The scripture reading for today is Jonah chapter 1 verses 1-3. Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness is come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa. And he found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. Lord God, we just thank you for this opportunity that you've given us once again just to come and worship. I pray that you would bless this service, Lord, that you would speak through Pastor Dellinger as he brings your words, that you would just say what you want him to say, and that we would take away what we need to learn, Lord, and that we would be able to apply it to our lives. We pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. We're in the book of Jonah. We had an induction last week as we have completed our Matthew series and have jumped to the Old Testament, and we'll be going through the four chapters of the book of Jonah here. And when you think of the book of Jonah, it's a story that most of us heard when we were young. Whether you grew up in a Christian home or not, you're probably at least somewhat familiar with it. But when you think of the book of Jonah, I want you to consider this. Out of all the. The text that we have of all the verses in these four chapters of Jonah. What is the greatest? Thing that happens in this book, what is the maybe the most miraculous thing that happens in this book? And there's a lot of miracles here. But stop for a moment and just say, what really is the most mind boggling of all the book of Jonah? Well, we have it in our text today. Jonah, chapter one. Now, the word of the Lord came to Jonah. I don't know if you realize it or not, this is the most pivotal moment in this book. It's the first words, the first sentence, and the rest of this book hangs in the balance based on what Jonah was going to do now. The Word of the Lord came to Jonah. And everything we read in these four chapters is about what Jonah does now that the Word of the Lord has come to him. You cannot read this first line, this first sentence, and just overlook this. We can't hurry up and get to the fish part of the story. As I said last week, the book of Jonah is not a book about Jonah. It is a book about God. And God is the main character here. And right here in verse 1, it records for us the greatest event in the book of Jonah. And for that matter, the Bible. What is that greatest event? that God came to man. Who started the book of Jonah? It wasn't Jonah. It was God. The word of the Lord came to Jonah. Jonah did not go and get a word from the Lord. The Lord came to him. Jonah did not first pursue God. God came to Jonah first. And God does that. He always moves first. That is why this first verse is so great. This is the story of Scripture right here in the first sentence of the book of Jonah. Even when it seems from our perspective, from the way we see things. Still, God always moves first, because if God doesn't move first, we can never move towards him. 1 John 4, 19, we love Him because He first loved us. You cannot love God first. No one ever has, no one ever will. God has always loved and moved towards us first. Romans 5, 8 says that God commended His love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Do you see that when we were sinners, we were enemies with God and He moved first? His love moved towards us even when we hated him. God is the author of the gospel, and there is nothing that man can do, nothing that man can do to take any credit for the gospel story. We can't even claim to desire the gospel unless God first moves. And this is such a critical part of understanding the gospel message. The gospel is something that we can only respond to. We did not create the gospel and therefore we cannot initiate it. Man did not move first to God and never will unless God moves first towards man. And this is not just a New Testament teaching. We see it right here in the Old Testament, in the book of Jonah, of all places. We also see it in Genesis. We see it throughout Scripture, God moving first towards man. So do not overlook how this book begins, because that first sentence is in essence the gospel. God comes to man. The book of Jonah does not begin with Jonah running from the presence of God. It begins with God first coming to Jonah. And it's critical for you to understand this first sentence. Because as miraculous as the story of Jonah is, and as much as we first think, when we hear the word Jonah, we think of the well. And we think of Nineveh. We think of Jonah being thrown overboard. We think of those things as great and miraculous as the story itself is, the wind, the well, the great city. The most miraculous part is that God even came to Jonah in the first place. That is the most miraculous part of this whole story. The perfect, infinite, almighty, holy, and pure God came to Jonah, a coward, a sinner, a rebellious man. That is the greatest miracle in this book. Children, I want you to listen carefully here. I realize that the story of Jonah is exciting. It's exciting as an adult to read it. But I want you to understand one truth. If you don't hear anything else I say today, hear this. The most incredible part of the whole story of Jonah is that God came to Jonah in the first place. Look at it this way. If I told you that someone came to my front door and instead of answering the door, I ran away and went out the back door and ran away. In fact, I jumped on a boat to run away. And the storm got so bad that the middle of the boat threw me overboard and a huge fish swallowed me. In three nights, I was in that fish. And then I was later spit up on dry land and lived to tell about it." You would think, wow, that's an amazing story. I would say, yes, it's amazing. It's hard to believe that all that happened. I mean, that is an incredible story to hear that. And to think that it all started because someone knocked on my door. And then if I'm telling you that story and you go, well, who was it that came to your door? And I said, oh, it was God. You said, God? He came to your door? I mean, he was at your front door. God himself was at your front door? It puts in perspective the fish part of the story. You mean God came to your door? The creator of the universe, the almighty, perfect, holy God, He came to you? I mean, the fish part was hard to believe, but this is even harder to believe. That God came to your front door. I want you to understand that, especially you children in here. The most fascinating part of the story of Jonah is that God came to Jonah in the first place. that God would come to a sinful man and to sinful men. But God went to this man Jonah. And it is more important for you to understand that truth than it is for you to understand the wind and the whale and the boat ride. You need to know that God first came to Jonah because I don't want you to miss that. This first sentence here in the book of Jonah, That is the only part of the entire book that I pray at least you get today. I don't wish that someday you have your own miraculous fish story that's hard to believe. What I wish for you today is that what we read in this first sentence, we understand what God has done towards us, that God came to us. You see, if this first sentence is not here in Jonah, and the story is not about a great fish, but instead of about a man, let's say this story is about a man named Jonah who had great riches, who had great possessions. This is a story of Jonah who had a long and healthy life. He had a great family. He, in fact, lived in peace all of his life. He had no enemies. He enjoyed every pleasure this world has to offer. If that's what this story was about, but what was missing was that God never came to Jonah, then it would be the saddest of all stories. Regardless of how great it turns out for Jonah in this life, if God had never come to him, and yet he enjoyed the rest of this life and peace and riches and pleasure and all other things, and yet God had not come to him, that would be the saddest story. But this book begins with the truth about God that even the children in here need to understand. And that is God moves towards us. And the rest of this book is about how Jonah responded to God moving towards him. And we know what he did. He ran away. He tried to go the opposite direction. And the rest of your life is going to be about how you respond to God moving towards you. Whether you're young and you have 60 or 70 years left of this life, Or whether you're older and there's only a few years or a couple of decades, or who knows, your life may be cut short this week. How will you respond? Will you run away? Or will you seek the Lord in turn? Will you obey the commands of God? Because your story hangs in the balance of how you respond to the Lord. Just like Jonah's story was hanging in the balance regarding how Jonah responded to the Lord. Do not read over this first sentence as if it is just an introduction. I think it's easy to do that. It's easy to read. In fact, I probably could have gotten up here today and read the first verse. And within two minutes, you would have forgotten what I just read. It's easy to do that. We cannot neglect this first verse and how important it is and critical to understand not only the story of Jonah, but the entire gospel. The greatest miracle of this book is that God moved first towards Jonah. Now, some of you in here may think that you're inadequate. You're not very important. You don't have a talent to offer anybody. Maybe you feel that you're not real likable. You think that you're in a family that's not impacting the world or even this church or the community. You feel like, you know, it's just me. I'm just kind of here. I really don't have much to offer. Well, the answer to that is you're right. You have nothing to offer God. to get him to come to you. Look at Jonah. We read this book and think, you know, this is the world's worst missionary. This guy's a mess. He's rebellious. He's a coward. He's angry. He's discontent. Seems to be a whiner. And God is going to him. Now, that should give you hope. You see, God had a purpose and a plan for Jonah. But the problem was, Jonah also had a purpose and plan for Jonah. Jonah had a purpose and plan for himself, and it wasn't God's plan. But God still used this messed up Jonah. The first sentence here is so encouraging and uplifting. It's the most encouraging words when we read that God came to Jonah. The almighty, perfect, pure, holy God came to Jonah. Do not be so consumed with what follows after this that we miss this first line and how important it is. Look at verse 2. Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before me. Jonah was called to go and to preach. He was called to go to Nineveh. But as we learned in our study of the Great Commission in the end of Matthew 28, Jonah was not to just go to Nineveh. He was to go and preach there. He wasn't just to travel to Nineveh. Because the Great Commission is not just about traveling. It's not about going somewhere. It's going to share the gospel. And God sent him there to preach against the wickedness that had consumed that city. That great city that the Bible describes. Jonah was called to do more than just pray for those people. He was called to go to them and to preach to them. But don't you find that a lot of times we're just more content to just pray for somebody? But we must, as verse two says, arise and go. There are times where we are to go. Whether it's our relatives or a co-worker or a neighbor, and sometimes it may involve traveling. There are those The Lord puts it on the heart to go to certain tribes, nations, and our missionaries, and we support those. But how content many times we are to say, you know what, let's just pray for them. I'd rather pray for my lost relatives than to ever say anything to them. But Jonah was told to arise and go. And a lot of times we find ourselves never going and doing anything. And we think that we're excusing ourselves when we say, well, we've just prayed for them. and years will pass and we'll still be talking about the wickedness of Nineveh or whatever other place or person, but never going there and actually preaching to them. We'll care enough to talk about them, but not care enough to go there. You see, God cared for the people of Nineveh. And as we learned in our introduction, these weren't Jewish people. These weren't Jews. And this is the Old Testament. And God cares about these Gentiles. He wanted them to be warned about the great destruction that awaited them if they did not repent. So what does he do? He sends Jonah. He says, Arise and go. Jonah, and that really just in the Hebrew means get up now and go to Nineveh. Now, I don't know if it was an audible voice. I don't know if it was A vision or Christ himself. I don't know if it was an angel or God spoke to Jonah's spirit in such a way there was no misunderstanding on Jonah's part. But whatever it was, Jonah knew that he was to go to Nineveh. Jonah was minding his own business and God completely interrupted his life. It's incredible how in just one or two seconds your life can change forever. I mean, just like that, you're heading this way and then something just comes from what appears to be out of nowhere. You're going along and God completely redirects your life. I mean, and it comes in different forms. I mean, it could be a phone call that you receive. It could be a doctor's report. It could be a visit from someone. An email, it could be being laid off of work. It could be the Holy Spirit speaking directly to you. But everything will change after that. And that's how it was for Jonah here. And that's how it still happens many times today. God comes and He completely interrupts whatever we're doing. Our routines, our schedules, our life. And He's moving towards us. And because of that, we will never be the same. And this message that Jonah was to proclaim, or to cry out to them about, was that their wickedness was against God. So just how wicked were these people? Well, Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire, and it was known for being a very cruel and violent place in the book of Nahum, which was written years later about the ultimate destruction of Nineveh, because we know in the book of Jonah, they repented. But then years later, they went back and God destroyed them. And in that book of Nahum, we read of some of the evidence of that sin and some of the evidence of that wickedness. So if you'll turn to the third chapter of Nahum here. And this is a description of Nineveh right before God destroyed it. Look at chapter 3, verse 1. Woe to the bloody city. It is all full of lies and robbery. The prey departeth not. The noise of a whip and the noise of the rattling of wheels and of the prancing horses and of the jumping chariots. The horsemen lifted up both the bright sword and the glittering spear. And there is a multitude of slain and a great number of carcasses. And there is none in of their corpses. They stumble upon their corpse. Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the well-favored harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts. Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will show the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame. And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazing-stock. And it shall come to pass, when all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste. Who will be moaner? When shall I seek comforters for thee? This city was so wicked. The first thing it says there in verse one, it's called a bloody city. A city where death and violence and witchcraft are present. It is so bad that people are stepping over bodies. Here in the book of Nahum, God is going to unleash his wrath upon them, and that city will become a wasteland. The Lord has had enough of their wickedness. But Jonah, the book of Jonah was written years before, and God, who is slow to anger, was going to send Jonah to them, to the people of Nineveh, to cry against it. Now, that phrase means that Jonah, he's not going to say, hey, people of Nineveh, God has a wonderful plan for your life. That's not what he was going to preach. Jonah was giving them the warning that they were about to be destroyed by God. Judgment was on the doorstep. And if they did not repent, they would be destroyed. And it was a very wicked city. The Assyrians were famous for their cruelty. They were the most, at this time, the most powerful empire and pretty much did what they wanted to do, especially when it came to wickedness. I was reading where they were extremely brutal to those that they defeated. They would skin people alive. They would cut off body parts. They would even take the heads of the people they killed and make monuments with their heads. I mean, this was their reputation, and they sort of prided themselves on the fact that everybody feared what they may do if they were captured by them. So you can see why not only the Jews hated them, but everybody hated them. They were fearful of them. And Jonah didn't want to be a part of this. Jonah would just have preferred that God wipe these people off the face of the earth. They were brutal. They were hated. They were mean. Their wickedness was great. And Jonah would have preferred that God just destroy them. But for us today, there are two truths that I want us to realize about wickedness though. Because many times I think we just categorize sin as wrong. And it is wrong, but we just sort of say, yeah, what I did was wrong. And we just kind of leave it at that. But sin and wickedness go further than just being wrong. Wickedness goes beyond being just a generalization of saying my sin is wrong. The first truth is that our sin, and we got to make it personal here, this is my sin. My sin is always wicked. That's personal. I'm talking about my sin. You should be thinking about your sin. Sin is always wicked, no matter how nice of a package we try to wrap it up in or dress it up. No matter how much we try to rationalize it, make excuses, or even categorize it based on how severe the consequences may be, sin is is always exceedingly wicked. It's always sinful. There's no such thing as a minor or little sin. And it is exceedingly wicked because God is exceedingly holy and pure. Never attempt to think that your sin... I don't care what family you're in. I don't care how long you've been a believer. I don't care how young or old you are. or how moral your life seems to be on the outside, never attempt to think that your sin is exempt in some way because God knows your heart or He knows that you're really trying your best. See, God hates sin. It's wicked, all of it, regardless of who you are. For years, there's been a great outcry within the Christian community against homosexuality. We preached about it being an abomination. We preached about how evil homosexuality is. And many Christians get stirred up to some degree for honest, and we tend to look down on that sin as if our sins are less evil and less wicked. But where's the outcry from the church about gossip or the lust, men, that is in our hearts? Or the secret hatred that some believers have for certain people groups. Or just lawfulness. Or failing to be gentle with others. Or greed. Where's the outcry? It's usually not there. Because we don't find those sins quite offensive to us. Like homosexuality or even other sins. In fact, we embrace some sins. But the anger and the self-righteousness that comes to the surface when something like homosexuality is mentioned. We have to understand that all sin is wicked, even the sins found within the church. So does that mean we shouldn't preach against homosexuality? I'm not saying that. We should. But we can't pick and choose the sins we want to preach against. When we do that, we're self-righteous and self-righteousness abounds. And guess who's usually the first to see it? The people that we're preaching against. They need to see a humble, broken church pleading for their salvation. That's what the world needs to see. What the homosexual community especially has seen by much of the American church is a self-righteous, angry, politically motivated group who hates them. But that's not what we've been called to do. Our own sin is very wicked. Therefore, we must examine ourselves and keep ourselves humble before God. And a Christian with a humble and broken heart who has sought the Lord is a mighty weapon of evangelism. A Christian with a humble and broken heart who has sought the Lord is a mighty weapon of evangelism. What's destructive is the believer who thinks he has all the quick answers. He's confident in his abilities to speak in the debate and argue and even has the external appearance of morality. That person's dangerous. It's also wicked when we act as if we have somehow arrived. Our sin is always wicked, even though we may not have the sins of some of the people outside of this church building. Our sin is still just as wicked. It is wicked before the Lord. The second truth is that our sin is personally against God. I don't want us to kid ourselves, and this is for Christians and non-Christians. Your sin is always against God. Your sin is not against morality. It's against God himself. Look at verse 2. For their wickedness is come up before me." It is personal against God. Now, you children in here, you may sin against your parents. You may sin against your brothers or sisters. When you sin against your siblings or your parents, you've also sinned against God. I want you to see how big of a deal this really is. You haven't just wronged your family members. You have personally come against God. Sin does that. Husbands, when you do not care and love for your wife, when you are not patient and gentle with her, and you don't deal with her in an understanding and honorable way as 1 Peter 3 instructs us to do, You haven't just sinned against your wife. You have personally sinned against God. Your sin is against Him personally. Don't generalize your sin as if it's this mass of wrongs that you have done and they're just kind of floating out there. No, sin is always against God. Do not rationalize in your mind that Yes, I've done some wrongs, as if they're detached completely from any person. But they come up before God. Wise when you don't respect your husbands, as Ephesians 5 commands you to do, or when you withhold your body from your husband on the marriage bed, as 1 Corinthians 7 warns about. You're not just standing against your husband. You are personally coming up against God. So don't claim that you love God and hate your husband. Husbands can't say that they love God, but then hate their wives. Children, you can't say that you love God and yet hate your brothers and sister or your parents. We as a church can't claim to love God and then hate others outside of this church, or inside the church for that matter. I want us to see the connection here. That's why we have David saying these words. Turn to Psalms chapter 51. Psalm chapter 51. What we're going to see David doing is making it very, very personal. Verse 1. Psalm 51. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies. Blot out my transgressions. Verse 2. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin. Not sin in general, my sin. Verse 3. For I acknowledge my transgressions. And my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. David sees his sin. He owns it. It is mine. I have done this sin. It is my transgression. It is my iniquity. It is my sin. And I am the one that needs to be cleaned. He is not saying, Lord, just forgive me for all my sins. And he's not generalizing in a sense that as if it is just a violation of something moral he's done. He realized this is a sin against the Lord. He says, against thee and thee only have I sinned. We know the story of David. We know the sins he did. and the people that were involved. But David ultimately realizes, I have sinned against the Lord God. David sees his sin. He sees God's holiness. And there is no excusing it in any way. David's wickedness. He's not generalizing it. He's not sugarcoating it. It's his sin. It's his transgressions. It's his iniquity. And in verse 4, To whom has David's sin gone before? God himself. I have sinned and done this evil in thy sight. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned. Nineveh was a great city, but it was filled with wickedness. And the wickedness was not just within that city. Their sin didn't just stay within the walls of Nineveh. It was before God. Their sin was before God. It was exposed before God. In your home, when there is sin, your sin does not just stay there in your home, or in your room, or in your thought life, or before your computer, or in your discussions with your wife, or your children, or in your car. Your sin does not just stay there. It is before God. Now, you may come here on Sundays and no one else knows about the sins of your family this past week. We weren't with you day in and day out, and we don't know what really went on at your home, and maybe even some of your family members don't even know what went on at your home this past week. Maybe no one knows about the hatred that's in your home, or the rebellious hidden heart that is there in your home, or the disrespect and unkindness towards each other. But we may not know about that. Others in here may not know about that, except you or a few of your family members. But I can tell you one thing, your sin is not confined to your home. It is not confined to just this little area of your life. As if when you left that home, all your sins stayed back there, and here you're a different person. Your sins are before God. You have personally sinned against Him. And just because your home may be filled with sinful attitudes and sinful hearts and sinful actions within your home, it doesn't lessen them. It doesn't make it less sinful. Yeah, I said that, but I said that at home as if, oh, that's a different sin. That's a lesser sin because you did it at home. I think we'd agree with the statement, but I think in practice, a lot of us think that way. I would never say that to somebody at church. I mean, I can say it at my home to people all the time, but at church, that's different. People are that way with me when they find out I'm a pastor. Don't lie, the pastor's here. I've heard that before. And then they start using the word blessing all the time. Like, listen, it's just me. I'm not talking about you people. I'm talking about people I meet out in the public and stuff. They change a little bit. As if the environment all of a sudden makes, you know, lines acceptable if I'm not here. But I think we live that way sometimes in our homes or in our thought life. Let's get as small as we can to our thought life. We think, well, if I thought about this and it was sinful, that's still not as bad. As if it's completely detached, but it is before God. It is exposed before God. Just because we may not know and others may not know, does not mean that it lessens the sin. They are exposed before God, and you have come up against the creator of the universe with your sin. And just as magnificent and awe-inspiring that is in verse one, that God would come to Jonah, or that he would come to us, what should also cause us to tremble To the same extent is that our sin is before God. It makes it even more incredible that our sin is before God. And yet he still comes to us. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. We cannot lessen our sin as if it is no big deal. Or if you've been a believer for years and years, maybe even decades, that all of a sudden your sin is a little bit more acceptable because, well, you've been a believer for so long. It is just as wicked. It is just as evil. Even as a believer who knows that because of Jesus we are forgiven, it doesn't lessen the wickedness of your sin. Just because your sin is forgiven doesn't mean it was not evil or less evil. God's grace does not make sin less wicked. It just removes it as far as the east is from the west. Do not take lightly your sin. It is always wicked. It is always against God. And my prayer is that in these first two verses of the Book of Jonah, that we grasp an understanding of God's love to us, that he moved towards us. And also the wickedness that indwells not only humanity, but let's make it personal, it indwells me. God specifically, God moved towards me, and yet there is wickedness in me, in my flesh. That is personal. Our sin is ours, just like David proclaimed. But so is the love of God towards us. This isn't about general sin and the general love by God towards all people. This is about my sin and God's specific love towards me. The Lord God went to Jonah. He called out Jonah. He told Jonah to preach to Nineveh, a city of wickedness. And once God saves us, he is calling us to proclaim the saving gospel to others. So what will we do with the gospel that we read about in Jonah 1? Let's pray. Father, I thank you that right here in the book of Jonah, Lord, a story in Scripture that is easy to become distracted by because of all the miraculous things that happen. But Lord, we cannot get past that you came to sinful man. In this case, it was Jonah. In our case, it's us. Father, I pray that we Do not take lightly our sin. As if that all these years of being saved have earned us brownie points in a way that lessens the wickedness of our sin. May we hate it more and more as we mature in Christ. May you show us those areas. Maybe those areas that we're even ignorant of. Lord, teach us. Thank you for the truth of your word. Lord, I pray that we would have such an awareness of our sinfulness and such an awareness of the love of God that it compels us to share the gospel. Work in our hearts, Father. I pray you'll do that through the power of your Spirit. in our life. But we can only do it because you move towards us first. In Jesus' name, Amen.