Zac Applegate: Welcome to the Sandals Church podcast. My name is Zach, and I'm part of the online team here at Sandals Church. We're so happy to have you join us today as we listen to this message with pastor Matt Brown teaching from our series, Big Fish. If If you've enjoyed our content, consider leaving us a rating to help this podcast reach more people. But for now, let's get into the message.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown: How many of you guys know someone you love, someone you care about that's messed up their life? Raise your hands. Look around. Life is hard to live, easy to screw up. And that's what I see over and over again.
I see people in our world today just messing up their lives. And this is what we need to tell our young people. It's hard to live a good life. It's easy to screw up your life. And so we're in the book of Jonah today, and we're gonna be in the book of Jonah for the next couple of weeks.
And I know where our country's thinking and what our country is thinking about. But I want you to know that if we want to fix our lives, we need to turn our attention away momentarily from what's happening in our country, and we need to reflect once again what's happening with me and God. Where am I with God? So if you need to fix your life today, if you're bankrupt, if you're messed up, depressed, if you're gonna go through a divorce, if you're confused, here's what I wanna encourage you to do today. Here's the first thing I check out every time I feel like my life is it is headed in the wrong direction.
Number 1, stop running from God. Stop. There are so many people today, and you all know them. You got friends. You got family members.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I believe in God. I believe in God. When's the last time you've been to church?
Years. Oh, yeah. Me and God are good. Have you asked God? Have you asked God?
So many people have convinced themselves that they're good with God when they've never asked God if they're good. So many people today are running from God. I don't believe in the institutionalized church. I don't believe in organized religion. That's why sandals isn't organized.
Amen? We're just following Jesus. Look. There there there's a lot wrong with the institutional church, but there's still a lot right with Jesus. And stop blaming people for your problems with God.
Stop running from God. If the Lord has spoken to you, if he's nudged you, man, if you've just got this sense, this feeling, still in America the overwhelming majority of Americans believe in God. Can you believe that? Despite how we're headed. So we got a lot of people that believe, but we got a lot of people that are running.
If you if you're if you don't know anything about the Bible, I wanna give you one of the scariest verses. Even the devil believes in God but shudders. See, believing is not enough. You gotta learn to follow. Stop running from God.
So we're gonna go back to where we were last week, and then we're gonna jump into where we need to be this week. Last week, we were in Jonah 1. And Jonah is one of the most important books of the Bible that many Christians have never read, never heard about in their entire life. You know it's only 4 chapters. You can read it in in 10 minutes.
Did you know that it's the easiest Hebrew to learn? And and the and the reason I know that is because when I began to learn Hebrew, our professor said, open your book, your Bible to Jonah. It's the simplest form of Hebrew. God doesn't want us to miss this message. In Jonah 1:1 through 3, the word of the Lord came to Jonah.
It's the only book in the Bible where it begins with those words. The word of God came to a person. And he says, go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it. And we talked about this last week, that the actual Hebrew does not say preach against it, but it says preach over it. Instead of preaching against America, what if we started preaching for America?
And we came over her and we loved her and we cared for her. What if people thought we were not coming to judge, but we were actually coming like Jesus to save? And then it says because its wickedness has come up before me. If you don't know your Bible, here's one of the things that you you need to be afraid of. When your city stinks so bad that God smells it in heaven, it's a problem.
And sometimes God sends angels. He says, I'm getting a whiff. And he'll send angels down. And angels are like, yep, that's the stench. And then the Lord comes down and he handles his business.
You know what I'm saying? And it's never fun. It's never fun. So the Lord came to Jonah. And I and I just gotta imagine that many of you, you're watching.
Maybe for the first time, you just clicked on YouTube and you're like, God, where are you? And all of a sudden, boom, you're listening to this message. I want you to know that the Lord is using this message to speak to you just like he spoke to Jonah. And some of you are sitting at home in your pjs. Man, that's fine, but but maybe God wants to talk to you today about something different, something else.
So many of you, there was a time in your life where you felt God, you were close to God, you heard from God, but you've ran away from the Lord. And what did he do? He headed to Tarshish. Now we shared this last week. Imagine God called you to Europe and you headed to China.
You know what I'm saying? I mean, in the in the wrong direction. So he went down to Joppa where he found a ship bound for that port. He's like, man, I gotta get out of here now. After paying the fare, listen to that, he paid money to run from God.
He went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord. Let me just help you out. You cannot run God. You cannot outrun from God. David said this.
He's the greatest king in Israel's history. He says this, where shall I go from your spirit? Where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you know what that means? Even the astronauts cannot run from God.
You are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, and I want you to I want you to remember this word for later in the message. Sheol is the Hebrew word for the place of the dead. I'm a say it again because I want you to remember this later. Sheol is the Hebrew word for the place of the dead.
So if you're a Christian, right, we we have we have a binary sense of the afterlife. There's heaven and there's hell. The Bible teaches that there's a waiting place where you're divided before the day of judgment, and it's called Sheol. Jesus talks about it. There's a chasm between the righteous and the unrighteous, and they're awaiting judgment where?
In a place called Sheol. Why? Because you're dead. You're dead. If you wake up tomorrow in Sheol, I got good news for you.
Bye. He says, even if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. Timothy hears this from the apostle Paul. I charge thee therefore before God as the lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick. Listen to me, young people.
I know you're quick now. This morning, I woke up not so quick. I'm like, ah. What is going on? The lord shall judge the quick and what?
The dead. Nobody runs from God. Nobody runs from God. Like, just think about that, man. You cannot outrun God.
Now how many of you have kids? Raise your hand if you have kids. If you have more than 1 kid, one of your kids will be a runner. Now and if you're single and you're like, what do you mean? So here's what it means, if you say stop, they they go.
If you say, come here, they leave. No matter what you say, man, they assume when their name is called, they flee. And I had one of those. And she always thought she could get away from me. I'm a triathlete.
I can run and run and run. And her legs were like this tall. But you know, there's this one time, man, where I said to her, I said I said, Kennedy, Kennedy. And she did what she does, she ran. And you know what she ran?
Right in front of a bus. And we had a a group of about a 150 youth kids. I saw the bus driver's face, he screamed, everybody on the bus screen, all the youth kids screamed, and I got her right by the horse collar. Now in football, that's a penalty. In parenthood, that's a blessing.
Amen? That's a blessing. Like in football, you horse collar, they throw a flag. Parents, we clap. Good job.
Good job, dad. Good job. And I snapped her neck right back and that bus screeched. And she was that close from death. Listen to me.
God is not chasing you to judge you. He's chasing you because he's your father in heaven and he loves you. And you're like, no no no. I will run into the bus. I will show you God.
Next, I I want you to hear me. You wanna fix your life? Start taking God seriously. One of the things that's kept me on the straight and narrow as your pastor, you wanna know why you don't read about me in the papers, you don't wanna know why you don't hear me messing up or messing around with other women, Because I fear God. I had an encounter with God in college that scared me.
That scared me. And the book of Jonah should scare you. Now if you're a child of the seventies, how many of you remember Jaws? K. The young people are like, I don't understand what it is that you speak of.
But Jaws came out in 1976 or 7. I can't remember exactly. It terrified the world. It's why even children today hear when they get in the water to their knees. And listen to me.
I was spending the night at my aunt and uncle's house, and they had this new tech technology. It was called HBO. That's how you know when you're staying in a bad hotel when it advertises HBO, and it should say and cockroaches. Right? That's what it should say.
But in the seventies, HBO, home box office, that was for rich people, man. And so my uncle said now listen. There are some things that you shouldn't be watching. And he said, and one of them is the movie, Jaws. Don't you watch that?
And they went on a date. What do you think I did? I clicked on Josh had cute girls, naked lady swimming in the ocean. I was like, Lord, this is my kind of television. Remember what happened to the naked lady?
And I was like, uh-oh. But I couldn't stop watching. That movie scared me to death. You know what I had to sleep on that night? Water bed.
It was a water bed. Only the old only the old people know what a water bed is. All night long, I'm like, oh, no. Oh, no. Oh.
All I should have done was take my uncle seriously. You need to take God seriously.
Dani Crowley: Thank you so much for joining us today. If this message has served you in any way, I wanna invite you to give today to the work that we are doing here at Sandals Church. You can do that by going to give dotsc@anytime. But for right now, let's get back into the message with pastor Matt.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown: Do you know what Jonah is? Jonah is jaws. That's what it is. If you don't wanna end up being a toothpick in a fish's mouth, listen up. So God said, Jonah, I want you to go to, to Nineveh.
He said, Nope. Go on to Tarshish. I'm gonna go my own way. I'm gonna do my own thing. You can't control me.
I have agency over my own body. Right? It's all about me. And the Lord was like, oh, I didn't know you were in control. So Jonah got on on a boat.
Remember last week, the Lord, like a quarterback, hurled a storm right at him. And all the non christians are like, what's going on? And Jonah's sleeping. They wake Jonah up, they figure out what's wrong. They throw Jonah overboard and that's the best part of his day.
I I just I just want anybody had a bad day? I want you to imagine the best part of your day is being thrown overboard in the ocean. Like, that's the best thing that's gonna happen to you all day. Jonah 117, and the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. Can I get a no thank you?
No thank you. No thank you. You wanna know why I gotta live right? Because I surf. I surf.
And do you know what is in the California Ocean? Great whites. You know what that means? They like white meat. That's what they like.
Nobody's ever heard of a brother getting eaten by a great white. You've never heard of it. I kid you not, every time my buddy Eric, right here, my surf partner, we pray before we go in the ocean. Lord, bless us. Keep us.
Because we're 2 white dudes going out there. Man, and somebody said, why don't you get the shark bands thing? You know, they found people, their leg bitten off and the shark bands thing on the ankle. Man, that's why I live right because I know I'm going in the water. I know I'm going.
Some of you, you live however you want, man. You get on airplanes. Man, I hope I'm not on your plane when you're disobedient. The Lord's gonna, like, I gotta get your attention. Next time you're on a plane and there's turbulence, just stand up.
Would somebody please repent? And hope to God it isn't the pilot. Amen? And listen to this. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish 3 days 3 nights.
You know why that is? Sometimes God's got us hold us down a little bit to talk to us. 3 days 3 nights in the belly of the fish because Jonah thought he could outrun God. Now I wanna talk to all the Christians. Raise your hand if you're a Christian.
Drives me crazy. I'm so frustrated with you. You know why Christians you know you know why you know why just between us girls, you wanna know why I'm so I'm so mad at you? I can't stand it when I hear Christians say this. Well, I just don't have a testimony.
That's because you've never read Jonah. You see, disobey listen to me, Christian. Disobedience to God is always worse than ignorance of God. Always. Now I you don't have a story.
I was in Vegas, tore up from the floor up. Okay. But do you know what? God deals more harshly with Jonah than he does with Nineveh, because Nineveh don't know any better. And somebody like, I don't have a testimony.
Oh, you have a testimony. You are disobedient. And the Lord's gonna send you a fish. He's gonna send you fish, and it's gonna swallow you. And you're gonna be a toothpick for a while, right in that fish's mouth.
1st Peter 4 17. Some of you don't believe me. Listen to me. This is what Peter says. For the time has come for judgment.
Oops. Scary. And it must begin with God's household. Go and look at my social media thing. I I talked about that a lot of Christians don't understand the difference between condemnation and judgment, and most Christians are not ready for judgment because they think all of their sins are for you know, past, present, and future are forgiven, and it's all good.
And we've all heard that, and that's because people have not read the gospel. God is gonna deal with you. Now I'm not saying that you're going to hell. I'm just saying the Lord is gonna have a long talk with you, and there's comment after comment after comment of Christians in their ignorance saying, that's not what's happened to me. I said, well, you need to read your Bible because judgment doesn't begin with the sinners.
It doesn't begin with the devil. It begins with Christians who did not listen, who were not obedient, who knew better and did differently anyways. So what do you do? Repent of my sin quickly. Just just do it.
Just do it. Here's here's why I wanna encourage you to repent. The Lord already knows. It's it's not like it's news. It's not like Jesus like, I wonder if he did it.
He knows. He knows. Just repent quickly. Couple years ago, when Instagram first came out, my wife went out on vacation. And I was scrolling through.
We're getting ready to go on trip to Hawaii. And there was this one particular beach that I wanted to go to and I was scrolling through, and there was a picture of a woman in a bikini on that beach. And I didn't know at the time that if you double tap it, you like it. So I double tapped on the picture of the girl in the bikini on the beach. You know who follows me on Instagram?
My wife. So she came home from the trip. I was thinking we're gonna get a little loving. You know? She said, so what were you, looking at on Instagram?
And I was like, nothing. She says, okay. She rolled over in bed. And you know what we did that night? Nothing.
All night long, I was ate up, ate up. You wanna know why? Because I didn't repent. I wasn't honest. I woke her up in the morning and I said, I looked at that picture and I double tapped that and I am so sorry.
She said, I knew. You know why she knew? Instagram told her. It instagrammed her my sin. And she said, and just so you know, everyone who follows at pastor mattbrown, they also know that you like that beach with that girl on it.
And I was like, fucking fired. Repent quickly. Let me just ask you as a Christian. I mean, you're all laughing and giggling. When's the last time you repented?
I guarantee you, you've sinned recently. Be like, I'm good, the Lord died. You've not read the gospel. Jonah is a prophet of God who sinned against God. There was a special calling, a special anointing, a special gifting on his life And he was still disobedient.
And you know what? God dealt with him. Jonah 21. Jonah prayed to the Lord. Man, amen.
I pray when that plane shakes. Anybody else? I am the most spiritual person. I will stand up and lead the plane in a Hillsong worship song. Right?
You know? I'm scared to death, you know, when you sit next to somebody on airplane, they're gonna ask me, you know, what do I do? Man, if that plane's going down, I'm telling everybody, you know, I am a prophet of God, and we have sinned, and we need to repent and get right. Jonah prayed to the Lord, his God, from the belly of the fish. Look, you wanna get out of the belly?
Repent. You wanna get out of jail? Repent. Turn around. Change your life.
It's not just about what you think. It's about what you do. It's about what you do. He says, I called out to the Lord in my distress and he answered me. Man, here's the good news of God.
No matter how stupid you've been, how foolish you've been, how sinful you've been, no matter where you are or what you've done, when you call out to him, he answers even from the belly of the whale. Listen to this. Out of the belly of Sheol, I cried. Remember what I told you what Sheol is? What is Sheol?
It's the place of the dead. Now I know a lot of you grew up in church with a felt board, you know, and and and and Jonah's inside the whale and he's praying because there was, like, an oxygen tank or whatever, you know, or God magically listen to me. I think there's a reason that Jesus says the only sign that this generation will receive is the sign of Jonah. And just like Jonah who was in the belly of the whale for 3 days, he says, I will be in the belly of the earth for 3 days. I think Jonah was dead.
I think he was dead. And oh by the way, you wanna become a Christian? Do you know what you need to do according to Jesus? Die to yourself. Do you wanna know what baptism is?
Baptism is a picture of your death. You are buried with Christ unto death, raised to walk a new life. The reason some of us this this is why I can't fix your life because you're still trying to save your old life. You're still trying to be your old disobedient Jonah. That Jonah needs to die.
And you say, well pastor, I never heard anybody say that. I remember the first time I read this in Hebrew. I raised my hand to my professor. I said, was Jonah dead? And my my Hebrew professor said, yeah, but don't tell anybody.
I was like, this has just completely changed my whole felt board experience. Out of the belly of Shoal, I cried. I cried and you heard me. I know there's somebody in our church today that's going through hell. And that's why Jesus came, to save you from hell.
And you're in it right now. He heard Jonah from the place of the dead. Now let's give Jonah some credit. That dude was stubborn. You know what I'm saying?
How many of you would've repented when you got thrown in the water? Like, I'd be, I'm good. Okay. You know what? But how many of you have a friend, a family member where their bottom You know what I'm saying?
We always say this. Well, they just gotta hit bottom. You you heard that? And their bottom is a lot lower than your bottom. And then you think they hit bottom, but then there was a basement.
And then you think they hit bottom in the basement, and then there's a cave. And then you think they hit bottom in the cave and now they've descended onto Shoal and that's Jonah. Can you imagine you're in the water, there's a storm. And then now what what just swam by me? I'd have repented right then.
Wait. Wait. That thing just swam by me? Who's giving their life to Jesus? I am.
Can you can you imagine what that felt like? I bet the Lord had it do a couple of laps. Do you know that's what a shark does? It circles you. Oh, yeah.
And you know what you do? You just prepare. And then there's all these people, I'm gonna fight that shark. Okay. You know?
You know what that shark's gonna do? He's just gonna play with you. He's just gonna play with you. It's like those videos of the leopards playing with the little gazelle. Just like you know?
And you're like, oh, they're friends. The leopard's like, run again. Run again. I got you. Man.
Whatever this was, Jonah's like oh, man. And I can tell you as a surfer, I've seen things go underneath me. And you say, what were I didn't stick around. I don't know. I wasn't, like, you know what?
I'm going to explore this. Does anybody remember the crocodile hunter? That was that guy. Let's explore this. Now get out of there.
You wanna know why you're still alive today? 2nd Peter 3:9. The lord is not slow in keeping his promises. Some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient with you.
Not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to, listen to this word, repentance. Not just faith, not just belief. There's a lot of people that believe. I mean, how many of you have friends that believe in God and have no plans on ever serving him, going to church, participating in anything godly? How many of you have a friend like that?
Come on. But they believe they're good they're good. Right? They're good. They got their get out of hell card.
They're going to heaven. They said a prayer. They were 8 years old. You know who they are? Jonah and a fish is circling, giving them time to repent.
You see, God's slowness, listen to me, is actually His goodness. It's His goodness. So what do we do? You wanna fix your life? Serve God faithfully.
Serve God faithfully. Why did you plant a church, Matt? Because God told me to. Why have you stayed at Sandals Church? Because God told me to.
You anybody got a friend who's God's always changing his mind? Like, I got these friends. Oh, God told me to go here, and then he told me to go there. Like, wow. Your God's confused.
My God isn't. He speaks and he expects obedience. There's all these Christians running around. God's will is always changing like the wind. I'm like, that's not god's will.
That's your foolishness. It's your foolishness. Jonah 2:8:9. Apparently, he had some time to think in Shoal. He wrote a poem.
You can read it. Jonah chapter 2. It's powerful. You know, I think there's gonna be a lot of poet poetry in hell. Jesus calls it the place of weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Let me translate it, regret. Regret. Jonah 2:8:9, those who cling to worthless idols, woo, forfeit God's love for them. What are you holding on to that's keeping you from God? Worthless idols.
Worthless idols. What's keeping you from God? Boy, we live in Southern California, and I know some of you, you know, you watch from other parts of the country. But in Southern California, there are plenty of idols to worship. I can snowboard and surf in the same day and then have dinner in the desert.
There are plenty of things to worship. But listen to what Jonah says. But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. Man, what I have vowed, I will make good. I will say salvation comes from the lord.
You know what? It's easy to fall in love with my things, my things. You know the one word I never taught my kids? The word mine. I don't know how they figured it out, but they just, mine.
My I'm like, you owe nothing. You're 2. My things. I mean some of us, we think we're so generous because we've donated some of my things to the Lord. Let me tell you something, all my things are God's things.
They're it's all His. And he can take it away at any moment. How many things did Jonah have left? He sold everything he had to get a ticket on the boat. Then they made him throw away whatever he had.
Remember what he was sleeping. They didn't even ask him. They just threw away everything. Your things amount to nothing. Listen to me.
You were born into this world with nothing in your hands, and you will leave with nothing in your hands. Stop falling in love with stuff. It's just stuff. You know what God loves? People, not things.
You know what else is easy to fall in love with? My time. My time. You know what? Some of you during COVID, your idol became your time.
You got used to doing whatever you wanna do. And now you have all kinds of excuses why the Lord doesn't deserve your time. And here's the thing. One day, you're gonna stand before God, and God's gonna say, didn't I say 6 days are yours, one day is mine? Let's run the time clock.
Let's see when you checked in. Anybody old enough to remember when you would check-in? Click click click click. The young people are like, what is this? You literally you had a card.
I would go to work. I would put it in a thing and it would make like a bullet sound, like they were killing you 1 hour at a time. Bam. And you had to check out for your break. Does he remember that?
You know, there was no emotional support days in the eighties. They called that getting fired. That's what that was. You oh, you need you need some you time. Okay.
Next, my desires. Oh, there's all these people. They're on the Internet. Oh, the gospel's changed and the good news and we're unpacking the Bible once again and we're discovering new things. No, no, no, their idol is their desires.
Jonah has some desires, how did that work out? He's in the belly of fish. He's eaten. Like I don't know how you wanna die eating, that's not how I wanna go. I don't wanna be eating.
Next, my money. Some of you may hear, I I give the Lord 10%. Can you imagine Tammy and I, we've been married 28 years. I'm like, you know what, babe? You can have 10%.
I love you. I I I'm generous. How many of you think, Tammy, I'll be in counseling if I share 10% with Tammy? You see, it's hard to stay faithful to my vows. Do you know why divorce divorce is so easy?
Because vows are hard. Vows are hard. Those of you who've known me for a long time, you you've you know my journey of flying. I when I was a kid, a a a b 52 crashed right next to, my elementary school, and it was it was traumatizing. And I didn't realize how bad it had impacted me, but all all the the pilots and the and the young men on that plane, they all died.
We we saw the flame. It it was terrifying, and it it really inhibited me for for a long time in my life. So I'm not a big fan of flying still to this day. You know? I do it because it's a lot faster than walking.
You know? So but Tim and I, last week, we we we were we were away, and and we had an 11 hour flight. Now I hate flying for a couple of reasons. Number 1, because you're in the air. And the Lord says, lo, I am with you always until the end of the age.
Just telling you what the word of God says. And I'm claustrophobic. And whoever who whoever's idea it was, let's build a tube and shove people in it. I would have said, have you met a claustrophobic claustrophobic person? So I I don't I don't like that.
You know, people are like, get a window seat. That doesn't help. You know? Because all that shows me is how I can't escape. So Tammy and I were coming back, and it was an 11 hour flight.
And I fly enough nowadays where from time to time, I I get upgraded to business class. And sometimes, they upgrade both of us. But this time, they upgraded one of us. Me. Oh, I was so tempted to put her in coach.
I I was just like, you know what, Lord? I think you need to you humble her and work, you know, just work through her. And, so you know you know what I did? I said, you know what, babe? I said, they've upgraded me.
I'm gonna put you in business class, and I'm gonna sit back and coach. And maybe tomorrow when we get there, they'll upgrade me. And we got there, and they didn't. And, she felt bad about it. And, dude, you know, she's up in in, you know, 1st class sipping champagne, watching a big screen.
You know, I've got a girlfriend now because we're so close to each other. It's just like it's like, who who decided it's appropriate to fall asleep on a stranger? Like, I have a woman. I don't even know her name. Her head is on my shoulder and her arm is across the barrier that is to protect everyone and all that is holy.
And then I'm on a row with a woman who's had a baby. It's not my baby. And he gets a crib. He's laying down in luxury in my space for 11 hours. And I'm like, Lord, I should've been single.
You know? It's like And Tammy came back about 6 hours through the flight, and she had some extra cheese from her meal. She said she said she just started laughing. She said I was just just confined like this. I had the the neck pillow that strangles you.
You know, I got the neck pillow and I'm like, we're all touching and no one should be touching. And, of course, the family behind me has 11 kids and no interest in helping them at all. Let me tell you something. Tammy was on a cruise. I was on a school bus for 11 hours.
And she's like, here's some cheese. Listen. 28 years ago, I made a vow to serve her and put her first. It sucked for 11 hours. I don't know that I'm a better person because of it.
But that's what it means to serve. And some of you, you have your relationship with God confused. You think he's the servant and you're the bride. No. No.
No. He's the bride and you're the servant. And some of you, your whole life, you have put yourself in 1st class and you have given him no class. And one day, the Lord's gonna talk about it. Jonah 2:10, and the Lord commanded the fish.
This is the greatest verse in the Bible. And it vomited Jonah onto dry land. Man, isn't that great? Anybody in ministry, isn't it amazing how much the Lord loves you in ministry? Yeah.
Look. We had kids. I can do poop duty all day long. Vomit, I am out. I am out.
Anybody like, if somebody gags, I'm like, I just can't. I cannot do vomit. Listen to me. Jonah didn't have to clean up vomit, he was vomit. That's a rough 3 days.
Amen? It's a rough 3 days. And the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. Go take a shower. Clean yourself up.
Get a vacation. Ministry's hard. Take a take a sabbatical, Jonah. The word of the Lord came a second time to Jonah, Go to Nineveh. Go to Nineveh and proclaim the message I give you.
Man, that's Christianity, guys. And some of us look, it's been a hard week at Sandals Church. It's difficult to to function as a business in the state of California because they hate us all. It's tough. It's really tough.
And and a lot of people are discouraged. Let let me tell you something, you're not Jonah. I mean, are are you vomit? Has anybody in our church been vomited out of a fish? If so, I want to meet you.
Listen, do do you know what would have happened to Jonah's body in 3 days in the stomach acid of this fish? He's got no hair, and no offense to any of our follically challenged individuals. But I mean, no eyebrows, no body hair. It probably he's Middle Eastern, so he should be slightly brown. He's probably pale Norwegian white because the stomach acid has bleached his skin.
He reeks. He has no money. Remember, he sold everything. Maybe he has a slight piece of underwear still hanging on. And the Lord's like, go preach.
How many of you wanna listen to a sermon from that guy? You're down at the beach. There's a half naked bald guy. Like, he's never seen the sun in his life. And he's preaching.
Repent. The lord has spoken. And it's not his breath that smells, it's his body that smells. The Lord has not promised that serving him will be easy. But if you call yourself a servant, then serve.
Sandals, let's get back to the mission. What's the mission? Proclaiming God's judgment over over and love to our state, to our country, to our world. Because that's what God is serious about. That's what's most important in life is the message that we spread.
Last week, I got to go to, the Redlands campus opening, and I was in tears. I was in tears that we opened a church, and literally, I met 100 of people who had never been to a church. Somebody just said, yeah, I was in apartment complex, and I just came. And they heard the message of Jonah. That's the first sermon they're hearing.
Can you imagine what they're hearing this way? Wait, God eats people? Wait, what what? Wait, what what what what? Never going in the ocean again.
But God is moving in our church. Remember what's most important. What's most important is the mission. It's the mission. I know it's hard.
I know sometimes you ever wonder where this saying comes from? You feel chewed up and spit out. I wonder where that came from. Jonah. You imagine Jonah.
He's like, I feel chewed up and spit out. No. Actually, you were chewed up and spit out. Listen. It's not easy to follow God in this world.
It's not easy to follow God in California. But God has placed us here for this reason and this purpose. I wanna challenge you Sandals Church. Get off the bench. Get on the field.
Start serving God today. Start serving him today. Because the only way we change this world is when we preach this gospel. And you're gonna find out next week how the message transformed Nineveh. And I believe as it transformed Nineveh, it can change California.
It can change America. It can change the world. Because you know what? We worship a guy who can put a guy in the belly of the fish for 3 days and kill him and raise him from the dead and say now preach. Now preach.
Because our God is awesome, and our God is mighty, and our God is good. He doesn't hate you. He loves you. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray in the name of Jesus that every person in this church that calls themselves a Christian would hear the sound alarm from heaven, that this would awaken us to great faith and great service, and we would dedicate our lives to doing what you've called us to do, and that is building your kingdom and sharing your message and serving your church.
Lord, let us not have to learn like Jonah, but let us be like Jesus who voluntarily went to the belly of the earth for 3 days to save our souls. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you want more content from this series, we have a YouTube playlist linked in the description.
And if you want more information about who we are and what we do, you can go to sandalschurch.com.