God’s Plans Are Wrecking Mine

I want to talk to those of you that are followers of Jesus and I'm curious if you are a Christian how many of you want to hear from God you want God's will for your life great news that you do but I got to warn you whenever God speaks to you he'll often ask you to do something that you don't want to do we're going to see that in our new message series uh for the next four weeks we're going to go verse by verse through the Book of Jonah an amazing book how many of

you basically know the story of Jonah raise your hand you can type online I know the story of Jonah most people know the basics if you've been around a church God calls Jonah to preach the message to some people didn't want to so he runs from God he gets thrown into the water a fish swallows him up the fish vomits him up he preaches they repent they live happily ever after and that's what most people know there is so much more to this story there are layers and layers and layers that will speak to your

everyday life and inspire you to be closer to God and to posture and position you to be used by God and so I want to build a foundation and then we're going to go verse by verse through the Book of Jonah let's start with the basics um who is the main character of The Book of Jonah and the answer is not Jonah good guess it's a is a what most people would guess is actually not Jonah uh Jonah the son of emiti is The Only Name mentioned anywhere in Jonah there's no King there's no Captain

his is the only name but he's not the main character someone say well then it's the big fish and oddly enough in four chapters there's only three verses that talk about the big fish so if it's not Jonah and it's not the big fish who is the main character of the book of Jonah and the answer is the Lord God is the main character of The Book of Jonah in fact Jonah starts this way Jonah 1:1 says the word of the Lord came to Jonah the word of the Lord how many of you know that

God is a God who speaks in the beginning was the word and the Word was with God and the Word was God and the word became flesh and dwelt Among Us in the beginning was the word our God is a God who speaks and God is still speaking today the word of the Lord came to Jonah and I believe the word of the Lord is going to come to you if you have ears to hear I promise God is going to speak to you and God is going to direct your steps and sometimes What God

Says to you what he directs you to do may not be something that you want to do Jonah 1 ver1 starts this way the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of amiti go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because its wickedness has come up before me God says Hey Jonah you're the prophet go do what prophets do go preach repentance to those evil people call them to turn to me because they've done horrible things and so what did Jonah do if he had done what God told him to do

he could have gone preached and they turned to God but he didn't do that instead he did what a lot of us do verse three tells us this God told him what to do but Jonah ran away from the Lord Jonah didn't do what God asked him to do Jonah did his own thing he ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarsus and he went which direction somebody help me out here he went down to japa where he found a ship Bound for that Port after paying the fair he went aboard and said for

tarus in order to flee from the Lord scripture says he ran from God in fact if you know the geography you'll see that Jonah actually ran Great Links he went to extensive links to get away from God and ran as far as he possibly could and I'll show you on a map what he did if you see japa down in the corner uh God told him to go to Nineveh which was 550 mil to the east but he didn't do that instead of going east he actually went West 2500 miles all the way to Tarsus

that was at the time that he lived as far as possible from his god-given assignment and the text tells us God told him to go to Nineveh but Jonah found a ship that was bound for Tarsus which leads us to the principle that if you want to run from God the devil will always offer you a ride if you want to get away from God I promise you you can always find a boat sailing in the wrong direction what did Jonah do he ran from God he disobeyed God God gave him an assignment he said

no I'm not going to do that now why did he run from God the reason is because God wanted him to go preach to the nites and he hated despised the ninevites I'll give you the cont context Jonah was a Jewish Hebrew from Israel and Nineveh was the capital of Assyria the Assyrians hated the Israelites the Israelites hated the Assyrians it was kind of like like Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader type of thing okay he he despised these people and for a very very good reason I'm going to explain to you some stuff and I

I don't want to be too graphic but you kind of need to understand why he hated them so much the Assyrians they were horrible when they would go and Conquer a city uh they would they would sexually abuse the women they would kill the children they would take survivors and they would skin them alive this is gross they would bury them in the Sands after skinning them they would pull their tongue out at times and drive a steak through it and just let them die a brutal death torturing them and Jonah said I can't can't

stand these people the real reason he didn't go ask them to turn to God wasn't because he was afraid of them is because he knew God's character and he didn't want God to show favor and Grace and actually forgive his enemies so Jonah ran away from God and he rationalized his Disobedience what does it mean to rationalize sin he he probably thought something like hey these people are so evil they don't deserve it so I'm not doing it he rationalized his sin when I say to rationalize sin what do I mean we defined it a

couple weeks ago we'll say it again it's when our mind makes an excuse for what our spirit knows is wrong it's when our mind makes an excuse for something that God's word forbids or we know in our spirit that it's wrong the reality is some of you right now you're rationalizing some sin Maybe maybe God asked you to do something like you are prompted to serve somewhere or to give something to someone or to to be a witness or or to forgive someone and you thought I'm not ready for it this isn't the best time

I don't feel like it I'll do it later you you're putting off what God told you to do I want to remind you that delayed obedience is Disobedience those of you that are parents you know that some of you you your kids by counting one stop it two we didn't do that I didn't want to say like the run into the street one two Splat no it's on one okay you stop on one delayed obedience is Disobedience and a lot of times when people think about spir spiritual maturity what does it mean to really be

mature in your relationship with God a lot of Christians thinks it's all about Bible knowledge and Bible knowledge is very very very very important but it's not just knowledge it's actually what you do with the knowledge in fact if you ask me to Define spiritual maturity I would say oftentimes it's a short time between God's commands and our obedience that's maturity that When God Says something you don't argue he don't question you obey what he prompts you to do and so we see the word of the Lord comes to Jonah and Jonah ran from God

when he ran from God do you think his life got better or do you think it got worse once he started to run from God his life went downhill in fact it's really interesting when you read through the Book of Jonah you're going to see two directions mentioned often you're going to see up arise and go and then you're going to see Jonah going down in fact I'll show you three different verses that show this H go ahead and and say it with me you can type it in the comment section down down down if

you want to it'll be fun but when you say it you have to say it like this you have to say down practice down that's pretty good so let's just try it Jonah 1:3 Jonah went down to japa Jonah 15 Jonah went down to the bottom of the ship Jonah 2:3 Jonah was thrown down to the bottom of the sea as you read through this whole book you're going to see directions God calls him up but in when Rebels he goes down now the reason I had you do that with me is because there was

this preacher one time I heard preach this who was way more talented than I am when he said down it had like four syllables and it was really powerful and he said this and he he did actually went he said Jonah went down down down let me try it again Jonah went I can't even do it I I just hat off this guy he was amazing and and that's what happen happens when you run from God you go down down down verse four shows us what happens then up here's the main character the main character

is who is the Lord then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up now who sent the storm here God sent the storm and all the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own God so these Sailors don't worship the true God they worship their own Gods and they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship but Jonah had gone below he went down again he went below the deck where he lay down and fell into a deep

sleep now there's a lot here first of all what's interesting to me is that the pagans Sailors whenever they got afraid they started praying it's funny I always think it's funny when people that don't believe in God God get afraid and start praying I was on a airplan one time and sat next to a guy he's like hey I'm so and so what's your name I'm Craig goes what do you do for a living I said well I'm to I'm sometimes I'm tempted to lie because whenever I say anything the conversation always changes it either

goes from a normal guy who starts going praise the Lord Brother hallelujah thank you Jesus or the conversation dies so I told the truth I said I'm actually a pastor of a church called Life Church and the conversation died he said just I just want you to know respectfully I don't believe in God don't tell me about God don't witness to me I don't want to hear anything about God said fair enough fine eat your peanuts so didn't do anything I'm not kidding you hour later in the flight we hit this massive turbulence he leans

over and goes pray preacher [Applause] pray that's what these sailors did they're in the storm they like God wherever you are we need your help now I want you to notice these Sailors they were innocent meaning they hadn't done anything wrong but yet they're in the middle of a storm because God sent a storm because of Jonah's Rebellion I want you to think about this the sailors were suffering because a rebellious guy was on the boat if I had time I would tell you this some of you might be struggling right now because you got

the wrong friend in your boat some of you if I had some time I might tell you you need you've been dating Jonah and anytime you're dating someone who's running from God you might find yourself in a little bit of a storm you you might you might need to throw that old boy off your boat and some of you you're not dating Jonah but you just got Jonah all up into your feed you're following people that take you away from God and anytime you have a consistent voice in your life distracting you from the true

God you might need to get that voice off of your boat here we have these Sailors and they're in the middle of a storm that they didn't cause and their boats about to break apart and what's Jonah doing Jonah's asleep I want you to notice this his life is going what help me out his life is going down down down and he's asleep not even noticing what's happening and this is a profoundly scary place when you become comfortable disobeying God and I'm afraid that there are a lot of people maybe even some of you like

Jonah at this point in your life you're becoming more comfortable in your compromise you you're you're running from God you're ignoring God and you don't even care you got no idea that all around you your life is starting to go down down down and if you are someone that that you you do know God and you're you're disobeying him and you're running from him or maybe you just become spiritually complacent complacent I've got really good news for you and it's not going to feel like good news and that is this God won't let you get

comfortable in your sin he will not let you get comfortable in your compromise God will either send or he'll allow some type of consequence to get your attention whenever you're running from God in this case it was actually God who sent the storm it was God who sent the storm like is that like mean is God some kind of cruel God is he know why why is he doing this it's actually not mean it was kindness because Jonah was running away God sent a storm to try to bring him back sometimes God sends a storm

sometimes God allows a storm sometimes the devil may send a storm sometimes though you actually bring the storm on yourself because sin always has consequences I I know some Christians who do the wrong thing and they end up in a bad place and they blame it on the devil every time and I just got to tell you the devil doesn't bring Every Storm some storms you bring on yourself right you I lo the devil took my job no you lost your job because you were always late right devil got me in debt no that was

you your credit card and Amazon you did that by yourself the devil doesn't bring every single storm some of them you bring on yourself in this case God actually lovingly in his grace sent a storm Jonah's life was going down down down and he didn't even notice because he was comfortable in his compromise so in verse eight we see this they ask him the sailors like hey tell us who's responsible for making all this trouble for us we didn't do anything wrong we got the wrong guy on the boat Jonah answered I'm a Hebrew and

I worship the Lord the god of Heaven who made the sea in the dry land oh there you go that's almost funny everything's going wrong and Jonah says oh I'm a Hebrew I worship the Lord he says he worships God but he's not obeying God he says he worships God and he's not obeying God and that may be one of the biggest problems represented in the American church today like our church my church me you we claim yeah yeah Jesus yeah go USA or whatever country you're in online go go you know yeah go Jesus

and yet we're often far from God the word of the Lord came to Jonah and Jonah disobeyed the word of God and so what we do in our church is we're we're in community We Are Better Together We do not try to fight alone two are better than one if one falls down who can help him up but he's got a buddy can help him up iron sharpens iron wher two or three gathered together we are people of community and so in our life groups and if you're not in a life group guess what you

can be in a life group and our life group this is the question we're going to discuss I want you to ask yourself this where in your life are you rationalizing sin and running from God where in your life are you doing something if you slow down long enough to be honest financially you're not honoring God in your marriage you're not treating your wife with respect or you're dishonoring your husband your kid you're not oby obeying your mom and dad you're like you're like yeah I'm I'm a youth group and I disobey mom and dad

you're looking at something you shouldn't look at your gosp whatever it is you're you're listening to music that you know is dis what what is it what area of your life are you rationalizing sin and running from God we're going to talk about it we're going to pray about it and we're going to turn away from it we're not going to claim to worship God and do whatever we want verse 11 tells us this the sea was getting rougher and rougher so they asked Jonah what should we do to you to make this sea calm

down in other words if it's your fault fault what do we need to do about it and watch this how sad this is Jonah says this he says hey pick me up and throw me into the sea in other words I know it's my fault and that God's bringing this judgment because of me pick me up and throw me into the sea and it will become calm I know that it's my fault that this great storm has come upon you Jonah says my bad I brought it on I want you to see how how heartbreaking

this is how sad this is and I want you to feel the sadness because I want to say this lovingly not harshly this is where some of you are right now Jonah was God's chosen prophet and he's so far from God so depressed that he doesn't care if he lives or if he dies my fault throw me overboard heartbreaking because God chose Jonah and God called Jonah and Jonah ran from God and his life went down down down and there is someone here there is someone watching online that God called you and you said yes

you trusted your life to him you made him Lord and you Saidi want to please you in all that I do but then you've been running from him doing your own thing he said go this way and you said I'm going that way and you have been doing it for so long that you've grown comfortable in it and maybe life's not going so well right now and you get mad at God and I might tell you maybe devil didn't sin that storm maybe you brought it on yourself God called you you're running from God and

now you're stuck in a storm we get there when we ignore God and we end up in a place that we never ever wanted to be depressed hopeless we see no way out [Music] we wonder is life even worth it then we start looking for somebody to blame it must be the sailor's fault or must be it's the ninevites fault or or it's God's fault I mean couldn't be my fault when the word of the Lord came to us and we went our own [Music] way and Jonah comfortable in his compromise loses all hope and

says throw me in and the guys on the boat what's crazy is like in modern terms we'd say they weren't Christians but they were actually trying to do the right thing Jonah in modern terms would have been the Christian and he was the one disobeying God and we got these these Pagan Sailors and they they don't want to do it but when they had no other choice and the storm got worse they finally verse 15 tells us this they took Jonah and they threw him overboard and the moment they did that I want you to

imagine this they're in a storm and they know this guy is rebelling and they know that God they throw him overboard and everything the sea goes calm it's just like when the plane was turbulent and the guy said pray preacher and I prayed and the plane was completely smooth not really we bounced around for 10 more minutes but you could imagine it happened [Music] the sea went calm completely calm at this the men what they greatly feared the main character of this story they greatly feared not like a we're afraid of like it's a it's

a reverent like oh wow he's that powerful they greatly feared the Lord and they offered a sacrifice it's like at that moment we're choosing to serve and worship him and they made made vows to God they looked on and thought any God who can do this is a God that we need to know and worship any God that is this powerful is a God that we want to surrender Our Lives [Music] to if God has ever reached out to you the word of the Lord has ever come to you and you've just stepped away I

want to tell you about the goodness of this God our God is our refuge and our strength he is our everpresent help in a time of trouble his name is a strong Fortress and the righteous run to it and they're kept safe Our God gives strength to the weary and he increases the power of the weak our God is a compassionate God who heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds our God is a generous God who meets all of your needs according to his glorious riches found in Christ Jesus our God is a good

God and he does have an enemy Satan the liar the thief who comes to steal kill and destroy but our God sent his son whose name is Jesus who came that you may have life and life to the full when when you when you seek God when you call on him you will find him he is a good god who will be with you he will never leave you he will never forsake you a God Like This is a God we want to know it's a God we want to worship he's a god worthy of

our reverence we fear a god like that our God is Holy he's not some Santa Claus in the sky he's God he's the Lord of all the word of the Lord comes and we say yes Lord the word of the Lord comes and we say yes Lord here I am may it be done unto me according to your word a God Like That is the God we want to give our lives to honor worship fear trust obey surrender and so Jonah's overboard he's in the water he ain't got no life jacket there's no there's no

little dingy boat coming his way it looks like game over do not pass go do not collect $200 is game over why because the word of the Lord came to him and he ran from God the word of the Lord is coming to you God is a loving God God is a God who speaks God is going to speak to you the word of the Lord is coming to you and so I'd ask you again in what area of your life where in your Li in your life are you rationalizing sin and running from God

we're going to acknowledge it confess it and we're going to turn from it and I want to say just very sincerely if you are someone that has never known God turn to him call out to him just try it just tell if you're there reveal yourself to me and bucker your seat belt if you've strayed from God I'm going tell you please stop running from him turn back to him he loves you he's ready to receive you maybe you you know God and you love God but you've drifted away and you've become comfortable in your

[Music] compromise turn to him turn to him turn to him he loves you he's ready to receive you it's time to stop running and turn to God a God who is this good this powerful this gracious is a god worthy of our love our worship our fear and our obedience a God that good is a god you want to know and a God that you want to worship so father we ask that you would do what only you can do do a do a do a very real cleansing work in our hearts and God I

go first show me God where I'm rationalizing sin where I become complacent show me God any area of my life life that I'm running from you today as you're praying nobody looking around at all of our churches if you're if you are willing to pray that prayer would you just lift up your hands right now lift up your hands say I I'll ask God that lift up your hands I'm GNA I'm going to put it back down for a second because I don't think I was real clear um if you are willing to pray this

prayer God show me where I'm rationalizing sin or running from you um all of our churches there were not very many of you last time and you're hurting my feelings because I believe the presence of God is in this place I believe he's a holy God I believe he's worthy of our honor and our worship and our obedience and our heart and our sensitivity to him and so I'm going to ask you again I'm going to be really really clear and I want to be really really loving because I love you and more importantly God

loves you the prayer is this show me God anywhere I'm rationalizing sin and running from you if you're willing to pray that would you lift up your hands right now all of our churches online you can type in the comment section I'll pray that now pray it right now just pray it just pray it just right now just say just just just say God show me just you can just you can say it in your head you can whisper it out loud show me any area God any any sin I'm rationalizing justifying any area of

Disobedience to you any place I'm running from you and just just just listen be sensitive if there's some area you want to push back and say no not that area that's the area you probably need to pay most attention to and now if God is showing you something I'm just going to ask you very lovingly because I care so much about you what are you going to do about what God shows you the word of the Lord is coming to you God is going to speak to you what are you going to do about what

God shows you speak to us God give us the courage to obey as you keep praying today at all of our churches I am um I am certain that there are many of you that are here maybe kind of like the sailors the sailors would kind of pray in times of need but they didn't know God intimately and they found themselves in a place where they needed help and when they saw the goodness and the reality and the power of the one true God they're like I'm in I'm in I want I want I want

that God let me tell you about that God that God is Holy he is righteous he is just and one day every knee is going to bow down to him and every tongue will confess the lordship of his son Jesus who is Jesus Jesus is the son of a loving God let me tell you about how loving our God is God so loved the world loved loved loved he sent his one and only son Jesus that whoever believes in him calls on him wouldn't perish but would have eternal life not because we're good because he

is that good it is his will his desire his heart that no one would suffer and perish our God is revealing himself to you there are those of you today you're kind of like what I call like cultural Christians you're like yeah I'm kind of like I go to church sometimes you're not fully in and all of a sudden you realize this is God I if he is I want that God I want to know him today if you recognize you don't know him you're not walking with him you don't have his peace you don't

know where you stand with God we're going to turn away from our own will and we're going to say yes to his goodness when you call on the name of Jesus God will hear your prayer he will forgive all of your sins he will make you brand new that is why many of you are here today you say I'm ready I need it a God Like That is a God I want to know a God I want to worship today I'm turning from my life I'm surrendering to him Jesus be my savior be the Lord

of my life that's your prayer lift your hands high right now now all over the place lift your hands and say yes that's my prayer God bless you others today say Yes lift your hands say yes Jesus I need you right back over here praise God for you over here as well yes God right back over here say yes Jesus up here in the section and both of you oh come on church God is in the house he's he's working in people's lives right back up here others who say yes Jesus I Need You I

surrender to you the Lord Of My Life online you can type in the comment section I am turning my life over to Jesus I'm turning my life over to him would you pray today wherever you are pray heavenly father I trust you a God Like You is a God I want to know I want to worship I commit to serve Jesus forgive my sins save me be the Lord of my life I trust you fill me with your spirit so I can serve you always thank you for new life I give you all of mine

in Jesus name I pray Church could you worship him give him honor give him praise today he is a good god worthy of our praise to all I don't know about you but I needed to hear that message today I hope that it encouraged and challenged you we can learn so much from listening to God's voice and loving people the way that he's loved us click here to watch more [Music]