The Scandal of Mercy: Why God Loves Your Nineveh

[00:05:50] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:05:50] Good morning, CTK. Happy Palm Sunday to you. And speaking of Palm Sunday, would you stand and join us for this Song of Gathering?
[00:06:01] Today's Song of Gathering is a little different because it's Palm Sunday, and so our kids are going to lead us in a procession as we sing this song.
[00:06:12] I'm going to hold for one second and wait for a thumbs up from our children's director, Miss Catherine, to make sure that they are all ready and good to go.
[00:06:19] I see some coordination happening, and I hear movement.

[00:06:23] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[00:06:23] Brought to you today.

[00:09:21] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:09:21] Now, those of you who didn't have a front row view, I'm not going to name the kid, but the kid passing the palm thing like a basketball, you know, he lives in North Carolina.
[00:09:36] So while they're going, good morning and welcome to Christ the King on this Palm Sunday.
[00:09:42] A few reminders for you this morning.
[00:09:43] Bathrooms are out the doors on either side of me.
[00:09:46] If you haven't gotten a worship bulletin, you might want to pick one up.
[00:09:49] everything will be on the screen behind me, but this tells you not only the what, but the why for how we do worship this morning. So you may want to grab that. And then finally, all the kids
[00:09:56] this morning, we are not dismissing for children's worship today. So we get to be all together the whole time. So if you will continue standing just a minute longer, we're going to call each other
[00:10:05] to worship. And we're going to echo the praises of the children this morning and the people who lined the street 2,000 years ago. So from Psalm 18, verses 21 through 26, let's turn to that
[00:10:17] together. I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation. The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord's doing. It is marvelous in our eyes.
[00:10:33] This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Save us, we pray. Oh Lord. O Lord, we pray, give us success. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you
[00:10:48] from the house of the Lord. Please join me in prayer. Father God, this is the day that you have made, and we will indeed rejoice and be glad in it. We rejoice not because we deserve your favor
[00:11:01] or have earned your love. Instead, we rejoice because you have become our salvation, because you endured the cross, because your gift is more than we could ever ask or imagine.
[00:11:13] Hallelujah, what a Savior you are.
[00:11:15] We pray in Jesus' name, amen.
[00:11:18] Please continue standing as we join in worship.
[00:13:52] If you are anything like me, then right about now you are thinking something along the lines of, I am not worthy and I am not prepared to worship a holy God.
[00:14:01] How can I come into his presence knowing what I know about myself?
[00:14:06] And so we worship God together by confessing our sin.
[00:14:10] We acknowledge that He is holy, that we are sinners, and that Jesus' sacrifice somehow, mercifully, covers our sin.
[00:14:18] Our call to confession turns our minds to the truth of God's word.
[00:14:22] Jeremiah 17, 9-10 says, The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable.
[00:14:30] Who can understand it?
[00:14:32] I, the Lord, examine the mind.
[00:14:33] I test the heart to give to each according to his way, according to what his actions deserve.
[00:14:41] Before we read this corporate confession of sin, I will note that the first sentence asks us to compare ourselves to Jonah. So think for just a moment what you know about Jonah. And now let's
[00:14:52] read this confession of sin aloud together, followed by a time of silent confession.
[00:14:58] Merciful Father, we confess that we are more like Jonah than we care to admit.
[00:15:05] We receive your mercy with open hands, yet we look with skepticism and indignation when you extend mercy to someone we would rather you pass by.
[00:15:16] You call us to love, and we calculate.
[00:15:20] You show compassion, and we question.
[00:15:23] You forgive freely, and we tighten our grip on grace.
[00:15:27] we have trusted in our own sense of justice more we have preferred comfort over obedience and self over surrender yet even our repentance is a gift from you left to ourselves we would run forever but you pursue you soften you awaken so we come not because we are worthy but because
[00:16:00] you are merciful. Forgive us, not because we have earned it, but because Christ has secured it.
[00:16:08] Change us, not because we are strong, but because your spirit is at work within us. Teach us to rejoice in the mercy that saves us and the mercy that reaches far beyond us. In Jesus' name, amen.
[00:16:24] And now, brothers and sisters, lift your heads, because Micah 7, 18-19 tells us, Who is a God like you, forgiving iniquity and passing over rebellion for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not hold on to his anger forever, because he delights in faithful love.
[00:17:07] He will again have compassion on us. He will vanquish our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. And together we respond, thanks be to God, in Christ we are

[00:17:21] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:17:21] forgiven. Please stand as we continue singing. If you would please stay standing as we prepare

[00:21:50] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:21:50] to give our offering. We do this as an act of obedience, returning to God a portion of what he has given us, and reminding ourselves that we are simply stewards of what God has given us.
[00:22:01] If you are visiting with us today, we are really glad you're here. Please feel no compulsion to give. But also on the screen behind me is a visitor card. If you could fill that out or use
[00:22:10] the QR code, we would love to get in touch with you. And so let's pray together as we sing and pass the baskets. Father God, all that we have comes from you. Apart from you, we can do nothing.
[00:22:23] Thank you for your goodness to us. Use our tithes and offerings for your good purpose.

[00:22:28] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:22:28] In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, good morning, CTK. Again, you guys typically don't see me up

[00:26:47] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:26:47] here too often, so you know it's something different. It's something a little special.
[00:26:51] But there's a lot of different things today, I will say that. So if you're a visitor, know that things are a little different today. But with good reason. Of course, it's Palm Sunday.
[00:27:07] And for those of you who don't know me, my name is Danny Yancey, and I am your friendly neighborhood worship director, the guy hiding behind the palm trees if you're sitting on this side. And I want to start, it's our announcement time, but I want to start with a really quick
[00:27:22] story. You with me? Quick story. And they all lived happily ever after. The end. Now, of course, you're thinking there's a ton of things missing in that story, right? And thus is the case whenever
[00:27:47] you skip to the end. Thus is the case whenever you skip to the end. And so with that in mind, this week beginning today we journey to the cross on thursday we are going to journey to
[00:28:06] remember the lord's supper at our monday thursday service which is going to be preached by paul dechamps and it's going to begin at 7 p.m right here in the sanctuary and this time of communion
[00:28:20] It's going to be different, a bit more intentional than what we do on a typical Sunday morning.
[00:28:26] So you're not going to want to miss that.
[00:28:27] It is going to be a beautiful service of remembrance and communion and a sweet time together as a church around the Lord's table.
[00:28:38] And then on Friday, we journey a bit further in the life of Christ.
[00:28:41] And we journey towards Good Friday to the cross.
[00:28:44] and we laser focus in on his suffering, his death, on the brutality, on the humiliation of the cross. And that's going to happen here on Friday at 7 p.m. That's our Tenebrae service. It's a beautiful service. It's different than any other service that we do. All the singing and music
[00:29:05] happens in the balcony. The lights begin to gradually get dimmer and dimmer and dimmer, and we leave the service in darkness and silence.
[00:29:15] And again, it's because we're telling a story.
[00:29:19] We're remembering.
[00:29:21] And then on, I'm going to skip this one for a second.
[00:29:25] Then on Sunday morning, we celebrate together as a church the resurrection.
[00:29:31] And we're going to do that in a beautiful place at the Museum of Art.
[00:29:36] And that service is going to be in conjunction with a few other churches.
[00:29:39] I know it's going to be Midtown and Calvary and Reconciliation.
[00:29:44] Is that it?
[00:29:46] And Resurrection Life Church will be joining us for that as well.
[00:29:49] And that's going to be at 6.30 at the Museum of Art.
[00:29:52] And then, of course, we're going to gather on Sunday, Easter Sunday morning, next Sunday, at both 9 and at 11 for our Easter regular service.
[00:30:03] And it's going to feature our Temple Baptists as well.
[00:30:06] Their handbells will be playing.
[00:30:07] We're going to have a choir that Sunday.
[00:30:09] it is going to be a wonderful celebration of the resurrection.
[00:30:13] Now, I said all that to say, sure, you can skip to the end and just show up on Easter Sunday morning, but then you miss the story.
[00:30:24] You miss what makes Easter Sunday so very special.
[00:30:29] So I hope that you will make time to join us for all of our Holy Week services this week.
[00:30:34] It is going to be a beautiful, beautiful time together as we journey to the cross.
[00:30:39] Now, additionally, one of our, it's not really an Easter service, but it's a part of our Easter celebration.
[00:30:44] Our kids, we're going to have on Saturday an Easter egg hunt.
[00:30:48] And that is going to be at 9 a.m. right here, Catherine, here outside in the lawn.
[00:30:54] So be sure to bring your kids.
[00:30:56] We have all the eggs and everything that we need.
[00:31:03] More egg stuff would be delightful, Catherine's words.
[00:31:06] And so if you've got some things, you want to donate some things, by all means, bring that.
[00:31:09] We would love to have some more.
[00:31:11] and in addition to that men manly men we are going to be cooking pancakes thank you i was looking i was waiting on it we're going to be making some pancakes and preparing breakfast for
[00:31:24] everyone's going to be a part of that easter egg hunt as well so men come out and bring your your flat your best flapjacks your best bachelors and all that as we are going to provide a pancake
[00:31:34] breakfast for them as well and i think that's it and so everett's going to come up and introduce

[00:31:41] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:31:41] us to the newest member of our church. Thanks, Danny. I want to invite Felicity Rehm up for membership today. We do membership publicly at our church because we think it's a really big deal when someone wants to come and publicly identify with our church. We think Jesus does that by
[00:31:57] calling the church his bride. And so the idea that Felicity would want to come and identify with us today is a big deal. We also want to get to know Felicity. So we're going to share some information
[00:32:05] about her and then we can kind of embrace her in our church community. So this is Felicity's interesting fact. I started playing the harp when I was seven years old. We got to get you up here.
[00:32:15] I'm sure Danny could do a set around this. I mean, we got to make this happen. So, all right, so here's Felicity's testimony. I was fortunate to grow up in a home with parents who love the Lord, who have
[00:32:26] been an incredible model to me of living for God's glory. Before I was born, my family had been missionaries in China, but came back to the U.S. for my birth. When I was 10, my family moved back
[00:32:37] to China, and it was a privilege to see the work God is doing there despite barriers. In 2020, my family was at a short Thailand missions conference, and due to COVID, we were not able to go home,
[00:32:47] so we returned to the U.S. This was a difficult time for me, as it was for everybody. Starting public school, I was incredibly lonely and upset about leaving. However, looking back, I see that God was caring for us, and after some time, God provided some close friends. During high school,
[00:33:04] I also struggled with overwhelming feelings of guilt. Although I understood the gospel on the surface, deep down I was scared I wasn't doing enough. But I distinctly remember a moment when reading Romans. Even though I'd read it before, in that moment I heard the Lord speaking to me
[00:33:20] and felt his presence in a way I hadn't before. He gave me a miraculous sense of peace that has continued to encompass my life. Currently I'm a sophomore at NC State, and God has been hard at
[00:33:30] work recently to reveal idols of my heart, reminding me to rely less on myself and more on him. Though it is sometimes difficult too, I praise God that he's working to sanctify me.
[00:33:41] Finally, I praise God for blessing me with an incredible college community in RUF. I'm so grateful to that community for their support and love and to the community at CTK. We're so glad to have you, Felicity. So I'm going to read you these five membership vows and you'll respond with
[00:33:55] I do. Do you acknowledge yourself to be a sinner in the sight of God, justly deserving his displeasure and without hope except for his sovereign mercy? Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Savior of sinners, and do you receive and rest upon him
[00:34:12] alone for salvation as he is offered in the gospel? Do you now resolve and promise in humble reliance upon the grace of the Holy Spirit that you will endeavor to live as becomes a follower
[00:34:22] are of Christ? Do you promise to support the church in its worship and work to the best of your ability? And do you submit yourself to the government and discipline of the church and promise
[00:34:33] to study its purity and peace? Now, for members of Christ the King, I vow for you, do you, the members of Christ the King, receive Felicity as your sister in the Lord and promise to pray for her,
[00:34:44] encourage her, and live in community with Jesus and one another in the gospel? Let's pray together.
[00:34:52] Father God, we thank you for felicity.
[00:34:54] We thank you for all the members of our church.
[00:34:56] And we pray that we would be rooted and firmly established in love, that we may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, the height and depth of God's love,
[00:35:07] and to know Christ's love that surpasses knowledge, so that we may be filled with all the fullness of God.
[00:35:13] In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
[00:35:16] So at this point, we are not releasing kids.
[00:35:18] Kids are going to be in here during the sermon.
[00:35:20] but we do want to invite you to stand to greet those around you and come meet the newest member

[00:35:24] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[00:35:24] of our church. The peace of Christ be with you. You may be seated. Well, good morning, everyone.

[00:40:33] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:40:33] Happy Palm Sunday. It's a joy to gather together for worship. Each and every Sunday, of course, it's a joy to gather together for worship, but on Holy Week, we are particularly mindful of the great truths that are at the center of our glorious faith in Jesus Christ, and so it is good
[00:40:53] to gather. Children, you did a great job this morning in leading us in worship to start.
[00:40:58] Thank you for that. That was lovely. Today we are going to be continuing the sermon series that we've been doing on the weeks that Jeff has off. In other words, my sermon series called Prophets Gone Wild, everyone's favorite title. We have been looking at different prophets and
[00:41:21] looking to them to try to discern what we can learn about our call to be prophetic in the wake of Christ, the true prophet who came as the living word, okay? So we've been going into Old Testament
[00:41:36] passages. Some of them have been obscure. Some are a little bit better known. But we looked at Isaiah to begin with, to start out with understanding that our call to be prophetic is an amazing call
[00:41:48] that comes from God himself. And we looked at Isaiah before the throne of God and the implications of that encounter for him. Those same implications apply to us, brothers and sisters.
[00:41:59] Then we looked at Ezekiel, and we saw how he embodied his message. He wasn't just a speaker.
[00:42:04] He lived out the things that he was meant to display to the world, that he was called to be a prophet not only in word but also in deed and how he lived, and that too applies to us.
[00:42:16] Then we looked at Ezekiel again.
[00:42:18] We looked at the wheel in the sky.
[00:42:20] Remember chapter 1, Ezekiel, glorious chapter.
[00:42:24] And we talked about the wild visions that we have and how all of them, the wild visions that are in Scripture, all of them point ultimately to a glorious Savior, Jesus Christ.
[00:42:35] So we have a wild calling.
[00:42:37] We have a wild life.
[00:42:38] We have a wild vision.
[00:42:40] Last time we looked at how God calls wild messengers.
[00:42:45] We looked at Amos, the dirt farmer, the one that you wouldn't have thought, this is somebody who's going to be well-received.
[00:42:52] He was a lowly person who was called.
[00:42:56] And we realized, as we kind of like considered all of Scripture, that God can speak through anybody.
[00:43:01] He calls anybody.
[00:43:02] And that also applies to us.
[00:43:05] Many of us, I think, in the Christian world, we opt out.
[00:43:08] We say, well, some of those gifts belong to other people, so I'm not called to be a prophetic.
[00:43:12] We are all called to be prophetic, according to Joel 2 and Acts 2, to some degree or another.
[00:43:18] And so we saw that with Amos.
[00:43:20] And today, we're going to be looking at the wild recipients of God's message that we are called to go to.
[00:43:28] And I've chosen Jonah, the end of Jonah, for that.
[00:43:33] Let's read God's word together as it appears on the screen.
[00:43:37] We're going to read chapter 3, 1 through 5, and then chapter 4.
[00:43:40] The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.
[00:43:46] Get up, go to the great city of Nineveh, and preach the message that I tell you.
[00:43:53] Jonah got up and went to Nineveh according to the Lord's command.
[00:43:59] Now Nineveh was an extremely great city, a three-day walk.
[00:44:04] Jonah set out on the first day of his walk in the city and proclaimed, in 40 days Nineveh will be demolished. Then the people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast and dressed in sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least. God saw their actions that
[00:44:27] they had turned from their evil ways and so God relented from the disaster he had threatened them with, and he did not do it. Jonah was greatly displeased and became furious. He prayed to the
[00:44:43] Lord, please, Lord, isn't this what I said when I was still in my own country? That's why I fled toward Tarshish in the first place. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to
[00:45:00] anger, abounding in faithful love, and one who relents from sending disaster. And now, Lord, take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. The Lord asked, is it right for you to be angry? Jonah left the city and found a place east of it. He made himself
[00:45:25] a shelter there and sat in its shade to see what would happen to the city. Then the Lord God appointed a plant, and it grew over Jonah to provide shade for his head to rescue him from
[00:45:40] his trouble. Jonah was greatly pleased with the plant. When dawn came the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant and it withered. As the sun was rising, God appointed a scorching east wind. The sun beat down on Jonah's head so much that he almost fainted and he wanted to die.
[00:46:04] He said, it's better for me to die than to live. Ask Jonah, is it right for you to be angry about the plant. Yes, it's right, he replied. I'm angry enough to die. And the Lord said, you cared about
[00:46:24] the plant, which you did not labor over and did not grow. It appeared in a night and perished in a night. So may I not care about the great city of Nineveh, which has more than 120,000 people
[00:46:40] who cannot distinguish between their right and their left, as well as many animals? Very good.
[00:46:49] This ends the reading of God's Word. Well, children, you're no doubt familiar with the story of Jonah, but allow me just a moment to kind of bring us up to speed, since we're just reading the end of the book. Jonah, of course, was called by God to go to Nineveh to preach
[00:47:05] that they were going to be destroyed to call them to repentance. And he initially refused. He ran the exact opposite direction. You probably know that story. He gets on a boat. He winds up getting
[00:47:16] tossed over the boat. He gets swallowed by a giant fish, spat up on the beach after praying a prayer of repentance. And then begrudgingly, he goes to Nineveh. And that's where this story kind of
[00:47:28] picks up. You know, we, I think, can hear that story particularly because most of us were probably exposed to it when we were a child. The storytellers often, I think, shield us from the awful nature of
[00:47:44] Nineveh and what Nineveh actually was. And so it's very important, children, to understand that Nineveh wasn't just like a bad city. It was a horrible city. If you do any studying of kind of the ancient Near East, you find all of these kind of reliefs and things that are from the city of
[00:48:05] Nineveh that celebrate the absolute wicked things that Assyrians did to the people that they conquered. And one of the people that they conquered was the nation of Israel, the northern kingdom. And when the Assyrians conquered a place, they didn't just go in there and win and then set
[00:48:24] up their government. They drug the people, particularly the royal family, but as many of the people as they could, and took them to other parts of the world in order to scatter their national identity, to erase them and the memory of them from the history of the earth. And they did
[00:48:44] it brutally. The only memory that they wanted to exist was the brutal reliefs that they had showing how they absolutely tortured and destroyed and absolutely violated the people that they conquered. I think that's all I can say, given that the children are here with us. And I can
[00:49:03] certainly identify with those who went before us who told us this story that maybe made us think that Nineveh was just a bad place and not a horrible place. But you have to understand that
[00:49:13] to understand how Jonah's responding. His own people, he had seen his people killed in horrific ways with his own eyes, and then he had seen the force of this entire community try to erase the
[00:49:30] identity of his people from the face of the earth. I think that's something that even if we, even if I were to describe that in elaborate detail, we would have trouble, most of us in this room,
[00:49:43] identifying with. Because just while there are some in this room that, and I don't want to, you know, be dismissive of this at all, that have experienced real horrific suffering, very few of us, if any, have anything that compares to that, that we have witnessed with
[00:50:02] our own eyes in our lifetime, that we have been exposed to directly. The kind of horror that Jonah saw from the Assyrians was horrific. So I spent this week trying to think about, okay, how do I
[00:50:15] get a group of Americans to identify with like the northern kingdom Israel and Judah's kind of like disdain for Assyria and Nineveh. So I thought about the true injustices that, you know, just exist in my mind. The first thing that came to mind was Will Wade. Will Wade told our athletic
[00:50:39] director at NC State he was going to be our basketball coach on Tuesday, and then he went to LSU on Thursday. I have a confession to make, and I actually sent this to one of our elders
[00:50:52] as a confession. I spent the bulk of my Saturday afternoon splicing video clips of Will Wade's press conferences and a guy telling him off together because I was so angry. That's real injustice. Now, I bring that up as a joke, though, right? I mean, by comparison, that's not even,
[00:51:15] shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentences. Then I thought, you know, where we experience real injustice or where Americans feel like they experience real injustice at least is through politics, right? You know, we, I mean, we have two political parties that spend millions of dollars
[00:51:32] trying to convince you that the other political party is the Assyrian nation, right? You understand that like constantly you're being bombarded with smear campaigns that are designed to tell you that the other guy is terrible and you should elect us because you should be really afraid of them.
[00:51:50] That happens on both sides. And so, you know, we feel that, don't we? Like, I think probably if I asked most of you who is the greatest enemy to the American way of life or your way of life
[00:52:05] or, you know, where do you see the most injustice, you probably wouldn't list a foreign country, right? Because we win most of that. You would list the other party because they're terrible, all right but in truth like despite what the democrats want you to believe donald trump hasn't
[00:52:26] actually piled a pyramid of heads of his opponent in front of trump tower some of you are going to come up to me afterwards and say actually but i think if we really had that conversation it's just
[00:52:43] it's it's maybe maybe there's injustice on on either side like certainly the democrats have done things that are wrong certainly the republicans have done things that are wrong but not to that level, right? We could look at our foreign enemies, Russia, ISIS. Maybe we would,
[00:53:07] for some people, get close. We could look at American slavery. Now we're getting there.
[00:53:18] We're generations removed from that, but that was horrible. And the impacts of that have been generational in the same way that what happened with Nineveh and Israel has been generational.
[00:53:34] and was intended to be generational.
[00:53:38] But I think the Holocaust is probably the event that most of us have some knowledge of that would be the most kind of applicable of an analogy.
[00:53:51] That's the kind of level that we're talking about.
[00:53:54] Mass persecution, execution, trying to erase an entire ethnicity from the face of the earth.
[00:54:03] And for many of you, you weren't, many of us, I wasn't alive when it happened.
[00:54:07] but we still talk about it. Imagine living like through that though. Imagine that happened to you.
[00:54:16] You know about it and then imagine being told by God directly that you need to go and tell those people to repent and I'm going to forgive them. That was Jonah's dilemma. So maybe it's a little
[00:54:31] easier to be sympathetic with him because that's how hard it probably was for him. And I have bad news for you, brothers and sisters. That is what is the call that is on us as prophets in the New
[00:54:49] Testament. You know, Jesus said, go preach the gospel to all nations, everyone, everyone. And then just in case you thought everyone didn't mean everyone, he also said, you've heard it said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those
[00:55:11] who persecute you. So just in case you thought everyone wasn't everyone, yeah, that everyone.
[00:55:18] Think about who that is. Who is that for you? Who is the worst person, the person that you are just kind of like, I actually kind of don't want them to get the gospel because if they do,
[00:55:32] they'll live forever. I'm not sure I want them to live forever. Who is that person or group of people. That's what Jonah points us to. And here's Jonah's problem and ours in a nutshell.
[00:55:47] Essentially, Jonah doesn't want justice. He thinks he does, and to some degree he does, but he's confusing vengeance with justice. He doesn't want Nineveh restored and the relationship between Nineveh and Israel restored. He wants Nineveh annihilated. And that is a difference.
[00:56:09] there is a difference between justice and vengeance. Sometimes we don't necessarily think there is. I think it's easy to confuse the two. But biblical justice versus vengeance are two different things. And God actually relieves people of the need to feel like vengeance is
[00:56:28] something they need to take into their own hands. He says multiple times in Scripture, it's in the Old Testament and the New Testament, that vengeance is his. And I think most of the time we read those passages and we think, well, that just means those people are going to get
[00:56:42] what's coming to them from God. Well, maybe, but what it means is that you who have been wronged by someone don't need to define your entire existence by exacting revenge on them. You can trust that God will restore all things to order and don't need to take that upon yourself. There
[00:57:08] was several stories of people who were Holocaust survivors who went and met with like SS soldiers and some of them could not forgive them. And you could certainly understand that, right? I hope.
[00:57:25] But some of them did. And some of the ones who did were criticized by others who didn't.
[00:57:33] They said, how can you forgive them? How can you give them this? And what those forgiving members, those who survived the Holocaust said, I didn't do it for them. I did it so that I could release
[00:57:46] the pain and the anguish and move on. Vengeance is the Lord's. It's not ours. And that's a gift to those of us who have experienced real suffering and hardship. And God will restore justice.
[00:58:03] We can trust in that. Jonah didn't. He literally is in the position of accusing God of being too merciful. You are not just. They deserve to be ash. And he thought that was justice, but it's not.
[00:58:18] It's vengeance. Second thing that was his problem is pride. He had the chutzpah to say to God, I have every right to be mad at you. I have every right to be mad at you. I'm so mad you should just
[00:58:40] kill me. Do you see, by the way, how his need for vengeance was absolutely killing him, not them?
[00:58:48] But the pride of that, to look God in the eye almost essentially and say, everything that you think is right, God, is wrong. You're way too merciful. You need to stop that. You know, Jesus tells a parable in Luke 15 of two brothers, one who was a prodigal and one who was an
[00:59:12] older brother. The older brother talks to the father in a similar way, right? I wonder if sometimes our challenge with this is that we, like Jonah, think we've earned our place in God's presence in ways others haven't. Comfort is another one that we see that's a challenge for Jonah.
[00:59:40] Notice he just wants to go outside of the city, and then he gets the plant, and he's like, ah, this is nice. You know, he feels, feels better about that. It's like, I want all of them to die
[00:59:52] and I want my nice little plant house to, you know, feel comfortable in. He's, then the plant dies and he's more upset about his own discomfort than he is about the idea of 120,000 people
[01:00:05] being destroyed and some animals, right? He's like, my comfort is way more important than 120,000 image bearers of God.
[01:00:19] I think that's what's going on in my heart with Will Wade.
[01:00:24] I want to know we're going to beat Duke, Everett.
[01:00:34] Another thing that I think is a problem is cynicism.
[01:00:39] You know, Jonah's cynicism is not that grace won't work, though.
[01:00:42] I think that's our problem a lot of times.
[01:00:44] We're cynical.
[01:00:45] Like, you know, I've gone and I've preached the message of the gospel to other people, and they just don't believe.
[01:00:50] They won't believe.
[01:00:51] It'll never work.
[01:00:53] Notice that's not Jonah's problem.
[01:00:55] Jonah's problem is he doesn't want it to work. And I think that even when we think that it's our cynicism is that it doesn't work, a little bit it is that we don't want it to,
[01:01:07] because we're wrestling with the third thing, the comfort factor. Like, I don't want to be uncomfortable telling somebody to believe in, you know, something that they think is ridiculous.
[01:01:16] A man living thousands of years ago, dying and rising from the dead, that just feels uncomfortable.
[01:01:21] I don't want to push them on their life.
[01:01:23] That feels uncomfortable.
[01:01:25] So, you know, I don't want to do that.
[01:01:29] I'm afraid that that'll start working and then I'll have to do it more.
[01:01:33] You know?
[01:01:35] Cynicism.
[01:01:36] Whatever form it takes, whether it's Jonah's or ours, it's wrong.
[01:01:39] And these are the things that I think keep us from actually fulfilling the prophetic message or prophetic calling that is on our lives.
[01:01:48] Like whether it's pride or comfort or this sense of vengeance and cynicism whatever it is we have this tendency to just write other people off and I think that the thing that helps is for us to remember that we weren't written off right like God brings this home to
[01:02:07] Jonah he makes it personal by killing the plant he's like you don't like that I killed the plant the plant is you know lower than animals in Nineveh we've got people and animals Jonah don't you care for them a little bit more so I thought this would help and since the kids are
[01:02:25] here, maybe you can help us with this. I've got a game for us to play. I have different characters from the Bible that I'm going to describe, and I want to see if you know who they are, all right?
[01:02:39] How about this one? A murderous zealot who hunted Christians and tried to kill them.
[01:02:46] Oh, very good class. That's Paul, Acts chapter 9. We see it very clearly, right? So that's the guy that led the Gentiles to faith in the early church. God worked through him in incredible ways.
[01:03:02] Like, he's someone who probably, from the perspective of those who were being killed, those who witnessed, for example, Stephen's murder, was probably someone to write off.
[01:03:14] But God didn't. How about this one? A greedy traitor robbing his own people through official means. That's right, Zacchaeus, the wee little man. The wee little man was he who climbed up on the sycamore tree, but also like took his people for everything that they were worth, right? He had
[01:03:37] stolen and robbed and all of them. He's probably somebody that was worth writing off in many people's minds. What about a dying thief who had nothing left to offer the world? Anyone? The man on the cross. What in the world? Like he's going to die in like 15 minutes. What's going to amount
[01:04:04] of his life? Well, you might want to write him off, but you know, he was written in to the pages of scripture and for thousands of years, his story has been impactful to millions. Hmm. What about a
[01:04:22] pagan prostitute from an enemy territory? Rahab. What about an adulterous murdering king of Judah and Israel. David. He represented God as a king, and he murdered and committed adultery.
[01:04:40] God didn't write him off. A two-faced traitor who abandoned Christ to die. Peter. Yep. A pagan emperor who destroyed God's temple. This one's a little tougher. Pagan emperor who destroyed God's temple. Nebuchadnezzar, that's right, and Daniel. Shameless, repeated adulterer who
[01:05:07] abandoned by everyone. That's another tough one. Think prophets, minor prophets. Shameless adulterer, adulteress. Gomer, that's right. God didn't give up on her. In fact, he made her an example that he's like, that's all of you. An insane and dangerous man living naked among the
[01:05:33] dead. That's the Gerasene demoniac from Mark 5. And how about this one? Dead in sin, unable to do good, children of wrath by nature. Nailed it. That's us. You know, it's interesting to me, probably more than anything else, the objection that I get from non-Christians is that God is so
[01:05:56] full of wrath that I can't believe in him. But I just gave you 10 examples where his mercy is the scandalous thing. Eleven if you count Nineveh and millions if you count Christians. God's mercy
[01:06:13] is what's scandalous. God's mercy is what deserves kind of all the, like, what is going on kinds of questions, not so much his judgment. And sometimes I think we forget that we're like the Ninevites
[01:06:26] in many ways. Jonah forgot that. He forgot that he deserved the punishment and yet had been given grace. We forget that too. All right, this passage ends with the classic proof text for God having a
[01:06:44] sense of humor. Did you notice that? The very end of Jonah, the last verse reads this way.
[01:06:52] If you read it in the ESV, for example, and should not I pity Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left and also much
[01:07:07] cattle. It says animals in the CSB. Whatever it is, God's making a joke. He's mocking Jonah.
[01:07:14] Do you see that? There were several years where I kind of thought God doesn't have a sense of humor because I've read the Bible many times and there's just, there's not a lot that, you know,
[01:07:26] initially struck me as funny. The more I have read the Bible, the more humor I see in it.
[01:07:31] And the entire book of Jonah, I think, is hilarious. Mark is full of all kinds of dark kind of humor, the gospel of Mark. God definitely has a sense of humor. And probably one of his
[01:07:47] most common kind of forms of humor is he mocks, which is like, you know, is that okay? Yes, he's God. And that's what he's doing with Jonah. He's like, you think you're so merciful and just
[01:08:02] and right, but you care more about cattle than you do 120,000 people. Get it? Get the joke?
[01:08:15] God cares intimately more for justice and for mercy than we do. He has every right to mock Jonah, and he has every right to mock us. And do you know why? Because he displayed that on the cross
[01:08:32] when Jesus came. Jesus Christ in coming was the, you know, I mean, he was the picture child for being scandalous, for hanging out with everyone. He wasn't like Jonah. He didn't run from anyone.
[01:08:47] He didn't say, hey, those people deserve judgment, so I'm not going to spend any time with them. In fact, you know, I say Jesus hung out with anyone. And, you know, this point is made all the time.
[01:08:57] Who did Jesus hang out with? Prostitutes, sinners, all kinds of tax collectors, radicals, you know, the terrible people. But we often leave one group of terrible people off that list.
[01:09:11] He also hung out with the Pharisees and the Sadducees and kings. He didn't, he wasn't like just the, you know, kind of street tough guy that hung out. He wasn't just a man of the people
[01:09:23] that were in the trenches. He was a man of the unjust who were in power. He hung out with them too. He didn't write anybody off. He took the message of the gospel to all of them. And then
[01:09:36] when he got on the cross and he's dying, literally dying from the various different people that had betrayed him in various different ways, whether from this side or this side, what did he say?
[01:09:47] He said, father, forgive them for they know not what they do. He was willing to absorb the wrath of God, which was the vengeance for all that they had done that was wrong, so that they could have forgiveness. I would argue that that puts God in a place where he
[01:10:07] can make jokes about how much better we think we are at measuring out where justice goes and where mercy goes. And instead, we should probably, as reflecting on that, take a little bit of time
[01:10:20] to kind of like look at the beauty of who Jesus is and allow that to change our hearts so that we can become more like him. That is, in fact, the call that is on us, is to be Christ-like in that
[01:10:31] prophetic way, to go forward with that message of love and hope in the gospel, and to battle all of those things that Jonah had, and that I argued that we have, by going to people and giving them
[01:10:43] this wonderful message of hope. So notice this. Instead of seeking comfort like Jonah did, Christ sought self-sacrifice. He looked to take on the sin of the world. And he didn't run from it, he ran to it. From, I mean, like trans-dimensionally, right? By being incarnated.
[01:11:08] Instead of pride, Jesus makes himself low. He's never telling God what he should do. He's always saying, your will, not mine, be done, Lord. And he's willing to suffer a death that's a criminal's death, even though he's the king of kings. Instead of seeking vengeance, he gives shalom, real justice,
[01:11:31] an opportunity for complete healing, for absolute enemies to be reconciled in him. Not just the destruction of those enemies, but reconciliation, wholeness for God's enemies. That's what he offers in the gospel. And yes, he offers satisfaction for justice for all injustices done. The wrath of God
[01:11:58] will either fall on those who ask for it by not accepting Jesus's offer of peace, or it will fall on Jesus himself. And when it does, he will bring together those who are divided. In this country,
[01:12:15] That statement particularly seems hard to swallow. Yeah? That in Jesus Christ, we can be reconciled with one another because of his sacrifice on the cross. But I would argue that's our cynicism. That that can't happen. We're too divided. Jesus can't do that. Jesus saw a divided
[01:12:41] world. He lived in a divided world. He came to die for a divided world. And he got on a cross believing that the Lord, his Father, would work through his death and resurrection in incredible ways, and of course he has.
[01:12:57] What would it look like for us to embody that faith?
[01:13:00] Because that's the call that has been placed on us as prophets, New Testament prophets.
[01:13:05] We need to replace our cynicism with the faith that we saw in Christ, trusting that his work is sufficient and can do amazing things.
[01:13:14] It is hard to preach in this world.
[01:13:16] is so hard because there is so much brokenness and so much injustice and we ourselves are broken and it has an emotional impact on us. I get it. This world has probably hurt you deeply in some
[01:13:32] way. A minute ago when I asked you to think about who your Nineveh was, you probably had a lot of people in mind. Maybe you had groups of people in mind. And it's hard to believe that God will
[01:13:47] work through something like Jesus's death and resurrection and the hope of Christ. But he did it in you, didn't he? He did it in you. You have seen it. Don't forget it. If he did it with you,
[01:14:05] he can do it with them. You know, there's a story in the wake of the Holocaust. You probably heard Corrie ten Boom, whose family housed Jewish refugees and then were caught and put in the
[01:14:23] concentration camps. She had family members who died. And years later, she came face to face with one of the SS officers who had been involved in running the concentration camp where her family members were killed. He came face to face with her and asked for forgiveness. And she describes
[01:14:46] an almost supernatural way in which God worked through her arm to extend a handshake and offer forgiveness to the man who had done this terrible thing to her. If God can do that through her,
[01:15:03] who'd experienced something that was the worst thing that I could think of to compare to Nineveh, what can he do through you and through the people that you feel that way about?
[01:15:15] You know, today's Palm Sunday. Next Sunday is Easter Sunday. Here's what I would like you to think about doing this week. Would you consider trusting that the word of God, the message of the gospel is actually powerful enough to bring healing and hope into people's lives? And would
[01:15:38] you pick up the phone and call one person that you absolutely do not believe that God will bring to church on Sunday morning and very humbly invite them. I dare you. I think that God can work
[01:15:55] through that, through something that simple, a phone call, an offer of hope to a broken world that desperately needs it. This week is such an opportunity for us to display that hope to a watching world. Let's pray that the Lord Jesus would work through us in the ways that he has
[01:16:16] worked through the church for thousands of years, through the ways in which he worked in us. Let's go to him in prayer. Lord Jesus, we thank you and praise you for your gospel. Lord, we are so amazed
[01:16:33] at what you have done in us by saving us, by redeeming us through your blood, through your resurrection. Lord, would you empower us with enough faith to trust that you could do that through others. Lord, we embrace this call that is placed on us to go to people that we think
[01:16:54] are beyond your reach, that we think deserve to be beyond your reach. Lord, would you work in our hearts and help us to bridge gaps, to provide this offer of hope that you have called us to
[01:17:10] proclaim to the world. I pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's stand and sing.

[01:17:43] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[01:17:43] You may be seated. As we come to the Lord's Supper this morning, I want to remind you that

[01:21:15] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[01:21:15] we're not coming to dine with a God who doesn't know and who hasn't experienced or who doesn't care about the challenges that come with the calling that's been placed on our lives.
[01:21:33] He understands and He cares, and we see that on the cross. And as we come to the supper, we're reminded of that compassion that he exhibited through his son dying and rising.
[01:21:46] Let's use the liturgy that's on the screen and in our bulletins to prepare our hearts for this.
[01:21:51] Blessed are those invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb, for the bridegroom has come and his bride has been made pure. Let us rejoice and give him glory. Christ has clothed us in his
[01:22:06] righteousness, bright and pure. The spirit and the bride say, come. We feast and rejoice with our eyes on the girl. On the night in which he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus, after he'd given thanks,
[01:22:21] took bread and broke it. He said, this is my body, which is broken for you. Take and eat in remembrance of me. In the same manner, after the supper, he took the cup. He said, this is the
[01:22:41] cup of the new covenant, my blood shed for the forgiveness of your sins. Drink of it all of you in remembrance of me. If you are a believer and you're here, this supper is an opportunity for
[01:22:56] you to come face to face in physical ways with the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and be reminded of your worth to him. Would you come and allow your soul to be nourished and to soak in the truth
[01:23:11] of the gospel. If you're not a Christian and you're here today, this supper is reserved for those who have put their hope and faith in Christ. That's not something that we've decided to do.
[01:23:22] That's something that is biblical. There are warnings. And something that is not necessarily mean that you don't get to participate here, you do get to participate. Rather than coming forward, though, and receiving the elements, we would encourage you to receive Christ himself where
[01:23:40] you are. We would love nothing more than to talk about what it looks like to receive him so that you could come back the very next week even and partake of this supper with us. We long for you
[01:23:51] to do that. A couple of logistical notes. You can follow the instructions on the screen behind me to get communion. Basically, you're going to come down or up your center aisle, go to your stations,
[01:24:06] and then return to your seat from the edges.
[01:24:09] Clear cups are wine, tinted cups are grape juice.
[01:24:13] Pre-packaged and gluten-free items are available either here at the Lord's table or up at the sound booth if you're upstairs.
[01:24:22] As you come, if you would say your name, that will help us as we serve you to give you a personal invitation to the supper.
[01:24:31] And finally, if you would like prayer during this time, I realize that I brought up the fact that there is real suffering in this church, and there is.
[01:24:41] If after you've received the supper, if you would like some time praying with some of our elders or our parakaleo team, they'll be in the lobby.
[01:24:48] Please take advantage of that time.
[01:24:50] We would love nothing more than to pray with you.
[01:24:54] Finally, we'll sing as we partake because this is a time of worship and celebration.
[01:25:01] I see that those who are helping to serve are already coming forward.
[01:25:04] Thank you for that.
[01:25:08] So if you would, let's stand, and we will sing and we will partake of the Lord's Supper together.

[01:28:09] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[01:28:09] The Lord has prepared

[01:32:14] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[01:32:14] his banquet with the bread of life that satisfies forever.
[01:32:19] Let's eat.
[01:32:32] I've got a big piece.
[01:32:38] Come now, take and drink for his love is better than wine and he has sealed his promises to us with his blood.
[01:32:45] Let's drink.
[01:32:46] Look up and receive this benediction.
[01:32:55] Now may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good, that you may do his will,
[01:33:07] working in us that which is pleasing in his sight.
[01:33:09] Through Jesus Christ be glory forever and ever. Amen.
[01:33:13] Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

[01:33:24] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[01:33:24] Praise Him.