Jonah Week 3 - Running With God
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Jonah 3:1-10
The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach the message that I tell you.” 3 Jonah got up and went to Nineveh according to the Lord’s command. Now Nineveh was an extremely great city, a three-day walk. 4 Jonah set out on the first day of his walk in the city and proclaimed, “In forty days Nineveh will be demolished!” 5 Then the people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast and dressed in sackcloth—from the greatest of them to the least. 6 When word reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
7 Then he issued a decree in Nineveh: By order of the king and his nobles: No person or animal, herd or flock, is to taste anything at all. They must not eat or drink water. 8 Furthermore, both people and animals must be covered with sackcloth, and everyone must call out earnestly to God. Each must turn from his evil ways and from his wrongdoing. 9 Who knows? God may turn and relent; he may turn from his burning anger so that we will not perish. 10 God saw their actions—that they had turned from their evil ways—so God relented from the disaster he had threatened them with. And he did not do it.
Summary
Welcome back to Community Group. We are in the third week of our Jonah series. This week we find ourselves in Chapter 3. In this chapter we see that God loves cities, simply because they are full of people. It’s stories like these that show us how merciful and slow to anger God is. Jonah on the other hand may have loved cities, he just did not love this city. Although Jonah told God that the people would not change their ways, God still insisted that Jonah go and deliver His message. Despite all that Jonah had done, his mission had not changed. In the sermon, we saw Jonah go from running from God to running to God.
The first point in the sermon was UNWAVERING PURSUIT, which was found in verses 1-3. God had set His mind to save the city, He did not give Jonah a choice, He gave him a mission. We see in the story that God was not only pursing Nineveh, He was also pursuing Jonah. You see, God doesn’t only care about the work being done, He cares about the one doing the work.
Point two is found in verses 3-9, and it was UNLIMITED POWER. How powerful was God’s message to the people? Powerful enough to cause all of them to change their ways. This part of the story is rather backwards. You see in most stories; the king learns something and tells his people to do what he wants them to do. In this story, the people heard the word first, made the change, and that change got to the king and he then mad the change official. There is a difference in the king’s response and Jonah’s response to Gods word. Jonah disobeyed, because of his pride, he went down into the boat and down into the sea. The king heard God’s word, stood up, and obeyed. When we run with God, His Word and His power can reach anyone, even those we think should not be reached.
Our final point, UNMERITED PARDON was found in verse 10. God relented, because they repented. The important thing to understand is, that nothing they did erased the evil they had done. Nothing they did could change God from being good to them. God was always at work, even when we could not see it. He knew the outcome, even before He called Jonah to go. God saw the repentance ahead of time and sent a prophet to help them get to where He knew they would go.
We need to stop being reluctant when God wants to use us, He is calling us to something He has already planned out. We can trust God, because He has proven to be reliable. Like the king, we should humbly repent and follow is leading in our lives.
Discussion
Have you ever felt God pursuing you? Share
Has God ever asked you to reach out to someone you did not like? Share
Have you ever delivered only part of a message so that the outcome would favor you? Share
Have you witnessed God’s Unlimited Power in a message you delivered? Share
Have you struggled to forgive someone for the same thing God has forgiven you of? Share
Announcements
I want to start out by thanking all of our amazing CG Leaders! It has been a blessing to watch how the Lord has worked in BT these last two years. As I stepped into this role, we had less than a dozen active CGs, and today we have over 50. I know that God has BIG plans for His Church and His CG Ministry. This fall our church will go through a six weeks series on the importance of COMMUNITY. Pastor Chris and all our Campus Pastors will be speaking to the church about COMMUNITY Groups. We are expecting more CGs to form during this series.
This past month I attended a conference and had time to sit down with a pastor who is leading a ministry of over 700 CGs. I shared what the Lord is doing here at BT and he encouraged me to implement the next phase in our CG Leadership Plan. Our plan called for the implementation of CG Directors, but after speaking with him in depth, I have decided to change the title from Director to Shepherd. As I spoke to him, he showed me how this role is one of caring for people and I have to agree. I will be reaching out to 5 couples from our McAllen Campus and 1 couple from each of our additional campuses asking them to prayerfully consider the role of a CG Shepherd. I am asking all of you as CGs to please pray that the Lord would rise up new CG Leaders and that He would confirm in the hearts of these couples the desire to lead and love our CG Leaders.
Once again, I want to thank all of you for the work you do serving the people of BT Church.
Pastor Isuaro Medina
Isauro.medina@bt.church
Cell: (956) 984-9380
