Sermon Notes:

Authorship: Luke. Companion of Paul. Doctor. Historian. Skilled in writing Greek.

The Church’s beginning is based on the coming of the Promised Spirit.

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commands.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever.  He is the Spirit of truth. The world is unable to receive him because it doesn’t see him or know him. But you do know him, because he remains with you and will be in you.

25 “I have spoken these things to you while I remain with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you.

-John 14:15-17, 25-26-

(from Pastor David Guzik)

• To wait means that it was worth waiting for.

• ... that they had a promise it would come.

• ... they must receive it; they couldn’t create it themselves.

• ... that they would be tested by waiting, at least a little.

The Prophecy Of John The Baptist: Baptism With The Holy Spirit (v.5)

The Church’s mission is dependent upon receiving power from the Holy Spirit.

-We are nothing without his power, but God delights in using His conduits of grace to bring lost sinners back to Himself.

–John 15:26-27

OT: Power of the Holy Spirit was reserved for kings and prophets, and occasionally regular people when the LORD wanted to accomplish something extraordinary. The filling of the Holy Spirit was a rare gift and almost always temporary.

The announcement that the Spirit of God would indwell each believer seemed unthinkable, an unbelievable extravagance the followers of Jesus could barely comprehend.

Transition To Ascension:

2 Key Applications:

4 Valuable insights to help us grow in understanding and participating in God's redemptive work.

1. Selfishness & Hypocrisy are a hinderance to God's redemptive work. (1-3)

When we aren't healthy spiritually, we validate the lies of the enemy. Verse 3

-Today's phrase: Over my dead body. If I'm not going to get my way, I'd rather just not live at all. (not the first time Jonah has tried this... 'toss me overboard' makes sense now).

2. Our feelings & emotions should be questioned often (4)

Jonah wasn't just angry with the situation, he was mad AT GOD.

There may be times where we are angry with God, but we ought to repent of this anger.

God is good, and only does what is perfect and righteous. Jonah wasn't out of bounds in communicating the honesty behind feelings that God already knew, but Jonah was in sin when he was continually unrepentant for his unrighteous anger.

God's questions precede his lessons. We must be available to receive those cutting questions.

3. God sovereignly appoints exactly what we need to learn what He wants to teach us.

God appointed a plant (6). **God provides

God appointed a worm (7). **God takes away

God appointed a wind (8). **God leads us to places of desperation to deepen our dependence

But all Jonah desires is death.

4. Recipients of God's grace ought to delight in extending grace to anyone who would receive it. (10-11)

-Even if you've run like Jonah

-Even if you've engaged in evil like the Ninevites

-Even if you've been angry with God and have grown distant

-Even if you've been giving lip service to God but your life doesn't match it.

He can save you

4 Encouragements For Living Out The Gospel 

1. Use your second chance as an opportunity for obedience. (1-3a) 

-God tells us what to say-> The message that I tell you. *Bread Crumbs 

God desires that we not only hear the gospel, and believe the gospel, but live the gospel. 

• So what is the foundation for obedience? LOVE. A sincere love for God. A love for others that reflects GOD’S LOVE FOR OTHERS. 

2. Don’t underestimate who will surrender to God. (3b-5) 

We grossly underestimate what God can do.

3. Take drastic action to live out your repentance. (6-9)

• We’re going to take a minute and lean back in to the great irony of this: 

The King of Nineveh covers himself with sackcloth, sits in ashes. A fast has already been proclaimed. This nation is MOURNING THEIR SIN, and turning from it! ISRAEL=Not turning from their sin. Refuses to mourn. The very nation that will take Israel captive in 50 years into exile is the nation who is turning to the One True God.

• Repentance: 

A. Begins with revelation. Proclaim WORD OF THE LORD. 

B. Carried by faith(v. 5) We must believe before we repent. 

C. Validated by action. People say the word repentance all the time but there’s no change of heart and mind. There’s a desire to avoid the consequences of disobedience, but a lack of desire to fully agree with God on what is GOOD, and CARRY IT OUT. 

D. Effective by Emphasis. Illustration: Drastic changes that redefine and transform! (Golf swing?) 

4. Receive the result of mercy: Peace With God (10). 

Main themes

1) Knowing and Doing the Will of God to Glorify God

2) God’s Mercy for the Nations of the World 

-God’s GRACE to Nineveh & Jonah! 

I. Cry Now or Cry Later (2:1-2) 

-We saw that God’s Word to Jonah was ARISE-GO-CRY OUT; God’s Word is God’s Will. God will do what God will do. 

-When we choose to forgo God’s plan, His will still prevails! Jonah still cried out— but it was not a cry of OBEDIENCE, but a cry from his AFFLICTION.

-God wasn’t trying to GET Jonah, but to show Him grace (not only for Nineveh!)

-When God chooses you and you go with Him, He doesn’t give up on you, even when YOU give up on you. He is serious about His pursuant love for His children; grace🡪”Undeserved merit🡪it’s waiting to be released by faith! -God doesn’t let you “OFF the hook” …for Jonah, he placed him as a worm ON the hook---he was prepared fish food for a prepared fish!

KEY: When God’s children won’t follow Him in obedience to His Word, He will discipline us until we cry for His deliverance.

Job 5:17 

Proverbs 3:11-12 

Hebrews 12:7-11

Was Jonah Saved? 🡪Arguably--Yes (Hebrews 12:8)

II. It’s Best to Agree with God: (2:3-9) 

A) WHAT THE RELENTLESS GOD DID: 

1) God cast him down: Jonah saw GOD as the one who cast him into the  sea—not sailors! He knew that the waves/billows were from the Lord. -Prevailing Principle: In our heart of hearts, we know it is our sin (our running away from God’s best for us) that has caused the difficulty. If things are going to change for the better, the only thing left to do is to turn to God. (We GET what we GOT--We REAP what we sow! -Israel got the fruit of their rebellion.)

2) God disciplined him: Warren Wiersbe says we respond to God’s discipline in one of four ways: 

a) Despise God’s discipline and fight 

b) Get discouraged and faint 

c) Resist discipline and invite more discipline🡪death 

d) Submit to the Father; mature in faith

B) WHAT THE RELUCTANT PROPHET DID: 

1) Forgot about God: v7… “remembered”—even when God had spoken to him, & clearly told him what to do, he had ignored God. But now he remembers.

2) Stopped praying to God: v7…the first thing we do when we forget (ignore) God is to stop talking to Him; Jonah 1 never mentions Jonah praying (even sailors prayed to God!) 

3) Trusted in His own ‘Truths’: v8…like the Ninevites, he had believed the lies of the idols we make for ourselves…Jonah’s idols were PATRIOTISM [he wanted Israel’s safety more than Nineveh’s salvation!] and SELFISM [if Nineveh turned and God relented, Jonah was thought of as a “false prophet!”]

4) Knew to quote scripture and look to God: training/knowledge kicked in:  parallels to many scriptures in Psalms 3-5-18-31-42-69-71-116-120; He knew God was not going to let him go, so he had to do something. He acquiesced. But as long as you continue on YOUR way, you forsake HIS mercy.

5) Did Jonah REPENT or did Jonah RELENT? I do not believe Jonah repented—but some do. He relented to be rescued… WHY?

-He quoted scripture, but never mentioned his sin

-Admitted sin before SAILORS but not before GOD

-Knew, felt bad, felt wrong, cried, but didn’t confess sin in agreement w/God;

-Blamed God for his plight; (look at all Blamers of scripture & today!)

-Avoided the issue of sin by making promises to God

-Repent: Turn from sin to God; not just doing right thing but being right w/God! -Jonah had a flawed view (incomplete) of obedience. He was clinging to what he thought would carry weight with God

1 Kings 8:37-40

-He did the right thing; said the right words, but did it really change his heart? But…Jonah DID confess something🡪 v9 “…Salvation is of the Lord!” ENOUGH!

Phil. 1:6

KEY: Even when our motives for surrender aren’t pure, God sees our future and works His plan in, through and for us. 

III. Despite the Rebellion still in us, God works in Grace (2:10)

KEY: God meets us where we are to take us where we will be.

Hebrews 3:7-11- 7

-Jonah 2 tells us about Jonah, but even more so about GOD

Sermon Notes:

He relentlessly loves us, and has a plan for our lives, that serve a greater Mission that He is Sovereign over.

Even when we run from God, He runs to us.

Themes:

The Love & Grace Of God

How we relate to the Will of God

The word of the LORD:

TIMELY-> came at a specific time

URGENT-> Get up! Go!

SPECIFIC-> Great city of Nineveh Enemies of Israel.

GREATER-> -To preach against Nineveh was more than Jonah could handle on his own.

It was also because Jonah didn’t want the Assyrians in Nineveh to escape God’s judgment.

We can either use that as an opportunity to lean further into our Father and rely on Him as our source of peace and power, or we can operate out of FEAR & SELFISHNESS. Jonah chose the latter…(v.3)

- It may have been because he was given a difficult job to do. Nahum 3:1-4 gives us a good idea of how wicked the people of Nineveh were. Jonah had every reason to expect that at the very best, he would be mocked and treated as a fool. He might be attacked and killed if he did what the LORD told him to do.

-He paid the fare cost of disobedience.

-Nevertheless, when you run away from the LORD, you never get to where you are going and you always pay your own fare. When you go the LORD’s way, you not only get to where you are going, but He provides the fare.

-We overestimate our ability to run (we cannot run from God, Psalm 139)

-We overestimate the rewards of doing what WE WANT.

-We underestimate the consequences of our disobedience.

Examples of people bringing trouble upon others because of their disobedience:

Abraham: Gen 12&20

Achan (Josh 7)

Here’s a spiritual lie we believe: My sin is my sin. It only affects me.

IRONY: The first prayer that occurs in the book of Jonah is not from God’s prophet, but from the pagans. They cry out to their different gods, and Hope/Peace, who comes from Faithful/True, is asleep. Finding his own self-peace in the wrong place.

Sleepy prophets that’s the condition of the church at large. Let’s be part of the movement of prophets and preachers who are waking up with a soul revival to engage lifelong in God’s Will for us.

The nature of Jonah’s sleep is also instructive, and too much like the sleep of the careless Christian:

· “Sleeping Christians” like to “hide out” among the Church.

· “Sleeping Christians” stay away from the work of the Lord.

· “Sleeping Christians” don’t like prayer meetings!

· “Sleeping Christians” don’t know what is really going on.

· “Sleeping Christians” are in danger, but don’t know it.

· “Sleeping Christians” snooze on while the world needs their message and testimony.

(Verse 6)

Irony: GET UP!! Wow…the very instruction God first gave to him, now the LORD speaks through this man. The rebuke is coming from the idolater, God is using this pagan captain as literally a “wake up call” to his prophet. GOD IS NOT GIVING UP ON JONAH. GOD IS NOT GIVING UP ON NINEVEH.

(Verses 7-9)

Jonah’s response provoked a terror within them. They knew the second he said he was a prophet that there was spiritual activity related to Jonah causing this massive storm to come.

(Verses 10-11)

He experienced the consequences of his rebellion. (12-17)

Irony: The men on the boat did more for Jonah than we did for them. They reject Jonah’s offer and work harder to NOT put him in danger, even though Jonah’s sin had jeopardized everyone’s safety aboard.

(Verses 14-17)

Jonah, as a disobedient prophet who rejected God’s Will, would have rather died than gone to Nineveh.

Jesus, as a perfect prophet, who was perfectly obedient to God’s will, gave His life sacrificially to save those far from God.

The more control we think we have, the more deceived we actually are.

God appointed

HE IS SOVEREIGN.

HE GETS US WHERE HE WANTS US, AND WHERE WE NEED TO BE.

Guest Pastor Nick Carnes focuses in on prayer. Why prayer? How important should prayer be for us? How should our posture be for prayer, and what does Jesus say about it?

Pastor Nick Carnes - Lead Pastor

Hope Church

Anchor:

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Anchor Church is rooted in 6 core values. In this sermon series, Pastor Brandon will unpack why each of these core values are essential within the DNA of Anchor Church (and within any Christ follower). This week is Mission. Why should we take ownership of the mission? What does Paul say about this? What is the mission? Let's unpack this core value in 2 Corinthians 4:1-6.

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Anchor Church is rooted in 6 core values. In this sermon series, Pastor Brandon will unpack why each of these core values are essential within the DNA of Anchor Church (and within any Christ follower). This week is Community. What does 'community' mean according to the Bible? What does it look like in the Bible and how can it be applied to us today? Let's discover why community is an important value for followers of Jesus the Christ

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Anchor Church is rooted in 6 core values. In this sermon series, Pastor Brandon will unpack why each of these core values are essential within the DNA of Anchor Church (and within any Christ follower). This week is Discipleship. What does discipleship mean, how was it modeled, and why is discipleship important to every believer of Jesus?

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Anchor Church is rooted in 6 core values. In this sermon series, Pastor Brandon will unpack why each of these core values are essential within the DNA of Anchor Church (and within any Christ follower). This week is Worship. Let's unpack what the Bible says about worship.

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