In the Belly of Grace [Part 2]

Allen Wright, pastor, Bible teacher, and author of his latest book, The Power to Bless. Jonah Gets a Second Wind. The Word of the Lord, Jonah 3.1, came to Jonah the second time. If God could recommission Jonah, who amongst us couldn't be restored?

If God didn't give up on Jonah, why would He ever give up on us? That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series, Second Wind, as presented at Renolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now, a copy of Pastor Alan's book, Lover of My Soul. This can be yours for your donation this month to Allen Wright Ministries.

As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAllen.org. That's PastorAllen.org. Or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on that later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Allen Wright. Shame wants you, instead of saying, I made a mistake, shame wants you to say, I am a mistake. If you think, listen to this, if you think that you are the problem and in life we like to get rid of problems, what are you going to do to yourself? Romans 3 22 says plainly, there's no distinction for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Hate the sin, we say, and love the sinner, and that applies to ourselves. Jonah didn't just hate his sin of rebellion, he just hated himself at this point. Just, it's all my fault.

It's all on me. And as it continues, this is hell's logic, this is shame's logic. The lie says my failures have doomed me, but the truth of the matter is that Jonah's worst opened up him to God's best. In fact, I wish we had time to read all of the psalm, the prayer that he prays, what happens inside the belly of that great fish is that Jonah becomes grateful.

Because there's a story about how Jonah was sinking down and then got swallowed up and in verse 7, Jonah chapter 2, when my life was fainting away, I remember the Lord and my prayer came to you into your holy temple. I remember the Lord. Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. Let me give you that verse in the NET translation. When my life was ebbing away, I called out to the Lord, my prayer came to your holy temple. Listen to this verse. Those who worship worthless idols forfeit the mercy that could be theirs.

That's what he realized. At his worst moment of greatest rebellion and the grace of God has swallowed him up, he understood the problem of rebelling against God. I'm giving up grace that God wanted to give to me. Wow.

He becomes grateful. The fourth part of hell's logic, the lie, I must pay for my mistakes. I'm the problem. God sent a big storm because he wants to punish me and my worst is going to undo me. This is the way you think.

And so therefore, the only way out of this is I should just pay for it. Just throw me overboard. Just get rid of me, sacrifice me to the angry sea and the angry God.

That's what he's thinking. I'll pay for my mistake. But you know the truth, same truth for Jonah as for us. Jonah couldn't pay his debt. He wasn't wealthy enough to pay it.

He could die a thousand deaths and it would not pay it. It's the fundamental problem of all moralistic religion. It assumes that our debt to God is something we could pay. If you ever want to really understand what makes the gospel so good, you have to start with this. We have amounted a debt against God that we could not pay by any of our own righteousness.

Ever. Understand that it's hard to wrap your mind around this because you might say, well, I'm not that big of a sinner. I mean, I haven't murdered people.

I don't run around stealing. But you have to understand that's not the way that the Bible describes our predicament. Instead, there's an infinitely holy and infinitely precious and pure and powerful and just God. So any sin against that God is of infinite, infinite damage to our relationship with him. That's the issue.

Don't you understand that? It's like, you know, someone once said, listen, if you're if you're if you're a six year old in first grade and you push, you know, Johnny on the playground, the teacher might scold you and put you in time out. If you if you come home and and push your big brother around, then, you know, your big brother might retaliate and then your mom might punish you with several days of quarantine or something, you know. If you go back later and you go up and you push your teacher, it's going to be something other than just to sit in the corner for a little bit. And if they send you to the principal's office and you push the principal, you might get expelled. And then if later you don't like the way the police officer is treating you, go push the police officer. They're going to put you in jail.

But listen, if you go climb over the White House fence and go running up and push the president of the United States, you're going to get shot. The point being is that there is a sense in which the same infraction is viewed differently according to the importance of the person against whom it is afflicted. And God is infinitely holy. And so there is a debt of sin that we cannot repay. We are like a people who have a day wage and we make $30,000 a year, but we tried a big entrepreneurial effort that failed and we borrowed $10 million from a lender. And we're sitting here making $30,000 a year and we owe $10 million. How are you ever going to pay it back?

You can't. That's Jonah's mistake. Throw me overboard because this is what should happen. I should pay for my mistakes. And everything that makes the gospel beautiful and powerful and good is that God says to us, you can't pay for your mistakes. You can't pay your debt.

You can't pay your sin. And that's why I came for you. That's Alan Wright. And we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. God's love. You've heard about it with your ears.

You believed it in your mind. Now experience it in your heart with Alan Wright's beloved book, Lover of My Soul. The Bible is a love story from beginning to end. You are the spiritual bride of Christ, the perfect bridegroom. The Bible tells about a God who has gone to unimaginable lengths to woo you, to win you and to walk with you hand in hand. For any man who has fallen in love with a woman, you've tasted the sweetness of what God's love for you is like. For any woman who has searched for true love, what you long for can only be found fully in God. Gary Chapman, renowned author of the five love languages says, the incredible reality that God pursues us in love comes to life in Lover of My Soul. Ancient biblical accounts explode in the heart. Accept Christ's proposal, enjoy his embrace, revel in his love.

After all, it's a match made in heaven. It's Lover of My Soul by Alan Wright. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.

Now these are the final days this offer is being made available to you this month. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org.

Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. In the thought process, I'm trying to expose Jonah's hellish logic that is very much like the voice of shame that plays in our heads when we're at our lowest. And the lie is my suffering and self-punishment will please God. And the truth is God loves mercy, not sacrifice.

I want everybody to know this. Matthew 9 13, I feel what Jesus feels when he just said to the Pharisees, go learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. Jesus just finally just said, listen, just don't even talk to me about anything else until you go and think about what the prophet Hosea said, the word of the Lord, I desire mercy, chesed, steadfast love, kindness, grace. I desire grace, not sacrifice.

Don't, don't, don't think about anything else until you can go learn what that means. Until you can learn what that means, you're missing the whole thing Jesus said. God's saying, I am not a God who takes delight in your personal suffering and sacrifice.

You think that flogging yourself is going to please me? What good father on earth would be pleased and heart warmed by a child who cut herself off? What father on earth would be happy and heart warmed to see a child say, I'm not worth anything and seek to take his own life? What father on earth would be pleased by the sacrifice of a child towards the parent? That's not what any good father wants. That's not what any mother wants. We want is what God wants and that is love. I love you and I want to enjoy your love.

Go learn what this means. I desire grace and love, not sacrifice. All of the turtle doves and all of the Passover lambs and all of the Ram and oxen that were sacrificed on the holy altar by the priest and the temple week after week, day after day with the smoke rising, the priest eating the remains of the various offerings, all of it that's going on week after week, year after year on the day of atonement when a blood offering was offered on the very mercy seat of grace of the arc of the covenant and the holy of holies, all of it was not pointing to a God who just loves sacrifice. All of it was pointing to the necessity that sin must be paid for and he had a plan to send into the world the lamb who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus came to be the sacrifice.

So your life with God is not built on your vows, your sacrifice and your self suffering. Jonah thinks God just wants to punish him and he finds out different. I learned a lot about Jonah many, many years ago. Jonah was two years old and he loved when he was a little kid to play act Bible stories. His favorite was David and Goliath, how many times he'd take his blankie, pretend like it was the sling, wad up a Kleenex, put it in there and hurl it at me and I'm Goliath and I have to go falling down and he'd come and stand and put his foot on my chest. We must've done that a thousand times. He also loved Joshua walking around Jericho's walls.

We'd go to the beach and build a big kind of like castle thing, march around it seven times and then go jump on the castle and knock it all down. Oh, he just loved that. But he also liked Jonah. I remember one of the first times we were playing in Jonah, he said, all right, daddy, he said, I'll be Jonah and this couch, this is the boat and I'm going to be here asleep on the boat and first you be the sailors and you throw me overboard. And so we put some pillows on the floor and I grabbed up the wayward prophet off of the couch and I threw him out. And I said, the sailors are throwing them overboard and down he goes into the tempestuous sea. He said, okay, daddy, now you be the whale. And so I said, all right. And I put these big arms out like jaws coming, here comes the big giant whale to eat up Jonah, you know? And he said, no, daddy. He said, the whale doesn't eat Jonah, the whale saves him.

And I was like, let me check that, you know, I've been to seminary, studied a little Hebrew and everything. And I had to go back and check and read and realize that's exactly what the Lord, the text says, appointed a great fish. And Jonah, if you read the story, he's sinking down to the very depths of the sea about to drown and this big fish comes and saves him. Jonah was completely confused. He thought God had set the storm because he wanted to punish him. And so Jonah tried to kill himself to sacrifice himself to God and the whole time God was just trying to save him and get his prophetic gift on its way to Nineveh.

Be a sad thing to live our whole lives thinking that every storm was designed to come against us because God hated us and wanted to punish us only to find out later that he's designed everything for our good and that he works together all the circumstances of our lives for our good, for we're called according to his purpose. So Jonah gets a second wind. The word of the Lord, Jonah 3.1, came to Jonah the second time. If God could recommission Jonah, who amongst us couldn't be restored? If God didn't give up on Jonah, why would he ever give up on us? Romans 11 29, the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

Thank you Lord. Because who amongst us hasn't taken some good gift of God in our lives and in some capacity in our own discouragement, abandoned it, let it lie dormant, or even for a season despise it, but our disobedience as bad as it is, as much pain it brings into our own lives, our disobedience does not nullify the promises of God. If our disobedience could nullify the promises of God, then our sin could dethrone him, but his word is greater than our broken vows and his grace is greater than our shame and his love is greater than our hate. So get ready for a second word. Get ready for a second wind.

Get ready for a recommissioning. Get ready for God's grace to break through because God has made the way. The real storm is not something that happened on a sea as Jonah was trying to make his way to Tarshish.

The real storm is the brokenness of humanity, the sin of a world that has rebelled against God and could not pay a debt. So God came. He came in the person of Jesus Christ who one day was interacting with some scribes and Pharisees who are saying, you've got to prove yourself to us. Oh, he would give many signs and wonders, but he was funny like this.

Someone says, I'm not going to believe you, you must prove yourself. He had words for them. In Matthew 12 verse 38, some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him saying, teacher, we wish to see a sign from you. But Jesus answered them, an evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it for they repented at the preaching of Jonah and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. Jesus is the true Jonah.

He is the one who was regarded as a great Hebrew prophet given access to the royal court, who on one occasion was in a boat down below sleeping, not because he was depressed, because he was at peace and because he was the Lord of the wind and the waves and his sailors, those disciples despaired and said, can't you do something? And Jesus didn't say, hurl me into the sea because he knew that he had come with his face resolutely set towards Jerusalem because indeed he would be the sacrifice that would pay for all of our sin. The real storm was all around and Christ himself came and when they said to Jonah, what should we do? He said, hurl me over, reminds me of Pilate saying, what should we do? And they said, crucify him three days, not in the belly of a whale, but the belly of the earth. Jesus in the tomb emerges and you talk about a word of the Lord coming a second time. God had seen faithlessness in his people throughout generation after generation, running after worthless idols, abandoning their faith, joining up with the idolatry of foreign deities. You name it, he'd seen it.

And what did he do? At exactly the right time, Christ died for the ungodly and the word of the Lord came in fullness. The word became flesh and we've beheld his glory. God, it's been a long year and if you've had some low moments and bad moments, let me say this, God can never be disillusioned with you because he already knows the best and the worst of you and he came for you in the person of Jesus Christ. If you ever feel like giving up on God, just be assured of this, he never, ever feels like giving up on you and that's the gospel. Alan Wright, today's good news message in the belly of grace in our series Second Wind.

Pastor Alan is back with us in the studio as he shares his parting good news thought for the day in just a moment. God's love, you've heard about it with your ears, you've believed it in your mind. Now experience it in your heart with Alan Wright's beloved book, Lover of My Soul. The Bible is a love story from beginning to end. You are the spiritual bride of Christ, the perfect bridegroom. The Bible tells about a God who has gone to unimaginable lengths to woo you, to win you and to walk with you hand in hand. For any man who has fallen in love with a woman, you've tasted the sweetness of what God's love for you is like. For any woman who has searched for true love, what you long for can only be found fully in God. Gary Chapman, renowned author of the five love languages says, the incredible reality that God pursues us in love comes to life in Lover of My Soul. Ancient biblical accounts explode in the heart. Accept Christ's proposal, enjoy his embrace, revel in his love.

After all, it's a match made in heaven. It's Lover of My Soul by Alan Wright. Now these are the final days this offer is being made available to you this month. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.

When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Back here in the studio to share Pastor Alan's parting good news thought for the day. And there is good news. There are so many layers in the book of Jonah, and it's applicable for you today. Get ready for a second wind.

Get ready for recommissioning. Get ready for grace to break through. I think that's the message of Jonah. If our disobedience could somehow nullify the promises of God, then that would mean that our sin could dethrone God. But his word's greater, Daniel, than all of our broken vows. His grace is greater than all of our shame.

And his love is greater than even our hate. So I would say get ready. Get ready for a second wind. You feel like you've blown it, and get ready. You feel like that you don't have much energy left, and feel like you don't know where God is in your life. Get ready for a second wind. I think that's God's word to many, many of our listeners today. If he could restore Jonah, he can definitely restore you. Today's good news message is a listener-supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.