When God Speaks

Thank you, Pastor Ryan, and good morning. I'm so excited to be here. I'm so excited to be bringing this message to you this morning. Like I said, this is not part of the series.

We're going to start a new one in a couple of weeks. We just wrapped one up last week, the spiritual gem series. If you missed any part of that series, please go to the app, go to the website. Listen to it again.

Get those spiritual disciplines into your lives. Because I really believe once we start to do that, we're going to start connecting with God on another level. And through that, we're going to start hearing God speak to us. On the regular, we're just going to start hearing him speak to us.

And once that starts to happen, a new challenge arises. Because once you start to hear from God, and he starts talking into your life, and he starts giving you direction, you now have a choice to make. What do you do when God speaks? How do you respond when God speaks to you?

So I want to start this off with a question. Have you ever heard from God? Have you ever heard and known deep down in your heart that God is telling you to do something, but you just didn't want to do it? It's one of those things that you're just like, OK, God, I know this is good for some people, but I don't think that's for me.

Maybe it's a conversation that he's asking you to have. It could be with a family member. It could be with a close friend. It could be with a co-worker.

It could be with a random person down the aisle at HEB that you don't even know. But you're getting that prompting to go speak to that person. It could be a relationship that he's called you to reconcile. Maybe you're thinking, well, I'm not the one that messed up.

They should be the one doing this. They should be the one reconciling. Now, I could go into a whole thing about our relationship principles here, but go listen to that message. It could be a habit that he's told you to give up.

And it doesn't necessarily have to be a bad habit. If it's a bitch will sin, then yes, absolutely. We need to deal with that. We need to repent from that.

But this could be something that once you get your kids down to bed, you like to just sit down for a half hour on your couch and scroll on your phone. It's a little TV. And God's telling you how you need to give that up and spend that time with me. See, it's not something that's inherently bad, but God has something else for you.

Maybe it's a person or a group of people that he's calling you to love that you just don't want to. We often think that the hardest part of following God is knowing his will for our life, knowing the things that he's calling us to do, the things that he's telling us, the things that he's imparting on us. But I really think that the truth of it is that many times, the challenge is not knowing God's will for our life. It's obeying it.

There's a lot of times we know exactly what God is telling us, and we're just not willing to do it. This is what we're going to look at today. And God speaks. How do you respond?

So we serve our God who speaks. God speaks to us all the time. He calls us up. He calls us out of things.

He spoke to Abraham. He called him out of his land. He spoke to Moses through a burning bush. He spoke to Isaiah in the temple.

And in the book of Jonah, he called a reluctant prophet to carry a message to Israel's greatest enemy. Now, what makes Jonah's story remarkable is not just what God does in it. It's amazing what God does in it. And we're going to cover that in a little bit.

But really, it's how honestly the story shows us the full spectrum of the human response to a divine call. We're going to see all of that today as we go through this. We see ourselves in these pages. We run.

We obey, but we don't really want to. And there's sometimes unexpectedly, it's the people that we least expect, who show us what that whole heart is to render truly looks like. So responding to God, it's not primarily about a task. It's not primarily about God tells me to do this, and I do it.

Now, it's about our heart. It's about the attitude and position of our heart, and how we respond reveals where our heart is with that. So this morning, we're going to use the book of Jonah. We're going to look at three ways that we might respond when God speaks us.

So our first response today, when God speaks, is that we can run. We can just simply run. God can tell us what to do, and we can just say, nope, and leave. This was Jonah's first response.

It was avoidance. Let's read in Jonah 1, verse 1 through 3. The word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of a metai, saying, arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, to cry against it. For their wickedness has come up before me.

The Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. So he went down a job, but found a ship, which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare, and went down into it to go within Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. So God gave Jonah a direct call, and Jonah just ran. Do we think he was confused?

Do we think maybe he didn't recognize it was God that was speaking to him? What makes Jonah's response even more shocking is that this is not the first time we meet Jonah in Scripture. If we back up a few books in 2 Kings 14, this is during the reign of Jerobo in the second. Jonah delivers a prophecy that Israel's borders will be restored, and it happens exactly as he says.

See, Jonah had heard God before. Jonah had obeyed God before. Jonah had seen God move before. Which means that the problem in Jonah chapter 1 is not confusion, it's not misunderstanding, it's not recognizing who's speaking, it's resistance.

Jonah was resisting God. I do want to tell you a story from my own life. I think I tell a lot of stories that I don't look very good in. But we learn from our of those experiences.

But this is a time that God really spoke to me, and I heard him very clearly. We had not been in Austin very long, maybe a year, maybe a little longer. And we were going to the church in Southwest Austin, and in our smoggers we were going through this book called Soul Revolution, it's a great book. And if there's this thing called, it's the 60-60 challenge.

Every 60 minutes you take 60 seconds to just stop everything and pray. And it's all about just getting connected with God, and starting to hear his voice. And so we have been doing this. And to the point that, OK, I'm starting to hear things that I know is the Holy Spirit.

And one day I'm driving to work, and I'm getting to the last red light. And if you know Austin traffic, this is a red light. I was going to take several cycles for me to get through. And there's a car on the side of the road.

There's an SUV with its hazard lights on. And as I'm sitting at this red light, I'm like, OK, I'm going to barely make it to work, because the way this light is. I've got to get there. I've got to make sure I'm clocked in on time.

Because at this point in our life, in our marriage, we were barely making it check to check. So I've got to have every set. I've got to have every penny of my paycheck. And while I'm sitting there, and I see this car, and I'm watching the red light, and a few cars go through, I move a little bit further up, I get this impression that says, ask if they need any help.

And I'm like, why would I think that? I've got to get to work. I'm thinking it's me. I'm thinking it's me thinking that.

I see these people ask if they need help. Well, no, I don't have time for that. I've got to get to work. I've got to get clocked in.

I've got to make sure that I'm getting my full paycheck. So I just push away thinking it's my own thoughts. Few more cars go through the light. I'm inching forward.

And I hear it again. Ask if they need help. Now this time I realize it's the Holy Spirit speaking. And instead of doing what he's asking me to do, I start to argue.

I start to say, God, I don't have time for this. I've got to get to my job. I've got to help put food on our table. This is what I'm doing.

This is my job. This is what I'm called to do right now. I've got to be there. I've got to do this.

You see, like Jonah, in this moment, I was being disobedient to God. I was trying to run and avoid what God was calling me to do, even though he was being very clear about it. And we're going to get back to the story in a little bit. But there's something I want to tell you here.

Jonah didn't run because God was unclear. He ran because God was perfectly clear. He didn't run because God was not clear with him. God was perfectly clear with what he wanted Jonah to do.

But you see, this was Israel's greatest enemy that God was calling him to go speak to, and he did not want to do it. He didn't accidentally drift away from God's call. He deliberately ran in the opposite direction. You see, Nineveh is northeast from where he was.

Tarsus was about as far west as a man could go at this time. He was trying to get as far away from the calling that God had. And notice the language in these verses. He went down to Japa.

He went down into the ship. Eventually we're going to see that he goes down into the belly of the fish, down to the bottom of the sea. You see, running from God is always a descent. And the truth is, we still do this today.

We still do this today in our own lives. When God asks us to do something that's maybe really uncomfortable, we don't run all at once. But maybe we delay a conversation. Maybe we take a small step away from what he's calling us to do.

Maybe we ignore the prompting much like I was doing. We tell ourselves that's something that we'll deal with later. But every step of disobedience moves us a little further from God and where he's trying to lead us. Now why do we do this?

Why do we run? Why do we think that we can get away from what God is calling us to do? And I really think while I was studying through this, there's three main reasons that we do this. And that's fear, doubt, and comfort.

Fear, this is that fear of man. We've talked about that often. But this is where we fear what other people are going to think. We fear what they might say about us, or how they might respond.

Or we just simply fear that we're not going to be able to do what God is calling us to. We fear that we're going to fail at it. Then we have doubt. And we doubt that the thing that God is asking us to do.

Maybe we've had a past experience that we've tried to do it before, and it didn't go so well. Or maybe it's something that we've never done before, and God is calling us to do it. And we think, I can't do that. And comfort, whatever God is calling us, a lot of times we're going to be pulled out of our comfort zone.

And that's a hard place to leave. C.S. Lewis gives us an honest answer about this. He says, we are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us.

We are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be. We're not doubting that God has the best for us. We know God has the best for us. We just, whether it's consciously or subconsciously, we're wondering, what am I going to have to go through to get to this?

That's Jonah. He knew God was good. He just didn't think that what God had planned was going to feel good to him. And so we ran.

But here's something that I want you to see today, church. Running from the call is really running from the cost. Running from the call is running from the cost. Dietrich Bonifer, who himself paid the ultimate cost for his obedience to God.

He wrote this. He said, when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. He bids him come and die. Jonah wasn't willing to die to his preferences, to his prejudice.

He wasn't willing to die to his comfort. So he bought a ticket to Tarsus instead. He wasn't willing to die, so we went and got on a boat. So what happens when we run?

Well, the very next verse in Jonah says, the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest. So God doesn't abandon the mission at all. He sends a storm. He sends a storm.

The storm wasn't punished before its own state. No, it was pursued. God loved Jonah too much to let him stay in the belly of his own disobedience. Now, sometimes these storms that come up in our lives, they're just simply a result of us living in a fallen world.

They live in a world that is full of sin. But sometimes a storm is God refusing to let us keep running. He's going to shake up that thing that you're running too. That's a way from him to bring you back.

I think David said it perfectly in Psalm 139 verse 7. He said, where shall I go from your spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? He's not really asking here, like, OK, God, show me the secret places that I can get away from you.

Now, these are rhetorical questions. He knows that there is nowhere he can run. That's a way from the spirit. There's nowhere he can run.

That's a way from the presence of God. So if you're facing a storm in your life, it may not be on accident. This may be God's redirection. So that's our first response is that we can run.

We can obey outwardly while resisting inwardly. We can obey outwardly while resisting inwardly. So after the storm comes to the ship, we get to the part of the story that many of us know really well, or at least we know of. Joan is asleep in the lower deck.

So they come awake and they're like, what's going on? What did you do? And they get him to come up. And Joan, they have some interaction here.

And Joan is like, you know what? Throw me overboard. Everything will be fine for you. So they throw him over.

And God sends a big fish to come and swallow him and take him to the bottom of the sea. And then we get the entirety of Jonah chapter 2 is Jonah's prayer to God. This is a prayer of thanksgiving. He's acknowledging the mercy from God, for saving him from drowning.

He's describing his distress. He's just telling God like, this is what's going on. And then he commits to fulfilling his vows, sort of. So what we're about to get is Jonah's reluctant compliance.

When the fish bits him up, the Lord comes to him again. The starting in Jonah chapter 3 verse 1, we get a very similar message from God. So now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time saying, arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and proclaim to it the proclamation which I'm going to tell you. So God didn't change.

He's telling him to do the same thing. So Jonah rose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. This time Jonah listened. All right, so Jonah goes to Nineveh.

He preaches. The city turns. They listen. They respond.

They repent. And God relents. Now you would think at this point that Jonah would be ecstatic. This whole city has now turned to God.

But in fact, Jonah is the exact opposite. He's actually angry. He's furious about what has happened. This is one of the greatest revivals that's happening in the Old Testament.

And the preacher is angry about it. Let's pick this up in Jonah 4 verses 1 through 3. But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord and said, please, Lord, it was not this what I said while I was still in my own country.

Therefore, in order to force all this, I fled to Tarsus for I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant and loving kindness. And one who relents concerning calamity. Therefore now, oh Lord, please take my life for me. For death is better to me than life.

Now first of all, I think Jonah is being a little extra here. He's like, things take my way. So just take my life. You're not going to do the things I want.

Just take my life. You know, when I was writing this, I was like, maybe Jonah was like the first emo. But actually a couple of days ago, I was reading in Numbers and Moses says the same thing. So this is just kind of an ongoing thing with the Israelites.

But he became angry. He became angry about the response that God had. How is this possible? Why would he become angry for God just being who he is in his nature?

Right? It makes no sense for him to get angry. But the reason he got angry is because Jonah was not fully surrendered to God's will. He had not fully surrendered himself to what God had called him to.

He obeyed the letter of the command. He went and he preached in Nineveh. That's what God told him to do. He said the words that God called him to say.

But the whole time he wanted Nineveh to burn. He preached repentance while hoping they would not accept it. So remember the story that I was telling you earlier about me at the red light? Well, it doesn't get better.

I'm still at the red light. I'm moving forward. I've already pushed it away twice. The Holy Spirit telling me to ask if they need help.

In a third time, I hear the Holy Spirit ask if they need help. And at this point, I'm side by side with the car that's on the side of the road. And I'm like, fine. OK, I'll do it.

I start getting angry. I'm like, I've got to get to work. But you're telling me to do this. And you keep telling me to do this.

I'll find I'll just do it. And I'll roll my window down. And as I'm about to ask them the question, I hear from a car behind me, say, hey, is everything OK? It's the exact words that I was supposed to be saying.

And in that moment, I felt the Holy Spirit say something to me that I will never forget. He said, all I was asking you to do was ask a question. I just needed your op tickets. See, in my mind, it had already played out.

I was going to have to pull over. I was going to have to help drive them somewhere. I was going to have to give them money for something, which, like I said, we were already barely making it. In my mind, all these scenarios were running.

But God had already taken care of it. They already had a friend on the way. They were almost there. All he was asking me to do was ask the question.

See, I was going through the motions at that point. Even though I was angry, I was going through the motions on the outside, but in my heart, I was not there. I didn't have a cheerful heart. I wasn't joyful for the chance to obey what God is calling me to, to do the thing that he's asking me to do, a way that I might be able to speak life into someone else.

And I think this moment really revealed something about my own heart, where I was in my life at that time. Thankfully, God stays with you, and I've grown so much since then. He's just asking us to respond cheerfully with obedience. He's got it all worked out.

See, it's not about the actions that you take. It's about your heart. Jonah was technically an end of a, but his heart was still on the way to Tarshu. So he had changed his location without changing his posture.

He had changed his location, but he had not changed the posture of his heart. And if we're honest, a lot of us have done the same thing. You may be doing it here this morning. You're here, you're in church, but you're really thinking about, what am I going to get for lunch?

What do I have to do this afternoon? What's going on at the beginning of this week? Maybe there's times that you're serving, but you don't want to be there, and you're complaining or you're grumbling about it. Or maybe you're obeying, but you're resentful about it.

You see, this is the most dangerous kind of disobedience, because on the outside it looks like obedience. We're doing those things. We're physically doing them, but our heart's not in it. So maybe you're like, I go to church, I read my Bible, I pray, I go to a life group, I answer questions there.

Then God calls you to something, and maybe it's going to require a sacrifice. Or maybe it's going to require you to do something that takes you outside of your comfort zone. Maybe he wants you to go stand out and greet people as they're coming in, and you're like, I don't like to talk to people. Or maybe he wants you to serve in Sunday school.

You're like, I don't like kids. Maybe he's called you to love people. We've got a secret for you here. He's called all of us to love people.

And if you don't believe that two weeks ago, listen to Pastor Rob's message on fellowship. So he's called you to this, and you say, OK, I'll do it. But I really don't want to do this. I really don't want to be here.

Or maybe you're like, OK, I'll do this. Just long enough for someone else to come along and take my place. I'll be here. I'll fill this spot until someone else else that come along and take my place.

Well, I want to tell you something today, church. Somebody did take your place. His name is Jesus. He took your place on the cross.

He took your sin. He took the debt that we deserve. But before he went to the cross in the garden, he said this, in Luke 22, he said, not my will, but yours be done. Jesus was saying, I don't want to suffer this, but it's not my will, it's yours.

And this won't be on the screen, but Hebrews 12, too, says, for the joy set before him, he endured the cross. He didn't go to the cross grumbling. He didn't go to the cross complaining, I've got to do this thing. Not at all.

For the joy set before him. This is whole hearted obedience to the will of God. This is the, you're saying, look, this is not something that I want to do, but God, you've called me to it. So I'm going to not only give it my all.

I'm going to do it with a joyful heart. And I'm going to let people see that joy from me. And I'm going to do this for as long as you've called me to do it. I want people through whom he can do the impossible, what a pity we plan only the things that we can do by ourselves.

So if we're truly open and surrendered to the will of God, he can do what we think is impossible. Begrudging obedience is just self-reliant, stressed up, and religious clothing. So he jumped up, he preached the message, and then he sat down on the hill, expecting to control the outcome of it. But the people repented, and God relented.

Jesus tells us another story of a person that has a very similar reaction in Luke 15. He has the same heart condition. And this is the older brother in the story of the prodigal son. If you don't know the story of the prodigal son, a parable that Jesus tells where a son takes his inheritance, he goes off to the city, he lives a lavish lifestyle, he blows all the money, he ends up in a pig pen, because he's lost everything.

And in that moment, he says, well, I'll just go back and beg to be a servant, because they had it better than this. And as he's returning home, his father sees him, and he comes running, puts the robe around, he puts the rings on his hand, brings him back into the family, restores his status, says, let's have a feast, let's have a celebration. And a part that we often miss is the older brother. Because while all this is going on, the older brother, the one who stayed, the one who was obedient, the one who did what his father asked him to do, he's standing outside angry.

See, like Jonah, he was willing to serve, but he wanted to control who was going to receive the mercy. Timothy Keller speaks directly to this, he says, the gospel is this, we are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the same time, we are more loved and welcomed in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope. See, we think our sin is here, it's really here, and we think, well, God loves us there, I can't even reach. That's how much God loves us, that's how much Jesus Christ loves us.

See, Jonah had never really applied the gospel to his enemies. He wanted justice for Nineveh, but he wanted grace for Israel. And the gospel just doesn't work that way. The same mercy that saved Jonah from the fish is what's now being offered to the Ninevites.

And Jonah, Jonah's not happy about it, he's upset that God is willing to give this mercy to them. Now God's response to Jonah is not anger for this, no, he takes this moment to teach him. What he does is, Jonah's sitting on the hillside, ain't over now he makes a plant grow up, and it's the next day it's giving him shade, so he's being blocked from the sun, he's having a nice day on the hill, still being in his, you know, he always saying that, you know, why did you do all this? Well, then the next night God sends a worm to kill the plant, to eat out the plant, to die.

And so the next morning we pick up here, after Jonah sees that the plant has died, God sees Jonah grieving more for the plant than the people. So in chapter four verse nine through 11, he says, then God said to Jonah, do you have good reason to be angry about the plant? And he, this is Jonah said, I have good reason to be angry, even to death. Here we go again.

Then the Lord said, you had compassion on a plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. Should I not have compassion on Nineveh? The great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between the right and left hand, as well as many animals. So God wasn't just simply calling Jonah to go preach to people in Nineveh.

He was calling Jonah to go love the people of Nineveh. The mission was never about the message. It was always about the messenger. So that's our first two responses.

We can run, we can obey outwardly, while not doing it inwardly. And our third response we God speaks is that we can surrender completely. This is the response we should have. We should surrender completely.

So the great irony in the book of Jonah is that the prophet that hears God is the one that's resisting. When in chapter one we get the sailors on the boat, they're pagan sailors. They're crying out to all the different gods when the storm comes. But after they throw Jonah over, they turn to God.

Then we get the Ninevites. This is Israel's most fearsome enemy. They hear a simple eight word message, and the entire city turns to God. Let's read this in Jonah chapter three, verses four through 10.

Then Jonah began to go through the city one day's walk. And he cried out and said, yet 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown. Then the people of Nineveh believed in God. And they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them.

When the word reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe from him, covered himself with sackcloth and sat on the ashes. He issued a proclamation and it said, In Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, do not let man, beast, herd or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat or drink water, but both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth. And let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands.

Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw his burning anger so that we will not perish. When God saw their deeds that they turn from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which he had declared he would bring upon them. And he did not do it. So when I was first writing this message, I was actually gonna call it the day the cows repented.

I just thought that was funny because here the king is saying, like not just the people but all the animals too. We're gonna put on sackcloth with sackcloth and ashes. That's our sign of repentance here. Let's see what happened here is the Nineveh's response.

It was wholehearted surrender. Wholehearted surrender. It was everyone, everyone from the top to the bottom. And Jesus even holds them up as an example when he's talking to the religious people in Matthew 1241.

He says, the men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah and behold something greater than Jonah is here. You see the Nineveh's they didn't negotiate, they didn't partially comply, they didn't wait a few days. Well he gave us 40 days, let's write this out a little bit and see if things start going bad. No, they heard and they immediately responded.

And like I said, it was everybody, they heard, they believed and they acted from the king all the way to the lowest person in the streets. Jim Elliott, he was a missionary who gave his life carrying the gospel to the people of Ecuador. He said this, he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. You see, that's the Nineveh spirit.

They gave up everything, they gave up their sin, they gave up their pride, they gave up their comfort, they gave up their ways, their wicked ways. These are all things they couldn't keep. And in return, they got something they couldn't lose and that was God's mercy. Complete surrender is not loss.

It's the greatest exchange available to a human being. I'm gonna say that one again, complete surrender is not loss. We think we're giving things up, that we're losing the things that make us who we are. No, not at all.

It's the greatest exchange available to a human being because we get so much more in return. A.W. Joseph speaks to what makes this kind of surrender possible. He said the reason why many are still troubled, still seeking, still making little forward progress is because they haven't yet come to the end of themselves.

They haven't yet come to the end of themselves. They haven't yet surrendered everything. The Ninevehts, they had come to the end of themselves. The King stepped off of his throne, set aside his robe and sat in ashes while wearing sackcloth.

Like there was no pride left here. They had come to the end of themselves and repented to God. So for us, what does complete surrender look like? What does this look like?

Well, first it's immediate. Looking at this passage in Jonah, they didn't delay, they didn't make excuses. Jonah 3-5, they said, then the people of Nineveh believed in God. So before that, Jonah had walked one day.

Prior to that, it actually says Nineveh is, it's a three days to walk across it. He'd only gone in a third of the way in the whole city is already repenting. It was immediate. The second way that complete surrender looks like is that it's total.

The rest of Jonah 3-5 says they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. It was total. It was everybody, the whole city. The next is that complete surrender is active.

Like we just said, they were doing fast. They called a fast. They put on sackcloth. And then the King in Jonah 3-8 says, let men call on God earnestly.

That each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands. See, they didn't just say, OK, yeah. I repent. I'll go back to what I was doing.

No, they took action. The next complete surrender is humble. Jonah 3-6. When the word reached the King of Nineveh, he arose from his throne.

Late aside his robe from him, covered himself with sackcloth and sat on the ashes. Again, this was putting away the pride, taking on humility, to show the posture of his heart changing. And finally, complete surrender produces transformation. Jonah 3-10, they turned from their wicked ways.

They completely surrendered in this transformed their lives. John Piper frames the reward of this surrender beautifully. He said, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. Not in the things that we do, not in the things that we have, when we are fully satisfied in him.

When we strip away everything else in our satisfaction is only in God, that is when he is the most glorified. You see, the Ninevehts, they didn't lose anything that was worth keeping, and neither will you, Church. So we've looked at three responses. We can run away.

We can have that reluctant compliance. And then we can have complete surrender. So my question today, Church, is which response is yours? When God speaks to you, which response will you have?

See, the book of Jonah, it ends without resolution. The last thing we get is Jonah sitting there on the side of the hill. We don't know if it's hard ever changes. He's still grembling about the plant.

And that's when God asks that question, should I not have compassion on Nineveh? We never get a response from Jonah. I believe that silence is intentional. Because I think the question is for us now.

Maybe it's not should I not have compassion on Nineveh. Maybe it should I not have compassion on your coworker. Should I not have compassion on those people that I'm asking you to talk to? When God speaks, how will you respond?

Some of us will run. Some of us will obey, but not really want to be there. And some of us will surrender completely. And maybe today you recognize yourself in Jonah.

God is calling you to do something, and you're pushing it away. Maybe you're like I was at that light. You're just like, no, that's my own thoughts. It's not you.

But it keeps coming back. Maybe you know it's God asking you, but you're still running from it. Or maybe you've been doing it, but your heart just hasn't been in it. You've been going through the motions without really surrendering yourself to what he's called you to do.

You've been complaining about it. You've been grumbling about it. Well, the good news of the gospel is that neither one of those have to define your future. Neither one of those outcomes has to be the end of your story.

We've got one more quote, and then we'll be closing out. Corey Tinboom, this was the one who suffered deeply in obedience to God. She said, never be afraid to trust an unknowing future to a known God. Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.

We don't know the outcome. I think it's that way on purpose. But God knows every bit of it. So God is speaking to you today.

He's speaking to you. You know what he's telling you to do. Stop running. Let go of the resentment.

And surrender completely to the God who is already pursuing you. Everyone stand with me. We're going to wrap up. What I'd like you to do is everyone just close your eyes.

There's nothing super spiritual about closing your eyes at all. All this is doing is letting you get alone with God in this moment. What I'd like you to do is think about this. What might happen if we responded the way that Nineveh did?

What might God do in your life if you surrendered like that?