Jonah!

So here we are. So if you have your Bible with you, turn with me to the book of Jonah. Come with me to the book of Jonah today. Jonah, if you’re heading towards, if you find yourself in the gospel, just kind of hang back a left, turn back a little bit and you’ll find yourself in the book of Jonah. Most people are familiar with Jonah, even the world and its mindset has an idea of Jonah. And the entire book, if you haven’t read it recently, has four chapters. I’m only going to read the first five verses, but I would commend you to take the time to read the whole story, to read the whole narrative.

As I said, it’s only four chapters and it’s not very many pages. It’s what they call, I don’t talk about this a little bit, but it’s what they call one of the minor prophets. Minor meaning, there’s not a whole lot to the book and we don’t have a whole lot of information about the author specifically. But nonetheless, I’m going to look at five verses this morning and with your grace, if you will, I’ll kind of skip ahead through the story and you go ahead and read it on your own time and your own home and we’ll put the pieces together. But would you stand with me for the reading of God’s word? Jonah chapter one, and I’m reading from a Holman Christian standard Bible.

He’s become a go-to reading scripture for me. So I’ll read this for you. The word of the Lord came to Jonah, son of Amitai. Get up. Go to that great city of Nineveh and preach against it because their wickedness has confronted me. However, Jonah got up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Japa and found a ship going to Tarshish. He paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. 

The Lord hurled a violent wind on the sea and such a violent storm arose on the sea that the ship was threatened to break apart. The sailors were afraid and each cried out to his God.

They threw the ship’s cargo into the sea to lighten the load. Meanwhile, Jonah had gone down to the lowest part of the vessel and it stretched out and fell into a deep sleep. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word this morning. And Lord, I truly would ask your presence to be with us today. Lord, that it wouldn’t be me, it wouldn’t be my words, but Lord, it would be your words for this is your word.

And Lord, we entrust your word as authoritative in our lives. Lord, would you take this book of Jonah and impress it in our hearts? Lord, that we would have eyes to see and ears to hear by the Spirit of God in Jesus’ name. Amen? Amen. You may be seated and thank you for standing with me for the reading of God’s word. Amen. Amen. Amen. What I’m going to do is to begin with a brief chapter summary, because as I say, there’s only four chapters, a brief chapter summary, and then come to the main point of the book of Jonah in its entirety. Like the whole, what is the whole mindset behind the book of Jonah? So let’s just begin here this morning. Number one, Jonah, a Hebrew prophet, one of twelve minor prophets because of its brevity, right? He is sent by God to the city of Nineveh to warn its people of an impending destruction due to their wickedness. This is not a parable. It’s not a parable.

It’s historical. It really happened. It was a real prophet, real people, and a real city called Nineveh. Second Kings, chapter 14, verse 25. And Jesus speaks of Jonah in Matthew, chapter 12, verse 40. Jonah tries to escape the mission of God. That is almost worth pausing right now. If we’re not going to spend so much time on that point. But Jonah tries to escape the mission of God by fleeing on a ship. By the time of Jonah, Israel was broken up into two nations, Judah and Israel, and the Assyrians were their merciless enemies, relentlessly afflicting both Jerusalem and Judah, or Israel and Judah. So Judah, or pardon me, Jonah despised the Assyrians. He absolutely despised them as a people. The Lord sends a storm, and he’s thrown overboard and swallowed by a great fish, a giant fish. The word whale wasn’t part of the biblical narrative in the day, but it would have been a blue fin whale, done some digging around on that, have another whole sermon about that. But nonetheless, because Jonah finds himself in the belly of a whale. So that’s chapter 1.

Chapter 2, Jonah’s prayer from within the great fish. And again, this is a sermon all by itself. But after three days, Jonah, the Bible says he’s vomited out of the whale, and Jonah repents of running from God and finally goes to Nineveh. Chapter 3, Nineveh repents, and God spares the city. And Jonah is unhappy. A man sent on a mission of God to preach to people that they get saved and that they turn from their wickedness. They turn, and Jonah is upset. So upset, he wants to die.

He’s that upset about the whole thing. He goes up and sits on a hill outside and sits there waiting to look to see what’s going to happen to the city as he sulks. So chapter 4, God teaches Jonah about obedience, mercy, compassion through a plant that withers. That’s the four chapters. It’s a brief book. I commend you for taking some time to read it this week. What is the main point of Jonah? What’s the point? The main point of any book in the Bible is rarely, if ever, what people do. When you’re reading the Bible, we’re often in view of the text. 

We’re looking at the Bible through some sense of our own moral behaviors or our sense of what it means to be moral, what it means to be right. If one is to look, for example, over King David’s life, and I as a kid, my name’s Dave, my dad called me David, I always thought I want to be like King David. A man after God’s own heart. How many of you thought as a child? They are all awesome to have a heart like King David, right? Well, 1 Samuel 13, verse 14, many people want to be like David, yet King David did some evil things.

King David did some terrible things. See, being a man after God’s own heart clearly does not mean that all that David did was right in the sight of God. Amen? True? See, the Bible is filled with wonderful, inspiring, profound content as well as instances of terrible, harmful, outright evil deeds. And it’s wise to remember, remember this, only Jesus is Jesus and only Satan is Satan. We get caught up with characters and people throughout biblical history. We’re only Jesus is Jesus and only Satan is Satan as you read through the Word of God.

So back to our focus. As we focus on the characters of the story, such as maybe the Mariners, the sailors that Jonah gets into a bow with, we could look at Jonah himself, we could look at Nineveh. And if we looked at those people, we would be reducing it to mere moralism as to who did what was right at what time. And we could dig into all kinds of things like that. But to come away from Jonah saying, be like the Mariners, not like Jonah, or be like Nineveh and repent. I mean, those are great things to say aloud. But I think we’re going to miss the heart of the story if we just look at the Mariners and Jonah and Nineveh. The people, the events, they shouldn’t be overlooked. However, the obvious, if we overstate the obvious, I’m going to overstate the obvious to draw it out, the point of the narrative of the book of Jonah is God who has mercy. The entire point of the whole book, God has mercy. In chapter one, God has mercy on the Mariners who act according to a sovereign God. Even the world that pauses can see God at work in creation. They looked at the storm and they said, this isn’t natural. This storm, it’s not a normal storm. God had mercy on them.

God had mercy on Jonah who praises God from within the whale, from within the whale. He praised God from within a whale. In fact, I had, I’m working on several sermons in Jonah and just to take a pause a second, jump into a different sermon. Jonah is in a whale surrounded by crustaceans. Like little crayfish? The very thing that kosher Jewish boys would never want to even touch. They wouldn’t eat it. They wouldn’t touch it. And here’s Jonah in a whale engulfed by, they eat like three tons a day.

Blue fin whales eat like three tons a day of cray, of these little crustaceans and Jonah’s surrounded by it. The very thing that he’d rather be on a boat than be in the belly of a whale surrounded by these crustaceans and, and, and, and krill they call it. At any rate, he praises God from within a whale church. Don’t wait for your circumstances to praise God. Hello? If you’re in a tough place, worship God. Praise him in the storm, praise him in the whale, praise him. Amen?

Jonah, pardon me, God has mercy on Nineveh. Nineveh repents. God is one who relents from disaster. So this tells us this morning that when we’ve sinned repent, God relents from sending disaster on those who repent. Come on now. Amen? Jonah’s final word. So God has mercy on the Mariners. He has mercy on Jonah. He has mercy on Nineveh. 

And Jonah’s final words from chapter four, verse 10 and 11, make it crystal clear that God’s mercy and his forgiveness are available to the whole world. God’s mercy and his forgiveness is available to all. What God has brought into being, what God has made, what God has poured himself into, what God planted, people, what God labored for in creation, what God makes grow, should not God have compassion on that which he’s made. That’s chapter four. So the main point of Jonah for you and for me isn’t to be like Jonah. It’s not like the Mariners.

It’s certainly not be like a whale. The point of Jonah is to be like God. Be like the Lord. Be merciful. Be gracious. Jonah, the unmerciful prophet is set up by God for showing mercy to the unmerciful, the Assyrians, the climactic key, the very one verse that ties the whole thing together is Jonah chapter four, verse two, and it speaks of God’s character. Jonah says, God, I knew that you were merciful. I know you are compassionate.

I know that you are slow to anger. I know that you are rich and faithful. And the one who relents from disaster, that is God. That is God this morning. For clarity then, let’s just get a good view of what’s happening in the book of Jonah. First, God desires to extend mercy to an unmerciful Nineveh. God desires to extend mercy to an unmerciful world. You’re here with me this morning. You hear me? You got your amen with that?

God’s cry for mercy against Nineveh was actually for them. He was for the Assyrians. God is for them. God was giving them the opportunity to repent of their treacherous, evil ways to turn to God and be like God. That is to be merciful as he is merciful. That’s the first point. The second point is God calls Jonah an unmerciful prophet to be his voice of mercy. How’s that? God a merciful God calls an unmerciful prophet to go and speak to an unmerciful people.

To extend God’s mercy to over 120,000 merciless Assyrians who don’t know their left hand from their right and apparently have a lot of cattle. That’s the very last line of the entire book of Jonah says, and much cattle. Now your cattle, again, this is not my note. I’m stepping off for a second, but your cattle might show up with a three-car garage. Your cattle might be what you’re going to have for lunch next Sunday at Pastor Dave’s house. Right? So our cattle show up in how we eat, in the cars we have, in the motorcycles that we drive. I don’t know.

Throw on some people. But for all the things that we have, right? For all the things that we have, that’s like saying that God has a lot of cattle. The point is, the Assyrians were wealthy and yet they didn’t know their left hand from their right as the word of God says. So we’re going to just flash out for a second. Jonah runs away from God. Exodus chapter 34 verse 5 through 7 on Mount Sinai, Moses requests to see God’s glory. That is to see his face. That is to see the countenance in the presence of God.

And God said, you can’t see my face. No man can see my face and live. But God places Moses after getting the new Ten Commandments, chisels out a new pair of tablets. Moses drags them up Mount Sinai and God sets Moses up in the cleft of a rock and God passes by and says the same thing. Well Jonah says the same thing that God says about himself. So what Jonah speaks about in the book of Jonah about who God is, he is only saying what God has said about himself. God says this.

Exodus 34 verse 5, the Lord came down in a cloud and stood there with him there and proclaimed his name. Yahweh. The Lord passed in front of him proclaiming Yahweh, Yahweh is compassionate. This is God himself saying this about himself. Yahweh, Yahweh, a compassionate and gracious God. Low to anger and rich and faithful love and truth, maintaining faithful love to thousands of generations. Jonah proclaimed that same verse in Jonah chapter 4 verse 2. He says, I knew you’d be merciful.

It’s who you are. I knew you’d be kind. It’s who you are. But Jonah’s like, why are you being kind to them? Your kindness is for me. Your kindness is for my people. Your kindness isn’t for those Assyrians. When God calls Jonah to love Nineveh, probably a good church slogan, love Nineveh. Love the world you’re living in, love Nineveh. He’s calling Jonah to join into something that God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit have always been doing. God is love. God has existed Father, Son, Holy Spirit from all eternity. And His existence has been in love between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Now there’s an illustration that it’s funny because on the one hand, Dad we’re Pentecostals, which are a vibrant group, a moving group, a people who clap their hands, generally speaking, and a people who shout unto God, and a people who are expressive and vibrant and move by the Spirit of God. Oh, three views over here. A church that’s worshiping God and praising Him.

Expressive, amen? It’s really what Pentecostals are quite about. It’s the expression of being moved by God in His presence. Well, there’s this illustration that when God calls Jonah to go and love Nineveh and Father, Son, Holy Spirit and how that love has always existed, there’s a guy named Timothy Keller and he’s actually quoting C. S. Lewis. And before him, there’s another guy. The story has been, this illustration has been around for a while.

And when I first heard the illustration, I was like, boy, that’s different. But you know what? It actually makes a lot of sense. So I’m going to give it to you this morning and you can take a hold of this and see how it moves in your heart. When we talk about the Trinity, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, right? The way that Keller and Lewis talked about the Trinity is a divine dance. So hold on now, Pastor, we’re in Pentecostal church. We’re double dancing. A divine dance.

I was thinking on the way here, Dad, whether I should actually confess to having gone to a dance. I guess I am doing it now. Yeah, sit down. It’s okay. You’re relaxed. Okay. I actually, in Hamilton, Ontario, whatever school it was, I got out of the house, snuck out and went to a school dance. And I think mom busted me at the end of it, I think.

You had no idea. But I came home and I was sweaty. Like I had hair. I had a mullet. I had, you know, anyways. And I was like, I just sweated out. And my mom’s going to be like, where have you been? And I’m like, so the sweat wasn’t from gyrating and dancing. It was from being paced to a concrete wall surrounded by about 200 other teenagers, all scared to death to do anything at all, quite frankly. So nobody actually did any dancing. It was really loud music, a lot of lights flashing, and all the guys are pegged up against the wall. So that’s really what the dance was. So when Lewis and Keller start talking about dancing, I’m like, well, is this the Pentecostal, you know, like, is this the Pentecostal two-step kind of thing where we joy the Lord and worship God and sing His praise? 

What’s this dance? Keller and Lewis, they’re not talking about the craziness of the world, the ungodliness of the world. They’re talking about a divine dance, like a husband would dance with his wife in their marriage, a divine dance, a true dance, a tri-unity dance that has been shared from eternity past. So the Trinity, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, have always shared. They’ve shared with one another. They’ve adored one another. They’ve praised one another from all eternity. See, in the gospel, the Son only does, when you’re reading through the gospel narrative, the Son only does what He sees the Father doing. He’s keeping in step with the Father. And the Holy Spirit’s guiding the people of the Church of God.

In the New Testament, He’s guiding the people of God to keep in step with the Spirit of God. And there’s a divine relationship of what Lewis and Keller call a divine dance. The Holy Spirit always points to the Father. The Holy Spirit always points to the Son. In this relationship, a divine relationship. See, there’s always been a, in the Trinity, there’s always been a divine movement. God’s not stagnant. God’s not stoic. He’s not stagnant.

You serve a moving God, a God who moves, a God who loves, a God who came from glory to earth, amen? A God who saw what was going on down here, and a God who came because He loved. Again, 1 John 4 tells us that God is love, and that’s love within His very divine character. I sat with a Jewish man, a rabbi, the square hat, and the curls, and the locks in Israel. And he started talking to me about Christianity. Well, I started talking to Him. I want to talk to somebody. He started talking to me. So we had this conversation.

And he says, so what’s, he says, you guys, Jesus is God. And like, how do you, how do you function? How do you see all this stuff? He says, I, I, I just don’t understand it. And I said, well, just go back to Genesis. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And God said, let us make man in our image. And He just looked at me. I said, have you read this? He says, I have.

I said, who’s us? Not really sure. I said, well, may I suggest to you that us is the Father God, the Son, and the Spirit of God, that they are one God, three persons. He goes, there you go. He wasn’t excited about it. But I said, you got to tell me who us is. God wasn’t speaking to an alien race. God was speaking within the tri unity. See, God forgot to be love. There has to be more than one person. Love can’t exist by itself. If I love my brother, if I love my sister, then there’s an engagement. As Jonah’s finding out, he’s called by God to love. And love is stoic. Love is static. Love moves. God moves. And God moves Jonah. So this tri unity of relationship, all creation has mirrors actually God.

Think about it. All creation has movement to a divine dance. The oceans and the currents have a movement like none other. Sometimes even rather violent, hello? The seasons of life as we’re coming into fall, they have movement. The constellations of the heavens are as amazing and as it seems as still as they are. There is movement in the heavens. The divine dance is nothing like the self-centered world. The divine dance is other oriented. It’s other centered.

In John 17, verse 5, on his way to the cross, Jesus prayed, and now Father glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world began. 

There was a glory that God had, the Father had with the Son and with the Spirit. So in our remaining time that we have, God’s call for mercy from an unmerciful servant to be merciful as he is merciful. And God’s pursuit and purpose in a storm of mercy in and through the one who flees a glimpse of substitutionary atonement. We’ll talk about that in a moment. First God’s call for mercy through the unmerciful. Both Nineveh and Jonah tell us something that we all know quite well is that mercy is gone.

In this world, mercy is gone. There’s no kindness. There’s no mercy. It’s all virtual. People saying things they shouldn’t be saying to people that they would never say if they saw somebody face to face. Mercy is gone in this sinful, broken world. The divine dance in the garden was broken with sin. A God says to Jonah, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city and call out against it for their evil ways have come up before me.

Something’s broken in the world. Why ask Jonah to extend mercy? God is working his mercy into Jonah by asking Jonah to be merciful. God teaches you to be merciful by engaging with you to be merciful to others. Arise and go to that great city, but Jonah fled from the presence of the Lord. My goodness, the prophet called by God to bring the word of the Lord refuses to go. There’s always a boat headed to Tarsus when you’re supposed to go to Nineveh. Hello? Have you experienced the boat to Tarsus when you’re supposed to be going to Nineveh? Have you experienced that?

I have. You’re supposed to be going this way. God says go that way and he goes, well, I’ll catch you right that way. Jonah despises Nineveh. God calls him to call out against it and you think, well, hey, you think Jonah would say, hey, Assyrians are evil people. I’m in. Sign me up. Here’s a list at the back of the church. Sign me up to call out against them.

I’m in. But Jonah refuses. Why? Because he knows the mission will succeed. A prophet called to go refusing to go because the mission will succeed. Does anybody have a problem with that? What’s happening with the prophet? What happens with the pastor when he’s called to preach the Word of God and refuses to preach the Word of God for it would offend or refuses to preach the Word of God because it will succeed.

But Jonah refused because he knew God was merciful. Jonah flees from the presence of the Lord. Have you ever fled from the presence of the Lord? I bet you there are some people here that this the closest you’ve been to the Lord in a little while being in church. Some people, many of us built our lives around fleeing from God. In fact, if we’re honest, we all do it. In fact, it’s within our unfortunate, fallen nature. It’s what broken humanity does. It’s Genesis in the Garden of God, Adam and Eve hid from the presence of God.

They hid from the presence of God. Sin causes us to flee, to break, to withdraw and to hide from the presence of God. Jonah’s sinful heart is exposed as he sows proverbial fig leaves together to hide himself from the presence of God. The prophet, the preacher, had a word from the Lord and refused to go. Jonah was called to share the good news of God. He knew nothing about it. I tell you what in life, sometimes I felt just like that. I felt just like Jonah. You’re called to preach about things that you know nothing about.

You might know it up here, but you haven’t understood it in here. One thing for us pastors to preach and to know what we’re preaching about in our minds, but to know it in our hearts and that when we walk out the door of the church, that we not just hear what we’re preaching to you, but that we’ve heard it and that we go out of this place and live. The pastors are called to live, just like the people are called to live, fleeing from the presence of God. Oh, my goodness. Think about this for a moment if you would. God while working through people is working in people.

How big is God? God is omniscient. That means he’s all knowing. God is omnipresent. That means he’s everywhere. God is omnipotent. He is all powerful, which means simultaneously he is at work everywhere. I am convinced that many of our battles in our lives would not be so difficult if we believed that God was watching and he was with us. God was, if we knew and we believed that God was actually with us, how short would our battles be? I don’t know that we can ever say that God knew. Did God know? How can God know? That’s like past tense. God does not live in tenses. He created time. He lives past, present, and future all at once. God looked at you. He sees your birth, your life, your death, all just like that.

How great is God? How great is the Lord? He existed in eternal and eternal now. God has always been and he’s always known. God’s never blind. Nothing other catches God off. God sees. And merciful Jonah gets into a boat, flees from the face, the fellowship, the relationship with the Lord. What was he thinking?

Is that even possible? He said, I feared the God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land. If Jonah believed that he would not have been in the boat, if he actually feared the Lord, see merciful God calls and unmercable. Merciful prophet to be merciful as he is. Now on a personal note, God is calling you to be merciful, to be as he is, to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with people who seem to be out of reach, with people who are not kind, with people who are unlive, unlovely, someone who’s been cruel to you, someone who has been cruel to your family and to your friends. You might even say the person does not deserve the mercy of God.

Oh Jonah, he doesn’t even deserve the mercy of God. If that’s you, listen to how the mercy of God has come to you, how has God been merciful to you? He’s coming to communion in a few minutes. Think about all that Jesus has done. As a Christian, you have received mercy. He has taken your sin. He has taken your shame. He has taken your dead life and you’ve received a new one. He shared his eternal life with you.

Share what you’ve been given. Listen to the Apostle Paul tell the Ephesus Church Ephesians chapter two, you were dead in your trespasses and sins and once you once walked, once you lived in the passions of the flesh, the desires of the body being, but, but yet God who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he has loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins, God has made us alive together with Christ Jesus. By grace you have been saved. Believers in Christ, you have received the mercy of God. Be merciful. Let’s pursue it in the storm.

I’ve got to touch on the storm here in our time and while you’re engaging with communion, while you’re being served, if you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, this is for you communion. 

If you do not know the Lord, the Bible actually warns us about partaking of things, of this specifically. I will say this, if you don’t know Jesus, now is the acceptable time. Jesus, forgive me of my sins, created me a clean heart, oh God, renew a steadfast spirit within me, forgive me of my sins, may I walk with you and to eternity because communion is about fellowship with God. That’s what this is about.

Now if you like fellowship with God, maybe this should be your first communion, so to speak, where you actually partake of that which has been done for you. If you don’t know Jesus, it’s not for you. If you know Him, partake gladly. At the end of the service, if you’d like to come forward and want to talk about this, talk about knowing Jesus and walking with God, love to do that with you following the service today. But as you’re holding communion, we’re going to hit pause and look at the storm for a moment. See, God has purposes in storms.

In the storm, God pursues people, Jews and Gentiles alike. Jonah knew the storm was God’s hound of heaven, pressing Him and calling Him. The storm would bring pagan mariners to their knees and Jonah to the belly of a whale and a message to the streets of Nineveh, right to the king, the humor of God to bring Jonah into a boat filled with pagan mariners when he refuses to go to a pagan city. He surrounds them. He surrounds Jonah with pagans, people praying to other gods. So he gets into a boat with pagan mariners, only to sacrifice his life for theirs. Take a hold of that this morning. Here is the gospel.

Here the substitution area, a tome where Jesus substituted his life as a ransom for you, as a ransom for me. I can’t miss the gospel opportunity this morning. Thank you, sir. Take this one. Can’t miss the gospel opportunity this morning. Why does God have Jonah thrown into the storm by the pagan mariners? Why does God do it like that? There’s a type here. Jonah substituted himself for his fellow mariners.

If Jonah’s cast into the depths, the mariners won’t drown. Jonah saw that he deserved to be drowned and he sacrifices himself, Jesus Christ, who did not deserve death in his mercy, in his grace, cast himself into the depths of the sea of sin. Jesus throws himself into the waves under the wrath of God. Without mercy, Jesus takes the real justice. Jesus takes the real devastation. Jesus takes the real weight of sin, the sins of others. And if you’ve received him by grace, he has taken your sins and plummeted them to the depths of the ocean far deeper than any whale could ever go.

So far has he taken your transgressions from you? Without mercy, Jesus takes the real waves. Jesus endured the pain. He endured the suffering on the cross. God is not immune to difficulties. You hold in your hand a cup. You hold in your hand a way that reminds you of the death of Jesus Christ. God knew what it was like to suffer. God knows. He knows your trials.

We have a God that knows what the storms of life are all about. And he’s acquainted with grief and sorrow. If you would come to Jesus and ask for his mercy, there is no anger. There is no wrath of God for those who call out on his name. There is no ocean of despair. Mercifully, the price has been paid. Jesus has died on the cross for my sin and for yours. Jesus, while you were among your disciples, and we are your disciples here today.

 As we hold in our hands the bread, Jesus said to his disciples, take, eat. This is my body, a new covenant.

This is my body which is broken for you. Take, eat, in remembrance of me. Shall the church eat together? Oh, thank you, Jesus, for the body of Christ. It’s broken for us. After supper he took the cup, saying this is a new covenant in my blood. In remembrance of Jesus and his sacrifice and what he has done, shall we drink together? The cup is empty. The cup is empty. The cup is empty.

The cup is empty. He took it all. All of your sin, all of your shame. He saw you yesterday. He sees you today and he sees you eternally in his presence. And glory, it’s been done. He poured it all out. He didn’t keep anything back. He said, not my will. Father, your will be done.

In the divine dance, he submitted to suffering. In the divine dance with the Father, he submitted to the will of the Father, sacrificed himself for you, for me. And he’s calling you today to join the divine dance. I don’t know if it’s a two step. I don’t know if it’ll be hip hop. I don’t know what it’ll be. Please call this into a divine dance, into fellowship with God to love your neighbor as yourself, to love your neighbor as Christ has loved them, as Christ has loved you. What a day.

What a day it is to live for Jesus. His mercy. We’ve got a few minutes left. Reminds me of the woman, one of the Mary’s. She breaks open a box and pours it out on Jesus. In a burial ritual for him, she spared no expense. She lived it out. Years worth of wages, she spent it for God. Whatever we’re holding onto in this world, it will let us down. Only Christ is worth holding onto.

Everything else. It’s just to be used for his glory and for his grace. In Jesus’ name. Would you stand together? Lord, we come before a merciful God. And Lord, if anyone here has been unmerciful, Lord, it can happen so quickly. It can happen in a parking lot. It can happen in a grocery store where coldness creeps in. Self where our lives rotate around self and pride and where Lord Jesus, you are to be the center.

Jesus is the center of it all. It would help us to keep our focus of keeping you the center of our lives and not be bold up with pride and arrogance, but to live sacrificially as Jesus lived for us.

In Jesus’ name.

Amen.