Good morning. Today reading is on the book of Jonah and is on page 928. We are reading Jonah 2 and 3.
! Now the Lord provide a huge fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
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 rail of the dead, I called for help, and he listened to my cry.
You heard me into the very heart of the sea, and currents swore about me. All your waves and breakers swept over me.
I said, I've been banished from your sight, yet I will look again toward your holy temple.
The engulfing water threatened me. The deep surrounded me. Seaweed was wrapped around my head.
To the root of the mountain, I sunk down. The earth beneath buried me in the forever.
But you, Lord, my God, brought my life up from the pit. When my life was ebbing away, I remember you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple.
Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God's love for them.
But I, with shout of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed, I will make good. I will say, salvation come from the Lord.
And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah unto dry lands.
Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.
Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I gave you.
Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh.
Now Nineveh was a very large city. It took three days to go through it.
Jonah began by going a day journey into the city, proclaiming,
Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.
The Ninevites believed God.
A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.
When Jonah's warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off Israel's robe,
covered himself with sackcloth, and sat down in the dust.
This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh.
By the decree of the king and his noble.
Do not let people or animal, herd or flock, taste anything.
Do not let them eat or drink.
But let people and animal be covered with sackcloth.
Let everyone call urgently on God.
Let them give up their evil ways and their violence.
Who knows?
God may yet relent and wish compassion turned from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.
When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways,
he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had treated.
Amen.
Great. Thank you.
Alexandra, let's pray as we come to God's word.
Let's pray together.
Heavenly Father, we are so very conscious of your greatness and your glory.
You are the God who dwells in unapproachable light who no one has ever seen or can see.
And yet we come now to listen to your word.
To think on you.
To ponder what our response to you should be.
So we pray that with a right sense of humility, you would give us ears to hear what you're saying to us from your word by your spirit.
Help me to preach clearly and faithfully.
Help us all, we pray, to listen and to respond in obedience and faith.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.
Let's begin looking at Jonah 2 and 3 by having a quick scan through the story.
You might be very familiar with the story of Jonah.
But if you were here last week, you will know that Jonah was sent to the Assyrian city of Nineveh.
Andrew told you last week that it was a terrible, terrible place.
And so Jonah's response was to go in the opposite direction.
In the Hebrew, it's emphasized, Jonah chapter 1 verse 2, God asks Jonah to go up to Nineveh.
And instead, he goes down to Joppa to find a boat to Tarshish.
He runs from God in disobedience rather than walking with God in obedience.
Now, as you might expect, and as you found last week, running from God did not work out for Jonah,
as it doesn't for anybody who tries it.
And God sends a storm, a great wind on the sea, as it's put in chapter 1 verse 4,
so bad that the sailors who Jonah is with end up throwing Jonah overboard to save themselves.
And they're not effectively sacrificing Jonah for their own salvation, his life for their life.
They throw Jonah into the chaos of the sea.
I was listening to catching up with the sermons as I was driving back from the Lake District yesterday.
And I think it was Yannick who pointed out to you that sea is chaos in the Bible.
And Jonah is thrown into the midst of the chaos.
But that is not the end of the story.
Because when all appears lost, God rescues Jonah by sending a giant fish to swallow him whole.
And that's where we find Jonah at the beginning of chapter 2,
in the belly of the fish that God sent to save him.
And chapter 2 verse 1 tells you that there in the belly of the fish,
from inside the fish, Jonah prays, prays.
Now, I don't know when Alexandra read it, whether you noticed,
but much of what Jonah prays would sound familiar to you if you've read much of the Psalms.
Jonah here basically picks up his book of Psalms.
We don't really, because he probably didn't have it on him in the belly of the fish.
And for sure, the fish had not swallowed the book of Psalms.
But anyway, he is remembering the book of Psalms.
And he is praying prayers lifted directly from the Psalms.
So Jonah is sort of imagining himself hurled down to the depths like the Psalmist.
But the way it's laid out, Jonah really sounds a little rich praying like this.
Notice he quotes Psalm 42 about being in the deep,
and the waves and the breakers sweeping over him.
But when you actually read Psalm 42,
that the Psalmist in Psalm 42 is looking for and longing for God.
Psalm 42 starts with,
As the deer pants for the water, so my soul longs after you.
And then the Psalmist is sent trouble instead.
And so Psalm 42 is the prayer of an earnest God seeker
who has found themselves in the midst of dryness and struggle,
which really is the opposite of Jonah's story, isn't it?
Jonah has not been panting after God like a deer panting for water.
Instead, he is running from God and basically throws himself into the sea.
Now, that perhaps explains why in verse 5,
he has to use his own words to say that he's tangled in seaweed and ready to drown.
None of the Psalmists ran from God quite like Jonah did.
But despite his awkward use of Psalm 42,
God mercifully doesn't leave Jonah in the belly of the fish.
Instead, after three days and three nights,
according to chapter 1, verse 17,
the fish vomits Jonah up.
So that when in chapter 3, verse 1,
he's told again,
Go to Nineveh.
This time he goes.
So you can contrast, can't you,
the beginning of chapter 1,
which begins with Jonah's disobedience,
with chapter 3, verse 3,
which begins with Jonah's obedience.
Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord,
chapter 3, verse 3.
Now, preaching to this city of Nineveh is no mean task.
It's a big city.
It takes three days to walk through it.
And so Jonah does just that.
He does it with a very brief sermon.
It's only five words in the original Hebrew.
It's there at the end of verse 4.
40 more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.
Now, I don't know if you've ever been to preaching class,
but that isn't a brilliant sermon.
It's not really very persuasive.
He has no illustrations.
There are no parables.
There are no examples of what they're doing wrong.
It doesn't really seem as if Jonah's trying very hard
to persuade anybody.
He's like the guy with the sandwich board on
that says, you know,
repent or perish.
He's probably looking more for a fight
than he is looking for fruit.
Yet remarkably, Jonah's five-word sermon
is incredibly effective.
And from the king on his throne
to the peasant in the field,
the Ninevites repent.
They proclaim a fast.
They put on sackcloth.
They turn from their evil ways and their violence.
And at the end of verse 8,
are pleading with God to relent
and turn from his judgment.
It's an incredible turnaround.
And it's met with the mercy of God
who verse 10 says this,
when God saw what they did
and how they turned from their evil ways,
he relented and did not bring on them
the destruction he had threatened.
Now, that's not quite the end of the story.
Nathan is going to finish it off
in a sermon at the end of August.
But what are we to think about the story so far?
What do you think the story is about?
What is the big idea?
Well, if you jump forward in your Bibles,
we're given a massive hint by Jesus himself
because Jesus picks up this story,
these chapters,
in Matthew chapter 12.
So if you've got a Bible,
you might want to turn with me
to Matthew chapter 12 and verse 39.
It's on page 978.
978.
Matthew chapter 12, verse 39.
Let me read to you these verses.
Let's pick it up in verse 39.
Jesus, speaking to the scribes and the Pharisees,
he answered,
a wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign,
but none will be given it
except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
For as Jonah was three days and three nights
in the belly of a huge fish,
so the son of man will be three days
and three nights in the heart of the earth.
The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment
with this generation and condemn it,
for they repented at the preaching of Jonah
and now something greater than Jonah is here.
Notice what Jesus is saying here.
He reads Jonah two and three
and speaks of it to the scribes and the Pharisees
and he says, doesn't he effectively,
listen, I'm like Jonah, just better than Jonah.
And there is a judgment coming,
just like there was a judgment coming on the Ninevites.
And you too also need to repent,
just like the Ninevites did.
So let's just pick up those three points
and use them to walk back through this story.
Let's firstly think about Jesus being better than Jonah.
Jesus is better than Jonah.
Now, we don't have loads of time
to get into all the detail of it,
but really, as I said earlier,
you could summarize the book of Jonah
by being remarkable fruit from a terrible preacher.
So not only is Jonah reluctant at the start,
running the way and ending up in the belly of a fish,
but also chapter four will show you
that despite eventually going to Nineveh,
he hasn't really changed at all.
Three days in the fish and praying like a psalmist
all seems to be very skin deep for Jonah,
who ends up in as big a mess as he starts with.
And then even in chapter three,
the writer wants you to notice
that his preaching is rubbish.
This five-word sermon is obviously a summary of what he said.
I'm sure he said more than that.
But the way it's written is just underlining
this lack of conviction or compassion from Jonah.
He doesn't care.
In fact, I think he's quite keen on the idea
of them being destroyed.
And yet there's something about the message
spoken by a guy who probably looked quite rough.
I think if you've been in the acidic belly of a fish
for three days,
you probably look a bit rough as you come out.
There's something remarkable about this rough-looking guy
preaching for three days
that did a work on the hearts of the Ninevites.
Now contrast that to Jesus.
You know that the darkness and half-heartedness of Jonah
makes the brightness and whole-heartedness of Jesus
shine even more brightly.
Think about it.
Jesus, the preacher, did not run when he was sent.
He came willingly.
And he wasn't just leaving the relative safety
of the nation of Israel for the wickedness of Nineveh.
He was leaving the perfection of heaven
for the brokenness of this world.
And he wasn't just visiting for a three-day preaching tour.
He was putting on weak human flesh,
becoming one of us,
taking 30 years to live, walk, talk, eat.
And Jesus didn't die as a sacrifice for his own sins
to calm the storm that resulted,
but really he came and sacrificed himself for the sin of others.
He was not three days dead in a fish.
But as Matthew 12 points out, he was three days dead in the earth.
And Jesus rises,
and Jesus rises, not bleached by stomach acid,
but with wounds on his hands and his feet,
marks from the sacrifice that he's made for our sin.
And he preaches not a five-word sermon of condemnation,
hoping that we don't listen,
but a whole Bible full of compassion and love and grace and persuasive mercy,
pleading with us to listen and not refuse him,
saying to us that if we refuse to listen to him,
we'll be worse off than the Ninevites.
Now, of course, the point of all this is that we should listen to Jesus.
If Nineveh listened to Jonah,
then the priests and the scribes,
so the Pharisees and the scribes,
and you and I this morning,
we should listen to Jesus even more than the Ninevites listened to Jonah.
Let's just be really clear about this so that we know what's going on.
You know, don't you,
that when you read your Bible
or when you listen to the Bible taught faithfully and preached faithfully,
it is Jesus' voice that you're hearing.
These words, my words this morning, are his words,
not because I'm special or better than anybody,
but because these words are from his book.
It's a book that's not just about Jesus,
but it is from Jesus.
It's an extraordinary claim, isn't it?
And I can't prove it to you in a way that would fully convince you,
I'm sure, if you don't yet believe it.
But really, all the evidence points this way.
The Bible itself is written over thousands of years
by multiple different authors from a diverse range of backgrounds
on the most controversial and contested subject in all of life.
And yet they agree with one another.
Why?
Well, because God is the author of the scriptures.
Jesus is speaking through the Bible.
One voice, one story,
one promise of salvation in Jesus Christ.
So the story of his death and resurrection
is modeled 800 years before he comes in the life of Jonah.
And so we get to listen to Jesus as his word is opened
and as it's taught.
Jesus walks off the pages of the Bible.
He calls out to us,
listen to me, he says.
I have an urgent message for all of you to hear.
That's the first point.
Jesus is like Jonah, only much, much better.
And we get to hear him.
Secondly, then notice the similarity in their message.
Both Jesus and Jonah say judgment is coming.
If you're still in Matthew 12, look down at verse 41.
The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment
with this generation and condemn it.
For they repented at the preaching of Jonah
and now something greater than Jonah is here.
Notice Jesus' point.
The judgment that Nineveh avoided
is not, he says, the only judgment.
There is another judgment to come.
And in this coming judgment,
these 8th century BC Ninevites
will stand alongside these 1st century scribes
and they will condemn them
because they repented
and the Pharisees and the scribes didn't.
Condemnation will be received, won't it,
for all those who do not listen
to the warning of God's messenger.
The Ninevites listened to Jonah.
The Pharisees did not listen to Jesus.
The Ninevites believed in judgment for themselves.
The Pharisees did not.
And this is really the heart of all this.
Okay, so the book of Jonah
is really a book about repentance.
Repentance.
It's about turning from our sin
and turning to God.
Turning is all over these chapters.
You'll notice that we see it in Jonah.
He turns from running from God
to now going back to Nineveh
where he was supposed to.
But we learn that his repentance is skin deep.
And then we see true repentance
in the Ninevites.
Turning back to God.
And what's really clear
is that genuine turning,
genuine repentance happens
when we listen to the warning of future judgment.
Perhaps you could put it this way.
Real repentance is always thoroughly persuaded
of future judgment.
Put it negatively.
If you are not persuaded of future judgment,
you will not repent properly now.
If you do not hear the warning,
if you do not believe the warning,
you will not repent.
Not truly.
You see, there might be all sorts of reasons this morning
why you might be sat there thinking,
do you know what I could really do
with turning my life around a bit?
You know, you might be persuaded
that your life would be a bit happier,
a bit more pleasurable
if you made a bit more moral effort,
if you spent a bit more time with the kids,
or if you kind of dialed down your social media use,
if you try to spend more time in the real world.
Let me tell you,
like two weeks in the countryside
where mobile reception is dodgy,
it's brilliant for you, right?
You come back a new person.
What are we doing?
And maybe you're persuaded of that.
You might be persuaded,
do you know what,
I just think actually my life would be better
if I made a regular effort to go to church.
I really think I'd be better
if I was free from this addiction
or that addiction,
if I could break from my troubled past.
And all that is great as far as it goes,
but none of them on their own
will lead to biblical repentance.
Biblical repentance,
the kind of repentance you see
modeled by the Ninevites,
the kind of repentance
that the Lord Jesus is calling us to here
is thoroughly persuaded
that without God's mercy,
it's not that it's going to be
a little bit worse,
but that all will be lost.
Biblical repentance
starts with the conviction,
doesn't it?
That each one of us in this room
will find ourselves one day
standing before God as judge
and he will not care
and will not ask you,
have you been true to yourself?
Did you try your best?
Did you go to church?
He won't, he can't tolerate,
can he, even the smallest
and slightest immorality
and still be a good, pure, holy God,
the kind of God that we all need.
And so every unrighteous thought,
every immoral action,
every selfish desire,
every wicked deed
will be condemned
along with the guilty party.
And you and I,
we might not be the worst people
that we know,
but we're not the perfect people
that we need to be.
And so Jonah's message,
Jesus' message,
stands as a warning,
doesn't it?
40 more days,
maybe 40 more years,
maybe 40 more minutes,
who knows?
Whatever it is,
the time is coming
when judgment will be here
and sin will be overthrown forever.
And you might think,
well, goodness,
really,
is that really what Jesus says?
Is that really his message?
No, I can see that,
I see that Jonah preached
this kind of turn or burn
kind of message,
but was that really
what Jesus said?
Didn't Jesus say,
do to others
as you would have them do to you?
Well, he did say that, yes,
but he warned of judgment
more than anybody else.
Let me just read to you
a snapshot of Jesus' warnings
from Matthew's gospel.
You don't have to turn to them,
I'll just read them out to you
so you can get a sense
of Jesus' preaching.
Matthew chapter 5,
verse 22.
I tell you that anyone
who is angry
with a brother or sister
will be subject to judgment.
Again, anyone who says
to his brother or sister,
Raka,
is answerable to the court,
and anyone who says,
you fool,
will be in danger
of the fire of hell.
Matthew 13,
verse 39.
This is how it will be
at the end of the age.
The angels will come
and separate the wicked
from the righteous
and throw them
into the blazing furnace
where there will be weeping
and gnashing of teeth.
Have you understood
all these things,
Jesus asked.
Matthew 18,
verse 8.
If your hand causes,
or your foot causes you
to stumble,
cut it off
and throw it away.
It is better
for you to enter life
maimed or crippled
than to have two hands
and two feet
and be thrown
into eternal fire.
If your eye causes you
to stumble,
gouge it out
and throw it away.
It is better for you
to enter life
with one eye
than to have two eyes
and be thrown
into the fire of hell.
Matthew 24,
verse 50.
The master
of that servant
will come on a day
when he does not expect him,
an hour when he's not aware of,
he will cut him to pieces
and assign him a place
with the hypocrites
where there will be weeping
and gnashing of teeth.
Matthew 25,
verse 41.
He will say to those
on his left,
depart from me,
you who are cursed
into the eternal fire,
prepared for the devil
and his angels.
For I was hungry
and you gave me
nothing to eat.
I was thirsty,
you gave me nothing to drink.
I was a stranger
and you did not invite me in.
I needed clothes
and you did not clothe me.
I was sick
and in prison
and you did not look after me.
Before we went away
on holiday,
I got to spend
about three days
by myself.
I've done it before
just like that
but I went away
just me,
a Bible,
a couple of books,
a dog
and I read through
these passages
and passages like them
and it struck me
with probably
a greater clarity
than it has
for a long, long time
that so much
of my repentance
is so weak
and half-hearted
because my belief
and consciousness
of future judgment
is so weak
and half-hearted.
That I don't
spend the time
turning to God
and saying
that I'm genuinely
sorry,
owning my sin
and my mess
is because somewhere
in my heart
I've persuaded myself
that judgment
is not coming.
but Jesus
is really clear
and notice
he's not only clear
is he that
hell is a reality.
That's a part of it,
right?
But what we need to see
is not just that
hell is a reality.
What we need to see
is that hell
is what I deserve.
That should be
my destiny.
I deserve to be lost
in the sea of chaos
as Jonah pictures it.
You see this
in the Ninevites,
don't you?
They understood
not that judgment
was coming
in some sort
of general sense
but they understood
it's coming for me.
It's coming for us.
A specific
our city
is going to be judged.
Rich and poor.
The king on the throne
and the servant
washing the boots
in the yard.
So perhaps I can ask you
if you've seen this.
Maybe you wouldn't
call yourself
a Christian this morning.
Perhaps you're just
trying to work out
what it's all about.
Can I ask you
do you see this?
Has God granted you
the eyes of faith
to see this judgment
and to believe
in its coming?
You know,
God opens our eyes
as we listen
to his word.
So can I ask you
to listen
and to think about this?
Might you consider
that the guilt
that you carry
that you feel
in your kind of belly
when you've done
something wrong
is an echo
of the righteousness
of God
who made you
and that just
as your thoughts
and your actions
condemn you
in your own heart
so they will be
for a holy God.
And if you're
a Christian this morning
don't lose sight
of this.
Of course
the joy of the
Christian life
and we'll come
and think about
this in a moment
is that we are
free from fear
of condemnation.
Jesus is thrown
into the sea
of the chaos
of hell for us
to save us
from our sin.
He frees us
by his sacrifice.
He pays for our judgment.
It's not that we're
let off sin
is it?
Rather that
sin is already
judged in Christ
for us.
It's already been paid.
It can't be paid again
and say that I'm free.
And yet still
the reality
of our Christian lives
must be
that we are conscious
that it is only
the mercy of God
that's done it
for us.
There is nothing
in me that deserves
this.
I will stand
before the Lord
and on that day
it will be
Jesus' righteousness
alone that will be
any hope for me.
So Jesus is better
than Jonah.
Judgment is real
and coming
and then the final
point
repentance is miraculous.
Repentance is miraculous.
I think the way
the story is told
is meant to just
point this out to us
over and over again.
The Ninevites'
response to the
preaching of Jonah
is nothing short
of miraculous.
You see that
don't you?
Because you cannot
explain the Ninevites'
response by the
quality of Jonah's
preaching.
Yeah?
We've seen that.
Nor can you explain
their response
by their heritage
or their moral
leanings.
I listened to
Andrew's sermon
from last week
and he pointed this
out really helpfully
didn't he?
That actually
the Assyrian city
of Nineveh
was a city of blood.
But it was a
terrible place.
It was not that
he went to a city
that had sort of
kind of moral
inclinations that
were going to
you know oh yeah
that's a city that
would definitely
turn to God.
Not at all.
Their heritage was
wickedness and
ruthlessness.
No notion of a
belief in God.
Rather it seems as
if this massive
turnaround of heart
was brought about
by God.
That God sends
the warning of
judgment for the
purpose of turning
the hearts of the
Ninevites back to
him.
Performing that
miracle in their
hearts to bring
repentance.
And you see the
miraculous nature of
it in their
thoroughness don't
you?
The writer underlines
this over and over
showing how they
extended their
repentance even to
the animals.
The herds and the
flocks.
It's as if everyone
and everything needed
to change.
I have no idea.
You want to ask me
later.
I don't know.
I have no idea how
you enforce a fast on
a cow.
Right?
Or why you would do
that.
But I think the writer
records that because
he's just saying to
you look how thorough
their repentance is.
Look how deep this
goes.
It goes right down to
the cattle in the
field.
This is how serious
they are about it.
But the other
miraculous thing about
it as well is that
it's not just thorough
but it also doesn't
pull them from God
does it?
It draws them in
towards God himself.
It's remarkable
isn't it?
In normal circumstances
we deal with the
potential of judgment
by running and
hiding.
Don't we?
So you run
from the police.
Yeah?
Not to them.
We hide from the
teacher the fact that
we've not done the
homework that we were
meant to do.
we don't walk up to
them and tell them
do we?
We cover over our
sins.
The things that we've
done wrong.
The things that we've
broken at home from our
flatmates or from our
parents.
Because we don't want
them to discover it.
You know we lie about
what we really did when
we are put under
pressure because we
don't want people to
notice what we really
did.
But this miraculous
repentance does the
very opposite of that.
Despite it being God's
judgment that is coming
for them still the
Ninevites don't run
from God but they
turn to him for
mercy.
Wholeheartedly with
fasting and sackcloth
saying listen this is
what we want more than
we even want food.
We want mercy from
God himself.
We're not going to
cover up.
We're going to lay
ourselves bare before
God and say God
God will you show us
mercy.
And that's remarkable.
I think the other way
that the writer of
Jonah underlines this
miraculous repentance is
by contrasting it with
the fakeness of Jonah's
repentance.
So notice Jonah has
this amazing experience
of the fish.
He's not just warned of
future judgment.
He if you like has
gotten to taste future
judgment in the sea
water and then in the
fish.
And God speaks to him
directly.
Jonah knows his Bible.
He clearly knows it well
enough to be quoting it
back even under the
pressure of being inside
a fish.
And yet still despite all
of that he is reluctantly
obedient at the beginning
of chapter three.
He is not really repentant
and he ends the story in a
worse mess than he was at
the beginning where really
he hates the idea that God
is merciful to people.
And so this is the sting
isn't it of Jesus mini
sermon on Jonah two and
three.
That it is be it is
possible for us to be so
dressed up in Christian
language that we fail to
repent properly.
the very first point of the
Christian life to turn to
God and own our sin and
say we're sorry.
So perhaps you pray the
Psalms.
Maybe you know your Bible
really well.
Maybe you sing the songs.
But if you do not confess
your sin and own it before
the Lord.
miraculously repenting.
You have not repented.
You know perhaps you preach
the gospel to others.
Maybe you're known as a
Christian but you don't
believe it for yourself.
Well don't be like a Jonah.
Be like an Ninevite.
Let me ask you.
Have you repented like that?
Now because we've seen that
repentance is miraculous.
We need to ask.
It's not so much have you
generated inside yourself
enough sorrow and guilt at
your sin that you feel like
this.
It's not that is it?
It's have you received
repentance from God?
Have you said to God please
give me a heart like this
for my sake?
Please Lord help me to see
who you are and what you're
like.
Have we responded to the
warnings of judgment with an
earnest turning to God.
Living in this ongoing
dependence on God's mercy.
You know perhaps you come to
church each week and you
think well we have that weird
prayer of confession don't we
in the beginning of our
service.
Why would we do that?
Why not mix it up a bit?
I once had a church leader who
worked with me in another
church not in this one.
He would say why don't we mix
it up a bit Steve?
Why don't we put the sermon
people come late to church
don't they all the time?
If we put the sermon at the
beginning there'll be so miffed
that they missed the sermon.
They might come on early next
time.
Why don't we do that?
Well we don't do that because
our very instinct as Christians
as we walk into the worship of
God and are called by him to
worship him is to go Lord we're
not worthy.
We fall at your knees in
repentance and trust in your
mercy again.
Please forgive us.
Please show us mercy.
That's what Christians do.
The Christian life is really the
ongoing recognition that in
every conceivable way there is
nothing that I could do or have
done or will do that could earn
what I really need from the
Lord which is his mercy and his
grace.
And so it is the instinct of
every believer to throw
themselves not on their efforts
or their goodness but on the
mercy of God.
Mercy found at the cross of
Jesus Christ.
One of the books I read while I
was away was a book on
repentance by a guy called
Chris Brawns.
It's a brilliant book.
I'd recommend it to all of you
if you want to know what the
book is you can come and ask me
afterwards.
And one thing that he points out
over and over again is that
repentance is not simply sorrow
at your sin.
Everyone is sad aren't they at the
things that they've done wrong.
But genuine repentance is sorry
for sin but it also rejoices in
God's mercy.
Right?
You see this at the end of Jonah.
I'm going to steal a bit from
Nathan's sermon but Nathan's on
camp this week.
He doesn't know.
He won't know.
And I'll ask for his
forgiveness.
Jonah is miserable at the end of
the story and wants to die.
Right?
That's how Jonah ends up.
Why is Jonah miserable and
wanting to die?
Because he does not repent.
The Ninevites end up rejoicing.
Why?
Because they repented and they
enjoyed the mercy of God.
And so for us repentance is what's
needed because mercy is what is on
offer.
And by definition you cannot earn
mercy.
You have to receive it.
And so we repent and we're not
only sorrowful for our sin but we
are rejoicing in the mercy of God.
Because if you turn to him you find
that he is this merciful God.
He is this gracious loving God who
sent his son to this world to preach
this gospel of mercy, grace and
forgiveness.
He was dead.
He's now alive.
He's paid for our judgment that we
might receive mercy and grace.
And for you to know that, for you to
be full of that kind of joy, you must
repent with a miraculous repentance
that sees future judgment, sees that
Jesus is better than Jonah and puts
its trust in him.
Let me pray and then we'll come and
sing in response.
Perhaps we'll just take a moment, just
a moment of quiet in our own hearts
as we respond to God's word.
Thank you.
Father, we turn to you in repentance. We know that we deserve your judgment. We know that there is nothing in us that deserves your mercy or your grace.
We know, Lord, that there's no point hiding from you or running from you because you know us, you see us, you know all about us.
And so we turn to you in repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, knowing that he took our sin upon himself and died on the cross.
That as we turn to you in repentance, we don't turn just in a vague hope that you might be merciful, but in confidence that you love to show mercy in the Lord Jesus to repentant sinners.
So we pray that this miracle of repentance would go on and on in our hearts, that we would find ourselves turning to you and trusting in you day by day.
And pray, please, Lord, that you might continue to do that work for your glory and for our good. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen.