When God’s Mercy Offends

Good morning Refuge Church, how's everybody doing this morning? Good, you sound awake Second Service, I'm so glad. Well my name is Miss Taylor and I'm the preschool director here at the Refuge and I was coming this morning, I don't know what's happening but I can hear some flutter behind, oh good morning. Well this is also my husband apparently joining me this morning, this is Mr. Price. What are you doing? I'm gonna help you out. Okay, okay, you're gonna help me. Okay, we're gonna see what that's gonna be all about. Well I was hoping to read a story to you guys, kind of like I do in the preschool room, is that okay if I read a story this morning? Oh good, thank you, three of you said yes, so that's, oh thank you, thank you. All right, we're gonna see how this goes. I'm gonna be reading the story of Jonah, I don't know if any of you have heard that before, but apparently Mr. Price is gonna help me, so that's exciting. Um, we probably should run through this though really quick, so I'll just give you like a first line and then you give me what you've got, what you're planning to do. What are you, oh, oh, okay, you brought some stuff, good, okay, all right, well, oh, apparently we're gonna have some sounds joining us as well. Okay, all right, let's just get it started, okay, so I'm gonna start out, it'll go, long ago there was a great city of Nineveh. Oh, okay, I don't think that one's it, yep, that, that, that, that can't be it, let's try again, let's try again. All right, long ago there was a great city called Nineveh, and let me tell you, the people, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the, let me tell you, the people of Nineveh were mean, dirty, rotten scoundrels, they stole toys, they broke things, and worst of all, they didn't worship the one true God, Jehovah. One day God spoke to a man named Jonah and told him, Jonah, go to this great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me. Basically, God was asking Jonah to go and put Nineveh in like a giant timeout, but Jonah didn't like the people of Nineveh, oh, yeah, oh, chills, Jonah didn't like the people of Nineveh, and he didn't want to go, why? Because Jonah knew God was full of mercy, Jonah wanted Nineveh to be punished, and he didn't feel bad for thinking it, in fact, he felt like his feelings were justified. Okay, I, like, with the background and the music, this is a kid's service, I'm feeling a little bit like we're in Gotham or something, can we, like, we need to liven this up a little bit, okay, all

right, oh, yeah, this is better, okay, yeah, I like it, I like it, so instead of obeying God, Jonah ran as fast as he could in the opposite direction to Joppa, boarded a boat, headed right for Tarshish, and decided to hide from God. Well, obviously, hiding on a boat from God was a horrible idea, so God sent a massive storm to stop Jonah, massive, the boat started to rock, the wind, the wind started to howl, oh, yep, we got it, the wind was howling, good deal, the wind started to howl, then the rains came, it kind of came before, when you missed me, yep, there it is again, good deal, okay, and the waves crashed against the boat, the sailors were terrified, much like me right now with Mr. Price, because I do not know what is coming next, but the sailors were so mad, when they found Jonah hiding on the boat, they let him have it, hello, can you even hear what's happening? Don't you know better than to try to run from God? We will likely all die out here because of you, so Jonah told the sailors, throw me into the water, but the sailors were afraid, because they knew he was a man of God, so instead they, they played Yahtzee, that's, that's the closest we could get to the story for kids, the game of chance, you know, roll the dice. with it. They played Yahtzee on whether or not to throw Jonah over the board, I mean over the boat. And sure enough, Jonah lost. So over the boat he went. Yeah, it was not what we were expecting either. So over the boat he went into the water. As soon as he splashed into the water, a giant fish came and gobbled him up. Yeah, let's actually recap because this has been a lot, especially with Mr. Price. I like it. Well, the story goes that Jonah hears from God, tries to run and hide from God, gets trapped on a boat, and then a hurricane which gets sent by God is all happening to him, and then gets thrown into the water, and a fish comes and gobbles him up. Tough day. Now I know what some of you happy people out there are thinking, like maybe it's not that bad in there, right? Maybe it was cool. Maybe he was just having a nice long nap on a giant fish tongue. Actually, I hate to burst your bubble. It was horrible. It was terrible. It was not great. It was not good. It was wet. It was smelly. There was seaweed everywhere. It probably smelled like fish guts, if we're honest. This was not the five-star resort that Jonah and really you were hoping that he found. Jonah stayed inside the fish belly for three whole days, and every day instead of napping and scrolling Instagram, he was praying.

In fact, Jonah chapter 2 verse 5 says, Jonah prayed this from inside the fish. The engulfing waters threatened me. The deep surrounded me. Seaweed was wrapped around my head to the roots of the mountains. I sank down. In other words, he was in really deep, and he knew it was all because of his disobedience. But then the scripture continues, but you, Lord, my God, brought my life up from the pit. When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple. Jonah realized in those three days that obedience to God is the road that leads to life, and he was in need of God's mercy just like Nineveh. So, on the third day, God spoke to the fish. Yes, spoke to the fish, and had the fish spit him out on dry land. That one was juicy. I don't know. That kind of gave me the ick. Jonah expected the people as he was running back to Nineveh, he marched through the city yelling, and expected them to throw rotten tomatoes at him, or maybe like unfriend him on Facebook. I don't know. Yeah. But do you know what they actually did? They stopped fighting. They put on itchy clothes. They sat in dirt and ashes, and wept before the Lord. They cried out to him on their hands and knees, pleading for forgiveness, hoping for mercy, and guess what? God didn't give up on them. Yes, love that segue. He didn't give up on them. He loved them. He saw them. He heard them, and decided not to destroy the city. The end. Thank you. Thank you. Well, that's my Bob Barker cue to get out. My name's Miss Taylor, and I'll see you guys next time. Give it up for Mr. Price. And please help me welcoming the greatest kids pastor and my friend, Pastor Prabhu. Oh man, can we give it up for the kids team? They've done such a good job. Today is a special service with Refuge Kids Live. It is a service where we get to show you, get to give you a window into what happens with Refuge Kids, and it's an honor to be here this morning. You met a lot of our team through different and different phases of the service today, but I have a picture if We can put that picture up real quick of our kids team. Come on, can we give it up for, this is the best kids team in the world. They're just amazing. We've got Courtney Farley, who serves as our childcare coordinator. Anytime there's an event or whatnot, she kind of comes in, makes sure our rooms are stocked,

they're clean, you got the best people in there, they're trained, and so Courtney helps us out so, so much. We have Katie, who just joined our team earlier in the summer. Katie serves as our kids ministry coordinator as well. She is just absolutely amazing. And let's see, oh, yes, that lady in the middle, cause that guy, rough. I brought my wife into the picture just so, because the team was growing and you know, it's just, I was like, I need my wife here, you know? But Wendy, she is the reason why I do what I do. She's the reason why I can do what I can do. She's absolutely amazing. If you guys want to put your hands together and honor my wife, Wendy, she's amazing what she does. Yep. And then of course, you've met Danelle. Danelle's absolutely incredible. She is Refuge Kids' elementary director. She leads worship. She's so good at leading worship. And just now you had the honor of meeting Taylor, who's our preschool director, and she just joined our team as well. Come on, can we give it up one more time for all of our Refuge Kids team? They make me look so, so good. I also have to ask, if you serve in Refuge Kids in any capacity, whether it's The Great Adventure,

whether it's Little Explorers, whether you went out to camp with us, can you stand to your feet? Can you give us an opportunity that we can honor you as well? Because you guys, come on, you are our bread and butter. You guys are amazing in everything that you do. Thank you so much. You are the backbone of the operation. Thank you so, so much from the bottom of our heart. Come on, how many of you know that our kids are not the church of tomorrow? They're the church of today. And our mission is when we have our kids back there, it is not childcare, that we hope, and our mission statement is we hope and pray that every kid will encounter God in a way that they would never forget as they come to us every week. We give it our all as we do so. And so, man, it is an honor to be here this morning. This year, as we were going through the Old Testament series we, when Pastor Jay first laid out vision for our staff, we're doing this, we're like, man, how are we gonna do this with the kids? It'd be awesome being connected in some way. And so we decided this year that we were gonna go through the Old Testament as well, but what we were gonna do is for 52 weeks, we were gonna go through 52 characters

in the Old Testament, right? 52 people in the Old Testament. And so we started from Adam and Eve, and you may have noticed your kids coming home with a trading card, right? And so we are at number 34, I believe, and we had a couple bonus cards in there. And come on, sometimes we play around, we're like, oh, it's King Saul's, the villain card, and you know, or like King Nebuchadnezzar and the villain card. But we actually have a card for all of you today. So as you are walking out of service, please make sure to grab the card of the person that we're gonna talk about today. But it has been going super, super well. Just going through 52 characters and people in the Bible, we're able to cover the entire Old Testament, and it's been so much fun. For today, we're gonna continue, we're gonna talk about, you guys heard Taylor talk about it. Who are we talking about today? That's right, we're gonna be talking about Jonah. And usually for us, when we think about Jonah, when we think about all that Jonah did, we immediately think about fish, we think of finding Nemo, we think of all the different things that Jonah went through.

Because how many of you know, his story is really thrilling, it's just very adventurous, it was crazy. And we get to the point where he gets to the city, and he preaches the sermon, and the people give their lives to the Lord, and everything is happy, and confetti cannons are going off, and it's amazing. And that's kind of what we remember of Jonah. And that is actually covered in the first three chapters of Jonah. Today, we're actually going to press a little more, and we are gonna talk about Jonah chapter four. Is that okay, everybody? Now, Jonah just preached low-key, one of the worst sermons I have heard. He walked up and said, all right, everybody, in 40 days, the Lord is gonna bring destruction to Nineveh. That was it. It's crazy. How many of you know, the Lord can use even our worst, like whatever we bring to the table, the Lord is gonna use it. And I'm gonna tell you, out of nowhere, the entire city of Nineveh hears this message, and they say, we gotta get our acts together. We gotta do it.

Turn that off. We gotta figure this out. Okay, and they all, from the king all the way to the people, and the Bible even talks about the animals. I don't know how they did that. Like, that's mysteries of the Bible. But the animals even, like they were all just together, sackcloth and all, repented, and said, Lord, what do we have to do? And that was the story of Nineveh. And so while they did that, in Jonah chapter four, it starts with him being so angry. And I would think to myself, if I am Jonah, if I had a major revival, because guys, this is, we're talking about 600. thousand people that gave their lives to the Lord in one shot. It may be one of the greatest revivals to ever hit the face of the earth. And if it were me, and I saw a revival like that, I saw a revival happening in our kids ministry, I saw a revival like that happening at camp, I saw a revival happening in our church, if I saw a revival happening at the Charlotte Crusade, if it were me, I would be like, thank you God. I would hope to think, I'd be like, man, that was awesome. That is incredible. What do I have to do next? No, not Jonah though, because Jonah is mad. Jonah is angry. And this is why Jonah chapter 4 is so surprising. It's like, the first three chapters, we are introduced to what Jonah does. The fourth chapter, it talks about who Jonah is. And we get a glimpse into what his heart is. So if you have your Bibles, if you can turn to Jonah chapter 4,

verses 1 through 11, if you guys can go ahead, stand to your feet as we honor the Word of God today. And here's what it says. I love the opening line. I mean, it's intense. But to Jonah, this seemed very wrong. Talking about the revival in Nineveh. Very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord. Isn't this what I said, Lord? How could you do it? When I was still at home, this is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew, I knew, how could you God? That you were a gracious God, that you're a compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live. But the Lord replied, is it right for you to be angry? But Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade, and waited to see what would happen to the city. Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant, and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head, to ease his discomfort. And Jonah was very happy about the plant. But at dawn the next day, God provided a worm which shooed the plant so that it withered. When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said again, it will be better for me to die than to live this way. But God said to Jonah, again, is it right for you to be angry about the plant? Wait is, he said, and I'm so angry, I wish I were dead. But the Lord said, I need you to catch this today church, you were being concerned about this plant, though you did not tend to it, or make it grow. It sprang up overnight, and died overnight. And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which more than a hundred and twenty thousand people, who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and also many animals? Come on, can we declare what we declare every Sunday here as we honor the word of God? I will hide this word in my heart, that I might not sin against God. This word is life to my body, and health to my bones, and I'll be a doer of the word, and not a hearer only. And I'm confident of this, that he who has begun a good work in me, will complete it, in Jesus name. Come on, you guys can go ahead, and get a C, Amen. So wow, Jonah is mad, he's upset, Jonah's angry. God uses him in a radical and miraculous way, and you'd think the man would be ecstatic, that he'd be jumping for joy,

he'd be happy, but on the contrary, he's angry with God. Have we ever been in that spot before church? That he's angry with God, and still upset with the Ninevites. The chapter starts with, but to Jonah, this seemed very angry, very wrong, and he was angry. Like he disagrees with God's plan, and thought there had to be a better way. But why such an extreme reaction? Why did Jonah react in such a way? And for us to understand that, we need to do a little digging, and figure out, who is Jonah? Well, Jonah is a prophet. This is what a prophet does, a prophet hears what the Lord says, and delivers it to his people. Remember, this is the Old Testament, the Lord had, Jesus had not come down yet, and so the prophet would listen to what God said, and he would deliver it to the people. In fact, Jonah's story doesn't start in the book of Jonah, we're actually included in a quick line in the book of 2 Kings, that talks about Jonah, where he is actually called to prophesy to the king at the time, King Jeroboam, to expand the northern borders of Israel. Guess what? Jonah follows through then. God gave him an assignment, and Jonah does it. But why on this round, when God is trying to do something outside the box, God is trying to do something that was very different. Jonah, as a Hebrew man, I need you to go to Nineveh. Jonah, as a man of God, I need you to go to Nineveh. What made him so mad? In order for us to understand what made Jonah so mad, we need to understand what he's running from. You see, Jonah didn't run because he was mad. Jonah didn't run because he was afraid. He did run because he was mad. He didn't run because he was afraid. He didn't run because he was ignorant. Jonah ran because he despised the Ninevites. Jonah ran because he was mad

that God was gonna do something to the people that he had judged his whole life. And we need to understand who Nineveh is. Now, listen, for those of you in the church, have you, any runners in the house, cross-country or anything like that? If you are a runner, you ran anybody? Man, it is kind of hard to find cross-country people in general. Anybody out there? I know Craig Mauls is in here somewhere. He's a cross-country guy, but anybody else? Okay, cool. Listen, I love to run, but not for good reasons, right? When I was a little kid, I had to go to the doctor. And in India, the way the doctors work is you go to the doctor, they say, oh, you're sick. Here's your medication. And you would just go to the store, which is right next door, and you'd buy the medication over the counter right there, and you'd bring it in. If you needed a shot or bandages or whatnot, you would go to the store, and they would give it to you right then. Well, I went to the doctor, and he said the worst things that I wanted to hear in that moment, which was, okay, he's sick. We need to give this boy a shot. Do not like shots. I still don't like shots.

I run, and I see, I hiss when somebody says shots around me, right, for whatever the kind of shots we're talking about. But here's the deal. I do not like shots, right? And so my mom said, she said, okay, I need you to wait right here, because when we're getting a shot, you'd go next door, there was a little room, and my mom said, wait right here. I'm going to go pick up the medication and the shot, and I'll be right back. Just don't move. And listen, as a child, I was not somebody who was very loud. I was not like the craziest in the bunch, but I was very clever and very mischievous. That's how, usually the way it would manifest in my life would be through my brain, scary place, right? And so I sat there unattended, unwatched, and I was like, I gotta figure this out. I gotta figure out how to get away from the situation that I'm in right now. And so if I walk through those doors, the doctor's sitting right there, can't do that. So I literally looked at the window, and the window had like a mini split in it, and right on top of the window, I opened the window and it was just glass. There was no bars or nothing protecting. I was like, this is my out.

This is it. So I literally walked up and I started tapping at it, and it just kind of came out one piece, and I put it on, set it down, and I immediately ran out the window, and I ran, y'all. I ran like that kid in Angels in the Outfield. I ran home. I just ran. I just put my head down, and I ran. Just imagine this little young brown Indian boy running across the house. You're driving your car, and this boy's just running. I'm just taking off. I ran for 45 minutes all the way to my grandma's house. Now, this was before the times of cell phones. This was before the time that any communication can be made this way, and so I just showed up at my grandma's house. She was like, what's up? And I just ran into her house and hid under her bed. I didn't even give her an explanation. My mom, I don't know what happened, because I wasn't there. She was probably really embarrassed. She was probably really upset. She was really mad, and I guess my dad proceeded to look for me for five hours. They had no idea where I was. They had no way to just call my grandma and be like, is he over there?

They would not even think that I would run there, but here we are. I ran. Have you ever run from a situation that you did not want to do? Come on. Have you ever done that before? Listen to me. Yes, like five kids who love me, yes, they're like, you're with me. Listen to me. It doesn't have to be that you physically ran. Have you emotionally run from something you did not want to do? Have you spiritually run from God because of something you did not want to do? Have you run from a conversation before? Have you run from a text message before that you didn't want to answer? Have you run from your boss? You ran from your house? Have you run before? If I've gotten arguments before in my house, the best thing to do is get in my car, drive away. Right? Come on. There has to be more people than me who can relate to this, that we are a people who run, yes? So we can't look at Jonah with our judgment eyes and be like, how could this man run?

The Lord, the name of the Lord came upon him and he gave him a word and how could he run? Listen to me. It's natural that he ran. He did not want to do something and he ran just like you and I do. Here's the deal about running from God. Every runner knows the exact moment their lungs begin to burn. There's a limit to where you can run. It is a desperate, ragged breath telling you your body is running out of fuel. You cannot run forever. But the most exhausting race a human will ever run is in the human heart. when we turn our backs and attempt to outrun the Almighty. We think we can hide out in Tarshish, where for us, it could look like a distraction, it could look like a boyfriend or a girlfriend, it could look like a career obsession, it could look like a numbing habit, it could look like a thick wall of cynicism, you can hide behind your pessimism or you can hide behind your sarcasm, but here's the deal, nonetheless, it is all running. And we have our own Tarshish that we run to. We run because we are terrified of what God might ask us to surrender. We run because we are carrying a heavy boatload of shame that we assume He will not forgive you.

We run because He allowed a heartbreak that you can't reconcile. You run or we run to protect our illusion of control, forgetting that control was never ours to begin with. Running from God, listen, church, will always cost you something. It'll cost you more than you intended to pay, it costs you your peace of mind, it costs you your joy, it leaves you with a relentless anxiety because deep down, you realize you're trying to out-puddle the ocean. You can't run from God. Running from God is a foolish, foolish choice, but why did he choose to run? Jonah had the Psalms with him. In Psalm 139, David writes, where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I run from you where you are? If I go up to the heavens, there you are. If I make my bed in the place of the dead, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning or live in the farthest parts of the sea, even there, your hand will lead me and your right hand will hold me. Come on, why? Why such a visceral reaction? Why run? Jonah's running because he doesn't agree with God's plan. Jonah's a man of national pride. He loves his country, he loves Israel.

A lot of us can say that about ourselves. The Book of Jonah takes place during a time when Assyria, whose capital was Nineveh, posed a brutal military threat to Israel. This is who Nineveh is, by the way. This is why Jonah does not like them. Nineveh was considered an evil and brutal city because it served as the heart of the Assyrian Empire, which used institutionalized extreme violence, terror, and plunder to control all of its territories. The Assyrians did not hide their brutality. Historical records and palace wall reliefs show that captives were routinely flayed alive, impaled on stakes, dragged behind chariots, or had their hands, feet, noses, and ears cut off. The city displayed the severed heads in pillars or lined roads with the remains of their enemy leaders and soldiers as permanent warnings to anyone who dared resist. Nineveh's nickname was called the City of Blood because of its relentless attacks on neighboring lands, but most notably, the northern kingdom of Israel. And where was Jonah a prophet to? The northern parts of Israel. Biblical and historical descriptions in the capital to widespread pagan practices, including temple prostitution and infanticide. Here is Jonah's thought. This is his thoughts in his mind. Nineveh had to be destroyed in order for Israel to live.

Nineveh had to go away for Israel to have a future. Jonah found himself in a situation where he's betraying his own people, his own nation, by following through on what God asked him to do. Jonah is running because he hates the Ninevites. He's disgusted by them. He despises them. He goes and builds a shelter outside of it after everything's over and still looks at it saying, I hope this place burns to the ground. He's disgusted by the people of Nineveh. God, they don't deserve it. They don't deserve your grace. God, you know how bad those people are? It's better if they were dead. We can be that way too. We can be that way too. Everything is fair when God asks you to eat an enjoyable candy bar, but the second he asks you to eat a whole bowl of spinach, hold on, God. I don't do that, right? How many of you know that we serve a God who's gonna ask us to do hard things, things that we do not like to do? I'll tell you this. When I was writing this message, I was thinking about all the hard things I've had to do, and I wanna tell you right now, I serve a God who will ask you to forgive

when forgiveness comes. is not on the table. How could I forgive them? God, do you understand? Yes, God understands, but he's going to ask you to forgive anyway. I serve a God who asks you to give and be generous when all you want to do is be stingy, and financially you're collapsing. God, I can't. I have to hold on to my last dollar, but I serve a God who says, you give. Be generous. I don't want to, God, I can't. I serve a God who when people disrespect you and you want to give people peace of your mind, come on. I serve a God who says, come on, be patient. When chaos is ensuing around you, I've got this. Do you trust me? Do you trust I have your back? I serve a God who asks us to do hard things and go through hard things. It's part of your preparation. I'm actually scared of you if everything that you want to do lines up with the will of God. It's kind of crazy. I'm scared of you. I can't tell you how many people have come to me. I can't tell you how many people come to me and say, Pastor Prabhu, I've got a word for you. Pastor Prabhu, I've got a dream about you. Pastor Prabhu, I've got a vision from the Lord. We have developed this thing. You know, there's this thing when we play Uno or whatever. We call it the Chuck Norris card. Anybody? You know what I'm talking about? When we play the Chuck Norris card, or not Uno, Apples to Apples. That was the game. I forgot in the last service too. When the Chuck Norris card comes out, you're like, oh, that's the winner. That's our winner right there, right? We have developed this term, the God card. Anybody know what I'm talking about? That the second we bring up God and say, I had a word, I had vision, the Lord told me to do so. Listen, if it doesn't align with the will of God, but you say it anyway, because we use the God card to justify our behavior, to justify what we want to do, because we think we know better. And we use the God card and say, hey, listen, God told me. And we use the God card to say, you don't want to invite counsel into your decision. We say, this is it. Full stop. I don't want any advice. I don't want any encouragement. The church can stand over there. God told me to do this. How many of you know we've watered down the name of God in our culture? We have watered down. I'm sorry if this comes across as offensive, but it's the truth. We've watered down the name of God. But the truth is, we miss the heart of God in everything that we do. We can say all these things. We can do all the works. But when you miss the heart of God,

of course, we're going to do what we want to do, because we're so obsessed with what we want to do. We're so obsessed with ourselves. So let's evaluate if we're at all concerned. And this was a good lesson for me as I was preparing this word. And I was like, God, what is your heart? What is your heart? So that's our first point of evaluation. The heart of God. What is it? The heart of God is relentless for his people. God is obsessed with his people. God cares about his people. Jonah chapter 4, verses 10 through 11 is so apparent. But the Lord said, you have been concerned about this plant, though you not tend for it, you not make it grow. It sprang up overnight, and it died overnight. And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, Jonah, in which there are more than 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and also many animals? This is the heart of God that none would perish. This is the heart of God that people would turn from their wicked ways, that people would say, hey, I'm not all that in a bag of chips. I need a savior. I need somebody to rescue me from the filth that I'm in. This is the heart of God. When I started in kids ministry nine years ago, I made a vow with the Lord. I told God, I said, God, if I'm going to do this, if I am going to to go after these kids with everything that I have in the kitchen sink, I want to do this for you, God. It is so important. I want them to encounter God in a way that they will never forget. It's in my blood. But God, first and foremost, you need to take care of my kids. The last thing I want is for my kids to look at me and say, well, ministry took daddy away from us. Because disobedience, again, church, it can be hidden in religious activities sometimes. I don't want to do the things but miss the heart of God. I can't afford to do that. And I've been in that situation so many times where I have rode the border. In fact, I've gone far away from the border where I'd go sleepless nights sometimes because I'm doing the work of God. But how many of you know the heart of God is what he said? And that is your first ministry to your family. I care for my kids so much. I love them so much. And if people ever wonder, Pastor Pablo, how can we honor you? Pastor Pablo, how can we love on you? Come on, if you wanna honor me, can you honor my kids? If you wanna be kind to me, can you be kind to my kids first?

If you wanna love on me, man, if you love on my kids, that means so much to me. But that is the heart of God. That is how he feels about you and me, that we are his children. And when we fight, and we say we don't like them, and we're disgusted by people who are wayward and are too far away, come on, how many of you know God's heart breaks? Because his heart is for his children. It doesn't matter if you're a type of people, it doesn't matter if you are, get this, if you're a Democrat, it doesn't matter if you're a Republican, they're bad people, they're bad people, can you believe they're doing this? Can you believe that senator did this? It doesn't matter if you live in the rich part of town, you live on the worst part of town. It doesn't matter if you are an addict, it doesn't matter if you're depressed, it doesn't matter if you're miserable. God loves you, and nothing can change that. That is his heart, his heart is that he loves you. He loves me so much, and every time I question it, every time I question his plan, and every time I say, no God, you cannot, what I'm saying is, God, I question if you love me. Listen, God's love is not an action. God's love is his essence, it's who he is. We can't talk about love without talking about God,

because God loves his people. John 3, 16, you know the verse. For God so loved the world that he would give his one and only son. What kind of God is this? That whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. Church, if you didn't catch anything today, kids, if you did not catch anything in what I said today, I'm asking you, I'm pleading you, that if you ever are having a bad day, and you feel like nobody loves you, or you feel like you haven't been seen, or you're waiting on a call that nobody's calling you, and you wonder, man, am I all alone? I need you to get a picture of the God who loves you, whose arms were outstretched on the cross for you, who said, who bled for you, crown of thorns on his head and everything, and he said, I love you. I'm up here because I love you, and you are valuable. The finished work of Calvary. Religious people, people would ask Jesus all the time. They would say, Jesus, why are you sitting with those sinners? Why would you allow those sinners, those people, the Ninevites, those people? He told them three stories. He said, the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the two sons. Kids, if you're in this room, parents, if you're in this room, I need you to catch this story in Luke 15,

four through five. If a man had 100 sheep, and one of them got lost, what will he do? Wouldn't he leave the 99 others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, catch this, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. That's the deal with sheep. If you are lost, it's his heart for the people who are lost and the people who are found. There's only two categories of people, by the way. You're either lost or you're found, and when you are found, the sheep is found, the Lord says, I'm gonna put you over my shoulders, and I'm gonna bring you back, because sheep cannot find their way home. We all need a savior, we all need Jesus. And here's the deal, if he told the story of the sheep, why would he not tell this, why is he telling the story about the coin? Here's what's interesting about the story of the coin. A sheep, you can track it down, you can look for the noises, the bah, you can find it, it was in that general vicinity. The coin doesn't even know it's lost. I don't know if you are somebody in here today, you've stumbled in because your grandkids have invited you in, or your niece or your nephew, or your own kids, and you don't even realize that you are lost. His heart beats for those who are lost, and his heart beats for those who are found.

If I took three of my kids to the mall one day, and I lost one of them, the words that wouldn't come out of my mouth are not, well, at least I got two of them. He cares about you, he cares about the lost. That is his heart. When Nineveh repented, God delighted in showing mercy, because grace isn't a flaw in his justice system, it's the expression of his character. God's heart refuses to be limited by human borders, political comfort, or ideas of who is worthy, who are we to determine that? So then what was the heart of Jonah? The heart of Jonah was relentless for Jonah. The heart of Jonah was relentless for Jonah. Jonah was angry. Jodah was mad. Can I tell you a little something about anger, folks? I get mad all the time. I deal with anger all the time. Come on, if you deal with anger, just give me the head nod so I'll know it's you because you don't have to like put your hand up. But anger is very interesting. I read a quote that said this, that anger is the same thing that could cause a social justice thing. You know, like it can lead away to good things. But anger also untampered with, or like if you don't keep it in check, could go off the rails and go crazy.

Anger is a great revealer, by the way. If you ever wonder about what you care about, think about what you're angry about. Think about what you're angry about. Anger is generally revealed when what we treasure the most is threatened. You want to know what you care about the most? What is that? It's never the person who yelled at you. It's never the person who questioned you. What you're really angry about is that you put your reputation on the line, or they called your reputation to the line. Jonah cared about himself and things on his priority list, which was his nationalism. When the things that break our hearts are not aligned with the things that break God's heart, our righteous anger can somehow jump over the fence into graceless rage and offense. Jonah executed his assignments, but his spirit was entirely detached from God's mission. He mirrors the older brother in the prodigal son's parable, standing outside the celebration, seething with anger because an undeserving wanderer was welcomed home instead of punished. Is that your heart today, church? I want you to catch this today. We can still do the will of God and completely miss the heart of God.

We can still do the will of God, but completely miss the heart of God. We can still do all the things. You can show up. You can raise your hands in worship. You can act like you're holier than thou. I can act like I'm holier than you. We can all go out into the concourse and have great fellowship time, but we can all do all of these things and miss the heart of God. My prayer when we go out to kid's camp, I didn't even share this in first service. Literally, when I get on my knees, I'm like, God, what I pray for is that people, when they come, they're like, oh man, my kid is gone. I wanna make sure they're safe. I hope they're over there. My prayer is that people would go past that and say, I'm actually here for the heart of God, also my kid, but the heart of God is important. The orphan, the widows. I pray in our outreach ministry that it's not we do all these things, we give backpacks to people and all this stuff because we can get a gold star. It's that we can give a glass of cold water to somebody in need and say it's in the name of Jesus. That is the heart of God. The heart of God is in kids who are lost.

The heart of God is in teenagers who are lost, a generation of people who are lost. That is the heart of God. One of my favorite lines in all of the Bible convicted me the first time I read it. It convicts me every time. When Mordecai looks at Esther and he says in Esther 4.14, Esther, don't you think that just because you live in the king's house, you're the one Jew who will get out of this alive? If you persist in staying silent at a time like this, help and deliverance, catch this, will arrive from some other place. But you and your family will be wiped out. Who knows, maybe you were made queen for just such a time as this. Can I challenge us today, church, with something? It is tempting to look at the generation behind us with fear or with moral superiority. I know better, I've done this, I've been there. Or resentment or bitterness or viewing their culture as a threat to our comfort, to our legacy, to our traditions, but God doesn't call us to write off the next generation. From our self-righteous distance, he calls us to lay down our pride, step into their world and actively mentor, partner as we pour into them. We were positioned for a time such as this not to guard the doors down of grace,

but to usher the next generation through them. We can sometimes look at the people behind us or the people outside and be like, that's just them, this is us, I have no part in that. Listen, God would not have given us a great commission or all he talked about was all these people who are lost if he didn't care about the people who are lost like we do sometimes. It's so, so important. How sad is it, I'm just gonna say it from the stage, that we have a club's ministry. This is essentially where people go into our school system and we get to be with kids and we get to look at kids who are lost. We can't utter the name of Jesus, but the church can represent and show themselves in there. Do you know we operate with two volunteers? tears in four clubs. I can't tell you how many times in kids ministry I'm hoping and praying that somebody shows up and I I had to get to a point I was like God you can feed the 5,000 and there are times where it's just my wife and I but we have to do it like five six years ago but you know today we have we have people who come in and serve it's one hour a week is that inconvenient for us come on whether it's our RDS students whether it's our youth students how many of us awesome moms and dads awesome these kids need is a hug that we can be a good representation in their life to come alongside of them and put our arms around be like I'm here for you one hour a week a month I see so much opportunity for us to give back to the generation behind us but we resist because of convenience we resist because of situations we judge because wanting to be part of a solution don't let it turn into not my responsibility and eventually turn into bitterness when Jonah says I have no desire to move on

he means that he has lost something that had replaced God as the main joy in his life the reason and the reason for him to live so that brings us to you and me where are our hearts today church where are our hearts today Jonah chapter 4 verses 10 through 11 when read this again but the Lord said you have been concerned about this plant the plant represents convenience you've been concerned about this plan so you do not tend to it or make it grow everything you have Jonah's from me everything you have churches from me everything you have probably is because of God and should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left and also many animals is your heart today we need to choose the heart of God or the heart of a selfish man we easily judge Jonah until we realize how often our pride leads us to get mad at God and question God and stick to our conveniences listen the mission is not my justice the mission is my is God's heart it's not what's fair it's not my convenience it's not what what makes me feel good it's not the things that I can only see my tunnel vision in my life if I'm honest with you the only life that I know or it's my life and a bit the people that I work with I don't know what's going on in your life I have no idea but we can get so tunnel vision that this has to be how it needs to be but can I tell you the mission of God is still out there the mission is not my justice the mission is God's heart one thing Jonah failed to understand we'll end with this church that when God shows up in our life it often appears as a disruption the entire of Jonah chapters 1 through 3 is a exciting story it's a thrilling story of a man who is who is disobedient a man who's running because he's mad because he doesn't want he doesn't want Nineveh to live and he's running and he's he's trying to get away but God in his mercy he appoints a storm he appoints the waves he appoints a fish he appoints a worm he appoints a plant he does everything that he can because God is merciful and God is patient and God is kind and his heart was for Jonah as well as much as it was for the Ninevites the same grace that Jonah couldn't invite to extend to the Ninevites he forgot that

literally he just got spit out of a fish and the Lord had to show him his own grace sometimes invitations from God are packaged in disruptions God's disruptions are divine invitations we may not be able to detect them in the moment but God is constantly breathing over our lives have you ever had those moments where you can take a step and you can look back and say oh my goodness I'm so glad I had that phone call or I'm so glad I had that moment or I'm so glad I had that one conversation if it didn't happen the trajectory of your life just goes in a whole different direction it's happened to me a lot and as I think of invitations that every time we see as an inconvenience every time we try to prioritize our schedule every time we try to prioritize us they could be invitations from God hiding right there in plain sight I can tell you my own life when people came to me and said hey I need you to hold this sign and it said International Club at my college I was like oh my goodness I just do not want to hold this sign well you're the only brown Indian kid that we know you should get this whole guy need get you to hold this sign think of all the other Indian kids who because you would have called them like So I reluctantly held the sign, and people would walk by me for about an hour, and I was just like, this is the worst, why am I doing this? But then in walked my wife, Wendy. I saw her for the first time, and I knew, oh my goodness, this is my girl. No, that moment that you met your wife, that moment you saw your husband, you know there's butterflies like, Holy Spirit, right there, this is your person. Divine invitation right there. If I did not hold that sign, my life's gone a whole different direction.

I think back to the moment, sorry. I think back to the moments when my routine usually, when I wake up in the morning, I read scripture, and then eventually I start getting ready, and when I'm getting ready, I'll play my Spotify, and I'll have music, I love throwback songs, and I'll just listen to hymns, and that one morning, I don't know what happened, I just happened to go to Instagram, and this girl was playing the piano, and you couldn't see her face or nothing, so I just kind of was like, oh, this is great, she's playing As the Deer, and I'll just kind of set it on my bathroom counter, got ready, did my thing, and came out, got in my car, the playlist was still going, I'm driving on my way to work, on my way to the church, and all of a sudden, the phone that the person was playing from, because you couldn't see her face, it fell down, the person picked it up, it happened to be Ms. Donnell. Never met her in my life before, and I said, I think that person goes to our church, sat down with her, talked about vision, where I would love to see Refuge Kids' worship go, and here we are today, five years later. Five camps later. If I didn't wake up that morning, and I didn't say, I need to go on Instagram, life, vision, ministry going a whole different direction.

Come on, church, are there moments like that, where there are divine invitations packaged in disruptions from God, that we could easily say no to, because we just care about ourselves, that God has something so special, that the trajectory of your life could change right now, because that is who God is. His heart is for His people, and you are included in the people. At 35 years old, I don't know where my life is going to go, but I hope I go nowhere away from the presence of God. I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord than anywhere else. If there's one day in your course, God, than a thousand elsewhere, that is the cry of my heart, that I'd rather be at your feet, God, than going and doing all the things and making everybody proud of me. I can't keep up with that. Are God's disruptions a divine invention? What are you hanging on to?