our vision 6 00:00:27,760 --> 00:00:37,540 this year is to multiply our ocean waters from four in two countries to eight in four 7 00:00:37,540 --> 00:00:42,720 countries. Now, this is a really big vision, so we need you to pray that God will help 8 00:00:42,720 --> 00:00:49,180 us to accomplish this. So we hope to see you in person soon at one of our in-person locations 9 00:00:49,180 --> 00:00:53,360 and those are on our website and are being updated all the time. Now, Jonah chapter 3 10 00:00:53,360 --> 00:00:58,360 says, now the Word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time saying, arise, go to Nineveh, 11 00:00:58,360 --> 00:01:04,200 that great city, and preach the message that I tell you. Now, this is the second call of 12 00:01:04,200 --> 00:01:09,920 God to Jonah. How many times in your life has God had to tell you something twice before 13 00:01:09,920 --> 00:01:14,840 you did it? Now, this shows the amazing love of God to his wayward people, though Jonah 14 00:01:14,840 --> 00:01:22,520 did everything he could to resist the first call of God, just like we do. After he repented, 15 00:01:22,520 --> 00:01:27,280 God gave him a second chance. Now, aren't you thankful for second chances? I know that 16 00:01:27,280 --> 00:01:36,120 I am. One commentator said here, by paralleling the Jonah's chapter 1's opening remarks, we 17 00:01:36,120 --> 00:01:44,000 see that Jonah here is offered a new beginning. So how many of us have been called to deliver 18 00:01:44,000 --> 00:01:50,360 a person or a group like Jonah was? That's a lot of what this chapter is about. Now, 19 00:01:50,360 --> 00:01:56,680 God was determined to do the work through Jonah, so he did not give up on him. Now, 20 00:01:56,680 --> 00:02:01,800 God is often just as committed to do his work through our own lives, so he's always given 21 00:02:01,800 --> 00:02:07,440 us those second, third, fourth, and infinity of second chances. The great preacher Charles 22 00:02:07,440 --> 00:02:12,960 Spurgeon said that the problem that God wanted to solve was how was he going to get this 23 00:02:12,960 --> 00:02:24,280 whole city to repent? Well, he sent Jonah. God's answer to a problem is almost always 24 00:02:24,280 --> 00:02:32,360 a person. He'll send a person to solve a problem. What problem does God want to solve in the 25 00:02:32,360 --> 00:02:38,920 world through your life? That's one of the things that Jonah chapter 3 teaches us. Look 26 00:02:38,920 --> 00:02:45,720 around into the world and see the problems that lay in front of us and how God might 27 00:02:45,720 --> 00:02:51,840 want to send you into that situation to help solve it, to help turn it around. Not because 28 00:02:51,840 --> 00:02:59,380 you're amazing, but because God is amazing in you and through you and how God wants to 29 00:02:59,380 --> 00:03:07,680 use your life to do amazing things in a broken and fallen world. It will simply live with 30 00:03:07,680 --> 00:03:12,280 outstretched palms and hands and say, God, take my life. Do whatever you want to do with 31 00:03:12,280 --> 00:03:18,160 it. Now, instead of telling Jonah to cry out against Nineveh, this time God simply tells 32 00:03:18,160 --> 00:03:23,280 Jonah to go there, wait for instructions. God often works his best in our life this 33 00:03:23,280 --> 00:03:27,280 way. He doesn't give us the whole plan. He just gives us the next step. If we saw the 34 00:03:27,280 --> 00:03:31,880 whole plan, we would be scared. But the story of Jonah demonstrates why God often leads 35 00:03:31,880 --> 00:03:40,400 us one step at a time without telling us 10 steps. God told Jonah that to go to Nineveh, 36 00:03:40,400 --> 00:03:45,560 Jonah rejected the call. God often tells us what to do and then we don't do it. Now look 37 00:03:45,560 --> 00:03:51,680 at verse 3, Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh 38 00:03:51,680 --> 00:03:57,720 was an exceedingly great city, a three day journey in extent. Jonah began to enter the 39 00:03:57,720 --> 00:04:04,440 city on the first day's walk, then he cried out and said, 40 days and you will be overthrown. 40 00:04:04,440 --> 00:04:09,520 Now what's happening here? It's like an eight word sermon. Jonah preaches in Nineveh and 41 00:04:09,520 --> 00:04:15,600 he went out. Now having learned the lesson that resisting the will of God is foolish 42 00:04:15,600 --> 00:04:22,240 and counterproductive, Jonah now obeys God's call and goes to do what God told him to do. 43 00:04:22,240 --> 00:04:28,160 Now Nineveh was a great city, a big city, it was three days travel from one end to end. 44 00:04:28,160 --> 00:04:31,840 The idea behind the statement probably refers to how long it would take to walk around the 45 00:04:31,840 --> 00:04:36,720 whole city. It was a metropolitan area, a lot of power there, a lot of wealth there, 46 00:04:36,720 --> 00:04:42,880 a lot of very angry and violent people there. Yet 40 days and you'll be overthrown. Jonah 47 00:04:42,880 --> 00:04:47,480 emphasizes to the people that Nineveh, what would happen to them if they didn't repent, 48 00:04:47,480 --> 00:04:52,360 that they would be overthrown in judgment. Now undoubtedly this was not Jonah's whole 49 00:04:52,360 --> 00:04:58,040 message, but it was clearly his emphasis. Now overthrown is a word applied to the destruction 50 00:04:58,040 --> 00:05:05,200 of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19. So this word is interesting. It's God's judgment. 51 00:05:05,200 --> 00:05:13,640 We see that Jonah preached this message with zeal, so much zeal that he was passionate 52 00:05:13,640 --> 00:05:19,800 when he said it. Was it soft spoken? It was harsh, it was full of strength, it was full 53 00:05:19,800 --> 00:05:26,440 of anointing. He went and he told the people of Nineveh that they needed to literally turn 54 00:05:26,440 --> 00:05:31,600 their lives around, that they needed to repent, that they needed to quit doing the things 55 00:05:31,600 --> 00:05:39,200 that they had been doing and start to follow God. Now look at verse five, we see the response. 56 00:05:39,200 --> 00:05:43,960 It says, so the people of Nineveh believe God proclaimed to fast, they put on sackcloth 57 00:05:43,960 --> 00:05:48,800 from the greatest to the least of them, then the word came to the king of Nineveh and he 58 00:05:48,800 --> 00:05:54,200 arose from his throne and laid aside his robe. He covered himself with sackcloth and ashes 59 00:05:54,200 --> 00:05:59,680 and he caused it to be proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh, that by the decree of 60 00:05:59,680 --> 00:06:07,680 the king and his noble saying, don't let man or animal, nor herd nor flock, taste anything, 61 00:06:07,680 --> 00:06:12,640 do not let them eat or drink water, but let them be covered with sackcloth and cry to 62 00:06:12,640 --> 00:06:20,840 God, turn from their evil ways, the violence from their past. Who can tell if God will 63 00:06:20,840 --> 00:06:26,240 turn or relent and turn away from his anger so that we will not perish. Now wow, this 64 00:06:26,240 --> 00:06:32,120 is a great example of repentance. Now the response of the people was that word repentance. 65 00:06:32,120 --> 00:06:39,140 Now this isn't a word that you would think what it means. It means going one place, turning 66 00:06:39,140 --> 00:06:46,240 around and going the other. You can't have repentance without responsibility. God always 67 00:06:46,240 --> 00:06:52,160 wants us to be responsible, understand what we did and then quit doing it. That's repentance. 68 00:06:52,160 --> 00:06:56,640 Repentance begins with believing God as we believe him and his word, we have the power 69 00:06:56,640 --> 00:07:03,360 to transform our lives as he wants us to. We can do a lot of other things in our lives, 70 00:07:03,360 --> 00:07:08,640 but repentance has to be genuine and it has to be sincere. And it's marked by a change 71 00:07:08,640 --> 00:07:13,440 in action, a change of course. You see, you can't believe God apart from his word. Therefore, 72 00:07:13,440 --> 00:07:19,840 any real repentance will begin with understanding the Bible and making a commitment to live 73 00:07:19,840 --> 00:07:26,180 by the Bible, by God's word. The people of Nineveh proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth. 74 00:07:26,180 --> 00:07:31,000 Repentance means doing something. The people of Nineveh, they fasted, they mourned as for 75 00:07:31,000 --> 00:07:37,120 the dead and they did it from the highest to the lowest, from the greatest to the least. 76 00:07:37,120 --> 00:07:44,040 Now if repentance is anything, it is not business as usual. When repentance comes, something 77 00:07:44,040 --> 00:07:49,080 has to change and something has to be different. Now in their case, the people of Nineveh took 78 00:07:49,080 --> 00:07:54,160 off their clothes and put on sackcloth, a sick coarse cloth normally made from goats 79 00:07:54,160 --> 00:08:01,440 hair. They wore it as a display of the rejection of earth's comforts and pleasures, the things 80 00:08:01,440 --> 00:08:05,480 that were tempted by it. Now here they're repentant on behalf of their animals. Now 81 00:08:05,480 --> 00:08:10,640 this is extreme repentance. They even had their animals get in on turning their lives 82 00:08:10,640 --> 00:08:17,520 around. That might be when you know God is really talking to you when you involve your 83 00:08:17,520 --> 00:08:24,080 animals as well in changing their lives. A little bit extreme. Now there are many modern 84 00:08:24,080 --> 00:08:28,800 expressions of repentance. A lot of people make excuses or they justify the reasons for 85 00:08:28,800 --> 00:08:33,240 their sin. That's not really repentance at all. Often those are just our attempts to 86 00:08:33,240 --> 00:08:40,560 justify and excuse ourselves. Nevertheless, we need to take responsibility if we're really 87 00:08:40,560 --> 00:08:45,080 going to repent for our lives. So it's better to come to God openly and honestly and say 88 00:08:45,080 --> 00:08:51,200 God whatever you want to do, I know that you're right and I'm wrong. Now he commanded them 89 00:08:51,200 --> 00:08:56,080 to turn their lives around. Repentance means turning from your evil ways and the violence 90 00:08:56,080 --> 00:09:02,800 in this case that was in their hands. It means a change of mind and a change of action, a 91 00:09:02,800 --> 00:09:07,320 change of course. Now as we follow Jesus, as we're disciples of Jesus, repentance does 92 00:09:07,320 --> 00:09:11,800 not describe what you must do to turn to God. It describes the very process of turning to 93 00:09:11,800 --> 00:09:18,240 God. When we truly turn to him, we turn away from the things that displease him or make 94 00:09:18,240 --> 00:09:24,160 him unhappy. And who can tell if God will turn away and relent and withhold his anger? 95 00:09:24,160 --> 00:09:29,480 You see, repentance has hope and the mercy and the love of God. It hopes that God will 96 00:09:29,480 --> 00:09:36,820 relent and give people a chance to turn their lives around. Now Jonah could more effectively 97 00:09:36,820 --> 00:09:42,080 preach the message of repentance because he knew his own need to repent and he himself 98 00:09:42,080 --> 00:09:48,080 is a model of repentance in the last chapter, in chapter two. Being a repentant person didn't 99 00:09:48,080 --> 00:09:54,120 disqualify Jonah from preaching repentance. It made his preaching that much more effective 100 00:09:54,120 --> 00:10:01,120 because it was personal. Now in verse 10, it says that God relented from the disaster. 101 00:10:01,120 --> 00:10:06,040 He said he would bring to them and he didn't do it. You see, God's full of grace, full 102 00:10:06,040 --> 00:10:10,880 of second chances. God's response to their repentance was that he saw their works and 103 00:10:10,880 --> 00:10:16,120 he relented. He honored their repentance even though their past sin would have been enough 104 00:10:16,120 --> 00:10:21,880 for him to pour out his judgment. He didn't do it. That state would never forgive a cold 105 00:10:21,880 --> 00:10:26,880 blooded murderer who vowed to never do it again, but God mercifully relented from judgment 106 00:10:26,880 --> 00:10:33,440 against the people of Nineveh. We don't obligate God to forgive us when we repent. Instead, 107 00:10:33,440 --> 00:10:39,480 repentance appeals to God's mercy, not to his justice. You see, God relented from the 108 00:10:39,480 --> 00:10:44,560 disaster that he had said he would bring upon them and he didn't do it. Now, did God relenting 109 00:10:44,560 --> 00:10:51,560 make Jonah a false prophet? No. He went with God's words. They heard God's words and they 110 00:10:51,880 --> 00:10:57,440 turned their lives around completely. You see, God acted in total consistency with his 111 00:10:57,440 --> 00:11:02,400 word. The instant that God speaks concerning a nation and a kingdom to pluck up and to 112 00:11:02,400 --> 00:11:09,400 pull down and to destroy it, if that nation doesn't do what he says, God will give people, 113 00:11:09,400 --> 00:11:15,700 you and I, always a chance to turn around and to do something different. Again, this 114 00:11:15,700 --> 00:11:21,820 chapter is full of grace and it's full of mercy. Now, his words had implied, if you 115 00:11:21,820 --> 00:11:27,860 don't repent, that the judgment was going to come. And that's God's message to us. God 116 00:11:27,860 --> 00:11:34,060 is full of love, he's full of grace, he's full of mercy, but he's also full of justice. 117 00:11:34,060 --> 00:11:41,060 He's also full of judgment. Justice and judgment only make sense in light of mercy, grace, 118 00:11:41,660 --> 00:11:48,660 and love. Now, God didn't judge Nineveh. Nevertheless, in the light of their repentance, he delayed 119 00:11:49,340 --> 00:11:55,980 the promised judgment for later on in history. Now, this concludes our time looking at Jonah 120 00:11:55,980 --> 00:12:01,340 chapter three today. I want you to ask yourself today, what was something God was saying to 121 00:12:01,340 --> 00:12:06,620 you through today's Beach Talk, through his word? You know, every time we pray, it's a 122 00:12:06,620 --> 00:12:12,680 chance to stop doing some things, to start doing some things, to hit reset in our life 123 00:12:12,680 --> 00:12:17,220 and to do things in a fresh new way. Would you just pray with me now? Say, God, help 124 00:12:17,220 --> 00:12:21,720 me to stop doing those things that I know I need to stop. Help me to start doing those 125 00:12:21,720 --> 00:12:26,620 things I know I need to start. Would you hit reset in my life? Would you forgive me and 126 00:12:26,620 --> 00:12:33,620 help me even now in this moment to align my will up with yours? In Jesus name, amen. 127 00:12:34,820 --> 00:12:41,820 Now for thousands of years, the work of God has been supported by the people of God. Now, 128 00:12:43,540 --> 00:12:49,180 the Bible teaches radical generosity for those who believe in Jesus. Now, why does it teach 129 00:12:49,180 --> 00:12:55,860 that? Because we're supposed to believe, we're supposed to be radically generous. We have 130 00:12:55,860 --> 00:13:02,860 heard the gospel, the good news about Jesus. Out of that generosity, what we give, it gives 131 00:13:03,580 --> 00:13:10,140 other people a chance to hear. So God wants us to be radically generous so that people 132 00:13:10,140 --> 00:13:16,260 in California, people in El Salvador, people in Indonesia, people in Bangladesh can also 133 00:13:16,260 --> 00:13:21,820 hear and have a chance to follow Jesus just like we have. That's why we do it. Now, we're 134 00:13:21,820 --> 00:13:26,100 all set up to do that on our website. You can find information there at Oceanwater.com. 135 00:13:26,100 --> 00:13:53,100 And as always, have a beautiful day.