WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.000 Good morning. 00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:02.000 Good morning. 00:00:02.000 --> 00:00:04.000 My name, for those of you who don't know me, is Eric. 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:07.000 I'm the youth director here at Watermark Church. 00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:10.000 I'm really excited to get to share with you guys today. 00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:13.000 I want to start out by telling you a story. 00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:16.000 A story about a time a year and a half ago, 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:19.000 when I had a motorcycle crash. 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:23.000 Now, if you haven't heard this story before, don't feel sorry for me. 00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:26.000 It was me being stupid that caused the accident. 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:29.000 My friends and I were on vacation in the Philippines. 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:32.000 I'd driven a motorcycle before, and we thought, 00:00:32.000 --> 00:00:35.000 hey, it'd be fun to rent motorcycles and go for a ride. 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:38.000 So we rented some motorcycles, we went for a drive. 00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:42.000 It was beautiful, blue skies, clean air, mountains on the horizon, 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:44.000 getting closer and closer and closer. 00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:47.000 And then I took a turn too wide, tried to stop, 00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:50.000 but hit the gravel on the side and spilled. 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:54.000 And now, for those of you who have never been in a motorcycle accident before, 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:56.000 here's what I want you to know. 00:00:56.000 --> 00:00:59.000 The time when your motorcycle is going down 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:03.000 is one of the most terrifying moments in your life ever. 00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:05.000 Because in this exact moment, you realize, 00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:09.000 there is absolutely nothing I can do to save myself. 00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:13.000 There's no amount of exercise that I can do, 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:18.000 no amount of dieting, no amount of studying in school to help myself right now. 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:23.000 Nothing I've ever done in my life up to this moment is going to help me survive 00:01:23.000 --> 00:01:25.000 when the bike lands on the ground. 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:31.000 And as you're thinking these thoughts, you also have your life flash before your eyes. 00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:33.000 And you think of all the significant relationships in your life, 00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:36.000 and you're like, oh, if I could talk to that person one more time, 00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:38.000 what would I say differently? 00:01:38.000 --> 00:01:42.000 And it flashes through your head for like 10 different people. 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:47.000 And you're trying to make split-second decisions about how you want to land the bike 00:01:47.000 --> 00:01:51.000 to try and minimize the pain when you hit the ground. 00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:57.000 And magically, time warps so that all of this stuff flies through your head in about two seconds. 00:01:57.000 --> 00:02:03.000 And in those two seconds, you recognize your absolute, utter dependence on God for survival 00:02:03.000 --> 00:02:07.000 in a way that you probably have never realized it before in your life. 00:02:07.000 --> 00:02:12.000 And the reason I tell this story is because we've been talking about Jonah the past couple weeks. 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:21.000 And today we pick up Jonah's story at a point where he recognizes his absolute need for God in order to survive. 00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:25.000 If you haven't been here the past couple weeks, I'm going to do a brief recap. 00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:28.000 If you want more in-depth about the story up to this point, 00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:34.000 you can listen to the podcast on our website from Graham and Althea's sermons the past two weeks. 00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:37.000 But basically, Jonah is a prophet. 00:02:37.000 --> 00:02:44.000 And we said that the story of Jonah is actually a story about a great God who shows great grace. 00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:47.000 And this great God reaches out to Jonah and he says, 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:51.000 I want you to take a message to this great city called Nineveh. 00:02:51.000 --> 00:02:55.000 This city is wicked. This city is bloodthirsty. 00:02:55.000 --> 00:02:59.000 This city is going to be destroyed in 40 days unless they change their ways. 00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:04.000 And Jonah says, uh-uh, I'm not going to do it. 00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:06.000 And he runs away from God. 00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:10.000 He says, get me as far away from Nineveh as possible. 00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:13.000 He gets on a boat sailing in the opposite direction. 00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:18.000 He goes on board, starts taking a nap, and a storm hits the boat. 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:23.000 Huge waves are coming so that the men on the boat are terrified for their lives. 00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:27.000 And they come and they wake him up and they say, pray to your God, Jonah. 00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:30.000 We don't know if he has any power to do anything, but pray to him. 00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:34.000 The men on the boat start trying to figure out whose fault the storm is, 00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:35.000 who caused this storm. 00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:37.000 And they figure out that it's Jonah. 00:03:37.000 --> 00:03:39.000 When they ask him, why is this your fault? 00:03:39.000 --> 00:03:43.000 He says, oh, you know, my God, he's in charge of the heavens and the sea, 00:03:43.000 --> 00:03:45.000 and I'm running away from him. 00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:51.000 And they say, okay, what do we have to do to you to make this storm go away? 00:03:51.000 --> 00:03:54.000 Because we don't want to die because of you. 00:03:54.000 --> 00:03:58.000 And now I think at this point God was giving Jonah a second chance to obey. 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:01.000 I think Jonah could have said, turn the boat towards Nineveh. 00:04:01.000 --> 00:04:03.000 I've got to go there. 00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:06.000 But instead he said, I would rather die than obey. 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:08.000 Throw me overboard. 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:10.000 And so they throw him overboard. 00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:12.000 And that's where we left off the story last week. 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:13.000 They throw him overboard. 00:04:13.000 --> 00:04:15.000 The storm calms down. 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:18.000 And these men recognize Jonah's God is powerful. 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:19.000 And they fear the Lord. 00:04:19.000 --> 00:04:21.000 And they make sacrifices to him. 00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:25.000 And then we just sort of left Jonah in the ocean. 00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:29.000 And today we're going to pick up the story right there and continue on. 00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:36.000 And what I want us to see today is that when God's children cry out to him from their distress, 00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:41.000 that he hears them and answers them for the sake of his glory. 00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:57.000 The first thing that I want us to see is that when Jonah prays to God, God hears and answers. 00:04:57.000 --> 00:05:02.000 Now, growing up in the church, I heard the story of Jonah over and over and over again. 00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:07.000 And I had this picture in my head of how the story played out from this point. 00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:09.000 That Jonah sort of gets thrown overboard. 00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:10.000 Ah! 00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:15.000 And like the moment that the first part of his body touched the sea, the sea instantly went calm. 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:19.000 And he splashed into the water and then he was just sort of floating there. 00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:24.000 And yeah, the land was probably pretty far away, but he was in no immediate danger. 00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:25.000 Just sort of floating there. 00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:28.000 And maybe the men on the boat were like, swim that way to the land. 00:05:28.000 --> 00:05:32.000 And he was like, oh, okay, it's going to be a long swim, but I can do it. 00:05:32.000 --> 00:05:34.000 And he starts paddling along. 00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:39.000 And as he's in this place, a huge fish comes out of the water and swallows him up. 00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:43.000 And he's like, oh no, now I'm in trouble. 00:05:43.000 --> 00:05:46.000 And he starts praying to God, God save me. 00:05:46.000 --> 00:05:50.000 And he travels down the digestive system of this fish and gets to the stomach, 00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:55.000 which is this miraculously huge stomach that's like the size of my bedroom, 00:05:55.000 --> 00:06:01.000 which is not miraculously huge for a bedroom, but which would be miraculously huge for a stomach, 00:06:01.000 --> 00:06:07.000 where he has this incredible, you know, prayer session with God. 00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:10.000 And he's dancing around in the fish's belly. 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:12.000 And you know, it's like the VeggieTales movie. 00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:14.000 Did anyone see that? 00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:18.000 That was like my picture of what happens to Jonah from this point. 00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:23.000 But as I read the text, I realized that's not how the story happens from this point. 00:06:23.000 --> 00:06:27.000 Yes, Jonah gets thrown overboard and the sea calms down when he gets in the water, 00:06:27.000 --> 00:06:28.000 but it's not instant. 00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:34.000 Because as we look at Jonah's prayer, we see that the waves crashed on top of him. 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:38.000 These huge waves that were threatening to down the boat, 00:06:38.000 --> 00:06:43.000 smashed on top of an individual who was just in the water. 00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:46.000 Maybe he could swim, maybe he couldn't. 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:53.000 But even if he could, his ability to swim was no match for the waves that were crashing in over him, 00:06:53.000 --> 00:06:57.000 pushing him down, down, down into the depths of the ocean. 00:06:57.000 --> 00:07:03.000 And he sunk deeper and deeper and deeper to the floor of the ocean. 00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:06.000 He couldn't breathe anything. 00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:10.000 If he tried to breathe anything in, he would swallow gulps of salt water. 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:14.000 He reached the bottom of the ocean and he realized, 00:07:14.000 --> 00:07:17.000 I have no chance of survival. 00:07:17.000 --> 00:07:20.000 And at that moment, he cried out to God, 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:22.000 God save me! 00:07:22.000 --> 00:07:26.000 And he probably blacked out from a lack of oxygen. 00:07:26.000 --> 00:07:31.000 God sends a fish that swallows Jonah. 00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:36.000 And the fish, rather than being the danger that Jonah needs to be saved from, 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:40.000 the fish is actually the path of salvation for Jonah. 00:07:40.000 --> 00:07:43.000 Because he was on the verge of drowning. 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:46.000 Jonah wakes up inside the fish and it's pitch black. 00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:48.000 And his first thought was probably, 00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:50.000 I'm dead. 00:07:50.000 --> 00:07:52.000 This is what death is like. 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:54.000 Smells really bad. 00:07:54.000 --> 00:07:56.000 Dark. 00:07:56.000 --> 00:07:58.000 Pretty wet. 00:07:58.000 --> 00:08:00.000 But eventually he would have realized, 00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:01.000 I'm not dead. 00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:03.000 God has saved me. 00:08:03.000 --> 00:08:04.000 And there was one writer, 00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:09.000 he wrote up an account of what it may have been like inside the fish. 00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:11.000 And I just want to read this to you, 00:08:11.000 --> 00:08:15.000 so that we can get a picture of what life would be like inside the fish. 00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:17.000 Pitch black. 00:08:17.000 --> 00:08:20.000 Sloshing gastric juices wash over you. 00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:24.000 Burning skin, eyes, throat, nostrils. 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:26.000 Oxygen is scarce, 00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:30.000 and each frantic gulp of air is saturated with salt water. 00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:35.000 The rancid smell of digested food causes you to throw up repeatedly 00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:37.000 until you only have dry heaves left. 00:08:37.000 --> 00:08:41.000 Everything you touch has the slimy feel of the mucous membrane 00:08:41.000 --> 00:08:43.000 that lines the stomach. 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:45.000 You feel claustrophobic. 00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:47.000 With every turn and dive of the great fish, 00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:51.000 you slip and slide in the cesspool of digestive fluid. 00:08:51.000 --> 00:08:58.000 There are no footholds, no blankets to keep you warm from the cold, clammy depths of the sea. 00:08:58.000 --> 00:09:03.000 Jonah awoke to find himself in this miserable condition. 00:09:03.000 --> 00:09:06.000 And when he awoke, he began to pray. 00:09:06.000 --> 00:09:12.000 But unlike what we would expect, his prayer is not, God save me from this. 00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:16.000 His prayer is, God, thank you for saving me. 00:09:17.000 --> 00:09:22.000 He says, I was on the verge of death and I cried out to you and you heard me. 00:09:22.000 --> 00:09:23.000 You answered me. 00:09:23.000 --> 00:09:24.000 You saved me. 00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:28.000 And yeah, this place that I'm in right now is pretty miserable, 00:09:28.000 --> 00:09:33.000 but I'm alive because God heard me and God answers my prayers. 00:09:33.000 --> 00:09:38.000 And what I want us to see is that God hears us and answers our prayers. 00:09:38.000 --> 00:09:41.000 When God's children cry out to him, he hears us. 00:09:41.000 --> 00:09:46.000 He hears each of our individual specific prayers and cares about them. 00:09:47.000 --> 00:09:50.000 God's not limited by things like cell phone range. 00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:52.000 Jonah was in the middle of the ocean. 00:09:52.000 --> 00:09:55.000 Not just in the middle of the ocean, but under the middle of the ocean. 00:09:55.000 --> 00:09:57.000 And God heard his prayer. 00:09:57.000 --> 00:10:02.000 God's not limited by things like our ability to communicate. 00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:05.000 If Jonah yelled out his prayer, it probably sounded like, 00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:07.000 Blub, blub, blub. 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:09.000 But God heard. 00:10:09.000 --> 00:10:10.000 God understood. 00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:13.000 It may have been that Jonah just mentally acknowledged, 00:10:13.000 --> 00:10:14.000 God, I need you. 00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:15.000 Save me. 00:10:16.000 --> 00:10:22.000 But even that was enough for God to hear, to understand, to care, and to respond. 00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:29.000 God's not limited in our ability to communicate or our location as to whether he can answer our prayers. 00:10:29.000 --> 00:10:37.000 The thing that keeps God from answering our prayers is our unwillingness to offer our prayers to him in the first place. 00:10:39.000 --> 00:10:40.000 God hears. 00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:41.000 God cares. 00:10:41.000 --> 00:10:42.000 God loves us. 00:10:42.000 --> 00:10:43.000 And God answers. 00:10:43.000 --> 00:10:48.000 So for us, maybe we're in danger of losing our job. 00:10:48.000 --> 00:10:53.000 When we pray to God, he hears, he cares, he answers. 00:10:54.000 --> 00:11:01.000 Maybe we don't know where we're going to live next month, and we are stressed and anxious about having a place for our family to stay. 00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:06.000 When we pray, God hears, he cares, he loves us, he answers. 00:11:07.000 --> 00:11:12.000 Maybe we're parents and our kids are, we just don't know what's happening to them. 00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:16.000 We don't know where they're going in life, but we don't think it's a good place. 00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:21.000 And we cry out to God, he hears, he cares, he loves, he answers. 00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:30.000 And he doesn't just hear and answer prayers, he hears and answers our prayers. 00:11:31.000 --> 00:11:37.000 But as we can see from Jonah, he doesn't always answer them necessarily the way that we would want or expect him to. 00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:44.000 And that's because when God answers prayers, he doesn't do it for the sake of our convenience or ease. 00:11:45.000 --> 00:11:47.000 He has a bigger plan in place. 00:11:47.000 --> 00:11:54.000 You know, if God's primary purpose in saving Jonah was Jonah's comfort and ease, 00:11:54.000 --> 00:11:57.000 there are lots of other ways that he could have saved Jonah. 00:11:57.000 --> 00:11:59.000 He could have sent along Free Willy, 00:11:59.000 --> 00:12:04.000 and Free Willy could have scooped up Jonah and swam him nice to shore on his back, 00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:07.000 dropped him off on the shore, and Jonah's safe. 00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:10.000 And Willy is free, yes. 00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:17.000 God could have magically made it so that the storm just pushed Jonah to the shore, 00:12:17.000 --> 00:12:18.000 and Jonah was safe. 00:12:19.000 --> 00:12:21.000 But that's not how God saved Jonah, 00:12:21.000 --> 00:12:25.000 because God's primary concern with Jonah was not Jonah's comfort and ease, 00:12:25.000 --> 00:12:29.000 but something else in Jonah's life. 00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:37.000 God wanted Jonah to see that Jonah needed God's salvation just as much as the pagans that Jonah was sent to reach. 00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:44.000 God wanted Jonah to have time to reflect on the fact that he needed God desperately, 00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:51.000 continually, every single moment of every single day of his life. 00:12:51.000 --> 00:13:02.000 And so the path that God chose to save Jonah was one that gave Jonah lots of time to be able to focus, 00:13:02.000 --> 00:13:07.000 to be able to think, to be able to reflect on what have I done? 00:13:07.000 --> 00:13:11.000 How has God worked in my life to save me? 00:13:11.000 --> 00:13:20.000 And I think for us, a lot of times when we pray, it's easy to see the way we want the prayer to be answered, 00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:27.000 and to lose sight of what God is actually doing in our situation if he answers us a different way than we would have hoped for. 00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:31.000 You know, this happened with Jonah, right? 00:13:31.000 --> 00:13:34.000 If he was focused on the prayer being answered the way he wanted, 00:13:34.000 --> 00:13:37.000 there are so many things he could have complained about. 00:13:37.000 --> 00:13:41.000 Hey God, it's dark in here. Could you give me a little light? 00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:43.000 It smells really bad. 00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:52.000 You know, there's a reason that Ikea doesn't sell scented candles that are stomach acid and dead fish scented, right? 00:13:52.000 --> 00:13:53.000 Because it doesn't smell good. 00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:56.000 And if Jonah wanted his prayer answered the way he wanted it, 00:13:56.000 --> 00:13:58.000 he could have complained about so many things. 00:13:58.000 --> 00:14:01.000 God, I'm uncomfortable, I'm cold, I'm wet. 00:14:01.000 --> 00:14:04.000 God, there's not much air in here. 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:09.000 He may have actually been fading in and out of consciousness during his time in the fish's belly 00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:11.000 because there was so little air in there. 00:14:11.000 --> 00:14:13.000 That's something he could have complained about. 00:14:13.000 --> 00:14:18.000 But as we look at his prayer in Jonah chapter 2, we don't see this complaint. 00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:21.000 We see in verse 2 that, 00:14:21.000 --> 00:14:28.000 In verse 6, he says, 00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:35.000 In verse 7, 00:14:35.000 --> 00:14:41.000 God, my prayer came to you into your holy temple that you heard me, you answered me, you have saved me. 00:14:41.000 --> 00:14:46.000 Yeah, my situation is not ideal right now, but God, you heard. 00:14:46.000 --> 00:14:48.000 God, you answered. 00:14:49.000 --> 00:14:54.000 And I'm going to live through this difficult time knowing that you're still God. 00:14:54.000 --> 00:14:57.000 Knowing that you're still in charge. 00:14:57.000 --> 00:15:01.000 I think a lot of times we live our lives with this belief that life is about us. 00:15:01.000 --> 00:15:03.000 We are the center of the universe. 00:15:03.000 --> 00:15:07.000 Everything in life is created for our benefit, our joy, our comfort, our ease. 00:15:08.000 --> 00:15:10.000 And when God answers prayer, 00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:14.000 He doesn't answer prayers to reinforce that belief in our hearts. 00:15:14.000 --> 00:15:20.000 He answers prayers to point us to something bigger, something beyond ourselves, to point us to Him. 00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:26.000 You know, there's a time in my life where I prayed a prayer to God, 00:15:26.000 --> 00:15:29.000 and I wanted Him to answer in a certain way, 00:15:29.000 --> 00:15:33.000 and got so frustrated when He wasn't answering the way that I wanted Him to. 00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:36.000 It was a couple months after I had moved to Hong Kong. 00:15:37.000 --> 00:15:39.000 You know, I first moved to Hong Kong, 00:15:39.000 --> 00:15:42.000 and all of the people that I had known my entire life were gone. 00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:45.000 They were back in the States, and I was here by myself. 00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:49.000 All of the routines that I had established throughout my life, gone. 00:15:49.000 --> 00:15:52.000 All of the clubs and activities, done. 00:15:52.000 --> 00:15:54.000 My schedule was empty. 00:15:54.000 --> 00:15:55.000 I had no friends. 00:15:55.000 --> 00:15:58.000 I had nothing to do and no one to do it with. 00:15:59.000 --> 00:16:03.000 And at first, I expected that, because I'm in a new place, 00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:06.000 and there's this excitement of being in a new place, 00:16:06.000 --> 00:16:09.000 a new experience, new adventure, 00:16:09.000 --> 00:16:11.000 and then a few months go by, 00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:14.000 and the place stops being so new. 00:16:14.000 --> 00:16:16.000 And still I had no friends. 00:16:16.000 --> 00:16:19.000 And still I had nothing really to do. 00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:21.000 And I started to feel lonely. 00:16:21.000 --> 00:16:23.000 And the loneliness turned into depression. 00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:24.000 And I was like, 00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:26.000 God, I don't like this feeling. 00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:27.000 I don't want this feeling. 00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:29.000 Please take it away. 00:16:31.000 --> 00:16:33.000 And I realized that as I prayed to God, 00:16:33.000 --> 00:16:35.000 I expected Him to answer in this certain way. 00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:37.000 I expected Him to just take those feelings that I was having 00:16:37.000 --> 00:16:39.000 and throw them out the window. 00:16:42.000 --> 00:16:44.000 But I realized, looking back, 00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:49.000 that what I was doing there is I was trying to use God for my purposes. 00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:52.000 Because I didn't like the way that I was feeling, 00:16:52.000 --> 00:16:54.000 and I wanted God to change that. 00:16:54.000 --> 00:16:55.000 And so I prayed to Him, 00:16:55.000 --> 00:16:57.000 God, do what I want for me. 00:16:57.000 --> 00:17:00.000 Because I worked at a church, 00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:03.000 and I didn't want the people at the church to know what I was going through. 00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:05.000 And so I said, 00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:08.000 God, please act as a shield to protect me 00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:11.000 from having to be honest with people about what's going on in my life. 00:17:13.000 --> 00:17:14.000 And as I prayed to God, 00:17:14.000 --> 00:17:15.000 I would get frustrated, 00:17:15.000 --> 00:17:17.000 because I would have day after day, 00:17:17.000 --> 00:17:18.000 I would feel the same way. 00:17:18.000 --> 00:17:19.000 And I would be like, 00:17:19.000 --> 00:17:21.000 God, why are you not answering me? 00:17:21.000 --> 00:17:23.000 Why are you not fixing me? 00:17:23.000 --> 00:17:28.000 And I can see now what I couldn't see then, 00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:31.000 that God actually was answering me the entire time. 00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:35.000 That He was sending people into my life when I needed it, 00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:38.000 to be able to be there for me and support me through this time, 00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:40.000 and to help point me back to Him. 00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:46.000 But because I was so focused on wanting my prayer answered in my way, 00:17:47.000 --> 00:17:48.000 I missed it. 00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:50.000 I went on for months and months, 00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:52.000 thinking that God was ignoring me, 00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:54.000 and that God didn't care about my prayers. 00:17:55.000 --> 00:17:56.000 When in reality, 00:17:56.000 --> 00:18:00.000 it was just that I didn't have the perspective to see how He was working in my life. 00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:02.000 Just like Jonah, 00:18:02.000 --> 00:18:03.000 I was living in this reality, 00:18:03.000 --> 00:18:07.000 that God was answering my prayer in a way that was not the way I would have picked, 00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:10.000 as my primary option for Him to answer it. 00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:12.000 But unlike Jonah, 00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:15.000 I didn't have the perspective to see that that's what He was doing at the time. 00:18:16.000 --> 00:18:17.000 And just like Jonah, 00:18:17.000 --> 00:18:20.000 God answered my prayers in the way that He did, 00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:23.000 because He had a lot of lessons that I needed to learn during that time. 00:18:24.000 --> 00:18:26.000 I needed to learn to depend on Him, 00:18:27.000 --> 00:18:30.000 whether I felt like He was doing what He should be doing or not. 00:18:31.000 --> 00:18:34.000 I had a lot of lessons I needed to learn about myself, 00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:38.000 about how I'm not as strong as I always thought I was. 00:18:38.000 --> 00:18:42.000 He needed me to learn about my need for community in my life, 00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:44.000 about how I need to be open with people, 00:18:44.000 --> 00:18:45.000 and share about my weaknesses, 00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:49.000 and not put on this front that says I'm stronger and better than I am. 00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:53.000 And He's taught me these lessons over the past few years 00:18:53.000 --> 00:18:54.000 that I never could have learned 00:18:54.000 --> 00:18:57.000 if He had just given me the answer to my prayer that I wanted 00:18:57.000 --> 00:18:58.000 when I first asked for it. 00:18:58.000 --> 00:19:04.000 But because I didn't see what He was doing or how He was doing it, 00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:10.000 I missed that fact that He was answering me for so, so long. 00:19:13.000 --> 00:19:14.000 And my question for us today is, 00:19:14.000 --> 00:19:17.000 how often do we miss the ways that God's working in our lives 00:19:17.000 --> 00:19:20.000 because He's not working in the way we would have picked? 00:19:23.000 --> 00:19:25.000 How often do we offer up a prayer and say, 00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:26.000 God's not answering me 00:19:26.000 --> 00:19:31.000 because He's not answering in the way we would have wanted Him to answer us? 00:19:36.000 --> 00:19:38.000 How often do we get angry and frustrated at God 00:19:39.000 --> 00:19:42.000 because we lack the perspective to understand what He's doing 00:19:42.000 --> 00:19:43.000 or why He's doing it? 00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:48.000 How often do we miss the lessons that God's trying to teach us? 00:19:49.000 --> 00:19:51.000 Because He's not teaching us those lessons 00:19:51.000 --> 00:19:53.000 in the way that we want to learn them. 00:19:56.000 --> 00:19:57.000 When God answers prayer, 00:19:57.000 --> 00:20:00.000 it's not always about our ease and comfort. 00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:03.000 It's not about teaching us that we are the center of the universe. 00:20:03.000 --> 00:20:07.000 It's about pointing us to something greater and bigger than ourselves. 00:20:09.000 --> 00:20:10.000 What is that something else? 00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:11.000 It's His glory. 00:20:11.000 --> 00:20:12.000 It's His glory. 00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:13.000 God answers our prayers 00:20:14.000 --> 00:20:17.000 to point us and the world around us back to Him. 00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:20.000 To show us that He is a great God. 00:20:21.000 --> 00:20:22.000 That He does love us. 00:20:22.000 --> 00:20:23.000 That He does care. 00:20:23.000 --> 00:20:24.000 That He is powerful. 00:20:26.000 --> 00:20:28.000 With Jonah, you can see this. 00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:31.000 Jonah, he gets thrown into the ocean. 00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:33.000 He deserves to die. 00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:36.000 But God saves him. 00:20:36.000 --> 00:20:37.000 Why? 00:20:37.000 --> 00:20:42.000 First, that Jonah can see how powerful and amazing God is 00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:45.000 and how much Jonah needs God's salvation in his own life. 00:20:46.000 --> 00:20:48.000 But there's a bigger plan to it. 00:20:49.000 --> 00:20:52.000 God also saved Jonah so that Jonah could take that message of salvation 00:20:53.000 --> 00:20:54.000 to the city of Nineveh. 00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:59.000 And He could share with the city of Nineveh the fact that there is a God 00:20:59.000 --> 00:21:01.000 that you are under His judgment right now. 00:21:01.000 --> 00:21:05.000 And that you deserve to be destroyed. 00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:08.000 But He loves you enough that He's giving you another chance. 00:21:09.000 --> 00:21:12.000 He loves you enough that He's telling you in advance 00:21:12.000 --> 00:21:15.000 so that you have a chance to turn back and trust in Him. 00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:20.000 And so God saves Jonah so that Jonah can experience His great grace. 00:21:21.000 --> 00:21:26.000 God saves Jonah so that the city of Nineveh can experience His great grace. 00:21:27.000 --> 00:21:34.000 But even beyond that, God saves Jonah so that we can hear about His great grace. 00:21:34.000 --> 00:21:38.000 If God ignored Jonah's prayer and just gave him what he deserved, 00:21:39.000 --> 00:21:41.000 Jonah drowns on the bottom of the ocean. 00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:43.000 End of story. No big deal. 00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:46.000 But because God saved Jonah, 00:21:47.000 --> 00:21:50.000 because God sent Jonah back to Nineveh, 00:21:51.000 --> 00:21:53.000 because Jonah was able to deliver this message, 00:21:54.000 --> 00:21:59.000 we today in 21st century Hong Kong get to hear about and know about God's grace 00:21:59.000 --> 00:22:02.000 through God answering this man's prayer thousands of years ago. 00:22:03.000 --> 00:22:06.000 We get to look at the city of Nineveh and know, 00:22:07.000 --> 00:22:09.000 hey, there's nothing that we can do, 00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:11.000 no amount of badness that we can do 00:22:12.000 --> 00:22:15.000 that makes us too bad for God to love us and forgive us. 00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:19.000 We today can look at Jonah, 00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.000 and we can know that there is no distance that we can run from God 00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:28.000 that's too far for Him to find us and bring us back into His love. 00:22:29.000 --> 00:22:32.000 God saved Jonah for the sake of Jonah, 00:22:33.000 --> 00:22:34.000 for the sake of Nineveh, 00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:37.000 and for the sake of Christians throughout the years, 00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:40.000 so that we can hear about His grace 00:22:41.000 --> 00:22:45.000 and see this tangible example of it being played out in history. 00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:49.000 And the reason for that is that the story of Jonah 00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:51.000 is not just a story about a man and a fish. 00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:57.000 It's primarily a story about God that just happens to involve a man and a fish. 00:22:57.000 --> 00:22:59.000 Let me say that again. 00:22:59.000 --> 00:23:02.000 The story of Jonah is not primarily about a man and a fish. 00:23:03.000 --> 00:23:08.000 It's primarily a story about God that happens to involve a man and a fish. 00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:11.000 If it was just a story about a man and a fish, 00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:13.000 we could tell it to kids and be like, 00:23:13.000 --> 00:23:15.000 Obey the first time! Don't be like Jonah! 00:23:16.000 --> 00:23:19.000 And that's about all the good that the story would do for us, right? 00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:21.000 But because the story is about God, 00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:25.000 we get to learn things about God's unchanging character 00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:27.000 that happened in the past, 00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:31.000 and we can see how we can trust God today 00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:33.000 because of how He has acted in the past. 00:23:33.000 --> 00:23:36.000 We can know that He forgives 00:23:37.000 --> 00:23:39.000 because He's the same God today as He was then. 00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:43.000 We can know that He chases down rebels 00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:45.000 and shows them His unconditional love 00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:48.000 because He's the same God today 00:23:49.000 --> 00:23:51.000 who chased down Jonah the rebel back then. 00:23:52.000 --> 00:23:56.000 We can know that He's the God who hears us when we cry out to Him 00:23:56.000 --> 00:24:00.000 because He's the same God today who answered Jonah's prayer 00:24:01.000 --> 00:24:02.000 when Jonah cried out to Him. 00:24:03.000 --> 00:24:05.000 We can know that He doesn't always answer prayers 00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:07.000 the way we would necessarily want Him to 00:24:08.000 --> 00:24:09.000 because that's what He did for Jonah. 00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:11.000 But we know that when He answers prayers 00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:13.000 in ways that we wouldn't expect, 00:24:14.000 --> 00:24:16.000 that He has a plan and a purpose behind it. 00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:19.000 That He's working maybe not for our ease and our comfort, 00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:21.000 but for our good. 00:24:21.000 --> 00:24:28.000 Because Jonah is primarily the story about God, 00:24:29.000 --> 00:24:31.000 about God's great grace, 00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:36.000 about God's great love for a man and for a city. 00:24:39.000 --> 00:24:41.000 And so today when we're having trials, 00:24:42.000 --> 00:24:44.000 maybe we're wondering what the future holds 00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:46.000 because we just got rejected from our dream school 00:24:47.000 --> 00:24:48.000 or fired from our dream job. 00:24:51.000 --> 00:24:54.000 Maybe we went in for some routine medical tests 00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:57.000 and the results did not come back like we expected. 00:24:58.000 --> 00:24:59.000 And now we're in this place where we're wondering, 00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:03.000 what does this mean for my future and my family's future? 00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:07.000 We have Jonah. 00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:09.000 And we have God. 00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:12.000 And we have the same God today 00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:14.000 who heard Jonah's prayer, 00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:16.000 who answered Jonah's prayer, 00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:20.000 who loved Jonah even though he didn't deserve it, 00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:23.000 who loved Nineveh even though they didn't deserve it. 00:25:24.000 --> 00:25:26.000 And we can turn to him and trust in him. 00:25:27.000 --> 00:25:30.000 And maybe the situation won't turn out like we want it to. 00:25:31.000 --> 00:25:34.000 Maybe it will result in discomfort. 00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:36.000 Maybe it will be difficult. 00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:37.000 Maybe it will be difficult. 00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:38.000 Maybe it will be difficult. 00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:41.000 But we know from Jonah and Nineveh 00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:45.000 that even when we can't see it, 00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:46.000 that God hears us, 00:25:47.000 --> 00:25:48.000 that he loves us, 00:25:49.000 --> 00:25:50.000 that he answers us, 00:25:51.000 --> 00:25:54.000 and that he's working through us in our world 00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:57.000 to make his fame and glory known 00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:01.000 to everyone around us and us. 00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:03.000 Let's pray. 00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:08.000 Father, we thank you for your work in the life of Jonah. 00:26:09.000 --> 00:26:12.000 Thank you that when he was a rebel and was running away, 00:26:13.000 --> 00:26:14.000 that you heard his prayer, 00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:17.000 that you reached out to him and you saved him 00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:19.000 when he did not deserve it, 00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:23.000 and that you used him to go into the city of Nineveh 00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:26.000 and to save them when they did not deserve it. 00:26:27.000 --> 00:26:29.000 We thank you that you are the same God today, 00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:31.000 that you still hear our prayers, 00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:33.000 that you still answer our prayers, 00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:35.000 that you still love us, 00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:37.000 that you still work in us and through us. 00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:40.000 And God, we pray that we would trust you today, 00:26:41.000 --> 00:26:43.000 that we would have the perspective to see that you are good, 00:26:44.000 --> 00:26:47.000 that even when we don't know why you're doing what you're doing, 00:26:48.000 --> 00:26:49.000 that we can trust that you have a plan, 00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:52.000 that you have a purpose in it, 00:26:53.000 --> 00:26:54.000 and that it will end in good. 00:26:54.000 --> 00:26:56.000 God, we love you. 00:26:57.000 --> 00:26:58.000 Amen.