Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation
Speaker 1: Church and.
Speaker 2: This is our podcast.
Speaker 1: I wanted to thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 2: Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope
Speaker 2: it gives you.
Speaker 1: Perspective to see God is moving in your life. Enjoy
Speaker 1: the message today.
Speaker 2: I want to preach about Jonah. Are you excited about
Speaker 2: the Word of God? Praise the Lord.
Speaker 1: I am to Jonah chapter four, verses five through eleven
Speaker 1: where I want to pick up today.
Speaker 2: God help me do this the right way.
Speaker 1: It says in Jonah chapter four, verse five, that Jonah
Speaker 1: had gone out and sat down in at a place
Speaker 1: east of the city, and there he made himself a shelter,
Speaker 1: sat in its shade, and waited to see what would
Speaker 1: happen to the city. So he is in a passive position.
Speaker 1: He is not in a proactive position. He is waiting
Speaker 1: to see what would happen. And I guess we could
Speaker 1: just say off of that one verse that that is
Speaker 1: one way to live your life, to wait to see
Speaker 1: what's going to happen, or somebody say, or you can
Speaker 1: make it happen. Touch somebody and say you might as well.
Speaker 2: Make something happen.
Speaker 1: Then the Lord provided a leafy plant and made it
Speaker 1: grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head
Speaker 1: to ease his discomfort. And Jonah was super happy about
Speaker 1: the plant. But at dawn the next day, God provided
Speaker 1: a worm which chewed the plant so that it withered.
Speaker 1: When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind,
Speaker 1: and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he
Speaker 1: grew faint, and he wanted to die, and he said
Speaker 1: it would be better for me to die than to live.
Speaker 2: But God said to Jonah, is it right for.
Speaker 1: You to be angry about the plant?
Speaker 2: How many of you get upset about stupid stuff sometimes?
Speaker 1: And Jonah said it is and I'm so angry the
Speaker 1: wis our dead. But the Lord said, you have been
Speaker 1: concerned about this plant, though you didn't.
Speaker 2: Tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight
Speaker 2: and died overnight.
Speaker 1: Some of the stuff you're worried about is temporary, and
Speaker 1: it'll be over before you can even get good and
Speaker 1: mad about it. And should I not have concern for
Speaker 1: the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more
Speaker 1: than one hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell
Speaker 1: their right hand from their left, and also many animals.
Speaker 1: With that antichlomactic conclusion, the Book of Jonah is over.
Speaker 1: But I just want to ask one question of this
Speaker 1: text today is also the title of my sermon. I
Speaker 1: want to ask the question, what about the worm?
Speaker 2: Amen? What about the worm? You may be seated.
Speaker 1: One of my friends went through something so horrific a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago when he lost his daughter. She
Speaker 1: was five years old. My daughter Abby is currently five.
Speaker 1: So while it is impossible for me to understand his pain,
Speaker 1: I have some frame of reference. And when he lost
Speaker 1: his daughter, the knight that I called him, I was
Speaker 1: telling him how God was somehow.
Speaker 2: Going to get him through it, and all of these words.
Speaker 1: You've struggle to find a way to say something that
Speaker 1: hopefully has some meaning to somebody at a time like that,
Speaker 1: and fumbling around to try to find some words to
Speaker 1: comfort my friend.
Speaker 2: I told him he was a hero in our generation.
Speaker 2: God would use him.
Speaker 1: In a great way because he is an exemplar of faith.
Speaker 2: That's all I could think of to tell him at
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I told him later, because
Speaker 1: we had many conversations and he taught me much more
Speaker 1: than I taught him. But with one particular conversation we
Speaker 1: were talking about how eventually he would tell his story.
Speaker 1: But one thing we agreed upon, and I said it
Speaker 1: to him and it resonated, is make sure you don't
Speaker 1: tell the story too soon, because if you tell the
Speaker 1: story too soon, you won't even know what the story
Speaker 1: is about. And my friend, he pastors a great church
Speaker 1: in Montana. He has a church of thousands in Montana,
Speaker 1: which I didn't even know. Thousands in Montana went in
Speaker 1: the same sentence. But God's used him. He wrote a book.
Speaker 1: He's been here to preach, and his book is all
Speaker 1: about the pain that he experienced.
Speaker 2: And the purpose of the pain.
Speaker 1: But if you tell your story too soon, sometimes you
Speaker 1: will only see the pain, you won't see the purpose.
Speaker 1: Then you won't have the perseverance that is needed to
Speaker 1: accomplish the purpose of God. Now we come to Jonah,
Speaker 1: and it is impossible to do Jonah justice in one
Speaker 1: little sermon, this legendary loser of the Bible.
Speaker 2: Boy, we're really hard on Jonah, aren't we. This guy
Speaker 2: ran from God. You would too.
Speaker 1: He had to go to a people that were well
Speaker 1: we could call them in modern day terminology terrorists to
Speaker 1: the capital city of Assyria, to a barbaric people and
Speaker 1: preach a message of the potential of repentance. Now, when
Speaker 1: you preach about Jonah, usually you're going to hear something
Speaker 1: about how he ran from God. The Bible says that,
Speaker 1: I believe it's in verse three. I didn't look it
Speaker 1: up this morning, but I believe this in verse three.
Speaker 1: Is it verse three where it said that Jonah ran
Speaker 1: away from the Lord. So when you're preaching to people,
Speaker 1: you're always preaching to somebody who is running somewhere. I
Speaker 1: realized that everybody in this room is running from something
Speaker 1: to something.
Speaker 2: Running from the Lord is how they put it.
Speaker 1: I just want to suggest I want you to do
Speaker 1: don't want you to leave the church when I say this.
Speaker 1: But Jonah probably didn't see it at the time, like
Speaker 1: he was running from God.
Speaker 2: Do you know what I'm saying. It's not like how
Speaker 2: many of you.
Speaker 1: Have ever run from God's purpose for your life before,
Speaker 1: even if you just did it for fifteen seconds. I
Speaker 1: know you're really holy, but how many of you have
Speaker 1: had a season where you knew God wanted to do something,
Speaker 1: you don't want to do it, and you kind of
Speaker 1: did everything possible to do it, not do it, and
Speaker 1: sometimes it just be easier to do it.
Speaker 2: Like in the story of Jonah, he goes to a
Speaker 2: port called.
Speaker 1: Joppa and he finds a ship, and the Lord.
Speaker 2: Told him to go to Nineveh. Well, Jonah decides to
Speaker 2: go to a place called Tarsis.
Speaker 1: Here's what interested me in studying the math of Jonah's journey.
Speaker 1: When I looked and traced where he went, I found
Speaker 1: out where God told him to go was only five
Speaker 1: hundred miles away from where he was.
Speaker 2: Where he went to get away.
Speaker 1: From where God told him to go was twenty five
Speaker 1: hundred miles from where he was. You know, sometimes you
Speaker 1: gotta work harder to disobey God than it would be
Speaker 1: to just do what he told you to do in
Speaker 1: the first place.
Speaker 2: No, I'm serious. I wish some of us.
Speaker 1: Would apply as much creativity to obeying God as we
Speaker 1: do to disobeying him. Some of you are really creative sinners.
Speaker 1: You got alibis and allies. You got two phones to
Speaker 1: help you sin.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna come to this side. I think I wore
Speaker 2: them out already in as early in the sermon.
Speaker 1: But sometimes it would just be easier to forgive than
Speaker 1: to hold on to the grind. Why is it that
Speaker 1: we would rather run twenty five hundred miles away from
Speaker 1: God than five hundred miles to our assignment? It's I
Speaker 1: think it's I think it's because when we're in our
Speaker 1: story it's not as simple. And I've been preaching this
Speaker 1: all year. I hope you're not getting tired of hearing it.
Speaker 1: But I've been understanding the blessing of perspective, and the
Speaker 1: usually perspective only comes with reflection.
Speaker 2: That is, the Bible was not live tweeted. Do you
Speaker 2: understand this that.
Speaker 1: The Book of Jonah was not written while Jonah was running.
Speaker 2: It wasn't written.
Speaker 1: If Jonah had written this when he was running, he
Speaker 1: would have said, I'm being logical, I'm being practical. That's
Speaker 1: how he would have said it had he written it
Speaker 1: while he was on the run. Touch somebody and say,
Speaker 1: don't tell your story too soon, because it is only
Speaker 1: after Jonah has done the will of God and experienced
Speaker 1: a lot of different things and seeing the results of
Speaker 1: his rebellion as well as experiencing the transformative power of
Speaker 1: repentance after his resentment, that he is able to say,
Speaker 1: I was running from God. I wouldn't have known I
Speaker 1: was running from God until that storm hit. See, because
Speaker 1: we always want to blame every storm that we face
Speaker 1: in our life on the devil, especially however long you've
Speaker 1: been in church. Usually you end up talking about the
Speaker 1: devil more after being in church twenty years than you
Speaker 1: talk about God, because everything is the devil. That's one
Speaker 1: advantage that people who don't go to church have over
Speaker 1: us and getting their lives together. They don't have a
Speaker 1: devil to blame. We just put everything on him. We
Speaker 1: don't have to deal with ourselves. I am preaching, Lord,
Speaker 1: you hear me. So Jonah, the Bible says, can I
Speaker 1: preach about Jonah?
Speaker 2: Can I preach about Jonah?
Speaker 1: The Bible says that Jonah went to Joppa and he
Speaker 1: got on a ship, and he he paid the fare
Speaker 1: because somebody said, when you run from God, it'll always
Speaker 1: cost you something.
Speaker 2: I'm not preaching about that today, but I could. And
Speaker 2: then the.
Speaker 1: Bible says that he went down from Joppa down to Tarshish,
Speaker 1: and somebody said, when you run from God, you'll always
Speaker 1: go down.
Speaker 2: But when he got about I don't know.
Speaker 1: Let's say, let's say he got about halfway there, and
Speaker 1: it seemed like he was working.
Speaker 2: He was asleep under the debt.
Speaker 1: He was sleeping while the storm was happening because God
Speaker 1: sent this storm, because God will allow things to come
Speaker 1: into your life to get your attention, because He's not
Speaker 1: going to allow you to be content in your complacency.
Speaker 2: All of a sudden, the sailors realized that the.
Speaker 1: Reason that they were experiencing the storm was not because
Speaker 1: of something they had done, but something that this prophet,
Speaker 1: this rebellious prophet, and he was asleep under the deck.
Speaker 1: And when they woke Jonah up and said, call on
Speaker 1: your God, he said, well, I can call on him,
Speaker 1: but it won't do any good because if I pray
Speaker 1: while I'm headed in the wrong direction, my prayer is
Speaker 1: just a pretense. So what you've got to do is
Speaker 1: throw me off the boat and the storm will stop.
Speaker 1: And so I have thought about that, one thought that
Speaker 1: some of you are going through a storm not because
Speaker 1: of something that you did, but because of who you.
Speaker 2: Have on your boat.
Speaker 1: In fact, I preached it, I appreciated at a youth
Speaker 1: convention one time, at a Pentecostal youth convention one time,
Speaker 1: and my message was called throw Jonah off your boat,
Speaker 1: and I was preaching it to girls who are dating
Speaker 1: guys that are dragging them down, and so I would
Speaker 1: encourage some of you.
Speaker 2: Maybe you don't have Jonah on your boat.
Speaker 1: But maybe he's in your phone, and I think some
Speaker 1: of you. The most spiritual thing you could do while I'm.
Speaker 2: Preaching, and I don't eve in mind.
Speaker 1: If you do it, you don't even have to listen
Speaker 1: to me, is use that swipe feature on your phone.
Speaker 1: And you know that red one that says delete. Some
Speaker 1: of y'all got Jonah in your phone. You've been texting Jonah,
Speaker 1: talking to Jonah and wondering why your life's going down,
Speaker 1: But today is your day touch somebody say delete. So
Speaker 1: when you preach about Jonah, can you tell I like
Speaker 1: to preach about Jonah because.
Speaker 2: I see myself in Jonah.
Speaker 1: I've seen myself rebelling against something God has called me
Speaker 1: to do. I've seen myself go twenty five hundred miles
Speaker 1: before I realize.
Speaker 2: This is ridiculous. There's no way that.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be able to run from the presence
Speaker 1: of God. Where can I go from your presence? If
Speaker 1: I send the heavens, You're there. If I make my
Speaker 1: bed in the depths. You were there, so I know
Speaker 1: what it's like to run, and then find out after
Speaker 1: you run you can only run so far, for you
Speaker 1: hit a roadblock, And.
Speaker 2: So I know it's like to run.
Speaker 1: And I know it's like the having some relationships that
Speaker 1: probably I don't need anymore, And all of that is
Speaker 1: good as well as preaching on the object of racial reconciliation.
Speaker 1: It is interesting to note that Jonah was effective a
Speaker 1: ministering to people that he didn't even like, for when
Speaker 1: he finally did open up his mouth and preach to
Speaker 1: the Assyrian people in the capital of Nineveh, there was
Speaker 1: great repentance in the land. I don't think that the
Speaker 1: Book of Jonah's about racism, but I think it does
Speaker 1: apply because we see here a guy on the outside
Speaker 1: judging what it's like to be people on the inside,
Speaker 1: and from his own perspective inside of himself.
Speaker 2: He comes to all kinds of conclusions.
Speaker 1: About what kind of people God can bless, and what
Speaker 1: kind of people God can't bless, and what kind of
Speaker 1: situations God can work in, and what kind of situations
Speaker 1: God can't work in. Jonah finds out in the midst
Speaker 1: of that that to the ends of the earth, the
Speaker 1: compassion of God will reach to anyone who will call
Speaker 1: on the name of the Lord. And so we see
Speaker 1: that picture of reconciliation in the Book of Jonah. But
Speaker 1: mostly what we know about Jonah is that he spent
Speaker 1: three days in the belly of what the Bible calls
Speaker 1: a great fish, which we usually call the whale.
Speaker 2: Let's get a look at the whale.
Speaker 1: Right about the time that the storm started raging in
Speaker 1: Jonah's life, God sends.
Speaker 2: A whale to pick him up.
Speaker 1: And I don't know, because I am not privy to
Speaker 1: the communication.
Speaker 2: That took place between the whale and God. How God
Speaker 2: got the whale in the right.
Speaker 1: Position at the right time to know that this is
Speaker 1: where Jonah's going to be when he's about to drown.
Speaker 2: That the whale, I don't know how God spoke to
Speaker 2: the whale to go get Jonah. If it's anything like
Speaker 2: finding Dory, God used echo location and maybe God said
Speaker 2: to the.
Speaker 1: Whale, come on, people, come on that section right there,
Speaker 1: no love, Come on.
Speaker 2: Did you see the movie? You know certain types of
Speaker 2: whales they admit a south. So God said to the whale,
Speaker 2: good June, and the whale said to God, Oo.
Speaker 1: Isn't it interesting how the whale had better sense to
Speaker 1: do what God said than Jonah did. And the whale
Speaker 1: swallowed Jonah up and delivered him. So the Book of
Speaker 1: Jonah is a book about rescue.
Speaker 2: Now I need to know i'm preaching to because there's
Speaker 2: a chance I've got the right sermon, but I'm preaching
Speaker 2: it to the wrong people. Has there been a time
Speaker 2: in your life.
Speaker 1: I'm just asking where God rescued you.
Speaker 2: From a situation that your own obedience created.
Speaker 1: Anybody, anybody, anybody?
Speaker 2: Has God ever sent a.
Speaker 1: Whale to pick you up? Now, it's an important thing
Speaker 1: to note that God saved Jonah, but the accommodations weren't
Speaker 1: that luxurious.
Speaker 2: Could have sent a cruise ship.
Speaker 1: Royal Caribbean, he could have sent a he could have
Speaker 1: sent a freight liner.
Speaker 2: But instead he put him in a deep, dark place.
Speaker 1: See, because if God rescues from your trouble and makes
Speaker 1: it too comfortable, you'll be quick to get back into it.
Speaker 1: So God said, I need to put you in a
Speaker 1: dark place for a minute so you'll remember what disobedience
Speaker 1: feels like. What I've noticed, though, is that sometimes we
Speaker 1: miss God's provision because we're so picky, we don't like
Speaker 1: what God's says to pick us up with, and we
Speaker 1: would rather drown by ourselves. One time, in the first
Speaker 1: year of our marriage, I.
Speaker 2: Got really got really sick. It wasn't serious.
Speaker 1: It turned out not to be serious, but it felt
Speaker 1: serious at the time because I couldn't eat. Every time
Speaker 1: I would eat, it would just burn all down in
Speaker 1: my insides, even when I would drink water.
Speaker 2: And so this went on for like seven days.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what the problem was at the time,
Speaker 1: and I was really enjoying putting on fifty pounds in
Speaker 1: my first year of marriage, and this interrupted my plan.
Speaker 2: That really is true.
Speaker 1: I put on fifty pounds in the first I think
Speaker 1: it was eighteen months of our marriage, because Holly is
Speaker 1: a fantastic cook and she is also a temptress.
Speaker 2: But man, what happened, and I didn't know at the time.
Speaker 1: I took this pill, this antibiotic that went down and
Speaker 1: got stuck in my esophagus, and then it burned into
Speaker 1: my esophagus. So then every time I would try to
Speaker 1: eat drink water, I couldn't. I couldn't do it, and
Speaker 1: so it got real bad. And at the time, I
Speaker 1: traveled and preached all the time, and I was always driving,
Speaker 1: you know, up and down the road. It's usually usually
Speaker 1: just driving more than flying. And so I was going
Speaker 1: from one place.
Speaker 2: To the other.
Speaker 1: It had been about a week that I had been
Speaker 1: hurting and I didn't know what was wrong. I went
Speaker 1: to see this doctor and kind of said some things,
Speaker 1: and I didn't know what's going on. And so I'm
Speaker 1: driving to my next speaking engagement, right and I'm calling
Speaker 1: Holly and I bust out my razor phone that's on,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, man, it sucks. I can't I'm still hers.
Speaker 1: HER's worse and worse and worse. And she goes, you
Speaker 1: are going to the hospital. You need to drive yourself
Speaker 1: to the hospital. I said, I got preach engagement. She said,
Speaker 1: you're going to cancel. They can find another preacher. Something's
Speaker 1: really wrong with you. You need to go to the hospital.
Speaker 1: You goanna go to the hospital. You're gonna call him
Speaker 1: and cancel. And I never called him by cancel before.
Speaker 1: I don't think i've done it since. And so I was.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to do it, but I did it,
Speaker 1: and I stared during the hospital. I'm drying the hospital,
Speaker 1: and I remember I've got a couple of hours still
Speaker 1: left to go. Because I'm out of town, I'm driving
Speaker 1: this other town, and so I drive by this hitchhiker
Speaker 1: and decided to pick him up, because that's what you
Speaker 1: do when you're driving yourself to the hospital, you pitch
Speaker 1: up hitchhikers when you are a Christian like me. I
Speaker 1: don't even know why I picked him up. It was
Speaker 1: a season in my life when I picked up hitchhikers.
Speaker 1: I don't do it anymore. But this guy gets in
Speaker 1: my car and I don't really feel like talking because
Speaker 1: I'm driving myself to the hospital because I have a
Speaker 1: hole of my esophagus, says burning my life away. This
Speaker 1: guy's all talkative, I'll chatty and everything. And so we'd
Speaker 1: ride together a couple of minutes and a long gas
Speaker 1: and I pull into the gas station and I'm feeling
Speaker 1: like cheerful, not a cheerful giver. But I decide to
Speaker 1: you probably want something to eat, So I said, hey, man,
Speaker 1: I said, I'm gonna pump the gas. You go in
Speaker 1: the gas station, get yourself something to eat, whatever you
Speaker 1: want to come in and pay for it afterwards. He goes, well, actually,
Speaker 1: I see a McDonald's over there, and it wasn't like
Speaker 1: one of the McDonald's that was right there in the
Speaker 1: gas station.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have to go now. I threw the drive
Speaker 2: through and go to McDonald's.
Speaker 1: But I said, all right, you know, Jesus said go
Speaker 1: the extra mile and all that. So I'm like, all right, man,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna pump the gas.
Speaker 2: We'll go to McDonald's.
Speaker 1: We're going through the drive through at McDonald's and I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna order whatever, you know, because I can't eat anything.
Speaker 1: And so here I am ordering food for a guy.
Speaker 1: He's sitting there. I'n have to smell this food in
Speaker 1: my car, and this delicious McDonald's food.
Speaker 2: That's right. I'm not too good for McDonald's.
Speaker 1: I said, it was delicious, not that health conscious freak.
Speaker 1: And so I'm going to order and he interrupts my
Speaker 1: order and he's like, no, I want a quarter pounder.
Speaker 2: Hold the mayo, hold the onions.
Speaker 1: I said, all right, he wants a quarter pound Let
Speaker 1: me get a quarter pounder. Hold the mayo, hold the onions,
Speaker 1: he said. And some chicken selects now, listen, this was
Speaker 1: not some skinny hitchhiker. He didn't look like he needed
Speaker 1: a me that badge, So my compassion is running out quickly.
Speaker 1: I said, all right, he wants a quarter pounder, hold
Speaker 1: the mail, hold the onions, and.
Speaker 2: Some chicken selects, he said, and.
Speaker 1: Some fries, I said, and some fries please, he said,
Speaker 1: in uh biggie size. And I'm thinking I'm not saying
Speaker 1: this because remember I'm a good Christian, I'm a man
Speaker 1: of God. I'm thinking, man, you should be grateful to
Speaker 1: get a ride.
Speaker 2: Now you want to hold the mail, hold the onions.
Speaker 1: You got to me spending seventy five dollars in the
Speaker 1: drive through at McDonald's and I can't even eat. Then
Speaker 1: he took it way too far. He said, Can I cann'
Speaker 1: make flurry? I said, no, He'll have a water, and
Speaker 1: I got I got.
Speaker 2: Him a water.
Speaker 1: Isn't an interesting how he can go from I just
Speaker 1: need a ride to an I.
Speaker 2: Needs some chickens.
Speaker 1: Isn't it interesting how you can go from God if
Speaker 1: you'll have mercy on me a sinner? Inn't it interesting
Speaker 1: how you can go from God if you'll get me
Speaker 1: out of this situation God, if you'll.
Speaker 2: Just be with me?
Speaker 1: But then Over time, something happens along the journey and
Speaker 1: you start thinking, you know, I don't like the way
Speaker 1: it smells inside of this whale.
Speaker 2: Isn't an interesting how when.
Speaker 1: You started serving God, you didn't need people to notice you.
Speaker 1: You were just glad to be known by God. But
Speaker 1: over time you start getting real picky. I came to
Speaker 1: tell you today that if you'll get grateful, see this
Speaker 1: is what Jolah did. He's in the belly of the fish,
Speaker 1: and the Bible says that Jonah chapter two, for several verses,
Speaker 1: he's complaining, he's blaming, he's talking about seaweed around his head,
Speaker 1: he's talking about the billows that raged over him. He's
Speaker 1: describing in detail his distress.
Speaker 2: But watch chapter two, verse nine.
Speaker 1: I love it because the Bible says that when Jonah
Speaker 1: made this shift, everybody say shift, he said, by eye.
Speaker 2: With shouts of grateful.
Speaker 1: Praise, will sacrifice to you what I have vowed.
Speaker 2: I will make good.
Speaker 1: I will say salvation comes from the Lord. And I
Speaker 1: don't think it's any coincidence that in the very next verse,
Speaker 1: after Jonah got grateful even in a hard situation, when
Speaker 1: Jonah got grateful even in the belly of a fish.
Speaker 1: When Jonah got grateful, he got out. I came to
Speaker 1: make an announcement. When you get grateful, when you open
Speaker 1: your mouth, clap your hands, shift your mindset, lift your eyes,
Speaker 1: and give God praise. Come I touch somebody, say I'm
Speaker 1: coming out with a shout. I'm coming out with a shout.
Speaker 1: You didn't touch your neighbor. Maybe you don't like to shout.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's like but that none might think the none
Speaker 2: of ten.
Speaker 1: No, No, it's not your personality type.
Speaker 2: Until you get excited about something.
Speaker 1: I found out that gratitude is the gateway.
Speaker 2: Into the provision of God. Look is that interesting? Let's
Speaker 2: just study this for a moment.
Speaker 1: Interesting that the Bible says in Jonah one verse seventeen
Speaker 1: that the Lord provided.
Speaker 2: A fish.
Speaker 1: Do you think Jonah saw it that way when he
Speaker 1: was being swallowed? Probably not, Thank you Lord for this provision.
Speaker 1: Didn't feel like provision at the time. At the time,
Speaker 1: being in the belly of the fish is a problem.
Speaker 1: So sometimes it takes time before you can see the
Speaker 1: problem as the provision. And this is where I want
Speaker 1: to spend a moment with you today because it unlocks
Speaker 1: something for me. Upon reflection, when I saw that in
Speaker 1: the Book of Jonah, which is four chapters long, there's
Speaker 1: a Hebrew word that is used four times to describe
Speaker 1: four different events in Jonah's life, and the word is mena.
Speaker 2: Hebrew word is mena. Translated into English, it.
Speaker 1: Means to appoint, to prepare, or more accurately, as the
Speaker 1: NIV renders it, to provide. If there there is one
Speaker 1: thing that I have learned about God in walking with
Speaker 1: him and pastoring a church, it is that He can
Speaker 1: be trusted to meet my needs.
Speaker 2: I wonder have you learned that in your life yet?
Speaker 1: If you have, I want you to just say out
Speaker 1: loud right now where the devil and everybody in your
Speaker 1: seating section can hear you. Come on, Ashton, say it
Speaker 1: out loud. The Lord is my provider. You said that
Speaker 1: like you believe it. You said that, like you've had
Speaker 1: some moments in your life where the money was low.
Speaker 1: You said that, like you've had some moments in your
Speaker 1: life where you saw no way to stay afloat, and
Speaker 1: so God sent something in your life.
Speaker 2: To swallow you up. The Bible says.
Speaker 1: That God provided a fish to swallow Jonah Menah mana mana.
Speaker 2: You might have heard me about manna before.
Speaker 1: That's the stuff in the Old Testament that when the
Speaker 1: children of God were wandering in the wilderness because rather
Speaker 1: than go straight into the Promised Land, they wanted to
Speaker 1: go twenty five hundred miles around and around and around
Speaker 1: and around in circles. But God said, I'm gonna feed
Speaker 1: you even though you're frustrating me. And he ranged down
Speaker 1: this stuff from heaven, and they called it mana.
Speaker 2: That's what they called it. They were calling it that
Speaker 2: because of this Hebrew.
Speaker 1: Word mana spell a little differently, but that's where they
Speaker 1: got it from. It was God's provision. So do you
Speaker 1: know what they did when God sent the provision? They
Speaker 1: complained because they didn't want mana. They wanted to meet.
Speaker 1: God's provision does not always come wrapped in your preferences.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna preach this today no matter.
Speaker 1: Who says, am, I feel like I'm on something God.
Speaker 2: This provision in your life doesn't always come. Biggie's eye
Speaker 2: doesn't always come. Hold the onions, hold the mayo.
Speaker 1: And they complained about the mana, and Jonah complained about
Speaker 1: the fish. At the time, it was only after the
Speaker 1: story was over most scholars believe that the Book of
Speaker 1: Jonah was not written by Jonah himself, but it was
Speaker 1: written based on the report that he gave after he
Speaker 1: got back from doing what he didn't want to do.
Speaker 1: So it could have been months later, could have been
Speaker 1: years later. That Jonah is talking about his experience and
Speaker 1: he calls it mana. At the time, it seemed like misery,
Speaker 1: but later I saw it ass mana. Only through the
Speaker 1: perspective of reflection can I see that today's misery might
Speaker 1: be tomorrow's manna, So that I look back.
Speaker 2: Over my life. Come on, is this good? Is this
Speaker 2: all right?
Speaker 1: And he says, the Lord provided a fish a whale,
Speaker 1: and then check this out. Jonah goes into Ninevah. He preaches,
Speaker 1: forty more days in Ninevah will be destroyed.
Speaker 2: God gives the.
Speaker 1: Assyrians a second chance, and Jonah doesn't like that he
Speaker 1: gave the Assyrians a second chance.
Speaker 2: He liked it when God gave him a second chance.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we want God to give us provision and give
Speaker 1: other people punishment.
Speaker 2: But how many know if God gave you a.
Speaker 1: Second chance, you're not too good to extend grace to
Speaker 1: others either.
Speaker 2: Jonah doesn't like it, though.
Speaker 1: He doesn't like the package that God's provision comes in,
Speaker 1: so he preaches, and he preaches with effectiveness to all
Speaker 1: people doesn't even like.
Speaker 2: And God does something he.
Speaker 1: Didn't expect him to do, and the Bible says that
Speaker 1: this did not seem right to Jonah. Do you know
Speaker 1: that That's where a lot of our misery comes from,
Speaker 1: is that we have our own ideal and imagination of
Speaker 1: how things were supposed to go, and when anything contradicts
Speaker 1: our imagination an ideal, we feel like we have a
Speaker 1: right to be angry because it didn't meet my rules.
Speaker 1: Don't you see, God, this is how I was supposed
Speaker 1: to be married at age twenty three and I'm twenty
Speaker 1: three and a half.
Speaker 2: Tina got married and she dresses like and she's not
Speaker 2: even that holy come on. So he goes out and
Speaker 2: he sits down, and.
Speaker 1: The Bible says that he made himself a shelter because
Speaker 1: it was a hot day. Not Charlotte, North Carolina hot,
Speaker 1: certainly not Toronto.
Speaker 2: Canada hot. It was. It was Middle Eastern hot.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about one hundred and ten degrees and he
Speaker 1: needed a shave, so he made a booth for himself.
Speaker 1: Lou shelter. He went outside the city. Now that's significant.
Speaker 1: He went outside the city. God sent him to it
Speaker 1: before God released him.
Speaker 2: No matter what shelter you make.
Speaker 1: For yourself outside of God's assignment for you, it will
Speaker 1: never sustain. And he sits down, and he's mad, and
Speaker 1: he's got a bad attitude. But if you've learned anything
Speaker 1: about God from the story of Jonah, when God sent
Speaker 1: the whale to swallow up a man who was in
Speaker 1: the water because of his own disobedience, it's that God
Speaker 1: doesn't wait for your attitude to get right before he
Speaker 1: gives you his attention and takes care of you. And
Speaker 1: so now Jonah is sitting under the shelter.
Speaker 2: That he made, and God does something interesting.
Speaker 1: It is a second time that the word mana appears
Speaker 1: in the book of Jonah.
Speaker 2: It says in verse.
Speaker 1: Six, chapter four, the Lord provided a leafy plant and
Speaker 1: made it.
Speaker 2: Grow up over Jonah's head.
Speaker 1: Give us bald head, some shade I like to picture Jonah.
Speaker 2: Ball just traumatizes the story a little bit more.
Speaker 1: I think about being bald and how hot his head
Speaker 1: would be.
Speaker 2: And then the Lord covers his head with this plant,
Speaker 2: this castor plant over his head he's sitting there and
Speaker 2: he likes that plant. Boy, he doesn't care very much
Speaker 2: about people, but he likes plants.
Speaker 1: And here's where I see that for everything that Jonah
Speaker 1: has seen God do, he still doesn't get it yet.
Speaker 1: Because he got outside of the fish. That was a miracle,
Speaker 1: but he never got outside of himself. The most miserable
Speaker 1: place in the world to be trapped is not in
Speaker 1: the belly of a whale. It's inside of yourself, inside
Speaker 1: of your selfishness. A lot of believers get delivered from
Speaker 1: their sin, but they never get delivered from themselves. And
Speaker 1: so all of life is spent in the shade of you,
Speaker 1: trying to find your own comfort. And oh Lord, thank
Speaker 1: you for the plant. Isn't this a pretty plant? Yeah?
Speaker 2: How about all those people?
Speaker 1: Oh people are unpredictable.
Speaker 2: I like plants, And the Lord said, I knew you
Speaker 2: like plants. That's why I provided the plant.
Speaker 1: But now that I see that you're more focused on
Speaker 1: the plant than the people, I got to take the
Speaker 1: plant away.
Speaker 2: So look at the third thing that God provides.
Speaker 1: He provides the wail to deliver Jonah, the plant to
Speaker 1: comfort Jonah.
Speaker 2: And here comes the way. Now, if we.
Speaker 1: Were writing the story, we would not use the word
Speaker 1: manna to describe this worm, because watch what the worm does.
Speaker 1: The Bible says, at dawn the next day, God provided
Speaker 1: a worm. God provided a worm. I heard about Jonah
Speaker 1: and the well, But what about the worm?
Speaker 2: Can we see the worm?
Speaker 1: This is that thing in your life that comes along.
Speaker 2: Just when you've.
Speaker 1: Gotten yourself comfortable, just when you figured out how life
Speaker 1: is supposed to be, just when you got your retirement
Speaker 1: account right, he's supposed to be.
Speaker 2: You got your little comfortable situation.
Speaker 1: And Jonah's settling in as a spectator in a situation
Speaker 1: where God has called him to be a participant, and
Speaker 1: he's sitting outside the place of.
Speaker 2: His assignment, and he's got.
Speaker 1: A shade over his head, and here comes the worm.
Speaker 2: And the worm made Jonah furious. Jonah, God's so.
Speaker 1: Mad at God about the worm, because not only did
Speaker 1: God send a worm, but after God send a worm
Speaker 1: to destroy the.
Speaker 2: Plant that was shielding Jonah from the sun. Then God
Speaker 2: provided the fourth thing.
Speaker 1: He provided the whale, he provided the plant, He provided
Speaker 1: the worm, and then the Bible says, in verse eight,
Speaker 1: he provided the wind. It's a sirocco. It's a kind
Speaker 1: of wind that beats on you so hard that you
Speaker 1: have to run for shelter. Now God is making sure
Speaker 1: that Jonah can't stay outside of the city and find shelter.
Speaker 1: And at the time, Jonah is furious, why did you
Speaker 1: take my plant away? Why did you take my boyfriend away?
Speaker 1: Why did you take the mother's life? What did you mean?
Speaker 2: Blue detention? But deduncednt bedumb it.
Speaker 1: Don't tell your story too soon, Jonah, because what you're
Speaker 1: going to see if you if you see it through the.
Speaker 2: Lens of a God who loves.
Speaker 1: You, you're going to see that the whale and the
Speaker 1: worm we're working together to serve a purpose in your life.
Speaker 1: At some point, after Jonah has gone back home, he
Speaker 1: sits down to tell the story of what happened when
Speaker 1: God sent him to Ninevah.
Speaker 2: And by the time he tells the story, he says, you.
Speaker 1: Know, at the time, I thought it was misery, but
Speaker 1: it was actually manna. It was all God's provision. And see,
Speaker 1: I don't know how Jonah finally got this perspective, you know,
Speaker 1: because the Book of Jonah doesn't tell us. When the
Speaker 1: Book of Jonah ends, he's still sitting there with the
Speaker 1: sun beating down on his head.
Speaker 2: He's still sitting there trying to figure out what to do.
Speaker 2: But at some point he sees it.
Speaker 1: That the whil that delivered me, and even the worm
Speaker 1: that destroyed the thing that was comforting.
Speaker 2: Me, it all came through the hand.
Speaker 1: Of God, who knows what's best for me. I don't
Speaker 1: know how he got this perspective. I know he didn't
Speaker 1: talk to James because James didn't write his epistle until
Speaker 1: hundreds of years later. If he would have talked to James,
Speaker 1: James could.
Speaker 2: Have told him about joy counted all joy, my brothers.
Speaker 1: When you face trials of many kinds, when you see
Speaker 1: worms crawling up and creeping over your head trying to
Speaker 1: destroy the comfort of your life, God's not trying to
Speaker 1: kill you. He's trying to keep you alive. And nothing
Speaker 1: can grow in your comfort zone. So from time to time,
Speaker 1: God is gonna have to let something come.
Speaker 2: In your life that destroys.
Speaker 1: Your comfort so you can fulfill your calling. And now
Speaker 1: Jonah sees the same God that rescued me with the
Speaker 1: whale sent the worm to deliver me from myself.
Speaker 2: But he didn't talk to James.
Speaker 1: James wasn't around James could have told him every good
Speaker 1: and perfect gift comes from above. Everything that comes into
Speaker 1: your life can be a gift if you know what
Speaker 1: to do with it. My friend didn't know that at
Speaker 1: the time he lost his daughter. Losing his daughter wasn't
Speaker 1: the gift. The difference that he's making now telling others
Speaker 1: they can have hope too, that's the gift. But you
Speaker 1: won't know that. You won't know the purpose of the
Speaker 1: worm if you write your story while you're in it.
Speaker 1: We watched a young lady get baptized in our church
Speaker 1: today who went through some horrible things, but she's got
Speaker 1: some wisdom. She found out that the purpose of the
Speaker 1: worm that took away her shade was to send her
Speaker 1: back into Nineveh to.
Speaker 2: Rescue others who need to be saved.
Speaker 1: I need somebody who this teaching is resonating with to
Speaker 1: begin to praise God for his purpose and provision in
Speaker 1: your life. I know Jonah didn't get a chance to
Speaker 1: talk to Jesus. You know, I was imagining what if
Speaker 1: Jonah could.
Speaker 2: Have talked to Jesus.
Speaker 1: And Jonah is explaining to Jesus, He's like, man, you
Speaker 1: don't know what it feels like to be me, and
Speaker 1: Jesus said, oh, really, try me, and Jonah said, no, man,
Speaker 1: for me, it was easy. You're the son of God.
Speaker 1: But from it wasn't that easy for you. It was
Speaker 1: easy for me. It wasn't easy. See I had to
Speaker 1: go down from my comfort to a place the minister,
Speaker 1: to people that were my enemies. And Jesus said, oh, really,
Speaker 1: tell me more, because I kind of did the same
Speaker 1: thing when I left the comfort and the prestige and
Speaker 1: the pristine environment of heaven to be born of a
Speaker 1: virgin and wrapped in flesh. And I came to my
Speaker 1: own and they received me not, and they nailed me
Speaker 1: to the cross, and from the cross I uttered the
Speaker 1: words of forgiveness that became the redemption of the world.
Speaker 1: And Jesus said, what else, Jonah. Jonah said, well, you
Speaker 1: don't understand. I had to spend three days in a
Speaker 1: dark place. I had to spend three days in a
Speaker 1: place where it looked like.
Speaker 2: There was no hope.
Speaker 1: And Jesus said, really, then what happened? And then Jonah said, well,
Speaker 1: after three days I got spit out. And Jesus said, well,
Speaker 1: I know something about deliverance coming out of dark places.
Speaker 2: After three days I don't just see it.
Speaker 3: Jesus is our greater, Jonah, our deliverer, and all things
Speaker 3: work together for the good.
Speaker 2: The cross.
Speaker 1: And the crowd, the whale and the worm. If you
Speaker 1: never memorizing another Bible verse, do Romans eight twenty eight
Speaker 1: and read it until your eyes cross over. I mean
Speaker 1: read it, read it, read it, read it and read
Speaker 1: every word, and then think about that word, think about
Speaker 1: the next word.
Speaker 2: For we know that all things are good.
Speaker 1: Come on to a frame, you know, good again. Paul's
Speaker 1: not that naive, and neither is God. You know, there's
Speaker 1: nothing beautiful about the worm when it's chewing through your plant.
Speaker 1: That's not what we're saying. That's not my message. My
Speaker 1: message is that.
Speaker 2: The god of the whale that delivered you.
Speaker 1: Is also the god of the worm. The whale, the worm,
Speaker 1: and the will of God.
Speaker 2: You know. The whale and the worm were attack.
Speaker 1: Team assigned to Jonah. And when the whale got done
Speaker 1: dropping Jonah off in Ennevah, he said to the worm,
Speaker 1: do you and the echo location went out hit the worm.
Speaker 1: The worm said, all right, I'm gonna be in position
Speaker 1: because we both have one job to get Jonah back
Speaker 1: to the place of his assignment. Once his shade was gone,
Speaker 1: he had no choice but to go back into the
Speaker 1: place where God wanted him to be. The whale, the worm, and.
Speaker 2: The will of God. And we know that all things,
Speaker 2: all the whales, all the worms, all.
Speaker 1: The big things, all the little things, all of the blessings,
Speaker 1: and yes even the burdens too, all of the things
Speaker 1: that feel good, and all of the things that hurt
Speaker 1: like hell. God said, I'm gonna use.
Speaker 2: All of it, all of it, all of it, all of.
Speaker 1: It, every dark thing, every destructive thing, all of it.
Speaker 2: Somebody shout, all of it, all of it. All things
Speaker 2: work together for the God of them that love the Lord.
Speaker 2: Does anybody love the Lord in this place? Come on,
Speaker 2: I need you gonna jump up on your feet and
Speaker 2: praise him. If you love.
Speaker 1: Him in the belly of the whale, you can praise him.
Speaker 2: All things work together.
Speaker 1: Here comes the worm, Here comes the worm, and all things.
Speaker 1: Somebody said, all things work together for my good because.
Speaker 2: I love him and I've called according to his purpose.
Speaker 3: Come on, Pray said, right where you are.
Speaker 2: Pray said, right where he stand. He pray said, for
Speaker 2: his work. Basid listen, keep your mind.
Speaker 1: It's Nana he's your provider, your keeper.
Speaker 2: You're sustainable. Let your hands. Thank him to me, Thank
Speaker 2: you for joining us.
Speaker 1: Special things to those of you who give generously to
Speaker 1: this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
Speaker 1: You can click the link in the description to give now,
Speaker 1: or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more information
Speaker 1: and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.
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Speaker 2: Thanks again for listening. God bless you