Greg, Lori, and Harvest Ministries would like to send you the movie Unsung Hero, the back story of the music group for King and Country. It's a story of a mom and a dad and their seven kids putting their faith into action. You're going to be deeply moved by this story of the amazing small-bone family that have gone on to impact so many through their music, and we are offering this film to you for your gift of any size.
Get the DVD and digital download of Unsung Hero at harvest.org. You know, when I was a kid, I had a paper route, and I became pretty adept at throwing those papers, how to clear that hedge, how to land it on the porch. Today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Lori points out the parallel between his job then and our job now, delivering the Gospel message. My job is not to write the news. My job is not to make the news. My job is to deliver the news. Now it's just a delivery, boy, and that's really what we are. We're people delivering the message of the Gospel. This is the day when the lost are found This is the day for a new beginning Amazing grace how sweet the sound Again you hear when the angels are singing This is the day, the day when life begins In the days of the Pony Express, riders would blaze across trails, up hills, down embankments, across grassy meadows, and through blazing deserts. They had one job, deliver the mail. They may have had plenty of reasons to abort their mission, weather, hunger, sickness, attacks by Paiute Indians, but they persevered.
Well, today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Lori points out we have a much more important message to deliver, and that message must get through. This is the day, the day when life begins I heard about a police officer that pulled a guy over because the guy had two penguins in his back seat. The officer says to the guy, well, what are you doing? These are an endangered species.
You've got to take them to the zoo. So the man agreed. The next day the police officer sees the guy driving around, and he sees he still has the penguins, but this time they are wearing Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses. The officer says, I told you to take those penguins to the zoo. The guy said, I did, and now we are going to the beach today.
Talk about missing the point, right? So now in the book of Jonah, we are in the second half of the book, and we are getting to the real essence of the book. People tend to focus on Jonah and the what? The whale. And we don't even know if it was a whale. The Bible says it was a sea monster, a sea creature, could have been a whale, could have been a giant fish that existed at one time and is extinct now.
We don't know. But they focus on that. In fact they are so focused on all these other details they miss the big picture. There is only three verses that deal with the whale. The emphasis of Jonah is this was the greatest awakening in biblical history.
So that is a story that we don't want to miss. And it is also a story about how God gives second chances. God called Jonah to preach to Nineveh, which was described as a great city in Jonah 1.2. Jonah refused and the Lord said, a great wind on the sea, Jonah 1.4. Jonah was thrown overboard and was swallowed by a great fish, Jonah 1.17.
But the ultimate story of Jonah is that of a great God who showed great love. And the Ninevites they needed forgiveness big time. You didn't get people any more wicked than these people who lived in this city, which was the capital of Assyria. They were legendary for their acts of cruelty. They would not just conquer a nation. They would torture the people. They would peel the skin off their bodies and hang it on walls. They would stack their skulls as monuments to their atrocities. These people made Nazis look like lightweights in comparison. So when the Lord came to Jonah, a good Jewish boy, and a Hebrew prophet and said, go preach to those people of Nineveh, Jonah didn't want to go.
Why? Because he was afraid that God, being the loving God He is, would forgive these creepy people. And Jonah wanted them wiped off the face of the earth. So God told him to go to Nineveh and he got in a boat going in the opposite direction.
And of course we know how. The storm came. He was sown overboard. He was swallowed by this great fish. And that brings us to Jonah chapter 2 verse 10. The Lord spoke to the fish and had vomited Jonah onto dry land. And the word of the Lord came to Jonah, underline this, the second time saying, arise go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I give you. In the belly of the beast Jonah got right with God. He cried out to God. He prayed to God. And the Lord gave him a second chance. So here is Jonah repentant and regurgitated, believing and barfed, righteous and roughed, victorious and vomited and a new one regurgitated and revived. I don't know if he had any of his skin color left in him.
I think the gastric juices of this sea creature probably bleached him out. So he was probably a pretty freaky looking guy when he lands on the shore of Nineveh with the message for them to repent. And so the Lord put him back at Nineveh. It was like Nineveh or bust buddy.
You're going to do this. This is your assignment and this is where I want you to go. So I want to look at what Jonah said that produced this dramatic impact in Nineveh. And so let's read Jonah 3 verse 1.
The word of the Lord came to him a second time. Go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I give you. How do we reach our culture today? Number one if you are taking notes to reach our culture we need to preach the gospel. As I have said recently every generation needs a gospel. And we hear a lot about the boomers and we hear a lot about the millennials. Not as much about generation X.
They feel sort of left out. But the emerging generation, generation Z now born from the mid 90s to the early 2000s make up 25 percent of our population. And this is a generation of young people that are dealing with severe depression.
They're immersed in media. They have very high incidence now of mental health issues. And they have been actually described as the loneliest generation. They actually did a study on the loneliness of different generations. The baby boomers, generation X, the millennials, and generation Z. And they are the loneliest of all the generations. Here they are we have never been more connected because of our phones. But at the same time disconnected. And it is not a coincidence that the suicide rate among this generation has risen so dramatically.
I read an article about a guy that has done a lot of study and work with people in this generation. And he said if you summed them up in one phrase it would be this phrase. I don't know. They have been raised with moral relativism. And thus now they are nihilistic or they don't think there is a God or a meaning in life. And in fact they asked him do you think lying is wrong?
And only 33 percent of them could agree with the idea that lying is wrong. Because well I don't know. The idea is well we don't know if we can say this is true or that is false.
We just don't know. So we think this is horrible. Well in a way yes it is. But in another way it is like a blank canvas that we need to come with a message of the gospel and engage these people and tell them that there is a God who does know and there is a book that has the answers they are looking for and it is all found in a relationship with Jesus Christ. And so this is where preaching comes in. Now we don't like the word preaching.
It is a negative word in general. If you are saying something to someone you know you shouldn't do this. Hey man don't preach to me. But yet the Bible tells us to go into all the world and preach the gospel right. It doesn't say go into all the world and be a good example. I am not suggesting you go into all the world and be a bad example. Because your preaching will be very ineffective if you are a bad example. There are some people I wish they would just not talk about Jesus. You know sometimes people start Christian business and we are called the you know Holy Spirit plumbing service or whatever.
You know accept Christ into your life. Right now air conditioning company. Ok look I appreciate your desire to express your faith but can you please just do good work first. I mean be a great plumber. Be an awesome air conditioning company. Be a phenomenal restaurant. Whatever it is you are doing please do it well.
Because people will sometimes take the name of the Lord and use it maybe for business but they don't give you the best work out there. And so I think we want to start there. But being a good example is not enough. You want to be a good example. The good example showing love. Helping people.
Loving people. Engaging with people. Earned you the right to now verbalize the gospel. And the primary way that God wants to reach a lost world is through the verbal articulation of the gospel. Just remove the word preach. Go into all the world and talk the gospel. Go into all the world and share the gospel. Go into all the world and start conversations about the gospel. Go into all the world and tweet the gospel. Go into all the world and just find ways to communicate this message.
And it is primarily through verbal communication. Listen God could have come to us in many ways. God could have sent an iPhone to planet earth 2,000 years ago.
It could have descended in a ray of light. And God could have reached us in a lot of ways. He could have sent a beautiful painting in the sky to tell us the gospel story. But the primary way that God shows and continues to use to reach us is through someone sharing this message. So here comes Jonah.
Point number two. We need to give the message God has given us. What was his message? Go to Nineveh verse 2 and preach to it the message that I tell you.
Here is the thing. One of the reasons that revival came through Jonah was because Jonah experienced personal revival. Where did he experience it? In the belly of a sea creature.
A very interesting place to have a revival. Nothing can happen through you until this first happened to you. It started with him. You can't take a person any further than you yourself have gone. And so Jonah had been impacted by the Lord and now he has this message that he is bringing to the people. And you know in a way you can almost dismiss it and say, well it wasn't a very hopeful message was it?
Well I don't know. I think it was pretty hopeful. Forty days and you will be overthrown and destroyed. Yeah but he said they had 40 days. Forty days to think about it. Forty days to consider their lifestyles. Forty days to get right with God. Hey when God judged Sodom and Gomorrah there was no warning of 40 days.
It was just that is it baby. Judgment came. But with this particular nation or city God gave them an opportunity to repent. And I wonder if God is not giving the United States of America an opportunity to repent right now.
I think He is. But it seems like in our country we are going the wrong direction. We have people who are elected officials that are literally advocating infanticide. To make it legal to murder a baby that somehow survived an abortion.
What kind of world are we living in where you could take the life of a little baby that had just been born. That's the world we are living in. And I think only a spiritual awakening can turn this nation around again. And we need to pray for that. And God can do it. He did it before.
He can do it again. To reach our generation we need to preach the gospel. Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment.
Whenever you send us an email letter or post a comment on social media we read every word. Pastor Greg I listen to your sermons every day on my way into work. I can't thank you enough for your words your humor and your immense love for Jesus. It's so inspiring and eye opening.
I look forward to listening to you daily as you are such a bright spot in what has become a very dark world. If you have a story to share why not call us and give us all the details. Here's the number 1-866-871-1144.
It's a special number 866-871-1144. Pastor Greg is leading our study of the life of Jonah. And we're considering the question how can we reach our culture most effectively.
Let's continue. Jonah was a prophet. Now I'm not a prophet. I don't think I know any prophets. But in the technical sense a prophet was one who spoke for another. Who spoke as a representative. So let's just sort of think about how we've been called to speak for another. We're here to deliver a message. You know when I was a kid I had a paper route.
I delivered the daily pilot. And I had a stingray bicycle. Any of you heard of a stingray bicycle made by Schwinn. It had these little ape hanger handlebars. That's what they call them. They kind of come up. It had a banana seat.
I don't know if you know what that is. A banana seat. It had a slick tire and a smaller tire in the front and a bigger one in the back. But the coolest thing about my Schwinn stingray it had a stick shift.
A stick shift bicycle. Very unsafe. Very impractical.
But very cool. And so I had my big bags on my papers and I became pretty adept at throwing those papers. How to clear that hedge.
How to land it on the porch. My job was not to write the news. My job was not to make the news. My job was to deliver the news. I was just a delivery boy. And that's really what we are. We are delivery boys.
Delivery girls. People delivering the message of the gospel. The message he gives us. We don't have to apologize for the gospel. We don't need to edit the gospel.
We don't need to add to it and we don't need to take away from it. We need to just deliver it in its raw explosive power. As the Bible says Paul speaking, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God and the salvation to everyone who believes. And the word he used there for power is a word that speaks of explosive power. There's explosive power in the story of the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
I have seen it time and time again. This story just connects to people. It's God's story. And it's a story we need to communicate and I think sometimes we gloss over it or we delete parts from it and we need to just deliver this message and let God do what God wants to do. And so Jonah delivered his message. I don't know that he knew they were going to repent. In fact we know he really didn't want them to repent. But I think we recognize when we are doing God's work the results are up to him. They're up to him. Not up to us. You know when we do our crusades we make every effort to succeed.
We do everything we can to make it a great event and we spend months and months planning and praying and working on it and inviting people etcetera. But ultimately when I get up to deliver that message I know the outcome is up to God. I don't have any power to convert anybody.
I just know I am to deliver this message as clearly as possible and leave the results up to him. Because sometimes a lot of people will respond like on the day of Pentecost 3,000 believe. Sometimes a handful will respond like on Mark's Hill with the apostle Paul.
Only a few believe. You know it is up to God to do what he will. But our job is to deliver the message and let God do what he will with the message. Because ultimately God is not going to require success from us. He is going to require faithfulness from us.
And he will say, well done good in faithful servant. So Jonah 3 verse 2 he says, 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown and he gave that message and we will see next time how many people actually believe that message. You know I wonder right now if God is not trying to get some of our attention. You know God gave them a warning. And maybe for some of you you have had sort of a warning of late. By that I mean kind of a wake up call. You know when I travel I get wake up calls. And you know it is time to get up.
I was traveling to Alaska years ago with a good friend of mine. And he likes to do pranks. And I like to do pranks. And so we were getting ready to go to bed and there was some food out in front of people's rooms from room service. So I put a bunch of room service trays in front of his room.
Like you know five used trays. So he saw it. And then he took an entire picture off the wall and put it in front of my door. So I was leaving the next morning before him. So I called the desk and I gave his room number and I said, I would like two wake up calls.
I want one at four thirty in the morning and one at five. And they said thank you. And I couldn't believe they accepted this. I am calling from another room. And I got on the plane and I got home and then he calls me up the next day. He says, do you know what happened to me?
I said what? He says, they called my room really early four thirty in the morning. I knew it was you. And I didn't even answer the phone. Next thing I knew they are in my room shaking me in my bed. Afraid that I missed my call and I said yes.
When pranks go well. Maybe the Lord has given you a little shake. A close brush with death. A friend of yours died. Something happened that says life can be short. You don't know when it is going to be over. Are you right with God?
And this is the thing. They were given forty days. Maybe we have forty days. Maybe we have forty years.
We don't know. But look one of these days every one of us boom eternity is going to come. Sometimes you know it is coming and sometimes you don't. And that is why the Bible says prepare to meet your God. And I wonder in closing tonight if you are ready to meet God.
If this were your last night to believe in Jesus Christ do you have complete confidence you would go to heaven when you die? Maybe you are caught up in some of the things we have talked about tonight. Maybe drugs or something else have kind of a stranglehold on you. And you are saying I can never break this cycle in my life.
It happened to my siblings and it is going to happen to me. And well without Christ that may be true. But with Christ He can break the cycle of sin.
And if any man be in Christ the Bible says he is an altogether different kind of person. Old things have passed away and behold everything becomes fresh and new. God can change your story. You can have a different ending.
And you really can live happily ever after. Now I am not saying on earth necessarily because life on earth is filled with challenges and difficulties but ultimately for the Christian we will live happily ever after because we will see the Lord in heaven and spend all eternity with Him and return with Him back to this earth when He brings heaven to earth. This is the hope of the Christian. But it is not the hope of every person.
It is a hope of the person who has put their faith in Jesus Christ. And if you have not done that yet I hope you will do that before we close because Jesus Christ the very Son of God came in a rescue mission to planet earth 2,000 years ago. He was born in that manger. And He lived a perfect life. And then He died a perfect death. And then He rose again from the dead three days later. And He is here with us right now standing at the door of your life and He is knocking.
And He is saying if you will hear His voice and open the door He will come in. I talked about preaching the gospel. You say what is the gospel? You keep saying gospel. Gospel means good news.
Here is what the gospel is. The bad news is you are a sinner. In fact you are so bad of a sinner there is nothing you can ever do to satisfy the righteous demands of God.
The good news is God sent His Son to die in your place. And if you will turn from your sin and believe in Jesus you can be forgiven. And you can know that you will go to heaven when you die. But even more you can start living life to its fullest following Jesus and discovering what He has for you. If you have never done that I would like to give you an opportunity to pray and ask Jesus into your life.
Or maybe make a recommitment to Him. So we are going to close now in prayer. Let me extend this invitation to some of you to get right with God if you need to. Let's pray. Father thank You for Your Word to us.
Thank You for Your love for us. And I pray for any person that is here or maybe someone that is watching and listening wherever they are. And I know many are watching and listening in different places. If they don't know You Lord let this be the moment they believe. The moment their story changes. The moment their eternal address changes.
And that they come into this relationship with You. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Pastor Greg Laurie with an important prayer today here on A New Beginning. And if you'd like to make a change in your relationship with the Lord, Pastor Greg wants to help you do that. And he'll do so before today's edition of A New Beginning concludes. And then thank you for partnering with us to help these daily studies continue.
Your investments have eternal benefits. Why not make this a part of your personal ministry to partner in an effort that's making a real difference with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thank you for your prayers and for prayerfully considering how God might lead you to help tangibly. Online you'll find us at harvest.org. And there you'll see the way we'd like to thank you for your donation right now.
That's harvest.org. Or write us at A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, CA 92514. Or call us at 1-800-821-3300. We're here around the clock to take your call again at 1-800-821-3300.
Well Pastor Greg, you mentioned that someone can become a Christian with just a simple prayer. Maybe somebody would like to do that right now. Could you help them with that? Sure.
I'd love to. A simple prayer is right. In fact, I would like to just pray a prayer and I would ask you to pray it after me. You might even pray it out loud. This is a prayer I've led a lot of people in over the years.
And I've seen God change lives. There's no magic in this prayer. It's the God you're speaking to who will hear this prayer and answer this prayer. So if you want Christ to come into your life, if you want to be sure your sin is forgiven, if you want to be confident that you will go to heaven when you die, just pray this prayer even out loud after me right now. Pray these words. Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, but I also know that you are the savior because you died on the cross for my sin and you rose again from the dead. Jesus come into my life and forgive me of every sin I've ever committed.
I choose to follow you from this moment forward. Thank you for hearing this prayer. Thank you for answering this prayer, Lord. And I pray all of this in Jesus' name, Amen. If you just prayed that prayer and meant it, I want you to know on the authority of scripture, God Almighty has heard your prayer and he will answer this prayer. You are now a newly minted child of God.
So congratulations, you've made the right decision and welcome to the family of God. I want to send you a special gift because of that prayer you've just prayed. It's called the New Believer's Growth Packet and in it is a copy of the New Testament in a very understandable translation called the New Living Translation. It also is filled with hundreds of notes that I wrote that will encourage you in this commitment you've made to follow Christ and there's some other outstanding materials in this little packet I'll send you as well. So order your copy today and let me be the first to say to you congratulations and welcome to the family of God. We hope you'll ask for your New Believer's Growth Packet right away containing Pastor Greg's New Believer's Bible.
It's free of charge if you prayed today with Pastor Greg to accept Christ. Just call 1-800-821-3300. Again that's 1-800-821-3300 or go online to harvest.org. Hey everybody, I want to encourage you to join us for something we call Harvest at Home. It happens every Sunday at harvest.org and on our brand new app Harvest Plus which is available on your mobile TV devices. Download it now and you can watch Harvest at Home with Christians from around the world as we worship together and study God's Word. So again join us for Harvest at Home at harvest.org or on Harvest Plus. Well next time we'll begin to see a turnaround in Jonah's obedience and as he turns around it leads to the spiritual turnaround of the entire city of Nineveh. Join us here on A New Beginning with Pastor and Bible feature, Greg Lord.
