Is It Too Late to Change?

Automatically generated from the video captions and lightly tidied, so expect the odd misheard word.

About three or four years ago, I was asked to preach in a conference of about 600 I know I was surprised to of about 600 youth and youth leaders and I said no. I was like what? So I had I was happy to do kids talk. I was happy to teach at youth group, but I had never e I'd never preached in the main room in the main service. And even when I hosted, when I did a welcome, I would be so shaky and my mouth would be really dry like it is right now. But it was really embarrassing back then.

I'm a lot calm right now. But I said no. And since then there was like a little a little niggle of that I had made the wrong decision. I had said no to an opportunity out of fear. And about a year later my husband came to me with an idea to plant a church and he's like now I've been praying over this. This will only work if we do it together.

And he asked me to preach. It's something that we've seen on our journey that like when we do things together that God seems to bless it. So he's like this will only succeed if we do it together. I had prepared myself and I'd been praying for opportunity and I was like God if that was something if that's something that you want me to do because I never had a calling never had a desire never had an urge but I was like you know what I'm going to be obedient to it. So I said yes. I took some Bible courses and here we are today.

Thank you. I'm still nervous, but I'm glad to have a second chance and a second opportunity to just walk in obedience. And I feel like that's really what our what our what we're going to see today is that God is a God of second chances. God is someone who if there's a calling, if there's a purpose, he's going to he's going to show you that opportunity. So I was able to say yes and this is why we need a lot of prayer because I'm not very comfortable up here. I'm not very confident but I'm obedient to God.

So let's go to the next slide. So Jonah 3 verse one. Okay. Dude, Dad didn't put the Bible reading of all of Jonah, did he? Okay. So, we are going to read all of Jonah first.

And if you have your Bible app, go ahead and open it. Usually, we do have it on the screen here. My apologies, we didn't get it on today. I am going to read from Jonah 3. All of all of Jonah 3. It's quite short, so we do encourage you to follow along to make sure that I'm not adding or taking away.

So I'm going to be reading from Jonah 3, the NIV Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you. Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city. It took three days to get through it. Jonah began to go by going a day's journey into the city, proclaiming, "40 more days and Nineveh will be overthrown." The Ninevites believed God.

A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. When Jonah's warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat down in the dust. This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles. Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything. Do not let them eat or drink, but let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God.

Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so we will not perish. When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened. Sorry, diet coke break. All righty.

So, it starts with actually let me bring you to where we are first. See guys, I need more practice. So Jonah was written by the prophet Jonah. Jonah is what a prophet is a messenger or God's representation representative to the people. So God would speak to Jonah and Jonah would speak that and communicate that to the people. So we he has in the previous chapters God has told Jonah.

So Jonah's here and he's said to Jonah, "Okay, you need to go to Nineveh. It's a wicked city. It's really bad, but you need to tell them that in 40 days they're gonna I'm gonna destroy them. And Jonah's like, "No." So, he goes this way. He turns because Nine Nineveh is over here. And he goes in the opposite direction and he tries to go to Tarses.

He gets on a boat and the boat sails away. And as he is sleeping on the boat, there's a great big storm and it's God turning him around. And so he basically knows that it is his fault that there's a storm and everyone's going to die. So he's like, "Just throw me overboard. That'll solve your problem." I don't know why he thought, but anyway, God provides a big fish to swallow Jonah and he is in the fish for three days and then the fish spits him up. It actually says vomits him, but I don't like that word.

So spits him up on the shore this is now God giving him a second chance and saying then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. So he's God is going to tell him the same thing the same thing he did before he's going to ask him to go to Nineveh. So I am glad that I serve a God who gives second chances. And we have a couple of we can see the dotted stories of this dotted all over the Bible. If we can go to the next slide. For example, Adam and Eve, they sinned against God, but God made a covering for them.

He gave them a second chance. Next one, if you don't mind. Thank you. Moses, he murdered a man, but God still used him to free Israel. Next one. David committed adultery and murder to cover it up.

But when he repented, we're going to learn a little bit more about that word later. Basically means turn around and turn towards God's way and not your own. God forgave his sins and didn't stop calling him a man after God's own Next one, Zakius. He lived a greedy life robbing others, but Jesus came to his home, forgave his sins, and saved him. And finally, Peter. He denied Jesus three times, but Jesus forgave Peter and asked him to help build the first century church.

Now, even though we have a God of second chances, it doesn't mean that there are not consequences to our own our own and so just as just as Jonah was sitting in the consequences of his disobedience, he's sitting in the stink. He's sitting in the vomit. He's sitting, it's so pungent. He's sitting in the regurgitation and he's sitting there and God's like, he comes to him a second time and he says, "Go." So there sometimes is messiness even though you can have a second chance and a second So I know of a professor middle-aged professor who h ended up having an affair with one of his students and she was just about to get married. It. A couple months later, they realized that she was pregnant and it was the professor's baby.

And so, basically, their both couples lives just because the secret came out and there were decisions that had to be made. So, the decisions that were made was that the couples would stay together, but he could but they could never see each other. And so that means the consequence of that, even though there's forgiveness and even though those couples are recon are reconciled and are working together, it's hard. It's messy. It's sad. This man is never going to see his biological child.

And I don't know if he's ever going to know who his real dad is. And that's sad. And this professor has actually since become a Christian. And his sins are forgiven and his and he has repented and he's he's apologized and he's living a loving and faithful marriage with his wife but he grieavves the con the decisions that he made before. So, so there's even though there is a second chance there may also be consequences that we have to deal with from our So the word that this is why it would be helpful if my lovely husband had put the verses in. Anyway, the word in I think it's the second verse where God says go the original is cumulac and that is exactly how they pronounce it in Hebrew. and so basically I think like sometimes the English words aren't they don't give enough give enough weight to it. So we read it and it and it says that God tells him to go and tell and talk to the Ninevites. But basically it's it's got a real sense of urgency. It's there's a movement in it when it's come like go now. Go immediately. Go today.

So he's sitting there. He's covered in fish vomit. And God says go now. Go immediately. Go today. And he So what has God told you to do?

Sometimes it's very clear. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it takes a little bit of work. Sometimes there's that thing that you already know that you're regretting a decision that you made or there's something that you want to do but you haven't stepped up to it. What has God told you to do? So I was sitting where you are now in a church a couple years ago now.

And it was called just 1%. So, it was a sermon, a message from the Bible talking about giving to God. And so, it was a very handsome preacher who was preaching it. So, you can guess who that was. But I was sitting there and so the concept was basically if you're not giving if you're not giving regularly to start with 1% and then every year give 1% more until you get it back to 10%. And that's you know roughly a good place to be.

And I'm sitting there and I'm like yeah this is wonderful. I'm looking around and people are like getting it and they're thinking oh yeah you know what I've never really never really considered you know giving regularly but yeah this sounds good. But I knew that this message wasn't for me because we were already giving 10%. So I'm sitting there and I was like, "Oh yeah, yeah, that is this is great, but it's not for me." And then a thought goes through my mind. And it was like, "Are you sure?" and I'm sitting there and I'm looking around and I'm like, and then and I'm like, "This is not for me." I'm kind of I'm saying to myself, "This is a really good preaching. It's not for me.

And then it comes again. Are you sure it's not for you? And so after I'm I'm going to say that was God because it's usually God calls us to do something that we don't want to do. So I it had never occurred to me. Never thought never thought about actually giving above 10%. And so after prayer and consideration Oz and I made the decision that we would yearly give 1% more and respond to his own preaching.

I mean, it was his own fault h to give 1% more every single year until we got to 20%. That was scary. But now where we are today, I'm actually Don't tell him this, but I'm praying that we can give 1% more until we get to 30%. Because we have seen so much of an abundance and a blessing and just an over supply of God's provision when we walk in obedience. Now don't mishar me. That's that was our story.

So that's that was our system and our obedience that we needed to do. So God is God may be speaking to you about finances and giving financially, but there may be something else. It may be forgiveness that he's calling you to. It may be it may be reaching out to someone that he's calling you to. So whatever that is, just be obedient to that and that's when the blessing comes. It's in the obedience.

And we have seen that. So, he almost caught me. So Jonah goes in and he gives the shortest sermon ever. And he probably did it with a bad attitude because he really didn't want to be there. H he didn't want to be there. He didn't want the people to be saved and but he just he just knew he had to he had to be obedient.

So, he goes in. Actually, let me give you some context about the So, if you've ever heard of Sodom and Gomorrah, it's kind of like that. So, it was absolutely horrific, horrific things that were being done in Nineveh. They were awful, awful people doing the worst of the worst. Absolutely horrific. And it was probably very dangerous for him to also be in there.

And so he goes in and also in those areas, you know, like in Gway, there's specific places where people busk where there's buskers. Yeah. So back in the day in the ba in the major cities there would be specific places where people would meet and there would be like orators and someone would someone would speak or share something on philosophy. So there was these pockets of places. So when it's saying it took three days he wasn't just like circling the place he was going to these places. He's standing there and he's probably like okay God 40 more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.

And then he goes over to the next place and he's like, "Seriously, 40 more days and Nineveh will be And what do we see happen? We see these wicked, horrible people hearing that and say, "Okay, no." They change. They turn. They stop what they're doing. They do. They do what you usually do when you're mourning.

They put on sackcloth and they were they started fasting. It caused when they believed it caused a change of action. When they believed God, not but not that they believed Jonah, but they believed God was going to overthrow the city, they changed. So believing something and believing in something is slightly different. So in James 2 verse 19 says you believe that there is one God good even demons believe that and shudder. So there's a difference there's a difference in knowing something to be true and actually believing it.

So, for example, if I if I believed that I had left my well, it's not obviously not a hair straightener cuz I don't have any hair, but if I left like the burner on the stove on, I would send my husband home to go and go and turn it off because if I genuinely believe that there would be an action that followed it, if my if there's a lot there's a lot of I don't want to use my children as an example, but okay, we're move but it's but there's there's action when you when you believe. So, let's look at the next one which explains it a little bit more. Repentance. To change your mind so deeply, you change your life completely. So, when we're talking about repentance, we're saying, okay, this is my way. This is the way I want to go, but this is God's way, so I'm going to go God's way.

So you change your mind so deeply. You fully believe that what is said, that is what is being said is true. If you fully believe God when he says that it is that you are created in the image of God that you have value that you have worth then you know that's going to that's going to change your actions. You change your mind so deeply you change your life completely. Oh these are the wrong slides. Okay.

We're gonna read back again on Jonah. Sorry. I apologize. There was a miscommunication with the slides. I did an updated slide because guys, I had a last minute request for visuals. So, we're going to do visuals.

Alrighty. So, can someone read from verse Read verse seven. Free to leave. Okay. 7 to 10 is it or nine? Okay.

Okay. This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles. Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything. Do not let them eat or drink. But let people and animals be covered with slack cloth. Let everyone call urgently on God.

Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish. When God saw what they did and how when God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened. Thank you. So, you see, there was a physical change.

What they did was they put on the sackloth. I'm sure theirs were nicer than mine. But not only did they put on the sackloth, their children put on the sackloth. And I'm not going to ask you to put on the sackloth. Micah, do you want to prepare to be do you want to pretend to be an animal? Yeah.

You've got to run and I'll try and catch you and put the sackcloth on. Ready? Go. You're not a good You're not a good runner. Okay, good job. Give it up for my sheep.

So they so not only were they took it so seriously. Not only they and their children were mourning and doing their fast and walking in their sackcloth, but also the animals. I wonder where they got all that sack from. Do you mind holding this for a Sorry guys. So again, repentance means that there's a shift, a change of behavior. All righty.

So, the next one, Nineveh experienced conviction. So conviction is not bad. Conviction, conviction can only be bad if you don't do anything about it. Conviction is good. Conviction is a tool that God uses to help put point out your blind spots. Conviction is something that the Holy Spirit uses to help you to get closer to him.

So conviction is good. So Nineveh experienced conviction. It and conviction can come through many different things. It can come from a thought. It can come from when you're reading your Bible recognizing something. It can come from a teaching that you've never heard before and you're like, "Whoa, okay, that actually sounds great." Nineveh experienced conviction. They heard the message and they believed. But let me go on to the next one. Don't waste your second Don't waste your second chance. So Jonah got given a second chance and he obeyed God. Because he obeyed God, a city of thousands of people, their lives were So don't underestimate the power of your yes to God. Don't worry about the past.

Yes, you might still be, you know, sitting in the mess of the consequences of previous choices, but don't waste your second chance. You don't know the impact that your yes is going to make. And we've seen that. We've seen that even in people saying yes to serving, people saying yes to stepping up and helping out with kids team, people saying yes to even attending church. You don't you don't know what your obedience to the thing that God is calling you to, what impact it's going to make on your life, your family's life, your friends. So don't waste that opportunity.

So a famous pastor once said, "The opportunity of a lifetime only exists in the lifetime of that You know it." so I did just want to give this warning as well is that when God gives you a second chance, it might not be there forever. So, so when you have that second opportunity, take it.