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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, one of the absolute uh best things about social media is also probably the worst thing uh that has ever happened to our world and social media. It's the algorithm that runs behind social media. You all know this, right? Like when you scroll on stop or if you pause a little bit or open something, like, you know, the company's always watching and it's building this algorithm to just feed you, right? And feed me the thing that it thinks that you want to see the most. Um we, you know, live in these little echo chambers and we think everybody thinks the way we do, but that isn't true. Everybody isn't looking at burritos, just you, you know. Um, this happened to me recently. I was scrolling through and I accidentally paused on a uh golf glove, this new company making golf gloves. Now my whole feed was filled with golf gloves for a week, right? Because it's how the algal algorithm works. Um I don't know what yours looks like. Mine is um, you know, kind of interesting. Um I uh have videos that show up in my uh social media feed all the time of uh soldiers coming home uh and reuniting with their families. Do you guys see some of these? You maybe you have these in your feed. I I'm like such a sucker for these. I watch them every time and I cry a little bit because you you just I I haven't served in the military, and I'm so grateful if you have, if you're a veteran or you're active. Like, I don't think us civilian people, we have no idea the sacrifice that that is being made. And I think those videos just show that. Like, it isn't just the person who's going off. I mean, it's the the the family, the spouse, maybe at home, the children. I mean, it's incredible. It gets me every time. I watch it every time. Um, there's a few other things that show up all the time, golf clubs, I mentioned that. Uh for some reason, I always uh get kids with Scottish accents saying funny things. I don't know why, but like my feed is full of like these little British kids saying funny things, which I guess I watched a few of those and the algorithm thought that's what I want to watch. That's kind of creepy, but whatever. Um and you know, the the other thing I see a lot of, and I bet you've seen this too. Maybe this has happened to you. It's amazing. Um you ever uh seen the video of a sporting event where you've got, and it's usually a dad, not always, but a dad with like a son or a daughter, and they're wearing the jersey of the team, and they are in the top row. They're like as far, they're like leaning against the wall at the top of the stadium, you know, and uh uh somebody from the the team sneaks up there, hey, how you doing? And they're like, Good, and you're you're a big support of a team. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, we got a surprise for you. We're gonna take you from the back row all the way to the front row. Have you seen that happen before? And they're like sitting in a love seat, and I mean they're getting like a signed basketball, like all like I I that's always in my feed too. I love those stories, and I love to see the expression on like the dad's face and the kid's face. I mean, the dad is thinking, if I could have bought a front row seat for my kid, I'd I would have. I could barely get the back row seat, like we could barely afford that, but I'm doing the best I can. And they get this just, I mean, grace of God, like magical upgrade. And they didn't earn it, they didn't deserve it, but it just happened, and it's it's so amazing. Um, this actually happened to me a couple weeks ago. I um ordered an eight-count nugget and got nine nuggets. Grace of God, man. Like, it's amazing, right? Undeserved, unmerited favor. I didn't earn it, but woo, I ate it. It was great. And so you've had this happen too, right? Maybe you got an extra nugget, you got an upgrade, something good happened to you. And it's so interesting. When when something good happens to you, um, we, I at least, I bet all of us, we rarely uh uh go, well, God, thank you, you know? Um, and we rarely, you know, recognize the luck of it. In fact, often when good things happen, we go, I deserve that, or I created that, I'm the one who made that happen. Uh the same is kind of true, but in inverse, when bad things happen, not to get like too deep too quick, but we've also had bad things happen. And and when a bad thing happen, um, we rarely go, Wow, I created that, I earned that, I deserve that. We we typically blame somebody else, blame a situation, uh, you know, call it happenstance, bad, you know, luck. Um, we say things like, you know, how did I get here? Um I've been in ministry for a very long time and you know got to meet with lots of people who have gone through lots of different things or who are going through things. And, you know, you meet with somebody maybe, and maybe, you know, this is you who um, you know, is struggling through addiction, and and they'll tell you, like, at no point they woke up one morning and said, I think today I'm gonna become addicted. But over time, right, an addiction is formed, and now they're kind of going, How did this happen? How did I get here? You know, uh, maybe there's a divorce situation and it wasn't your fault, and 98% of it was somebody else. I mean, literally, but there's 2% that you know you you gotta kind of own part of it, but it's so hard to own it, and and you don't say like, you know, well, I fill in the blank. You typically say, they, and how did I get here? How did this happen? I never saw this, you know, coming, right? Um the question that we really rarely ask when we are facing the hard circumstance, the bad thing, the thing we never thought we would should, you know, we never saw coming, we can't imagine how this happened. Like when we are in that moment, the question that we ask, right, is how did this happen? The real question we should probably be asking is more like this How did my choices, my resistance, my pride, my fear, my resentment, or my will get me here? None of us have ever asked that question. But this is probably a better question to ask. And welcome to the second part of Jonah. Because this is the question that Jonah should be asking, as we're about to find out in a minute, he never once even begins to ask. Last week we kind of began this story of Jonah, and it's, you know, not hard to see this, but you might look at the story of Jonah and think, wow, like God has asked him to do something really challenging, and he doesn't want to do it. You know, he's a bit of a victim, he's some bad circumstances, but nah. None of that is true for Jonah. He is not a hero in any way, shape, or form. He hasn't bumped into bad luck. This isn't bad circumstances. Jonah has made a terrible, terrible choice. I'll remind you of that, what it was in just a minute. He has created a circumstance all by himself because of his choices and his resistance and everything else. Now, you may be thinking to yourself, oh great, this is the fish day. It's a whale of a tail. I don't believe any of this. Why did I show up on fishing day? I get it. I talked about this a little bit last week, okay? And this is critical to the story. It's so important to recognize this. Chapter two does involve a fish, and we're gonna talk about the fish. But listen, the fish is not the story, okay? The fish doesn't have a main character part in the story. The fish is a secondary, tertiary character in the story, and I'm gonna give you permission. If you don't think the whole fish thing is true, that what happened to Jonah as we read in the Old Testament and Scripture didn't actually happen, that's okay. You don't have to believe it happened to learn the principle from it and the moral of the story. It's the exact same whether you think it's legit or not. Now, I will push back a little bit. Jesus talked about Jonah and seemed to indicate maybe there was some truth to it. But you know, maybe, maybe there is, maybe there isn't. But don't get hung up on the fish part, as I said last week, right? Because this story isn't about a fish. This story, especially chapter two, is a story about God interrupting Jonah while he's on the run and trying to bring Jonah back changed. And as we're about to see, change doesn't happen as easy as we may think it should. So, quick recap, just very quick, in case you were not here last week or you've never heard of this guy before. I mean, you're gonna love this guy. Jonah, he is a prophet. He's a prophet, which means God would speak to Jonah. Jonah would then speak to the people of Israel, God's chosen people, uh, back in the Old Testament. And so Jonah's one of these prophets, and God tells Jonah to do something. Here's what he says: he says, Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me. Now, I said this last week. This place, uh Nineveh, it is in Assyria. It is not like just wicked. This place is evil. It is the worst people you can imagine. They had already conquered ten of the twelve tribes of Israel. And listen, when these people conquered a nation, a people group, a village, a community, they wanted it to be known that you don't mess with us. I mean, they would, I mean, this is gross, but they would skin people alive. They were horrible, horrible people. And Jonah, being a person who is Jewish, when he gets instructions that you need to go to Nineveh and preach against them. Now, if you were me, you and I, we're logical, I would think, no, I'll pass because they don't seem like great people and they'll probably murder me, right? But that's not what Jonah says. Jonah doesn't want to go because, and this is so important, we're gonna dig more into this next time, but next week. Jonah doesn't want to go because he's afraid that God will remove his wrath from Nineveh and they won't get what's coming to them. Jonah wants vengeance. Jonah, he is out for blood, and he knows if he goes and preaches about the one true God to the Ninevites, they're all gonna potentially place their faith in God. God won't wipe them off the face of the earth, they won't get what they deserve, and who is more deserving of wrath than the Ninevites? And so Jonah doesn't want to go. In fact, we learned last week, he's in a city called Joppa. Um, he's supposed to go kind of north and east. He goes straight west. Like he doesn't just run away, he runs in the opposite direction of the way God has called him to go. He's on the boat, he's going towards a place called Tarshis, the opposite direction, and God, this is really important, sends a storm. Not to destroy Jonah, but to disrupt his path on purpose. So God sends the storm. It doesn't just happen, he intentionally sends a huge storm onto the sea. It is threatening to destroy the entire boat. All the crew, the sailors in the boat are terrified. They don't know what to do. They start trying to row against it. It's impossible. They're all gonna probably die. They don't know whose fault it is. They assume somebody's done something wrong. They all start praying to their gods, nothing's working. They go find the one person who isn't helping Jonah, who is asleep in the bottom of the boat. He they go get him up, they go, What have you done against your God? And Jonah goes, Oh, geez, this is my fault. He says, Throw me overboard, the storm will come, everything will be fine, I will die, whatever. I would rather die than follow God to Nineveh and do what he wants me to do. Just kill me, I'd rather die. So the sailors, they agree. They don't want to die. So they pick Jonah up. They actually don't want to throw him overboard because they know he's gonna die. And they do, throw him overboard. Immediately the storm stops. And the sailors, this is so great, all decide that they're gonna place their faith in Jonah's God because he must be the actual run, one true God. Meanwhile, Jonah, they assume, is drowning and dying. Jonah is, raise my hand, yep, go ahead and throw me over. I it's okay if I die. I'd rather die than go to Nineveh. That's chapter one. Now, the end of the chapter, we read this. Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish. This is a kind of a really cool metaphor, for three days and for three nights. Three days and three nights. Just like Jesus was in the belly of a tomb. So he's I mean, this is so beautiful. It is prophesying for what's gonna happen in 750, 60, 70 or so years. Now, as we're about to see, as we kind of open up to the next chapter, chapter two, as we're about to see, he does, Jonah does exactly what you would do if you found yourself thrown overboard from a boat thinking you were gonna die, and instead were swallowed by a fish. Any guesses what he does? He prays, which is exactly what you would do, is exactly what I would do. And as you, we're gonna read the prayer, I'm gonna read the whole thing to you in just a second. And as we look at the prayer, I mean there's a lot of things we can learn from Jonah's experience so far, from his prayer. There's a lot of different kinds of takeaways from this. Some of them are kind of fundamentally basic, like, you know, when God calls you, don't get on a boat and head in the opposite direction. Duh. Like that's a lesson to learn from this story for sure. Um, I think another really important lesson, and this may be for some of us today, this may be important, but but broken people often call on the name of God. We actually read about that in scripture. God hears the prayers of the broken. In fact, a lot of people turn to God because of things get broken. Maybe this is your story. You know, when when things were good, you got the ninth nugget and the eight-count meal, you didn't really thank God, but when the diagnosis came in, you were praying. You know, when the financial thing happened, you immediately fell to your knees, right? And you didn't even know, you didn't even believe in God. But you said, God, if you're real and if you're there, I you started negotiating. I promise I will never again, you know, I'll I'll stop at every four-way stop if you will just get me out of. You know, you're doing the whole thing. And and God, I mean, no, he's listening. God hears the prayers of the broken. He always hears the prayers of the broken. Or maybe the lesson for us could be this um show mercy to others as God has shown mercy to you. I mean, it's amazing. We're gonna talk more about this next week, and that's a great lesson to learn. I mean, you know, Jonah is thinking the Ninevehes are so much worse than he is, they deserve the wrath of God, but Jonah doesn't. I mean, but before God, we're all broken, we're all sinful, we're all on an even playing field, and it's not even to God. We're way below. We're unrighteous, we don't have a right standing. Whether you've done one thing wrong or a billion, it doesn't matter. So we're all kind of in the same place. It's easy not to see it that way, right? I mean, those are all important lessons, and I think they're all true lessons. But here's what I really would love for us to do today. Um, below the surface, there's a much deeper lesson I think we can learn. In fact, below the surface, there's a lesson that is like uh maybe almost an umbrella for all these other lessons. And if we can understand the deeper lesson, I think it could change a lot about our lives. Um I'm gonna read the prayer to you. Um and the lesson really comes out of the prayer. So Jonah's been thrown overboard, he's in the belly of a fish, you know, he opens his eyes, he's like, Wow, this is crazy, and he starts praying, and here is the prayer that he prays, and this is important, in response to his rebellion. This is his prayer. You ready? So, Jonah chapter 2. From inside the fish, Jonah prayed to the Lord, his God, and he said, In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From deep in the realm of the dead, I called for help, and you listened to my cry. You hurled me into the depths, into the very heart of the seas, and the current swirled about me. All your waves and breakers swept over me. I said, I have been banished from your sight, yet I will look again towards your holy temple. The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me, seaweed was wrapped around my head, to the roots of the mountains I sank down, the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you, Lord, my God, brought my life up from the pit. When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple. Those who cling to the worthless idols turn away from God's love for them. But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you what I have vowed in, I will make good. I will say, salvation comes from the Lord. Now, before I show you the end, just a quick pause. It's amazing when you read this, right? Like you read this prayer, it's very poetic, uses a lot of good words, he's great theology to an extent, you know, he sounds like he knows what he's doing, sounds like a preacher. But as you read through the words, you recognize it sounds just like the same kind of prayer that any of us would pray if we find ourselves in a terrible situation. He sounds like a person praying where he has nowhere else to turn, he's run out of options, and he just needs somebody to rescue him. There's no real change. His attitude is no different at all, you know. So for three days and three nights, he spends, probably prays a lot over three days and three nights in the belly of the fish. And in probably the grossest passage in all of Scripture, chapter two says this, and the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land. That is disgusting. I I don't, you know, I don't want to get gross, too, too gross at least, but have you ever had a kid that has stomach virus? You know, you got like a little bit of that on you? Can you imagine? Like the fish vomited Jonah out onto the land, and he stands on the side of the water, covered in fish vomit, right? And what does he do? We're gonna talk a lot about it next week. But I'll tell you what he doesn't do. He doesn't change his mind at all. It's so interesting. Like when you when you look at this prayer, and I said this earlier, it it this prayer teaches us so much about the human condition and about how we view what we want to do, how we want to do it, and the will that we have, the free will that we have to kind of choose our own path. I mean, Jonah 2 as a chapter, this whole prayer, it is so focused on gratitude. And I mean, I get that. I mean, I would probably be grateful, you know, to not have died in the water and drowned. I mean, I'm sure we would all be grateful to an extent, but I mean, let me just show you for example. This is verse 7 again, okay? Here's what it said. When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord. Now, did you remember the Lord when life was great? Did you remember when you had food, when everything was fine? Did you remember when God gave you an assignment that you agreed with and felt good about? Probably not. Now you're in the belly of the fish, you've been on the run, right? God since the storm, you are ready willing to die before you follow God's will, and now you're like, oh, but I remember you now, God. And my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple. I mean, it's really amazing. Like Jonah remembered God, but he hardly acknowledged that God remembered him the whole time. Like God has been pursuing and working to bring Jonah back this entire time. And not once does Jonah even recognize that that's what God is doing. Jonah is so focused on Jonah that he can't not focus on anything but Jonah. Like he is locked in. I mean, and by the way, remember, God is pursuing Jonah. Remember how this whole thing started. If you go back to the last chapter, now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow him. And this is really important. You know, Jonah flees from God, and God provides a storm, not to destroy him, but to disrupt him. And now God has provided a fish. And listen, the fish, the fish is not for Jonah's punishment. The fish is Jonah's salvation. Like the fish is God's grace and God's mercy, literally physically saving his life. And the whole time he prays, thank you, thank you, thank you. But I'm not gonna follow you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. But I'm not gonna give in to what you want me to do. And by the way, as we said, all of this could have been avoided. Everything that we're seeing in Jonah's story was created by Jonah. And yeah, I mean, while Jonah seems grateful, and that's not a bad thing, the one thing he isn't is repentant. There's no repentance in any of this prayer. There's no change of mind that leads to a change of heart or behavior. There's no, I should rethink God's will and my will. There's none of that. There's just a whole lot of thank you, God, for remembering me. I'm not gonna necessarily remember you, but thanks for remembering me. I mean, it's pretty amazing that God actually treated Jonah this way. I mean, think about how. Unbelievably gracious, merciful, loving God really is towards Jonah, and by the way, towards us as well. I mean, look at it. Jonah, Jonah is rescued while he is running. And I don't know if I don't, this may be something that you personally need to hear. I don't know your story. But a lot of us grew up, if you grew up in church, maybe, or, or maybe this is why you walked away from church at some point. Because you didn't understand this. You felt, I get it, it's so easy to feel this. That God and good people go together. And so for God to be good with you, you need to become gooder. You need to clean yourself up. You need to get your act together. You need to stop the thing, start the thing, quit the thing. You need to apologize, you need to make amends. Yeah, and maybe some of that's true. Maybe you should do a lot of those things. But God is not waiting for you to clean yourself up before he's willing to rescue you. In fact, he wants to rescue you right where you are, as messy as you can possibly be, because he's really the only one who can fix the mess anyway. We've talked about this so much, but God has been pursuing every one of us our entire lives, but not to pay us back, to win us back. I mean, it's an amazing thing about our Heavenly Father that when you place your faith in Jesus, you are immediately forgiven. Past, present, future, everything. And it doesn't mean there's going to be consequences. If you run from God, there's going to be a price to pay, and it's an earthly price, but it's not an eternal price. God isn't wanting to punish you. And even if it feels like punishment, it's always for your benefit. It's always for your greater good. But when you read this prayer of Jonah, it's just so evident that Jonah, Jonah is so grateful for salvation, but he is just, and this is a big word, he is unwilling to surrender his will to the will of God. And this is where I think chapter two really becomes our story, too. Because we, me included, oh man, me included, constantly are tempted and often do, choose our will over God's ways. We choose what we want over what God wants for us. We choose our will over God's will. And every single time, every single time that we choose our will over God's will, there's a word for that. And it's a word we don't talk a ton about, but it's a really important word, and the word is sin. That's what sin is. If you kind of like basic definition, sin is anything that works against what God is working for. That's what sin is. Anything that works against what God is working for. And so every time you head in a direction that isn't God's direction, that's sin. That's just all it is. Jonah was just living in sin in this moment. That's all he was doing. He was just being sinful. Now, does God forgive him? Of course he forgives him. Does God want to pursue him to win him back so we can begin to follow his will? Of course he wants to. He's trying to do that. This is what the fish in the storm are all about. But when we follow our will, when it doesn't align with God's will, that's what sin is. And this is exactly what Jonah is doing. And this is exactly what we do. And really, it's in pride that we do it, right? Like in our pride, we really do want what we want more than what God demands of us, what God requires, or even just what He has called us to, an opportunity that He's called us to. And listen, this is why the story of Jonah matters so much today. This is why the chapter two of Jonah matters so much. Because when we when we read chapter two, it's so easy to get focused on the fish. But as I said earlier, the the the the insanity of the fish isn't the point of the story. It's not a fishing story. This is a surrender story. And you can see it so clearly because listen, the fish, listen, the fish could save Jonah's life, but it could not surrender Jonah's will. For three days he sat in the belly of a fish and he refused to surrender his will. He never changed his mind. We're going to see a lot more of that next week when we finish the story. He nothing changed for him at all. What's so amazing about this is as I as I thought about this, there's another story in the Bible. It happens with Jesus. Where Jesus' desire or what he wants isn't necessarily aligning with what God has next for him. And he immediately knows that feeling. It happens in the Garden of Gethsemane. If you're a church person, Bible person, you probably know this story, but the night before Jesus is to be crucified, he's takes communion, first time we call it really that, from the upper room with his twelve disciples, he washes their feet. Judas gets his feet washed and leaves because he's about to betray Jesus. And he goes against the Roman soldiers, and Jesus knows what's coming. Like he knows crucifixion is hours away. He's about to be arrested, he's gonna be beaten like you could not believe. Most people don't even make it through the beatings to get to the cross. He knows he's gonna be on a cross. He knows how unbelievably painful it's gonna be. And he knows why he's doing it for you and for me. And so he's he's feeling the weight of this. And so he goes into the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. In fact, we read that he is so intensely praying that his sweat turns into drops of blood, which just so you know biologically can happen. And so this is how intense the moment is. And here's what he prays about God's will in this moment. It's a beautiful kind of juxtaposition to Jonah. He says this in Luke 22 Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me, yet not my will, but yours be done. He basically, the anti-Jonah, says, instead of, you know, even if you're not willing, I'm not gonna go through with this. Even, you know, this is what I want, but if you want something else, good luck, I'm going to Tarshish. He says, I understand that what's happening, the cup here I'm about to drink from is gonna be unbelievable. And I I desperately would not like to go through this. If there's any other way, I'd prefer it, but not my will, your will. Always be done. You know, where Jonah is just grateful, Jesus is surrendered. Where Jonah refuses to align his will to God's will, Jesus immediately knows at all times that God's will is his will. And that he's never gonna deviate. Because it's what's best for him, what's best for humanity. He knows. I mean, think about this in a way, repentance is the thing we don't see with Jonah, but repentance is more than being sorry for where our decisions took us, right? Repentance is surrendering our will to the will of God and where he wants to lead us. That's what surrender really is. And you know what the cross really represents? The cross is the place where Jesus surrendered for you. Hanging on the cross is where Jesus surrendered ultimately his will, his entire life for yours. And for three days and three nights, he lived in the belly of a tomb and arose in a similar way to Jonah, but with a completely different perspective. If you're a Christian, if you're a Jesus follower, here's what you have to understand is that when you, when you choose, when we choose to follow God's will, it leads us, and it should, it should lead us to surrender our will. Now, is that easy? Absolutely not. Because you're a person like me, and we have a will, we have things we want, we have desires, and there are times where they align with God's, and there are times where it doesn't align at all. And those are tough times. This is the time that Jonah is in, you know. But if you're a follower of Jesus, you have been called to follow his will. Not to earn anything from him, but out of your trust for him, and out of your surrender to him, and out of this belief that God's way is always the best way, and that God's way is always gonna lead to the best place for you. Now, in a in a way, like, is it always gonna be easy? Of course not. I mean, Jesus said that, you know, this is a heavy cup to drink. Like, following your will is not gonna be easy. But here, we talked of this last week. Yeah, there's a price to pay when we follow God's will, but it is so much less than the price that we pay for not following God's will. So, do we wanna do that? Like, do we trust God enough? That's kind of the question. Do we trust God enough to surrender our will to his will? And do you know what surrender is? Like, that's a big kind of theological word in a way, right? But here's what surrender is. Surrender is just not, is it's not pretending that you want what God wants. God's not asking you to pretend. Surrender isn't pretending. Surrender is trusting God enough to yield your will to his. That's all it really is. And that's what the invitation of the second chapter of Jonah is all about. It's about surrender. Yeah, be thankful for what God has done. Be thankful that he has saved you. But the invitation is to surrender. The invitation in Jonah chapter 2 is to surrender to the God who saved you. That's it. To surrender to the God who saved you. That's the invitation in the second installment of the story of Jonah. Really, what God is asking all of us to do in different ways. For some of us, this may be you've never done that. And it's the first time you're even thinking about it. For some of us, it's in part of our life. You've surrendered 95% of your life, and there's this 5% you're just holding on to. And I totally, God gets it too, yeah. But it's an invitation to let go of that. Literally to open your hands, to trust God enough with that, and you know what the thing is. We all, God's probably brought it to mind already. To trust God with that one thing. So, what does surrender actually look like? Like, well, how do you do that? Like, how do you actually surrender? How do you trust? Practically, how do you do that? I think it's not, it's not as hard to do, it's not as hard to understand, though, is it? Like surrender, surrender is when we, I, you, and me, when we stop negotiating with God over the things that He has really made abundantly clear. That's what surrender really is. It's when we stop negotiating with God over the things that are clear. We stop negotiating with God around forgiveness, loving others. We stop negotiating around the individual calling that He may have placed in your life. We just stop negotiating. And as I said earlier, we all have a tendency to negotiate, don't we? Like we all have a tendency to make promises, and God, if you will, then I will. And he's just not a negotiator. He's a Lord, he's not a life coach, he's the king of kings, he is the authority. And when we treat him that way, our life moves to such a better place. And the way we do that is by surrender. And this is hard to do because listen, you're like me. I mean, we all do this. Like, I'm tempted constantly to say, like, okay, cool. God, I will follow you, just not in that part, or not there, you know. Uh God, I'll obey you, but well, with everything but that. Like, I come on, you know, cut me some slack. God, you know, I'll forgive, but not him, not her, not them. I'll I'll trust you, but I mean, not with all of it, you know, or or I'll surrender to you, but but I still have my own plans. Like, I'm making my plans. I'll surrender them, but that's how we typically live, and that's what sin is. But the more we can align our will to the will of our Heavenly Father, the better our life can be. There's a prayer that I um I wrote several weeks ago, just in thinking about this chapter and thinking about Jonah's prayer. It's like, what would I want to pray if I were in the belly of the fish? What would I want to pray the moment I recognize that there is something that I'm not surrendering? And God is elevating it in my heart, and what's the prayer that I would like to pray? And so I this is what I came up with. This is the prayer I wrote. I wrote, God, I am done fighting you. I'm done negotiating, I'm done thanking you for the rescue while refusing your rule. Not my will, but yours be done. And I thought today, like, I would love for us to just pray that prayer out loud together. Um, in just a second, if you feel comfortable, I'd love for you to say it out loud. And you and here's the beauty of the prayer: you may not even mean it, and that's okay. Like you this may be the first step towards at least processing what it would look like to trust God with this thing that you're struggling to let go of. To surrender that thing that you just oh, you just don't want to do it. Maybe this is the first step, or maybe this is the day you look back and you go, yep, it was that that service. It's outside church that I finally opened my hands with this thing. And the story you'll tell one day, we'll come back to this moment. I don't know what what it will mean for you, but I would love for us just to read it all out loud together. So let's just do that. God, I am done fighting you. I'm done negotiating, I'm done thanking you for the rescue while refusing your rule. Not my will, but yours be done. I mean, here's the question, right? Is God's grace and his mercy made you thankful? I hope so. But has it made you also surrender? I mean, I hope so too. I mean, in this story, right, the the fish caught Jonah out of the water, but the fish couldn't surrender Jonah's will and get him back into the will of God. So again, I don't know what this looks like for you, but today might be a day for you to raise a white flag of surrender before a God who does not want to hurt you or crush you or harm you. He just wants to win you back and love you back and lead you to the best life possible. But that's predicated on trust and surrender. We're gonna close our time together today with a song. Um, there's lots of songs that we could sing about this idea, but there's one from my childhood and probably from yours, and it goes way back. It's called I Surrender All. A lot of you know this song. It's a beautiful, beautiful song. And um and here's what I'm just gonna ask you to do. We're all gonna stand up in a minute, and I would just ask you to do that if you can. But I would love for you to think about the words in this song. It could be you sing it, it could be that you just read it. Some of you, some of us need to pray it. You may just need to sit down in your chair, you may need to kneel there. You can even come down here if you want and just pray. But maybe this is that marker for you where you decided to actually surrender to the thing that God has been bringing up over and over and over again. So I'd love to know about you to stand. I'm gonna pray as the band comes out and we're gonna sing that song together. Father God, thank you so much for this opportunity that we have to surrender. God, you provide this opportunity every single day of our lives. And sometimes you send storms to change our directions. Sometimes you send a fish to cause us to pause and to process. So, God, here's what I do know about all of us, me included, maybe me at the top of the list. There are things in our lives that we struggle to surrender to you. Whatever that is, I pray in this moment that you will make it known in our hearts and you will force us to process it a little bit at least. And then, God, I pray you give us courage to know what to do with it. I pray you give us courage to open our hands and fully surrender it to you. Jesus, we love you so much. Thank you for surrendering your life for ours. We pray this in your name. Amen.