Post Sunday December 28 2008

Read Jonah 3:1-9

Jonah 3:5 “So the people of Nineveh believed God,…”

I’m glad no one came up to me after service and asked to have their picture taken! That tells me that you are all determined to “protect” those God given gains that came into your lives in 2008 and fully intend to see them grow and bring about change in your lives!

Take a moment and write down at least three things that you are sure God was speaking to you about in 2008. Now take a moment and read Jonah 3:1-9.

Many of us know the personal story of Jonah. The guy who didn’t respond to God, ran off in a different direction to escape God, almost caused the sinking of the ship that he tried to get away from God on, was swallowed by a great fish, stayed in that fish for three days, repented while in the fish and then was spit back up on land in order to go to Nineveh. Powerful story, but don’t overlook the powerful result of the story….what you read in Jonah chapter 3 was the result of Jonah’s carrying out of what God spoke to him about….

The response of the people in Nineveh has been recorded as the greatest revival in history, it was anything but casual. We are talking about a city of at least 120 thousand people and they all turned to believe in God. The Bible tells us that from the greatest to the least of them (v4), they all responded to what God had spoken to them and took action and made a plan to follow. We can learn a lot about how to break the cycle of unresponsiveness in our lives by how the Ninevites responded. They were a wealthy, well off people, even God referred to their city as great (v2), it was impressive, and they were not much unlike us today.

Let’s take a quick look at what caused this great revival, this outpouring of individuals who were ready to respond to God and take real steps toward change in their lives….

I. When making a Plan to Protect what God has spoken into your lives first BELIEVE in what was spoken (Jonah 3:5)

Real Belief will promote an active walk with God and an active walk with God will cause you to pray and plan. Of course you aren’t going to further your relationship with God if you doubt Him. The mind-boggling thing about this passage is that the response of belief in the Ninevites is brought about by only eight words from Jonah (v4)! They believed his report (v5), they believed God was who He said He was and because He is who He says He is and He can do what He said He will do. They actively believed and actively took steps attached to that belief. How do we know that? They proclaimed a fast (even the animals! When animals were included in those days it showed the desire of the ENTIRE community), they were going to give up food, they were going to give up the satisfaction that eating brings about, give up self-nourishment, so that they could be nourished and satisfied from above. Fasting would make them more sensitive to all that is around them, God I will give this up for a time, so I can listen to you. It is a sign of self-humiliation for you and a sign of exalting the God before you.

They put on sackcloth. Sackcloth was a course, roughly woven, burlap-like fabric, often made of goat’s hair, it was crude looking and uncomfortable to wear. It was the normal dress of the poor, prisoners and slaves. It again was a sign of self-humiliation before God and the uncomfortable feeling of their dress would remind them of their sin before God, causing them to cry out for mercy. New Heights this isn’t some crazy act. They wanted God to know that the life they had been creating for themselves was ending. They cancelled their ballgames, they turned off CSI, they cancelled their dinner dates, and they spent earnest time in prayer to seek out God’s desires instead of their own. Why did they do all this? Because they believed what they heard was from God and they believed in who He was and what He was capable of (think about that for a moment while looking at the items that you wrote down in response to the opening question about what you believe God spoke to you about this past year) They heard, they understood, they believed which caused them to take action.

II. When making a Plan to Protect what God has spoken into your lives make sure you TURN in the right direction (Jonah 3:8) (Remember the Caramel HoHo’s!)

We must realize that some of the things in our lives have us facing with our backs to God; the Ninevites turned away from their evil, their sin and turned to God. There are things in our lives that we must turn away from. I won’t go into this since we did on Sunday. Just remember the illustration from Sunday about the Caramel HoHo’s (if you weren’t able to listen to it, the message is online, just head to the website…)

Only one question….What has the power over you that cause you to turn your back on God? Your answer may scare you it isn’t always things like drugs or alcohol….it may be a family member, pride or something along those lines…

III. When making a Plan to Protect what God has spoken into your lives make sure you confront the major issues in your life (Jonah 3:8)

Notice that verse 8 doesn’t simply state turn from your evil it then goes on to say “and from the violence that is in his hands.” Nineveh was a wicked city; they were called by the prophet Nahum, “the bloody city.” (Nahum 3:1) They were a violent people and from what we can tell violence was the great sin of the city. Here we find the people of Nineveh not tip toeing around trying to fix up all the easy little things in their lives, but they confronted the biggest sin in their lives, violence. If there is a major issue in your life keeping you from responding to what God has spoken into your life then you need to stand up against it! Don’t quietly hope that it will fade away because it will not.

The game we lost that I told you about on Sunday was a good example of failure to face our biggest problem. My basketball teams problem was the fact that we were poor at running a half court offensive, we were good at the quick transition game and we were good at making everyone else play our type of game. When other teams were patient enough to stick with their offensive/defensive scheme they normally did well against us. We failed to face up to our biggest problem before taking on Franklin, we knew they were a slow down team, we knew that in all likelihood we would be forced to play and run a half court offensive. But we didn’t stress that, focus in on that, drive that home into our minds and break ourselves out of what we were conditioned to do. We said, well let’s just focus on what we’re good at and hope for the best. The problem with that is that the championship game was on the line. We had the ball in our possession. We were the number one team, it was our game to win, not to lose and we choose to passively approach the game instead of attack our biggest weakness.

What are the biggest issues in your life that you are not honestly confronting? Allow what God has spoken into your life to show you that He is with you on facing those issues! It is your game to win because God has already won!

Let 2009 be the year of response for all of us. Nineveh’s days were numbered they had 40 days, but they responded immediately instead of waiting until day 39. Let’s all take stock and put that plan of protection in place, protect those gains from 2008 and see how much they will grow this year!

Pastor e