Messy Truth

Messy Grace Part 2

Messy Truth

Welcome back to part two of our mini-series called Messy Grace. Last week I talked about how Gods grace isn’t messy but when God’s perfect grace meets our messy lives it can for sure seem Messy.

For those of you who

These talks will be tough for those of you who are Christians and for those of you who are not. The stuff I’m going to say today is hard to manage. You know it’s hard to manage because we don’t see many people doing it well. My hope is that if you are here and you don’t believe in Jesus, that after hearing todays talk and spending some time in discussion you will at least see the REAL Jesus a bit more clearly and have a better idea of the type of man he was and is. If you’re here and you believe in Jesus, my hope for you is actually the same, that you would learn and see a fuller perspective of who Jesus is and how he is calling you to live out your faith with people that you disagree with and maybe even have offended in the past.

Last week as we began we looked at grace. we discovered that there is a tension between grace and truth. How should we understand this tension?

We learned that:

LOVE is the tension of grace and truth

There is huge power in the tension of the two and we lose that power when we take sides and choose one or the other versus living in the tension of “BOTH-AND”. some call the idea of having to choose one or the other a “suckers choice” meaning as long as you think you have to choose one you’re going to miss out and ultimately miss opportunities to image God properly.

the tension we feel when we resist the temptation to run to one side of the spectrum or the other is LOVE.

Today, as we begin I want to tell you about someone in my life I struggled with.

Personal story about my friend Chris who would rage out

Do you ever feel like that? Do you ever feel like maybe there are people in your own life where you love them, but they are not treating you fair? They don't treat other people fair. They do things and they get away with it. We see it all the time, right? We see it on a global level. We see organizations like ISIS and the brutality on the news. You think to yourself nobody's doing anything, or at least it doesn't seem like anybody is. I'm sure people are doing things but it doesn't seem like it. You ask, "Are they always going to get away with that?" It seems like they are growing and nobody is doing anything.

There’s a side of us where we want justice and we want them and others to know the truth. A sense of truth wells up inside of us.

We look at all of this and think: am I the only one? All we want to do is to tell the truth to them!!!

Even if you wouldn’t call yourself a “church person” or “God person”-- this probably resonates with you. You don’t have to be a “church person” and you don’t even have to believe in God to know that there are some people that break the rules and it’s important for them to understand the rules.

But today as we’re going to see, sometimes we get so caught up in the rules that we forget who really needs to hear the rules.

If you don't know anything about the book of 'm willing to bet that at least you've heard of Jonah and the whale, or Jonah and the fish. You're like, "I know this story. Never read the book but it's about a dude that gets swallowed by a big fish," and we're going to talk about that in a second. There are many people who say, "I don't know if I really believe that. I don't know if it's scientific," and I get that, and listen, I understand completely and we're going to talk about that in a second, but really, there's a huge message in Jonah that we need to understand, and here's the deal.

If you're a Christian I know that you have probably read this book, you've seen this book, maybe you've watched a Veggie Tale in the past on this book. I'm also willing to bet that many of us have not read it the way that we're supposed to, because if we read Jonah, this book, the way that we're supposed to it should make us feel uncomfortable. If you have read this book and you have not felt uncomfortable, and if you read this book you're like, "Come on Jonah. Get it together," you're not reading it right. This book really drives me crazy. It steps on my toes. I don't want anything stepping on my toes, but yet I read this book and I find so much of myself in this book right here.

Again, if you are not following God, I'm willing to bet that the overall message of this book will be surprising at what God says to you, at how God communicates his love to you through this book. I bet that the message of this book is something that you really would like to live up to. Now, Jonah is a guy who was a prophet in the Old Testament, that's the time period before Jesus. He was a teacher. A prophet means a teacher, somebody that God speaks his words through, and prophets were sent to Israel to go and to preach God's message to Israel because they did not have the Bible at that time, and so Jonah takes the message and he goes to Israel whenever God tells them to, and he preaches a message.

Now, Jonah was by Jonah. It's in third person but a lot of people when they wrote back in those days, especially Hebrew literature, would generally like to write about themselves, or about the story, in third person because people were so used to oral tradition and it made it easier for people to transcribe if you told a story about yourself in third person.

Jonah, these events take place sometime between 793 BC to 753 BC under this king, his name is Jeroboam, who reigned over Israel, and again, Jonah thinks that God is on the move, that he is sending him over and over again to go, and to tell his own people about the message, whatever it is that God wants him to do, but then he gets a very interesting request from God, something that he wasn't expecting. If you have your Bibles you can turn to the book of Jonah.

In , verse 2 here's what happens. Here's what God says to him. "Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because its wickedness has come up before me." Now, you would think that this is something that Jonah would want to do because Nineveh right here is the capital of Assyria. Assyria was a sworn enemy of Israel. Assyrians were brutal. The Ninevites were brutal. They tortured people. They mistreated, they killed people. They loved killing Israelites for fun. They tried to attack Israel time and time again. These people, in Jonah's mind, were awful, evil people, and they had undergone some very, very difficult times. They were having this inward strife in the city of Nineveh during this time were their own morals of how they were treating other people were influencing how they were treating themselves, and it was breaking down their culture within the walls.

Not only that, they were slowly having their enemies come and creep onto them from here and there, and encamping around them. The Ninevites, not only was their culture falling apart, but they were scared to death because they thought, we can't even hold it together within the city, and so now all these people are coming. Now you would think that Jonah would be excited about that because God says go to the great city of Nineveh, which God always sent his prophets to go speak to their own people, but now God says no, you're going to go to the enemies of Israel, and you're going to preach against them because its wickedness has come up before me.

Now, many of you would say it's about time. I mean if God said, "Hey, I'm going to do something about ISIS. I'm going to do something about this corrupt government. I'm going to do something about your neighbor Jim down the street." It's about time God. Jim's annoying. He needs to learn his lesson. You would think that Jonah would be excited but look at this next verse right here. Here's what Jonah does.

"But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarsus. He went down to Joppa where he found a ship bound for that port, and after paying the fare he went aboard and sailed for Tarsus to flee from the Lord." Again, why are you running? You should be happy. You become a Christian and then eventually you get this insider pull, this gravitational pull where eventually you just want to let people know how it is. God's like, I'm giving you that permission. Why would you run Jonah?

Well we learn in the very last chapter, which is chapter 4, it's a short book, very short book, chapter 4, Jonah actually tells God, "This is why I ran. I knew you were merciful. I knew you were gracious. I knew that you would relent if people repented." Here's the deal. Jonah hates these people so much that he knows that if he goes and delivers this message they will probably repent, and he knows that God is going to forgive them. Now, how much do you have to hate someone to say I want to see them burn? I want to see them die. How much do you have to hate somebody?

Here's the deal. God doesn't just stick up for one people or group. God sticks up for everyone. Everyone. Anyone, God sticks up for. Now, I don't think that he was really running from the Lord. Yes, he was fleeing from the Lord. I think he was fleeing from the Lord's call but I'm going to tell you what I mean when I say I don't think he was running from the Lord in the sense that we think of him running from the Lord.

We get our first clue here that maybe it’s not just the people that Jonah is going to who need to hear the truth… maybe, just maybe Jonah might have a thing or two to learn about the truth.

Jonah is running and he gets on the ship, and the ship is filled with idol worshipers, non-Israelite people, and so as they're out on the sea this big storm comes, and these people on the boat, they realize somehow that it's divine. I don't know how they know it's divine but they know that it's some kind of a big divine storm that's coming at them bit by bit. Where's Jonah? He's downstairs asleep.

I think Jonah wanted to die.

That's what I really think. I think that he got on the ship. He knew what was going to happen. Why else would he sleep so soundly in the bottom of a ship when there's this huge storm? You would wake up, right? You wake up when your kid makes a little noise like that. You would wake up if the ship was rocking back and forth, but Jonah doesn't. Why? Because he is very comfortable with the fact that he probably knew this was going to happen, and he knew that he was going to die. Now, this is just my opinion and I could be wrong. I'm wrong about a lot of things, but this is just my opinion.

They're trying to do everything they can to throw things overboard, to get rid of everything they can, to offer. They're like, "How do we offer a sacrifice to your God?" Here's what Jonah says. Instead of offering a sacrifice, instead of saying turn around, he says, "Pick me up and throw me into the sea," he replied, "and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you." Now, again, Jonah, he thinks he's going to die. He says I'm very fine with that. Throw me overboard. Have you ever seen Perfect Storm with George Clooney? Did you see Titanic? That's what's going to happen. Throw me overboard.

They don't want to do that. Why don't they want to do that? Come on. If his God has not destroyed the ship yet then that means He wants him alive. They don't want to be the ones to kill him, right? They're like, "No, no, no. We can do this. We can't do this. We can't do this," and so finally Jonah convinces them and they pray to God. They say, "Okay, whoever your God is, forgive us of what we did." They throw Jonah overboard and the storm becomes quiet. I love the result of what happens, and you just see God's grace here.

"At this the men greatly feared the Lord and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord, and made vows to him."

Now, you've got to love a God like that, right? A God who's willing to do whatever He can to get somebody to come to faith. Now, I can just imagine Jonah floating in the sea waiting for this big wave, okay, finally I'll drown this time. Finally I'll drown this time. God's like, oh no dude. Oh, no. No, you've got no idea what I've got planned for you.

I think God is thinking something like: “Jonah you want to tell everyone else the truth, but you don’t even understand the truth or the importance of it.”

Truth leads us to the grace we need.

This is what we need to understand. This is what Jonah needed to understand, that grace is for everyone, and truth holds us accountable. Truth reminds us of the grace we need. Jonah wrongly thought that grace is for the people of Israel, the Israelites only, and that's it, or people that convert over to Judaism, who become Israelites, but God says no-- My grace is for everyone and that includes anyone right here. Truth reminds us, convicts us and points us to the grace that we need.

Grace is for everyone and that includes anyone, and you're like yes, but God hasn't met Betty. Betty gossips and talks all the time about people. You might say yes, but God has not met have class with Phil. Let's be honest here… maybe these people aren’t the only ones who need to hear the truth so they can find grace. Maybe we do too…

We have people. We have neighbors. We have people we go to school with. We have people in our lives that are difficult. Even the Starbucks dude that we get our coffee from, that looks like he just woke up a half an hour ago, has an attitude. Then as I said, Phil at school. Phil's giving you a tough time, and so you go home one night. You're like, okay God. I've been trying to be nice to Phil but I'm praying and Phil is not doing this. He's not doing things right and he's mistreating me, so let's just make a pact. You and me, we're going to be anti-Phil. We don't like Phil, God. You and me, we don't like him. You pray and you're like, "God, help Phil to realize what a jerk he's being. Amen."

You go to school the next morning. Phil gets a gold star from the teacher. Phil gets a trophy. Phil gets an award in front of everybody. You go home and you're like, God. I thought you were on my team, but God's like no. I love everybody. Phil needs the truth so he can be pointed to grace. And I think God would say to us: there’s something I want YOU to learn from this too. Your big problem with Phil reveals the truth that you need grace too… just like Jonah’s problem with his mission revealed that he needed to hear and experience the truth to gain a deeper understanding of grace.

God loves people no matter who they are, no matter what they've done, that means that God loves you. If you are here and you're not following God you need to understand that he loves you, and we have to do something with that.

That should drive us. What should that drive us to do? You see, God's concern with everyone should be the driving force to share with anyone, right? I mean if you love God, if you have benefited from grace, then your heart needs to be where God's heart is, that God's concern for everyone should be the driving force for you to share with the “anyones” in your life, with the Bettys, with the Phil’s, with the people that you have issues with. It should be the driving force. In other words, we need to care enough to lovingly share truth that leads to grace.

Before Jesus died, he said in , these were his very last words, "Go into all the world and tell them about me. Tell them about me." Tell them about Christ. That's what we need to do. That's our response to grace. That was Jonah's response to grace when he was thrown up out of the whale. Tell them about me.

SMALL GROUP QUESTIONS:

1) How do you think members of the LGBT community feel when they see self-identified Christians holding up signs on street corners and hear nasty remarks such people make toward them? What picture of Jesus does that paint for them?

2) How does show us what kind of people are important to Jesus? Why were the pharisees so offended that Jesus attended this party?

3) how can you pursue people with the same passion that God does? What can you do to spend time with people who are different than you?

4) When was the last time you were criticized for something Jesus was criticized for? What happened?