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Welcome to the Southside Church Podcast. Weekly content that inspires all of us to follow Jesus. Join us each week for a message from one of our fantastic communicators that provide practical ways to grow our faith, challenge ourselves, and to love others more. And now, this week's message.

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You know, it's so interesting when you look around a room like this, right? You know, flick around, but you know, if you were to look around, uh, whether you're here, Peter City, Chad Hills, or watching online, you know, if you're by yourself, don't look around. That's weird. But if somebody's beside you and you look at them, it's interesting. We are all so different. Like we're all so different. We come from different places, we have different experiences, we look different, we dress different. I mean, everything about us is different. Yet at the same time, whether you're a kid or an adult, or no matter what your background is, there are some things that we share in common. And one of the things that we share in common, and I don't even know a lot of you, I know some of you, I don't know a lot of you, and you guys don't really all know me, but I'll tell you what we share in common is that there are things that we know we should do, but we choose not to do it because we just don't want to do it. I mean, this has been true since you were like a little kid, right? Like your parents would tell you, you're supposed to share, and you're like, I don't think I will do that. I don't want to do that. Why? Because I don't want to do it. I'm not gonna do it. Do you remember when you were a kid too? You said, and I don't know, maybe this was just me, but I remember saying to my mom, I can't wait till I become an adult because I won't have to do any of the things I don't want to do anymore. Did you ever say that? I I'll tell you, one of the things I think we have in common, now again, there's all versions of this, right? There are things that you don't want to do that I'm like, that's not a big deal, just do it, you know? There are other things, though, that none of us want to do, and we're told to do it, and I don't know, maybe it's helpful, I'm not sure. But I'll tell you what, I don't want to do it, and you don't want to do it either. And you know what that one thing is that we all have in common? It's this right here. We do not want to go to the dentist. Now, some of you are dentists, right? And I'm gonna apologize in advance. I don't know why you chose that. Like, why would you choose, you know, like you're thinking of majors and you like, I think I'm gonna go into the job that everybody's terrified of me. That that's that's awesome. When I I learned this as a kid, I, and again, you're probably an amazing dentist. I have an idea, by the way, if you're a dentist. I think that when you go to the dentist, you should get a free hand massage as a part of the deal. Or, I mean, think about this. I don't even know if it's sanitary, it probably is, but can you imagine laying at the dentist office and for $20 extra you get a hand rub? I'm not joking. This is a good business idea. I think somebody should join me with this. Find me later. Okay, so when I was a kid, going to the dentist was terrifying. I I don't I don't know if that was my experience only, I bet it wasn't. It was terrifying. But my my dentist was super thorough. Um, when I would go to the dentist, they would, when I was getting my like adult teeth in, God, this is awful. They would take a drill and shave my teeth a little bit on the sides so that they would all come in straight, you know. Now I was born in the 1900s. So some of you don't didn't experience this, but like, and it was like, you know, you remember that thing? And it was awful. And and they and then they would give you the fluoride treatment, and for some reason, because I was a kid, they were like, Oh, you want the bubblegum flavored one. I'm like, no, I don't want the bubblegum flavored anything, and it was disgusting. I I it was traumatic. You do you know that song Sailing by Christopher Cross? Some of you old enough to know this song? When I hear that song to this day, I'm 50. When I hear that song, I twitch a little bit because they played it in the waiting room of my dentist's office all the time. Now, when I became an adult, right, I decided I don't have to go to the dentist anymore. So guess what I did? I didn't go. I stopped going to the dentist for 10 years. I didn't go to the dentist. Now, my wife, eventually, you know, like most of us, you know, if you have a wife, you know, like she's good for you because you would never do anything's men you're supposed to do. So she says, you have to go to the dentist. And I'm like, I'm fine. I don't need I'm I'm doing fine. My I still have teeth, they are shaved down and they came in straight. Everything's fine, you know. Um, she says, you gotta go to the dentist. So she made it, without even telling me, made an appointment and then surprised me with it. Great idea. And I think she was kind of excited about it because I hadn't been in 10 years. And I she she will never admit this, but she was looking forward to me coming out with 38 cavities, all the problems. She's and she's been telling me for, I mean, a decade, you should go to the dentist, you should go to the dentist, and and I wouldn't do it. So I know she was looking forward to me coming out with all the pain and I'm woozy and you know, all the stuff. She won't admit it, but she was excited. So I go into the dentist. It's been a long time. But I I get in there, the hygienist lady, she's like, Hey, how long has it been since you've been the dentist? I'm like, I don't know, like a little while, you know. I don't know, like six months. Is that normal? I think it's been about six months, you know, plus another eight, nine, ten years, but whatever, you know. So do the teeth cleaning, dentist comes in. This is amazing. Dentist comes in, goes, Gavin, man, your teeth are amazing. And then he said the magic word. He goes, keep doing what you're doing. I was like, cool, I'll see you in a decade. I came out of that dentist's office, my wife's like, How'd it go? I was like, Cool. He said, come back in 10 years. Everything is totally fine, you know. Now, here's the reality. I I go to the dentist more frequently now because I'm an adult. I know you're supposed to, but you have those things in your life too, right? And you do not want to do them. And you know you should do them. And you know if you do do them, they're probably not as bad as you made it out to be. I mean, going to the dentist isn't that bad. Like when I leave the dentist now, I'm like, oh, that wasn't that bad. And they didn't force bubblegum flavored fluoride on me. You know, like it's not that bad. But man, you can build these things up to be horrific, can't you? Isn't that true that oftentimes, like, the thing that we're afraid to do or we don't want to do, it seems so horrible. And then when you do it, you realize, oh, well, it wasn't that bad, you know? And there are so many of these things in our life. There are so many things that we know we should do that we don't do. Let me just give you a few quick examples. Um, and maybe this is true for some of you. Like, we run from hard conversations, we avoid them. We don't want to have the hard conversation. Who does want to have that? Maybe for you it is the doctor, you know? I know a lot of guys are this way. It's like, you know, you don't want to get the check up. I totally understand why you don't want to go get that done, you know? Or like you're having a pain, you're like, I'm sure it'll fine, it'll go away, you know. Like, we should probably go get those things checked out, you know. Um, maybe for you, uh, that somebody has wronged you. And and here's the deal like you're a Christian, you're a follower of Jesus, and you know the passages, you've been to church long enough, you know. Like, forgiveness is something you're supposed to do. And it doesn't mean that you forget what they did. Forgiveness doesn't mean that you don't create a boundary, forgiveness. I mean, none of that doesn't mean you forget, right? You know that you should forgive, and the reason is because forgiveness actually frees you from the bitterness and the grudge. Has nothing to do with them, really, but you just you don't want to do that. You don't want to, they don't deserve it for sure. You don't want to do it. So we avoid those things. Like we run away from the things that we know we absolutely should do, but we don't have to do it. Nobody's forcing you to do it. So therefore, we don't do it. Now, the problem, and and you know this, whatever your thing is that you like to run away from or avoid, right? We all know this, that avoidance always carries a price tag, doesn't it? Like every time you avoid something, it doesn't get better on its own, except for the dentist. Everything else doesn't work out. Just again, this may be a little too close to home for some of us, but the hard conversation that you know you need to have. And you have been avoiding it. And you've been telling yourself, right, that you'll do it next week or next month, or it's not a good time right now, or I mean, there's all the reasons, right? Some of them are valid. They're all they're not just excuses, some of them are valid. But you know this avoiding the hard conversation doesn't make the conversation go away. The need for it. Avoiding the hard conversation, what does it do? It just festers the conversation, it makes it worse. You ever heard of keeping short accounts? Like great uh organizations are led this way, marriages, great relationships are led this way. When something happens, you address it. Now, you may need to count the 10 first, but you address it shortly after the incident because you want to keep a short account with people. What happens when you don't keep a short account? It doesn't go away, it just festers, it gets worse. I mean, that person that you need to forgive, and you're like, you don't want to apologize, you've been avoiding it. But avoidance isn't making it better. Like your bitterness isn't getting less of bitter because you refuse to forgive, right? That stagnant thing in your heart, that anger in your heart, it's not getting less because you avoided the forgiveness. It's just growing. I mean, name the topic. Avoiding what the thing you need to do always makes the thing worse, which is a perfect way to think about this guy we're gonna look at for three weeks, this guy named Jonah. You know, Jonah is such an interesting character in the Bible. Now, when you hear the word Jonah, um, just you know, don't raise your hand, but just think for a second. Like, if you grew up in church like I did, I've been in the church my entire life. I mean, I went to like children's church as a kid, vacation Bible school, and we talked about Jonah all the time when I was a kid, which is a little weird, by the way. I would come home with like coloring pages, and then my kids grew up in church when they were in preschool, they'd come home. What'd you guys talk about? Talk about Jonah, and they show me a picture that looks like this, and this may be what you think of when you think of Jonah, you know? I mean, you think about the whale, you think about the guy living in a fish, and you're like, that's ridiculous. And that's okay if you think that, it's not the point anyway. But you think of this, which is also a little weird to be teaching our three-year-olds this, right? Like, hey, you better do what I say, or God may have you eaten by a fish, you know, eat your vegetables, right? You better do it. So the idea of Jonah, mentally for a lot of us, is this. Like when we hear Jonah, we think about, hey, the fish, we think about maybe the ridiculousness of the whole story. Is it true? Is it a hundred percent legit? All valid things to consider. I'm gonna tell you up front for the next three weeks, if you're not sure it's a hundred percent true, that's okay. Because the moral of the story is true. The principle under the story is true. Now, I'll also tell you, Jesus referenced this when he was on earth, and he seemed to believe it was true. But even if you can't get past the fish, don't worry, and here's why. The fish isn't the point of the story. Okay, so don't get distracted by the fish. The fish has really a bit part in the story. The point of the story is the guy Jonah, what he did, and what we can learn about us, about others, and about God because of his story. Now, quick kind of just info history on Jonah. And we've talked about other people like this before uh here at Southside. Jonah was a prophet. In the Old Testament, right before Jesus, God would speak to his nation, his people, collectively through prophets. And sometimes God would speak to other nations and other people through prophets. So Jonah was one of these prophets. Now, when we think about these prophets, guys like Isaiah, Jeremiah, I mean, we think about them in really in kind of heroic terms a lot. And for good reason, because they kind of are heroes of the faith. They would hear from God, they would say some really concerning things at times, some good things at times. I mean, they were heroes of the faith, but Jonah, the story of Jonah is not the story of a hero. The story of Jonah is a really unique story of a prophet who God was trying to use to do something very important and very specific. If you know anything about the story of Jonah and you're about to be exposed to it for the next three weeks, we're gonna go through the whole story. He is not a hero. This guy, he's like the loser of the prophets because he does not want to do what God has told him to do. So if you have your Bible, you can open up to Jonah. We're gonna start literally in chapter one at the very beginning, or you can follow along with me uh up here. Here's kind of how the story of Jonah begins. Uh, the word of the Lord, which just means God spoke to Jonah. Okay, so God speaks to Jonah, he's the son of um Amitai. Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me. So you could read this and go, okay, so there's this great city, and it's not a great place, and you know, God wants, you know, his servant, his prophet Jonah to go and preach to it. Well, that's an understatement. To understand the context of this, you've got to historically kind of go back and know a little bit about these Ninevites. Listen, you you've bumped into some rough people before, you've never met anybody as bad as the Ninevites. Listen, the Ninevehes um were a horrific group of people. I mean, they were about as evil as evil could be. You know, back in old times, you know, when a uh a nation would conquer another nation, it was not good for the nation who was conquered. In fact, it was probably better to die in that little battle than to survive, especially if you were a woman. I mean, it was not not good. And the Ninevites were like the not the worst of all the people. The Ninevites, um, when it even comes to Israel, they had conquered at one point 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel. And when they conquered nations to kind of prove their power and to kind of put fear in all the other uh people groups, they would skin their enemies alive and hang them up. How disgusting is that! Evil. I mean, these people are horrible. So when God says their wickedness has come up before me, he's like, you know, and Jonah knows all about it. Jonah is a Jewish person, he has watched the Ninevites probably destroy some of his friends and his families and the other people in his nation. He knows how horrible these people are. And so when God gives him an assignment, I mean it's one thing to say, hey, go to your friends down the road and you know, tell them some things. It's a whole nother instruction when God says, hey, the the group of people that you hate the most that have been destroying your family and your nation, who, by the way, may skin you alive when you show up. Those people, I want you to go to them, and I want you on behalf of me to preach against their wickedness. That's a big, big ask. So it's not the dentist, but it's a big ask to go and do this. So as you can imagine, right? Uh, if you were were Jonah, you would probably feel the same way. I don't want to do that. I I don't want to go talk to these people, I don't want to be anywhere near these people. I mean, for one, and it's we're gonna find out later, but for one, he says, you know, I don't know what's gonna happen to me, they could kill me, but even worse than that, they may fall in love with you, God, and I don't want them liking you. I want you killing them. And if you decide to stop uh uh your your your vengeance, and if you pull your kind of wrath away from their wickedness, they're not gonna get what they deserve. So I don't want to go there because I don't want them to be saved from your wrath. I don't want them to experience your grace and mercy. What a horrible thing they for them. They don't deserve that. So that's kind of the setup of the ask. It's a huge, huge ask. And like most of us, Jonah doesn't want to do it, and he has a good reason to not want to do it. Now, verse 3, here's what happens next. But Jonah, okay, you've probably heard this before, but Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshus. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshus to flee from the Lord. Now, again, you know, we hear these things and we're like, okay, so we got on a boat and, you know, didn't want to do what God said he should do. But let me kind of give you a picture on a, I'm gonna show you a map. This is really what Jonah does. Jonah is in Joppa. This is where he's kind of living. Nineveh is up here in Assyria. Well, when when he gives the instruction, he doesn't head this way, he goes in the complete opposite direction that God tells him to go. I mean, God says, go that way west, he goes, nah, I'm going east. I'm gonna go as far in the other direction as I possibly can. And I know that you want me to, but I'm not going to. And I know that you've been clear and you have called me to, but there is no way in the world I'm gonna go and do that. I'm not going there. And he didn't. He started sailing in the opposite direction towards this city called Tarshis. Now, here's, I think, what's just so interesting, just to pause, we'll come back in a minute, but just to pause for a minute because here's the the reality of the story. And this story gets real personal for you and for me, like already in the story. Because if you think about it, even though you have probably not been told by God out loud, go to preach against the great thing that you don't like and the people that you're frustrated with and all that. But come on, there is a little bit of Jonah in all of us. There's a little bit of, I believe God has said, but I don't want to do that. I know God has said, I know the preacher said, I read in the Bible, I I've heard another Christian tell me. I didn't believe it. I looked it up, and sure enough, this is what Jesus' followers are called to do, and I don't want to do it. And maybe for you, right? Maybe for you, you've run from God in a like a collective way. Like maybe it was like a uh a love your neighbor as yourself that we're all commanded to do, and you were like, Well, not that neighbor, you know, not loving that neighbor. Or, you know, maybe you were like the people when that instruction came out love your neighbor as yourself. And you say, Well, who is my neighbor? Certainly not that person. Who could love that person? Or maybe for you it was something very specific. Maybe there's a calling on your life that you know, and you're thinking you're thinking about it right now, and you're even thinking, again, you you know, don't raise your hand, but you're thinking, why did I come to church today? Because God's already brought it back up for you. There's that thing you're thinking about that you know God has not maybe even audibly said to you, but you know it. You feel it in your spirit all the time. And he has called you to something, he has commanded you to something, he's asked you to do something. And again, I don't know what this is for you. Maybe it's around, you know, generosity and how you view money and your spiritual life. I mean, everything is spiritual. Maybe it's around loving others and serving others, maybe you just are harboring anger or bitterness towards a person or a group of people. I mean, again, maybe it's a family dynamic. I I don't know, but there's something in all of us. Because there's a little bit of Jonah in all of us. And when we bump into the pages of scripture or we bump into a sermon or a podcast or whatever, and you know, Jesus said or God said, and we read it and we think, you gotta be kidding me. I I don't want to do that. I I the morality stuff, I don't want to move out, I want to move back in. I don't, I mean, all the things, you know. And there's a little Jonah in all of us. Because there's a little bit of all of us that wants to run away sometimes from the thing that God is calling us to do. I mean, and here's the, I guess, you know, good and bad of this. There's always a boat heading towards Tarshis in our life. There's always a way to go the other direction. There's always an option to kind of head in a different path. There's always a, you know, in our humanness and in our brokenness, there's always a way to hear God say and you go, nah, and go in the other direction. That's always possible, right? So, back to Jonah. I mean, you can see why this story is so personal. I mean, because we're all, we all have a tendency to do this. So if you go back to the story, right, he gets on this boat in Joppa and he's heading in the complete opposite direction that he's supposed to be going, right? God has called him to Nineveh. He's like, no, I'm going the complete opposite direction, right? But God, and this is so amazing, God does not just say, okay, cool, well, you do you, boo. You know, he didn't, he didn't say that to him. He he basically decides that he is going to address, and this is a hard word, but Jonah's disobedience in this moment. Jonah knew what he was supposed to do, and he directly disobeyed. So God's not gonna just allow him to get away with that. Remember earlier we said this that avoidance always has a price tag? Well, here's what you should know as a follower of Jesus. If you're a Christian, you should know this that avoiding God always has a price tag. It always has a price tag. Now, sometimes the price tag, sometimes the price tag may just be the consequence of your decision, but it always carries a cost. And avoiding what you know God has said to you and going in the opposite direction, it always comes with a cost. So back to the story. This is in verse four. Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. And all the sailors were afraid. And each one cried aloud, this is so interesting, to his own God. And it continues. And they threw cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. I mean, this is what you would do. If you know you're going to die, they just start throwing their cargo overboard that they were sailing to deliver. I mean, they're about to die. But Jonah, Jonah had gone below the deck where he lay down and fell into a deep, deep sleep. Now, there's a lot to unpack in this, and we'll do it quickly. But I bet you have asked this question before. And if you even maybe you haven't, but you you hear me reading through this and you think, wait a minute, God caused the storm? You ever had that discussion? Maybe with yourself or with a friend? Like, so does God cause this stuff? Does God allow it? Does He cause it? Like, how does that work? I mean, it's a big theological question, and I think it deserves a little bit of time, especially in this story. Like, I I've been processing that for, well, I guess years and years and years, decades, you know. But but as I studied Jonah, and as I studied kind of this idea, does God cause all the storms in your life? And it's an important question, I think, to ask because some of you are in a storm right now. Like some of you are experiencing a storm in your life right now, and you're wondering, did God cause it? Did he allow it? I mean, those are great, important questions, you know? So it seems like there are kind of basically four different kinds of storms that can happen. And the first one is just the randomness of living in a broken world, right? Like cancer is a great example, sickness. I mean, things that just happen, the car accident, the tragedy. It's like just stuff just happens because we live in a broken world, and broken things break people. And a broken world is gonna break stuff sometimes. And God doesn't cause it, it just happens, honestly, because we caused it. We're the ones who broke the world in the beginning. So sometimes bad stuff just happens. Sometimes storms just happen. The second category is really kind of storms of consequences. I mentioned this earlier, but like you've been through a storm before that you caused. It has taken you a long time, and maybe some counseling to admit that, but the storm that you experienced was caused by a decision that you made. And this is even harder. Sometimes it's caused by a decision you didn't make, but somebody near you made. And you just caught the shrapnel of their consequences. It's a little bit like the first storm. So sometimes they're just storms of consequence. Sometimes, though, there are storms, and I think about maybe the uh Job in the Bible. There are storms that are um really like storms of testing or maybe storms of oppression. Um, you can think about it this way: like God might not create that storm, but he allows it because he knows it's gonna cause you to think differently, to maybe depend on him a little bit more. He allows it to happen because in your life it needs to happen. And by the way, right, we said this earlier, avoidance has a cost. And you look at the storm and you think, wow, that storm carries a cost, but God's looking at your life going, no, listen, the way that you're heading is going to have a much greater cost than this storm is gonna have. So I'm gonna allow this storm because it's actually an act of mercy for you. Then this fourth category is the one we're looking at today, is the storm that God sends. God sends storms occasionally. And when you hear that, I don't know where you are with God, but when you hear that God sends storms, that kind of can make you frustrated with God, you know? Like God is intentionally creating, in this case, a storm at sea that's gonna threaten to kill everyone on the boat because one person decided to not follow God's will. And I'll tell you, it is easy to hear that or to feel like in your life, if God is sending the storm, that seems like a pretty bad thing for God to do. How can I worship and love a God who is causing bad things to happen in my life? But as I said earlier, here's the deal with the storm. If avoiding God's calling carries a price tag, what you have to understand is that the storm is God's grace and his mercy in your life. Because what he knows is that if you keep going the way you're going, the consequences are going to be so much worse than the storm. And he would rather you suffer a little bit through a storm if it helps you turn around than to go the other direction and take your boat towards, you know, Tarshish and end up in a place that might even be almost unrecoverable. This is really important theologically, right? So God is sovereign over all four of the storms, but he authors the fourth one. And he does it on purpose because he believes it's in your best interest. And that's exactly what he's doing to Jonah. So back to Jonah, he's he's on this ship and he's asleep, and and and all the sailors are praying to their different gods and they're throwing stuff over. They are doing everything they possibly can, right, to survive. And they go down and they wake up Jonah and they do this thing called casting lots, but it's the way that in the ancient times they would try to decide who's at fault or who's responsible or who wins the lottery, you know. So they decide and they cast the lots, and it's like, oh, this is somehow Jonah's involved. The guy who's asleep, by the way, down below deck, they go wake him up, and Jonah wakes up and they go, There's a huge storm. We're all gonna die. And Jonah's like, Yeah, I know, it's my fault. He was like, It's totally my fault, you know. And he knows. I mean, Jonah knows. He's a prophet, he knows the consequences. I mean, the job of a prophet is to tell the nation of Israel, if you don't turn, this is what God will do. And he's been doing that his whole life. And now it's very personal for him. But it's costing not just him in this case, right? He's got a whole crew of people who are all gonna die because of his disobedience. And this is a personal part of the story. We're not gonna talk about this one much uh uh today. But disobedience, listen, does not happen in a vacuum. Like when you decide to not follow God, it doesn't just affect you, it affects everybody around you. I mean, if you are married and you choose not to kind of follow God's way for marriage, it affects your children, it affects those around your family. If it leads to, and I pray this doesn't ever happen to you, but if it leads to a divorce, that permanently affects things, you know that. And it and maybe, by the way, you aren't the one who did the thing, right? But you're suffering the consequences of somebody else's thing, like the sailors with Jonah. I mean, it doesn't happen in a vacuum, the disobedience affects everybody. And in this case, everybody is being affected. So they don't know what to do. They all think the sailors are all they know they're about to die. And then we read this in verse 12 of Jonah 1. Jonah says to the sailors, pick me up and just throw me into the sea, he replied, and it will become calm. I know that this, this entire thing is my fault, that this great storm has come upon you. It's all my fault. Now, I I do love this moment for Jonah. He has a little bit of clarity, right? And that's important because listen, you you cannot change what you refuse to acknowledge. This is really important. Like if you don't acknowledge your disobedience, your sin, if you don't acknowledge, you know, God said, but I'm like, nah, no, thanks. If you never acknowledge it, you can't do anything about it. Even if you're in a storm, let's say that God caused the storm, like he did for Jonah, but you're you don't acknowledge why the storm is here, it's really hard to deal with the thing. But you know what's also so amazing about this, and if you think about what we just read, at no point, at no point does Jonah own his disobedience. At no point does he like comply. In fact, this is so amazing. Jonah would rather die, he'd rather drown than go to Nineveh. And being thrown overboard in a great storm is not a recipe for for living. He knows he'll die if they throw him overboard. This is such an important realization, I think, in the story. It makes it so personal, you know? I mean, God, and maybe you know this, God will allow you to run. God will call you to things, he will command you to things, he'll you know, uh appoint you to things, he'll also allow you to not follow those things. Like God will allow you to run. But he's also going to potentially chase you when you run. Not to pay you back, but to win you back, even if it feels like punishment in the moment, which I'm sure this storm felt like that. So the sailors, they don't want to throw him overboard because they know what'll happen, he'll die. So they begin to row harder and harder, and they're trying to navigate this storm, and they realize there's no getting around it. And so they eventually decide to just let him drown. And they decide, even though they don't want to, they decide to throw him over. And the minute Jonah hits the water, do you know what happens? The minute he hits the water, just like he said, the storm completely stops. And we read in Jonah chapter 1 towards the end, that the men on that boat, who were praying, by the way, to all of these other gods, began to pray and worship Jonah's God. Because he must be the one true God. Now, we're gonna stop the story of Jonah there today, and we're gonna pick it up next week. And next week's gonna be a lot of fun because the fish shows up next week. So come next week for the fish, okay? But even through this part of chapter one, we're almost all the way through chapter one, we have learned some incredibly important principles about how, as I said earlier, God interacts with you, with me, with those around us. And I think it's worth kind of pausing in the story to not gloss over the lessons that we've learned from Jonah already. In fact, there are kind of like, I'm gonna go through them quick, but there are really four specific things that I feel like that this story has even taught me as I've been studying and really digging into the story. And so as we walk through these four things, I just want you to think about, I want you to think about the thing that God has called you to do. I want you to think about the thing that you know you're supposed to do. And I know that word supposed to feels like, but uh, you know, God has said, and you're like, nah, you know, God, you know God has called you to, and you don't want to. Like whatever that thing is for you, I want you to just allow that mentally to process through this. And the first thing that you have to do, and this is we learned this from Jonah, the first thing you have to do is you have to name it. You you cannot fix what you cannot name, right? You you can't deal with something if you refuse to acknowledge what it is. If you are in a storm today, you need to take some time to process how it got here. Did God cause it? And if he did, is it mercy? Because there is a path you were heading on, and it was gonna lead you to something, and you don't know how bad it was gonna be, but God did, and he was like, the storm's better than where you were going. What is it? Like, name the thing that you know God has called you to do, and you are terrified to do it. Name it because you can't address anything that goes unnamed. In fact, I mean, here's the way to think about it. What is the one thing that I keep putting off that I know God keeps bringing back? You know what that thing is? And like you kind of can get away from it. And some of us, if we're honest, we're gonna be tempted to do that today. You're you we're gonna end the service, you're gonna walk out, and you're gonna go out there, and you won't physically do it, but you were you will spiritually, emotionally kind of shake it off and go, glad that's over. I'm not gonna do it. I mean, that's what we because we don't want to do what we don't want to do. It's easy just to shake it off, but God is gonna keep bringing it back, He's it's gonna keep surfacing in your heart. You're gonna be watching a movie, reading a book, and that thing pops up. What is that? It's God trying to call you to something. What is that thing that He's calling you to? Second thing you have to do, you gotta look around and check your boat because you not following your Heavenly Father is not just gonna cost you, it's gonna cost people around you. And you know this is true because you have paid some of the cost from other people's lack of obedience. Some of you are living, breathing examples of that, and you could tell us your story, and it is horrific. And it all started from somebody knowing that God said, and they were like, nah, and they went the other way. God told them to, and they said, No way, I'm not doing it. They got on the boat to Tarshish, and you have experienced the pain of that. If you choose to not follow God with all of your life, whatever part you're holding back, somebody other than you is gonna pay the price for that. It's not just gonna be you, and the storm's gonna hurt them. In fact, it may hurt them more than it's even hurting you. So you gotta look around and check your boat. I mean, a question you should we should all ask this question who was affected by the thing that you've been avoiding? Whatever that thing is you've been avoiding, there are people beyond you that are being affected. Who's being affected by that? The third thing you gotta do is you gotta tell somebody. You can't just keep this internalized. You have to tell somebody. And here's why you have to tell somebody. That's why accountability is so important in your life. Because the heart, your heart, listen, your heart is so loud in isolation. The minute that you bring something into the light, that light exposure begins to help you move forward. But you know this. If you keep it in the dark, right, it festers and grows. And you have never been into a damp, dark, dank basement and seen a beautiful flower growing. Nothing good grows in the dark, nothing good happens in isolation. Whatever that thing is for you that you should start doing, stop doing, whatever it is, you have to tell somebody. And it doesn't have I mean, it could be anybody, but you gotta say it out loud. You gotta say it out loud. And here's the the last one. You ready? The last one. Number four, you have to take a step. You have to take one step. This is hard, okay? But it you don't have to go do the whole thing yet, right? Like if you're Jonah and you're on your way, heading in the wrong way, you know, the first step isn't go to Nineveh. The first step is I can't go to Tarshus. So what is the first step for you? It may just be pray about it. It may be, you know, it could be talk to somebody. That could be the very first step for you. But here's here's the reality about this, okay? You've got to decide to stop paying that disobedience tax. And the way you do it, the way you do it is by taking the first step. What is the first step? So, as I mentioned, this is where we're gonna end today. But even in this first chapter, there is so much to take away because there's a little bit of Jonah in every single one of us. Now, as we're gonna see next week, God's so merciful, so graceful, gracious. He doesn't let him drown, okay? He doesn't let him drown. But here's what I want you to remember from the first chapter of Jonah, okay? Running from God, running from God always costs more than obeying God. Every single time. Running from God always costs more than obeying God. And every time you run, God understands, but the consequences are gonna be worse. Every time you say no to what he's asked you to say yes to, he's gonna allow you to do it. But the consequences of not following him are going to be heavier and worse than following him. And in the moment it may not feel that way. I mean, I gave you some examples earlier. Having the hard conversation doesn't feel good in the moment, does it? But it's gonna feel really good later in your life. How is not having that conversation gonna feel for the rest of your life? Way harder. How is forgiving somebody who doesn't deserve it gonna feel in the moment? It's gonna feel terrible. How is it gonna feel to have bitterness and anger and resentment festering in your life for the rest of your life? Way worse. Following God is always better than not following God. But God will allow you in your own will, He'll allow you to do it. We're gonna talk a lot about that next week. But just remember, the goal, God's goal with the storms of life like this, it's not for your destruction. It really is just to disrupt the path you're on and help you to pause and help you to look up and realize, you know, that God is pursuing you in that storm. That God wants to do something healthy in your life in that storm. But you gotta name it. You gotta name why the storm is there. You gotta name the thing that you don't want to follow. You gotta talk to somebody else about it, you gotta take that first step. You have to acknowledge it. And you gotta believe in faith that following is always better than disobeying. Always. And if we believe, and if we believe that God really is a perfect, loving heavenly Father, doesn't it just make sense that we would follow Him? I mean, sometimes the storm, you know, as I said earlier, is the most merciful thing that God can do. And I think that's probably true for you. I know it's been true for me. So I'm gonna pray for all of us because I know it lands differently with all of us. And I'd love to encourage you to be back next week, if nothing else, because we're gonna talk about the fish and that's what you came for. So we're gonna do that next week. But before we do that, I'd love to just pray for us all. Father God, I I is as horrible as this experience um was for Jonah, I am so grateful that you allowed it to happen. I'm so grateful you intervened in the way that you did, which had to be terrifying for everybody, but in your sovereignty, you knew how this was gonna play out. You knew that people would be saved, you knew that your um that people would find you and they would find the most fulfilling life because of that, Father. So, God, I am just thankful for this story and how it can help us avoid repeating that story over and over again in our life. And God, I also just want to pray for each of us individually because I know that there are things that we are probably not aligned with you on, and we have all sorts of reasons and excuses and rationalizations for it, but the reality is that we're just not following. And so, God, I just pray that we will trust you enough to say yes to you, knowing that the consequences of not following always carry a heavier price tag. Just wherever that lands with us, God, just give us wisdom to know and give us courage to do something about it. God, we love you in Jesus. We pray all of this in your matchless name. Amen.