August 30th & September 3rd
Say Yes
OK!
Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”
—Jonah 3:1-2 (NIV)
Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh…
—Jonah 3:3a (NIV)
Jonah was afraid and he was resentful.
“Obedience is the supreme and ultimate test of faith in God and reverence for him.”
Jonah desperately needed to replace the fear with faith and resentment with reverence.
Obedience is better than Sacrifice.
“To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams”
—1 Samuel 15:22 (NIV)
But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good.
—Jonah 2:9 (NIV)
Saying Yes without an obedient heart posture is just an “ok.”
…Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. 4 Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” 5 The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.
—Jonah 3:3b-5 (NIV)
A halfway heart is a heavy heart.
To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.
—Mark 12:33 (NIV)
Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.
—Proverbs 13:12 (NIV)
Whoever scorns instruction will pay for it, but whoever respects a command is rewarded.
—Proverbs 13:13 (NIV)
When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. 7 This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. 8 But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. 9 Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.
—Jonah 3:6-9 (NIV)
It’s the message not the messenger.
We are the MESS in messenger!
Sometime we forget the gem we have-how utterly life changing the message is.
What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. 6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. 7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.
—1 Corinthians 3:5 (NIV)
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
—Romans 10:14 (NIV)
When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened
—Jonah 3:10 (NIV)
If we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.
—2 Timothy 2:13 (NIV)
His call and gifts never change. -Romans 11:29 for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.
His Word will never change. -Psalm 119:89 Forever, O Lord, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens.
His plans will never change. -Psalm 33:11 But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations.
And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
—Philippians 2:8 (NIV)
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Next Steps:
1. I need to repent and ask Jesus in my life.
2. I have an area of my life in which I have have been disobeying by doing “halfway” or just “kinda” doing, and today I choose to walk in heartfelt obedience.
3. I have felt a specific call of God on my life, but I have harbored fear and/or resentment about it. I ask God to forgive me. I choose a new attitude towards the privileges he has entrusted and called me to.
4. I will pray and ask God what he is calling me to say “yes” to at Heritage Church and/or beyond.