When God's Plan Conflicts with Yours // Jonah 4

Oh my goodness. Man, happy Father's Day, dads. I was not ready to be crying over there before getting up here, man. But can we celebrate the dads that are here with us today and say happy Father's Day to our dads? Man, I don't think anything beats stories like that, but I'll tell you, dads, listen, in a two-parent home, statistics will tell us that if the dad does not go to church, one out of every 50 kids will actually go to church when they grow up. But if the dad does go to church and lead their family into church, that number jumps all the way to 38 out of 50 that will follow the Lord and walk with Christ when they grow up. In other words, showing up matters, leading your families here today, even if you had to fight to do it, man, and you had little ones you got to get dressed, all that kinds of stuff, man, it matters. The Lord is going to bless that. Happy Father's Day. I had a couple of thoughts as we were watching that. I was like, man, there's not going to be a dry eye in the place, and the others, they have no idea who I am that's sitting here talking to them right now. So let me introduce myself for a second. My name is Spence Shelton. I serve as the lead pastor of a church called Mercy Church down in Charlotte, North Carolina. We planted back in 2015. I'm a Greensboro native, went to the Triangle, went to Chapel Hill for college, and then down to Charlotte I went, but we planted just a year before Two Cities Church, and your pastor, Pastor Kyle, is a dear friend of mine. You probably don't know this, but our churches have been growing up together. He and I have been talking back and forth for years. We hang out together and just, you know, work together on ministry problems, but also, man, we've just been hearing down there about what God is doing here, and it is a joy to get to see firsthand the incredible work that God is doing here. I'm so thankful to be here. With all that said, let's get our Bibles out and get to work, all right? So you got your Bibles. Jonah chapter 4 is where we're going to be. We're going to go over to Jonah chapter 4. As you're getting there, do you guys see this trend on social media at the start of the year, as the start of 2026, and it was everybody was posting pictures from 10 years prior, right? So 2016 pictures. I don't know if we thought life was easier back in 2016 until we were reminiscing or whatever, but we're posting pictures back from 2016 looking back, and I thought about it going, man, 2016, our church was just getting started. Our family was so young. Here's a little shot of this young family that we had. I mean, we were little kids, and oh, man, something about me misses those days, man. This is our family now. They're, like, bigger and everything, and, you know, they're the same height as me, and basketball games in the driveway are

vicious now, you know? Used to be fun, but, man, back then, I missed some of the things back then, man. I miss, well, I don't miss Doc McStuffins. We wore that show out, and I'm glad that it's gone. I'm thankful that we missed the Bluey phase. I'm very thankful we didn't hit that, but I miss Lightning McQueen and Mater. I mean, man, what films, you know? We had a pretty hard, that was the time when we were just planting. I look back on that, and I think we did some things great. Some things were really hard. I mean, we planted our church in a Jewish senior citizen activity center, all right? Just so you know, you can plant a church anywhere. The problem was that thing smelled awful every Sunday we got there, you know what I mean? Because there was somebody cooking with a whole lot of garlic, like, every morning in the kitchen, and my wife, Courtney, at the time, she was running with the essential oil crowd, like she's an oil tycoon, and so what we would do is I would send her texts like this pretty much every Sunday, like, please bring one of those diffusers because the whole place smells like jambalaya beef stew. It's awful. I mean, that's when I think of looking back, that's what I think of, those early days of planting, man, and it was just some hard stuff, and believe me, Kyle has seen many of those things as he and I were talking about our early days, but man, I say that because I think that idea of looking back, that looking back post will actually help you understand the book of Jonah and our main idea today. Most scholars believe Jonah, the prophet Jonah, wrote the book Jonah as his looking back post, his looking back and reflecting on his own stubbornness in the moment, also on God's immense grace and God's heart for the peoples of the world. The long and short of it is Jonah, if you don't, if you're not kind of new to the Bible, Jonah's this kind of unique book where, I mean, it's named after a guy that you don't want to be like, all right, at least in the course of the text. You've got plenty of Old Testament heroes you want to emulate their faith. I want to be like Daniel, like Esther, but Jonah, nope, not so much. Why? Because the long and short of it is when God called Jonah into the very purpose that he created Jonah for, we believe that God creates each one of us with a specific purpose that he has formed. Before the foundation of the world, Ephesians 2.10 says, he's created you for good works, you should walk in. Well, when it comes to Jonah, God says, Jonah, here's that calling, and Jonah goes, no, I don't think so. Why?

Because God's plan collided with Jonah's plan in a way that Jonah didn't like. What we're going to see is when those two plans collided, Jonah chose what Jonah wanted, not what God wanted. He was more submitted to Jonah's plan than he was to God's plan. And like many of us, Jonah was good with God's plan. In theory, until it started to rub up against his plan. Jonah was an Israelite. Jonah knew God. Jonah knew all the lingo, just like many of us have been around church and know the things of church and the things of faith. But when God says to Jonah, go to your enemies, the very people that have been attacking you, and go and preach, Jonah said, no, no, no, no, I'm not going to do that. And today, what we'll see is that actually the end of Jonah, after God brings him back, Jonah still has a heart of resistance to God. And yet, we have this book. We have the book of Jonah. Like, if Jonah never has a heart change, guys, somewhere in his life, we don't have the book of Jonah. He's not, like, angrily writing the book of Jonah somewhere. You know what I mean? No, and the reason is, it's a retrospective memoir. An older Jonah has now been warmed up in his heart to the grace and love of God, and he's warning all of us, don't be like Jonah. When God does call, say yes. That's Jonah's plea through this writing, when God calls, say yes. And that's our main idea for today, our main takeaway for today from the whole book of Jonah. I tell our church regularly, if you will give God one year of your life,

you will be amazed at the work that he will do in that year that will actually bear fruit for the rest of your life. Give him just one year. And here at the middle of this year, here on Father's Day, Dad, you better believe I'm talking to you. Here on Father's Day, give God the rest of this year in your parenting, in your marriage, in your work, just the rest of this year, and see what God might do if you say, yes, it is not too late. The main point from Jonah 4, the thing I want you to walk away with today, the thing that we're going to take some time to actually put into practice here at the end of this message. The main idea is simply a prayer. God, I'm saying yes. God, when you call, however you call, whatever you call, God, when you call, I'm saying yes. That's the takeaway. Now, along the way, I'll show you what might be obvious. I imagine many of you are like, yeah, man, if God tells you to do something, you should do it. And yet, so often we don't. So often we don't. You look right in the pages of Scripture, so often we don't. Why don't we? We'll talk about that as we go through it. So let's start. Chapter 4, verse 1, we'll work our way through it. You guys ready? Sorry, you don't go to my church. When we get excited about the Word of God, and I know you guys actually do that. So one of the ways that I tend to prompt that in our church, I'm like,

hey, you guys ready? Because the Bible's coming at you, and it's like, yeah, we're ready. And they, you know, are trying just like, if you can cheer for the Panthers, you can definitely cheer for the Word of God. So anyways, all right. All right, here we go. You ready? Here we go. Here we go. All right. Chapter 4, verse 1, Jonah was greatly displeased and became furious. Okay, let me actually stop right there. I got to make sure we understand. Never read Jonah. Listen, in chapter 3, God brought revival to the city of Nineveh. They were the vilest scumbags on the earth. And yet, through Jonah's rather unimpressive sermon, we'll see in a little bit, God brings the whole kingdom to repentance. These were Jonah's enemies. And Jonah's enemies are now getting the grace of God? Jonah's not happy. So verse 1 says, he's greatly displeased and became furious. I just want to make sure you understand that emotion. So I went ahead and translated the Hebrew of verse 1 from Hebrew to each generation's dialect that's sitting in here at any of our campuses today. All right? So for you boomers, what this is saying is, Jonah was fed up and wanted to speak to a manager. All right? For you Gen Xers, a little bit different.

Jonah can't believe the bad guys get a participation trophy, right? Now, for those of you that are the millennials, Jonah was triggered and he was spiraling. And lastly, for Gen Z, Gen Alpha, Jonah began to crash out. That's what's going on here, okay? Now that everybody has a good handle on what's happening, Jonah tells us why he's so upset. Why is he so upset? Look, he prayed to the Lord. Please, Lord, isn't this what I said while I was still in my own country? That's why I fled toward Tarshish in the first place, because I knew it. I knew you were. Look at that, I knew you were a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and one who relents from sending disaster. So now, Lord, take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live." And the Lord asks, is it right for you to be angry? Look at Jonah, so angry. It's better for me to just die right now than to live in this. God had sent Jonah with a message over to Nineveh. I'll read you the entire sermon that Jonah preached. You ready? Memorize it and everything for you. In 40 days, Nineveh will be demolished. That's the whole sermon. In 40 days, Nineveh will be demolished. Not exactly the sermon on the Mount, right? I mean, the thing is, Jonah preaches that one line.

He wants it to be true, doesn't he? That's his enemies. They're going to be demolished. Yes. And yet, Jonah knew God, and he knew his character, and he knew 40 days was just too long. God was going to do something in that 40 days. After all, God is a gracious, compassionate God. He knew the character of God. And Jonah, initially, when God had first called him, Jonah ran the other way. And he said no because Jonah had not come to a place in his heart where he really believed that God's plan was the best plan. And the same thing is true for us. Why do we say no to God? We say no to God because y'all, deep down, we're not convinced His way is actually better than our way. Somewhere deep down, we're just still not convinced of it. Jonah knew the character of God, and knowing the character of God, check it, because it was calling him to something that he didn't like, caused him to be angry, defiant, not submissive. Maybe that's you. Maybe you're considering something you know God is calling you to, like forgiving somebody who has wronged you. I sit up here and I talk about and celebrate dads, and maybe your dad is one that you're not celebrating. Maybe your dad is one that was harsh towards you, wronged you, left you. I don't know your story. I just know statistically, the church our size here this weekend, that's somebody who's thinking that way.

And then you hear, you know the gospel. If you're a follower of Christ, you know what Ephesians 4 tells you, be kind and compassionate to one another. What? Forgiving one another just as God in Christ forgave you. So, you know this gospel message that, man, God forgave you of your sins when you didn't deserve it, and then the application is to go and forgive others. And you're thinking about your dad, and you're like, I don't want to. Maybe a friend has even said, hey, maybe you should pray about that. And you're like, I don't want to pray about it because I know what God's going to say if I do. And that guy, maybe translated different, setting you in as a different person, that guy, that girl, whoever, they don't deserve my forgiveness. Maybe you're more thinking, come on, God, where's that Old Testament wrath I read about? That's what I really want. After all, they have never apologized. I don't hear an apology. Why should I forgive them? As if Jesus was waiting for us to repent before he went to the cross. This is Jonah. I'm angry because God's plan, God's way doesn't feel right. It feels like Nineveh's getting let off the hook, and I don't like it. I don't like it. So, Jonah runs. That's chapter 1. Here in chapter 4, we see that even though he finally did what God told him to do, he did it reluctantly, probably because you know the story. He just didn't want to go back into the belly of another fish. He's still mad, and maybe you're there.

Biggest hurdle maybe for you saying yes to God is you just disagree with what his word says about how to live your life. You don't like it. That's actually understandable and kind of a good self-awareness moment. Maybe to encourage you, every Christian deals with that because we have something called sin nature in us. That sin nature doesn't like God's way, pushes against God's way. And since truth is more easily twisted in our feelings than in our rational thinking, sin nature loves to operate in our feelings. It loves to. But hear me, guys. Just because something feels wrong doesn't mean it is wrong. Give you an example. Spinach always feels wrong. My taste buds, everything else. What feels right is mint chocolate chip ice cream. Every time, feels right. This is what heaven will be like, you know, kind of thing. But you tell me which one is right. And I'm just going to be like, mint chocolate chip. No, no, but you tell me which one is... What do my doctors tell me, right, which one is right? I'll go and tell you, man, for me, when people wrong me, revenge feels right. So it actually feels right. Forgiving them, it feels like an injustice. They deserve punishment for what they did. That's how I feel. I feel Jonah here, man. And yet, which one is right?

Which one will actually set me free from my anger? Vengeance won't do it. A little heart check for you. What if the vilest person on the earth, whoever that is for you, what if God saved them? Would you doubt it? What the person that your algorithm is shouting against, reinforcing your hate, what if God pierced through that and said, oh, I love them? It's got kind of personal for us. End of this last year, we had a young man in Mint Hill, North Carolina, right next door to us. ISIS got to him and he was planning attacks on Christians. We don't know if it's going to be on our church or not, but we know that there's a student in our student ministry who was good friends with him and had shared the gospel with him. Then this guy, I mean, so for that, especially that student, feels like such a betrayal, right? And yet the student comes and he says, man, I feel like I need to forgive him and tell him that if I ever get to see him again. Does that guy deserve forgiveness? No, but neither do you, church. Neither do I. And yet what do I know? God loves sinners and loves to bring them to repentance and went to the cross to pay for the sins of sinners, like you and me, not for perfect people. So God asked Jonah, is it right for you to be angry

if my grace stretches that far, can you handle it? Can you handle it? Is it possible that God's grace could be poured out in such a way that your heart would grow bitter towards God? That's the story of the prodigal son. I don't have time to go into today. You go and read it, it's the older brother. The older brother's bitter that the younger brother gets the love of the father. Is there anybody that could be true for you? Speaking of that, continues into the next set of verses. Jonah gives, God gives Jonah a little object lesson. Look at verse five and six. Jonah left the city. So he leaves Nineveh, he's done his job. He's mad about all this great salvation that's happening. And found a place east of it. He made himself a shelter there and sat in its shade to see what would happen to the city. He's still kind of wanting God to destroy. Verse six, then the Lord God appointed. Now you just pause right there for a second. The Lord God appointed. I want you to catch that phrase appointed. The same wording has been used throughout the four chapters of Jonah. This is, remember, this is Jonah looking back post, right? A lot later writing this, he's now aware of what happened underneath what happened.

The Lord God appointed. And I say, catch that phrase so that you'll see the things in your life, what you call coincidences or good fortune or whatever, God is actually appointing. He is scheduling things in your life in advance to bring you closer to Him and to bring about His purposes in your life. And the chief purpose, of course, draw you near to Himself. God has appointed this moment for us today. And look, he keeps going. Jonah's gonna say this a few more times. The Lord God appointed a plant and it grew over Jonah to provide shade for his head, to rescue him from his trouble. Jonah was greatly pleased with the plant. When dawn came the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant and it withered. As the sun was rising, God appointed a scorching east wind that the sun beat down on Jonah's head so much that he almost fainted. And here he goes again, he wanted to die. Now, I know there's some of you asking, well, wait, God appoints suffering? It's a great question. Here's what I know. I know God's not the author of evil. James tells me that. James tells me He'll never tempt me. Deuteronomy 32 tells me He is perfect in His nature. He is perfectly righteous and true

and all His ways are just. He cannot author evil. And Hebrews 12 tells me He disciplines those He loves. Here's what I'll say. If you're in a season of suffering, it might be God's discipline. It might be spiritual warfare. It may just be the effect of the fallen world. In my experience, godly friends help me discern which one of those it is. Regardless, the point is not running from God, but running towards Him. That's what he's trying to get you to do. I'll give you an example from my life, really how the Lord saved me. I was just 13 years old over in West side of Greensboro, and I'm at my dad's friend's 40th birthday party, and all the kids are downstairs, and I'm the oldest of the kids that are down there and everything. And we're playing basketball, having a good time, and it's like, you know, we're in this really heated match, and man, I'm in the middle of it, and I just remember, I grew up, 90s, my dad went to UNC. I'm a Jordan guy, like, through and through, okay? And so I get the chance, and I just go, cock that arm back, tongue out, I'm about to just yam on all these little eight-year-olds, right, and unashamedly do so. And my youngest brother runs underneath me

and headbutts me right in the stomach, not like intentionally, he's like doing his own thing or whatever. You know, anyways, I gasp for air, and as I'm coming down, my front four teeth get caught on the basketball net. That's what I said, okay? I felt the same way, just so we're all clear, right? Now, I land on my feet, because I'm crazy athletic like that and everything, and I'm gonna spare you a lot. Oh, I know there's some of you going, how in the world? The goal was eight feet high, but that's not important to the rest of this, okay? I recognize some of you are wondering how this is possible. But man, long story short, after an emergency visit to the ER and everything, it was just, it was a crazy night. Turns out I had broken my top jaw right in half, and so when we went into the ER, I was looking through my teeth, you know? And you're not supposed to be able to do that, just so you know, that's supposed to be a mirror thing. And so anyways, the doctor comes to me after like, he puts on these mega braces, which is just great for a 13-year-old to have these intense braces. And he says, well, you're a lucky boy. And I'm like, bro, I don't think you and I, maybe you got into the wrong room.

I don't think you understand what happened tonight. He goes, no, no, usually when this happens, and I'm like, has this ever happened in the history of the world? And he's like, yeah, usually when this happens, what happens is people break their neck and either are paralyzed for life or die right there on the spot. He says, you're walking out of here with braces. And I'm like, ha, ha, ha, ha, because I couldn't talk or anything, but you know, I had like a new appreciation for what was happening right there, right? I mean, it's just, I say that to say, man, a few weeks later, Clayton King is preaching Fort Caswell where my church had sent the youth group for the summer. And he says, man, if you die tonight, you know that you'd be with Christ. And I probably heard that prompting before, but it never been real because I never almost died tonight. And now I had this thing, it's like, man, what felt like suffering, how God, why could you ever do that? God turned around in his kindness very quickly just a few weeks later and showed me to wake you up to your need for me and your need for salvation. And that's the night that I became a follower of Christ.

I don't know what God is doing in your life right now, what season of suffering you're in. I just know it's not useless. I know it's not pointless. And I know it's meant to draw you to himself. That's what God's trying to do with Jonah, but Jonah's stubborn. You know, I mean, the verse we just read, this is at least the third time in four chapters, he said he wanted to die. He's not happy with the Lord. He keeps going into verse eight. It's better for me to die than to live, verse nine. God asked Jonah, is it right? Is it right for you to be angry about the plant? Yes, it is right. And I'm angry enough to die. I love God's question to Jonah. Is it right for you to be angry? This little dialogue actually happened in verse four when at the very beginning, when Jonah's mad about the awakening and now again, is it right? I know you're angry, but is your anger right? Now, does it feel right for you to be angry? Is it right? And I say this, y'all, it's so common for me to hear Christians say, I'm just angry with God. And we quote David from the Psalms, how long, oh Lord?

And we can find our way to say, it's okay to be mad at God. Well, to you and your situation, I just want you to hear God's question, is it right? Is it right for you to be angry at God? And I don't say that lightly because anger is an intense emotion. Some of you are dealing with intense pain and God is in control. Bad things have happened. You feel angry. Like I said, the world is broken. Bad things happen that shouldn't. It's right. for us to grieve, but blaming God is actually never right. God, I'm hurting and I don't understand, sure. But anger, as any counselor will tell you, is a secondary emotion, which means something else underneath it is creating it. Usually, that's pain, that's sadness. God, that person that I loved, they left, and I'm angry. God, they lied about me, and I'm angry. You're actually hurting. You were betrayed. And what if that anger gave way and became a bridge to a deeper communion with God, who loves you instead of a ravine that widens your distance to him? Secondly, I want you to see the grace of God when Jonah crashes out against God. God doesn't, like, backhand slap Jonah to hell, which would be justified.

Instead, God gives him a lesson in grace. He met him right where he was, and he'll meet you right where you are. Instead of your pain distancing you, allow God to speak through his word and through his Holy Spirit and comfort you and draw you close. Look at verse 10, the Lord said, you cared about the plant, which you didn't labor over. You didn't grow. It appeared in a night and perished in a night. This is another reason, another reason, y'all, why we actually say no to God and his plan is we forget his mercy towards us. We forget his mercy towards us. We do it all the time. We struggle to say yes to God in the present because we forget his mercy that he showed in the past. We struggle to be financially generous in the present because we forget his generosity in the past. We struggle to forgive because we forget how much we've been forgiven. This is the gospel, y'all. We are a gospel people. We struggle to take steps of obedience because we forget, man, look how much you provided last time we did. The gospel tells us so clearly that God will never call us to go further than he has gone for us. He loves you, church. I don't know where you are right now in your walk with God and your walk with Christ. If you're observing and checking things out here at the church,

and praise God for a church like this where you can come in and just sit, learn, and experience it, and it's a church very welcoming to the non-Christian to come and hear about the grace and love of God for you. I know that about your church. I know that to be true. And listen, the gospel announces that you and I are sinners, which means we've chosen, like Jonah, our way over God's way. But God in his great love for us does not forever send us away from himself because of that. Instead, he makes a way for our sin debt to be paid. Thanks be to God. He sent his son up on the cross. We talk about Father's Day. God the Father, most famous verse in Scripture, sent his one and only son up on the cross for you and I so that those who believe in him might not perish, might not experience the justified wrath for our sin, but instead have eternal life. I don't know what kind of dad you've had, but I know all earthly fathers, our job is just point you to that love of the heavenly father. Man, he loves you. He loves you. This leads us right to our last verse. So may I not, God says to Jonah, may I not care about the great city of Nineveh, which has more than 120,000 people who cannot distinguish between their right and their left, as well as many animals, and that's how it ends. God says, you're getting all worked up over a plant, and you had nothing to do with the plant.

It's a plant, Jonah. It's a plant, Jonah. Nineveh is filled with something a lot more valuable than plants. It's filled with people, 120,000 plus who don't know their right from their left. In other words, that right from left is a way of saying they're confused. Morally and spiritually blind and confused, and the result of that blindness and confusion has been all kinds of evil that Nineveh has committed, generations of evil. And while they deserve wrath, yes, they deserve wrath, Jonah, God doesn't look at them like Jonah does. Jonah condemns, and God says, no, these are people made in my image. They're made in my image. I made them. God's like, bigger picture, Jonah. Is it not right for me to care about my creation? You think it's right to be angry. There's a bigger right going on here. My love for people made in my image, bound for eternity, separated from me. This is our last reason I'm going to give you today while we don't say yes to God. We don't know God as well as we think we do. We don't know him as well as we think we do. Jonah was not only a Jew, which makes him part of God's chosen people, he's a prophet. If anyone knew God, it should be him. And certainly, he knew the facts, knew the facts about his

character, but man, he doesn't seem to know God deeply enough to grieve over sin and rejoice over a sinner's salvation. See the difference? When someone sins, does it only anger you or does it also grieve you? Does it grieve you because for God, it does both? The story of the Bible all throughout is a story of sinners finding salvation, get this, through the ministry of other sinners who've been saved by grace. Y'all, that's the church. If you think this church is some kind of a stuffy museum for perfect people, I'm telling you, wrong place. This church is filled with a bunch of sinners and there's room for one more, and that's you, all right? That's what we are. And hear me, there's room for entire people groups in the kingdom of God too. There's a message to us here in Jonah that even Nineveh, even Nineveh is not too far gone for the grace of God. That's the heart of God for all people groups on planet Earth. That's why God says in Psalm 67, may God be gracious to us. You may have heard this prayed over you before and bless us. May he make his face to shine upon us. Churches will quote this at the end of a service often throughout church history. We've done this, but then look, why? So that, so that your way may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations. Let the peoples praise you, God.

Let all the peoples, plural, praise you. Not just let all the people, like all the people of Israel, no, the peoples, plural, people groups, all of them, praise you, God. How's that going to happen? I'm glad you asked. Because Jesus tells us how, right at the end of Matthew, doesn't he? Great commission. To the disciples, go therefore. In light of what you have heard and seen and what I've taught you, what I've done for you, in light of the resurrection, the tomb's empty and I'm here, he's going up. He says, go therefore and make disciples of all nations. Literal word there, peoples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That's our calling. That's our calling. We are spiritual descendants of the ones that were standing on the hillside with Jesus. We're now surrendered to his plan, not our plan. We're remembering his mercy, not forgetting it. We're seeing more and more into the majestic character of God and kneeling before the King of Kings and saying, God, I'm saying yes. I'm not going to be like Jonah. Jonah has warned me. God has warned me through him. God, I'm saying yes. I'm saying yes to receiving your forgiveness.

That's where it starts with you. Here in 2026, I'm saying yes to choosing your way in my work life, in my dating life, in my marriage. I'm saying yes to what it means to be a godly father. You know, scripture, I could sum up biblical manhood. Robert Lewis did it years ago. Go look it up. It's one who, just like Christ, rejects passivity, accepts responsibility, leads courageously, and expects God's greater reward in light of it all. And I'm saying yes today. I'm saying yes to your calling, even in the hard stuff. And I got to emphasize, I'm saying yes to reaching the lost with the good news of the gospel. For some of you, that means no question in my mind here at Two Cities. That means you're going to say yes to taking the gospel to where it's not known, to the nations. You might have the question, am I called? Yes. The question is not, are you called? There's no one in this room that can escape Christ's calling on the Great Commission. It's just, where are you called? How are you called? One of my favorite, I love reading missionary biographies. Keeps me clear, like keeps my focus clear on what we're called to do. One of my favorite ones is about a guy named C.T. Studd, mainly because his name is Studd, right?

It's an awesome name for a guy. Anyways, C.T. Studd was this world-class cricket player in Cambridge, 1870s, all right? And in England, 1870s, this guy achieves Tom Brady-level fame and status, OK? Despite this celebrity status. What happened is a missionary by the name of Hudson Taylor came recruiting for Christians to go to China and CT felt, oh man, I think God might be calling me to go. My yes to Matthew 28, 19 looks like it's China. Y'all, I'm telling you, he was so popular. He was on the national team for England, their cricket team. In fact, the Queen of England herself came and said, please don't go. He's like, God's calling. Now, interestingly enough, his dad had died about a year before and he inherited the equivalent of about $4 million in today's money. And he's engaged at the time and he and his fiance are talking about how they're gonna go to China. And he said, it was a really convicting moment. He starts to give away this inheritance. And he gave away two thirds of it to ministries and then his fiance comes and says, what did the Lord tell the rich young man to do? Give away some or give away all and follow me? So he said, sell all. And they gave the remaining fortune, the last bit of it to the Salvation Army

so they could start their marriage, as he said, clear with the Lord. The rest of his life, he went on to plant churches and establish mission training hubs across China, India and the Congo. And as he neared death, here's what he wrote in his journal. Said, as I believe I'm now nearing my departure from this world, I have but a few things to rejoice in and they are these, that God called me to China and I went. I went. I went in spite of utmost opposition from all my loved ones that I joyfully acted as Christ told that rich young man to act, that I deliberately at the call of God went alone on the baby liner in 1910, gave up my life for this work, which was to be henceforth not for the Sudan only, but for the whole un-evangelized world. My only joys therefore are that when God has given me a work to do, I have not refused it. And all I'm doing is putting a little bit of today's language on that prayer church and saying, maybe your prayer, my prayer today needs to be God, I'm saying yes. I'm hearing Jonah reflect on it, wishing he would have. I'm hearing the blessing of scripture. I'm hearing the call of God to surrender, not some of my life, not part of my life, not just the parts that are already congruent with your plan, but my whole life, God, I'm saying yes. What's that for you?

What's the yes that as I'm sitting here talking about obeying God, you're thinking about? Either the step or the person, the relationship that you know you need to give over to God the Father. Yes, God, I'm a step into what it means to be a godly father, and I know that's going to be hard, and I don't think I actually have the stuff, and I've got to wake of where I have messed up in the past, but God, I'm saying yes, and I'm trusting your spirit and your word, and I'm saying yes. God, I've been wrestling with switching careers and going to the mission field, you know that, but man, I'm like, I'm gonna give up so much, and I don't know how this is all going to work out, but I'm trusting your word, I'm trusting your spirit, trusting your character, and God, I'm saying yes. I don't know what your yes is, church, but we have a way of saying it. Kyle and I and a group of pastors that we're together with say it often, put your yes on the table, let God put it on the map. What's your yes? Let me pray for you. Father, I pray for brothers and sisters here who have a very clear yes in front of them, a yes to forgiving, a yes to going and asking for forgiveness a yes to your call to the nations, a yes to your call to the person down the hall that needs to hear about the love of Christ. May just a neighbor, just a friend, even a family member.

All of our campuses right now, would you, maybe you even. You need to put your hands out in a posture of letting go of your control, of surrendering it to the Lord. The beautiful thing is open hands and open hearts can receive the love of God who meets you not with judgment and condemnation, but with great love. Maybe you need to receive the love of Christ today. He died for your sins so that you don't have to, you don't have to pay that price, you can receive. God, I'm saying yes to forgiveness. I'm saying yes to new life. Thank you, God, for saving me. Father, would you show yourself faithful again? We've seen it before. We're asking you to do it again. Would this city be transformed, this community be transformed by the love of God because they see it in the lives of the redeemed here? God, we're saying yes. Amen. Amen. Amen.