Oakbrook Evangelical Free Church

Jonah Preaching – Repent
(The 1st Step to a Changed Life) Jonah 3
Ed Riddick, January 3, 2010

Introduction:
Books:
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work
Scattershot – A Memoir My Bipolar Family

How are we to cope?
Is there hope?

I. The God of 2nd Chances – The God of New Beginnings!

But often of the ruts we find ourselves in are ones we’ve driven into.
Some of the traps that we are caught in, we’ve set ourselves.

That’s the case for Jonah.
Jonah is simply Jonah – how could he be anyone else?
How could he get outside himself and become what God
Intended?
God’s will was clear to him.
He deliberately chose to move in the opposite direction
The loving Father God has pursued him
The watery grave that Jonah found himself in was beyond his ability to get himself out of.

How we view ourselves and our circumstances has so much to do with whether or not we stay locked up year after year.
And, to add an even more sinister component – we lock others into the same distorted view of reality – especially those we love the most!

Do you remember what changed the direction of Jonah’s life?
Do you remember what moved the hand of God in Jonah’s life?
Jonah 2:7 “When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple.”

God was already there!
But Jonah opened himself up to the reality of God by turning to Him for help.

Philippians 4:6-7 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Prayer is making room for God in your life.

Psalm 33:20-22 “Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and our shield. For our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name. Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you.”

Psalm 37:7 “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!”

Psalm 62:5 “For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him.”

Prayer is waiting on God = to pause and soberly consider our own inadequacy and the Lord’s all-sufficiency and to seek counsel and help from the Lord and to place your hope in Him.

Dale’s story…Godly heritage…(dad – Memorize the Word gp)
Came to Christ…gone through a divorce…now walking with Christ, wife is a Christian teaching Sunday School, children know Cx.

How desperately we need change! Do we recognize our desperate need?
For years, the opening of “The Wide World of Sports” television program illustrated “the agony of defeat” with a painful ending to an attempted ski jump. The skier appeared in good form as he headed down the jump, but then, for no apparent reason, he tumbled head over heels off the side of the jump, bouncing off the supporting structure.

What viewers didn’t know was that he chose to fall rather than finish
the jump. Why? As he explained later, the jump surface had become too fast, and midway down the ramp, he realized if he completed the jump, he would land on the level ground, beyond the safe sloping landing area, which could have been fatal. As it was, the skier suffered no more than a headache from the tumble. To change one’s course in life can be a dramatic and sometimes painful undertaking, but change is better than a fatal landing at the end.
Craig Brian Larson, Illus for Preaching and Teaching, Baker, p.15

Faith is the bird that sings while it is yet dark.

Romans 15:13 “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”, p. 949

Hope “Hope is nothing but a constancy of faith.”

Hope
“The essence of confidence…is not so much in the competence of our own knowing, but in the faithfulness and reliability of the one who is known.” Lesslie Newbigin, Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship (London: SPCK, 1995)

What do you want God to do in your life in 2010? In others?

II. True Repentance Defined!
One of the things that hinders change in people’s lives is sin!
Living independently of God
Going our own way –
The Frank Sinatra syndrome: “I did it my way!”

Message:
Jonah 3:4 “Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!””

The Ninevites response
Jonah 3:5 “And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.”

Faith
Faith is the only requirement to be right with God.
150+ verses and 2 entire NT books say that personal faith in Jesus Christ and his work on the cross is the only requirement to be right with God.

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

John 1:12 “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,”

Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

What could be overlooked is the simultaneous other side to the coin of genuine faith – the importance of repentance

Repent / Repentance = 50+ times in NT
2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”

Those who repent repudiate self-justification and pretense!
All of their doing was sin!
Isaiah 6:5 “Woe is me for I am undone!”

Metavoia =
change of mind toward their sin
change of mind toward God
And a change of direction”Let them give up their evil ways”

The life changing message – Repent
Mark 1:15 “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

Luke 24:45-47 “Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and He said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and rise again from the dead the third day; and that repentance for forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”

Greek: (metanoeo)
meta: after (implying change)
noeo: “to perceive” nous: “mind”
Literally: a change of mind
But in Scripture this means more than simply a change in intellectual thought. It means a change of disposition and attitude that results in a change of direction!

This change affects the whole person.
Matthew 3:7,8 “But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance”

John discerned their repentance was not genuine.
The early converts when giving their profession of faith would stand and face the west and make the following public declaration:
“I renounce you, Satan, and all your works and all your ways.”
Not:
1. Just sorrow or a bad feeling about being caught.
There is a difference bet/ sorrow and being truly repentant.
2 Cor 7:9-10 “I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, in order that you might not suffer loss in anything through us.
For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation; but the sorrow of the world produces death.”

2. Not penitence – an attempt on our part to make up for something we’ve done. Restitution is necessary sometimes. But…

3. Is not reformation. My efforts to change myself for my glory or good.
Is a change in three ways: (Luke 15:11-32)
1. Mind
2. Heart
3. Behavior
Result: always in personal terms and is a completely new direction to the person as a whole and a return to God.
1 Thess 1:9 “For they themselves report about us what kind of a reception we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God”

2 Corinthians 7:10 “For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.”

James 4:9 “Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.”

Joel 2:12 “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;”

A Spirit created sorrow of heart for sin.
Not sorrow about being caught! Sorrow / grief over sin!

“It is simply impossible for someone to meet the Lord of glory in the full revelation of His majesty and not be grieved by particular sins.” Job, David, Isaiah, Peter

The cross says
”No mater what your sins, unlimited mercy is available to those who turn to God through Jesus’ merits.”

The purpose of life is to be near to God and have him near to us.
But without sincere repentance there can be no face-to-face fellowship with the Father of lights.

Here’s the 2-sided coin…
Acts 20:21 “testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The Ninevites are undergoing fundamental change in their lives and it begins with faith and repentance.

Let me go a bit deeper:
When Christ comes into our lives the all-seeing Lord searches every nook and cranny of our heart.
He searches out root sins
He searches out branch sins – those others sin in us

ILL: Anger is a secondary emotion! There is almost always a primary emotion behind anger!

He seeks an on-going repentance in our lives!
Self-defense is foolishness>
But self examination aided by the Holy Spirit is everything!

III. Never Underestimate What God Can Do
3:6 “when the news reached the King”

Luke 1:34-36 “And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren.”

Matthew 19:24-26 “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.””

Matthew 17:18-20 “And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.””

Ephesians 3:20-21 “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”