Hey everybody, welcome to today's Beach Talk. In Jonah chapter 3, I love to help us understand
every word of God that's in the Word of God. In this chapter of the Bible, it's an honor
to be able to teach you God's Word today. So my objective is always the same and it's always
simple. It's disciples making disciples who plant churches that plant churches so that
Jesus and his teachings can be a grassroots movement all over the world. Now, our vision
this year is to multiply our ocean waters from four in two countries to eight in four
countries. Now, this is a really big vision, so we need you to pray that God will help
us to accomplish this. So we hope to see you in person soon at one of our in-person locations
and those are on our website and are being updated all the time. Now, Jonah chapter 3
says, now the Word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time saying, arise, go to Nineveh,
that great city, and preach the message that I tell you. Now, this is the second call of
God to Jonah. How many times in your life has God had to tell you something twice before
you did it? Now, this shows the amazing love of God to his wayward people, though Jonah
did everything he could to resist the first call of God, just like we do. After he repented,
God gave him a second chance. Now, aren't you thankful for second chances? I know that
I am. One commentator said here, by paralleling the Jonah's chapter 1's opening remarks, we
see that Jonah here is offered a new beginning. So how many of us have been called to deliver
a person or a group like Jonah was? That's a lot of what this chapter is about. Now,
God was determined to do the work through Jonah, so he did not give up on him. Now,
God is often just as committed to do his work through our own lives, so he's always given
us those second, third, fourth, and infinity of second chances. The great preacher Charles
Spurgeon said that the problem that God wanted to solve was how was he going to get this
whole city to repent? Well, he sent Jonah. God's answer to a problem is almost always
a person. He'll send a person to solve a problem. What problem does God want to solve in the
world through your life? That's one of the things that Jonah chapter 3 teaches us. Look
around into the world and see the problems that lay in front of us and how God might
want to send you into that situation to help solve it, to help turn it around. Not because
you're amazing, but because God is amazing in you and through you and how God wants to
use your life to do amazing things in a broken and fallen world. It will simply live with
outstretched palms and hands and say, God, take my life. Do whatever you want to do with
it. Now, instead of telling Jonah to cry out against Nineveh, this time God simply tells
Jonah to go there, wait for instructions. God often works his best in our life this
way. He doesn't give us the whole plan. He just gives us the next step. If we saw the
whole plan, we would be scared. But the story of Jonah demonstrates why God often leads
us one step at a time without telling us 10 steps. God told Jonah that to go to Nineveh,
Jonah rejected the call. God often tells us what to do and then we don't do it. Now look
at verse 3, Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh
was an exceedingly great city, a three day journey in extent. Jonah began to enter the
city on the first day's walk, then he cried out and said, 40 days and you will be overthrown.
Now what's happening here? It's like an eight word sermon. Jonah preaches in Nineveh and
he went out. Now having learned the lesson that resisting the will of God is foolish
and counterproductive, Jonah now obeys God's call and goes to do what God told him to do.
Now Nineveh was a great city, a big city, it was three days travel from one end to end.
The idea behind the statement probably refers to how long it would take to walk around the
whole city. It was a metropolitan area, a lot of power there, a lot of wealth there,
a lot of very angry and violent people there. Yet 40 days and you'll be overthrown. Jonah
emphasizes to the people that Nineveh, what would happen to them if they didn't repent,
that they would be overthrown in judgment. Now undoubtedly this was not Jonah's whole
message, but it was clearly his emphasis. Now overthrown is a word applied to the destruction
of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19. So this word is interesting. It's God's judgment.
We see that Jonah preached this message with zeal, so much zeal that he was passionate
when he said it. Was it soft spoken? It was harsh, it was full of strength, it was full
of anointing. He went and he told the people of Nineveh that they needed to literally turn
their lives around, that they needed to repent, that they needed to quit doing the things
that they had been doing and start to follow God. Now look at verse five, we see the response.
It says, so the people of Nineveh believe God proclaimed to fast, they put on sackcloth
from the greatest to the least of them, then the word came to the king of Nineveh and he
arose from his throne and laid aside his robe. He covered himself with sackcloth and ashes
and he caused it to be proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh, that by the decree of
the king and his noble saying, don't let man or animal, nor herd nor flock, taste anything,
do not let them eat or drink water, but let them be covered with sackcloth and cry to
God, turn from their evil ways, the violence from their past. Who can tell if God will
turn or relent and turn away from his anger so that we will not perish. Now wow, this
is a great example of repentance. Now the response of the people was that word repentance.
Now this isn't a word that you would think what it means. It means going one place, turning
around and going the other. You can't have repentance without responsibility. God always
wants us to be responsible, understand what we did and then quit doing it. That's repentance.
Repentance begins with believing God as we believe him and his word, we have the power
to transform our lives as he wants us to. We can do a lot of other things in our lives,
but repentance has to be genuine and it has to be sincere. And it's marked by a change
in action, a change of course. You see, you can't believe God apart from his word. Therefore,
any real repentance will begin with understanding the Bible and making a commitment to live
by the Bible, by God's word. The people of Nineveh proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth.
Repentance means doing something. The people of Nineveh, they fasted, they mourned as for
the dead and they did it from the highest to the lowest, from the greatest to the least.
Now if repentance is anything, it is not business as usual. When repentance comes, something
has to change and something has to be different. Now in their case, the people of Nineveh took
off their clothes and put on sackcloth, a sick coarse cloth normally made from goats
hair. They wore it as a display of the rejection of earth's comforts and pleasures, the things
that were tempted by it. Now here they're repentant on behalf of their animals. Now
this is extreme repentance. They even had their animals get in on turning their lives
around. That might be when you know God is really talking to you when you involve your
animals as well in changing their lives. A little bit extreme. Now there are many modern
expressions of repentance. A lot of people make excuses or they justify the reasons for
their sin. That's not really repentance at all. Often those are just our attempts to
justify and excuse ourselves. Nevertheless, we need to take responsibility if we're really
going to repent for our lives. So it's better to come to God openly and honestly and say
God whatever you want to do, I know that you're right and I'm wrong. Now he commanded them
to turn their lives around. Repentance means turning from your evil ways and the violence
in this case that was in their hands. It means a change of mind and a change of action, a
change of course. Now as we follow Jesus, as we're disciples of Jesus, repentance does
not describe what you must do to turn to God. It describes the very process of turning to
God. When we truly turn to him, we turn away from the things that displease him or make
him unhappy. And who can tell if God will turn away and relent and withhold his anger?
You see, repentance has hope and the mercy and the love of God. It hopes that God will
relent and give people a chance to turn their lives around. Now Jonah could more effectively
preach the message of repentance because he knew his own need to repent and he himself
is a model of repentance in the last chapter, in chapter two. Being a repentant person didn't
disqualify Jonah from preaching repentance. It made his preaching that much more effective
because it was personal. Now in verse 10, it says that God relented from the disaster.
He said he would bring to them and he didn't do it. You see, God's full of grace, full
of second chances. God's response to their repentance was that he saw their works and
he relented. He honored their repentance even though their past sin would have been enough
for him to pour out his judgment. He didn't do it. That state would never forgive a cold
blooded murderer who vowed to never do it again, but God mercifully relented from judgment
against the people of Nineveh. We don't obligate God to forgive us when we repent. Instead,
repentance appeals to God's mercy, not to his justice. You see, God relented from the
disaster that he had said he would bring upon them and he didn't do it. Now, did God relenting
make Jonah a false prophet? No. He went with God's words. They heard God's words and they
turned their lives around completely. You see, God acted in total consistency with his
word. The instant that God speaks concerning a nation and a kingdom to pluck up and to
pull down and to destroy it, if that nation doesn't do what he says, God will give people,
you and I, always a chance to turn around and to do something different. Again, this
chapter is full of grace and it's full of mercy. Now, his words had implied, if you
don't repent, that the judgment was going to come. And that's God's message to us. God
is full of love, he's full of grace, he's full of mercy, but he's also full of justice.
He's also full of judgment. Justice and judgment only make sense in light of mercy, grace,
and love. Now, God didn't judge Nineveh. Nevertheless, in the light of their repentance, he delayed
the promised judgment for later on in history. Now, this concludes our time looking at Jonah
chapter three today. I want you to ask yourself today, what was something God was saying to
you through today's Beach Talk, through his word? You know, every time we pray, it's a
chance to stop doing some things, to start doing some things, to hit reset in our life
and to do things in a fresh new way. Would you just pray with me now? Say, God, help
me to stop doing those things that I know I need to stop. Help me to start doing those
things I know I need to start. Would you hit reset in my life? Would you forgive me and
help me even now in this moment to align my will up with yours? In Jesus name, amen.
Now for thousands of years, the work of God has been supported by the people of God. Now,
the Bible teaches radical generosity for those who believe in Jesus. Now, why does it teach
that? Because we're supposed to believe, we're supposed to be radically generous. We have
heard the gospel, the good news about Jesus. Out of that generosity, what we give, it gives
other people a chance to hear. So God wants us to be radically generous so that people
in California, people in El Salvador, people in Indonesia, people in Bangladesh can also
hear and have a chance to follow Jesus just like we have. That's why we do it. Now, we're
all set up to do that on our website. You can find information there at Oceanwater.com.
And as always, have a beautiful day.