Do you ever find yourself getting mad at the circumstances of your life, or at others, or at God for the way He does things? Jonah experienced the same, and in Jonah 4:5-11, God helps him understand what is going on in his heart beneath that anger. He does this to help heal Jonah, desiring to make his prophet more like Himself, with a heart that operates on the basis of mercy and compassion.

August 7, 2022

Helpful resources that shaped and influenced this sermon: Center Church by Tim Keller; Hosea-Jonah Word Biblical Commentary by Douglas Stuart; Jonah Bible Book Overview Video by Bible Project; Navigating a God-Centered Life by Colin Smith; The Prodigal Prophet by Tim Keller; The Reluctant Evangelist by Richard Coekin. "Outside the city" example from Tim Keller.

Many people think there is only one way to miss God: to run from Him through flagrant disobedience and outright rebellion. But there is another far more subtle way to miss Him: by going through the motions of "obedience" with a heart that is far from Him. Using the work of Tim Keller in "The Prodigal God" and the "The Prodigal Prophet", this sermon explores how Jonah misses God in Jonah 4:1-4 in this second way, producing anger, superiority, slavishness, and emptiness in his heart. It then examines how God pursues his wayward prophet once again, seeking to reorient his heart around mercy.

July 31, 2022

In 1965, the Byrds released the song "Turn! Turn! Turn!", a song that was used to call the country to a different future. The title of their song serves as an apt description of Jonah 3, because the passage contains 3 major turns. This sermon examines how Jonah gets a re-do of the initial call that he botched, giving us hope for when we blow it. It looks at how the Ninevites repent, responding to a message of future judgment not with scoffing but contrition. And it unpacks how God relents, revealing how God's warnings to us are ultimately gracious.

July 17, 2022

"When I was sinking down beneath God's righteous frown...". This line from the hymn "What Wondrous Love is This" captures what was happening to Jonah in the moments immediately after being thrown overboard from a ship. But it's not the end of the story, for God intervenes at the last minute in a miraculous way to save him. This sermon on Jonah 1:17-2:9 unpacks Jonah's helplessness and God's mercy, and explores how God still saves the same way today.

June 26, 2022

Scripture is full of "but God" moments. Humans do something foolish and God responds by intervening in a wonderful way. But will that be the case for Jonah, who has rebelled against God and is trying to flee from his presence? It may not seem so at first, as God sends a storm after him, but this sermon on Jonah 1:4-16 explores how the storm was actually a mercy from God, meant to win unbelievers to himself and arrest Jonah's flight.

June 19, 2022

Helpful resources that shaped and influenced this sermon: ESV Study Bible; The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones; Jonah Bible Book Overview Video by Bible Project; The Prodigal Prophet by Tim Keller. Storms being fascinating and terrifying from Matt Ross, "God's Voice in the Storm."

It is very easy to divide our world between the two categories of "us" and "them". We lionize those who belong to our camp, and demonize those who belong to any other. The book of Jonah addresses and pushes against the human, and even Christian, tendency to do this. The book is all about, as the ESV Bible says, "a God of boundless compassion not just for 'us' but also for 'them' ". In this sermon on Jonah 1:1-3, we examine Jonah, his mission, his rejection of that call, and his subsequent descent.

June 12, 2022

Helpful resources that shaped and influenced this sermon: ESV Study Bible; Exalting Jesus in Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk by Eric Redmond, Bill Curtis, and Ken Fentress; The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones; Jonah Bible Book Overview Video by Bible Project; The Message of Jonah by Rosemary Nixon; The Prodigal Prophet by Tim Keller