The Making of a Witness

Today on Summit Life, a freeing message from Pastor J.D.

Greer. God does the drawing and the convincing and the persuading. You can give the finest presentation of the Gospel ever. And if God is not working in their hearts, then what you said won't have the slightest effect. At the same time, you can give the lousiest presentation of the Gospel. And if God is working in their hearts, God will use it because salvation belongs to God. Welcome to Summit Life, the Bible teaching ministry of pastor, author, and theologian J.D.

Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vidovich. We're continuing to study the Gospel revealed in the book of Jonah. And as Pastor J.D. reminds us that people don't come to Christ through our eloquent speeches or our persuasive arguments. People come to Christ through God's relentless love. Aren't you glad it's not just up to you to convince people? What a freeing message about God's saving grace.

And it's part of our series titled Cast Away. Now, let's join Pastor J.D. as he shares today's message titled The Making of a Witness. Jonah 3, verse 1.

Here we go. Jonah 3, 1. Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time.

All right, say that again. I'm going to read it and then we come to that part, I want you to say it. Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time. Aren't you grateful for second chances with God? I know a lot of people who get very far from God and they start to ask, even if they never verbalize it. They start to say, can I come back? Am I too far gone? You have not gone farther than Tarshish or the belly of a whale.

Right? And so, yes, you can come back. The word of the Lord comes to you again a second time. The Gospel speaks to this in at least two different ways. First of all, Jesus Christ died for all of your sin, which means that he died to put away the guilt and the shame of it forever.

Yes, your sin, your wandering may have been bad, but I guarantee you it does not compare to what Jesus went through to forgive you. So you can lose this question of have you done something so bad you can't come back by looking into the sacrifice that Jesus made. All right, the other way the Gospel addresses this is through the resurrection. We serve a God who not only died for our sin, we serve a God who was resurrected so that he could recreate our future, so that he could say to you what he says to all of us in the resurrection, and that is, behold, I make all things new.

So, yes, you can come back. He says, verse 2, saying, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you. Now, if you're into deja vu, you'll recognize that is exactly what he said in chapter 1. You see, here's the thing about second chances with God. God always takes you right back to the place where you said no, and sometimes you want to overlook that, don't you? You and God had a little tiff. You had an argument, and you want to chalk it up now to an irreconcilable difference, but you feel bad about it. You don't want to be separated from God, so you just want to come back in and act like nothing ever happened. That's just not how it works, right? God is always right.

You were always wrong. You can't just ignore that place that you disobeyed God and leave it unresolved. One of my favorite episodes of Seinfeld, I know not all of you are Seinfeld fans, but enough of you that I can probably say this, is where George gets mad, blows up at his boss, storms out, leaves. Remember, tells his boss off. Then that weekend feels bad about it and says, you know, I just quit my job. I don't have another job.

So he shows up on Monday, back at the boardroom table, like nothing ever happened, right? Now, you just can't do that. You can't do that with God.

You go right back to the place that you said no, and that's where it begins. You repent there, verse 3. So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now, Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days' journey in breath. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey, and he called out as he went. Yet 40 days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

Now, get this picture, okay? Jonah has been in the belly of the fish for how long? For three days. That's right, with the gastric juices of this fish's stomach washing over him, which means he would have been bleached white. White hair, glowing like an angel.

That would have to have been a nice effect for a preacher, wouldn't you agree? Right? And he's got an eight-word message. Yet 40 days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. That's it. Actually, in Hebrew, it's only five words.

Yodei arba'im v'neneva yomein nepaket. That was it. That was the whole message, all of it. It didn't have points. It didn't rhyme.

It didn't have funny illustrations. Five words, all he said. Verse five, and the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast, and they put on sackcloth, and from the greatest of them to the least of them, the word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and he sat in ashes.

Here's a question. What made them believe like this? Jonah's message doesn't appear to be that persuasive. Five words long. He doesn't even invite them to repent.

You notice that? He doesn't tell them that. He just says, hey, you're going to be destroyed. So what made it so effective? We don't know. It's just that God sovereignly arranged the events that were going on in Nineveh, and he prepared their hearts. Some historians talk about unusual astronomical activity that was taking place and natural disasters that had occurred around Nineveh. We don't know if that's contributing to the way they're listening to this, but what is clear is that God's Spirit took these five words and made them seem so real and so urgent to these people that the whole city repented. Verse 7.

And he issued a proclamation and published it through Nineveh. By the decree of the king and his nobles, let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Interesting. Man and beast.

Right? Put sackcloth on the cows. Don't give them any food.

Make them fast. You're like, well, what have they done wrong? Nothing. But what does a cow do when it's hungry?

Are you redneck enough to know this? It moves. That's what it does when it's hungry. Imagine you've got all the cows in a city this big mooing all the time. It's contributing to this sense of mourning, right? This wail that's going up from the city.

Same way with the sackcloth. It's not like God prefers that, you know, and as you put that on to make him happy, it's that represented the inner torment of their hearts. And let them, he says, call out mightily to God. You see, up until now, the Ninevites had boasted in being mighty in their army, mighty in their strength, mighty in their riches. Now they are mighty in humiliation and repentance. And let everyone, says the king, turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.

Who knows? God may turn and relent from his fierce anger so that we may not perish. Verse 10, when God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them. He did not do it.

Why? Because God overflows with compassion and mercy. God doesn't delight in judgment.

Ezekiel says he takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. God delights in mercy. He is like a father, Jonah would explain in chapter four, that feels, that word I taught you last week, rehem, compassion for a broken child. When I'm angry at my kids, if I'm angry at them for something that they've done, when the moment I see that brokenness in them, that repentance, my heart just overwhelms them with mercy. I love this picture of God. Give God half a chance.

Give God half a chance in your life, and he would overwhelm you with mercy. All right, there's a lot of different directions we could take this passage, but I want to use this passage to reflect a little bit this weekend on the nature of how God uses you to work in people's lives. You see, there's two or three different macro themes, if I could say it that way, that are going on in Jonah, and I've kind of pointed some out to you as we went. All right, but one of the purposes of the book of Jonah, if you want to jot this down for your study notes later, is that, you know, one of Jonah's purposes is to show you how God pursues sinners.

That's what I've explained to you. You are Jonah. Just like God worked in Jonah's life, he's working in your life. He puts a storm in your life so that you can not be paid back for your sins so that he can bring you back from your sin. All right, so you're Jonah.

That's one way. Another purpose of the book of Jonah is to contrast the difference in God's heart for lost people and ours. Jonah wants to destroy his enemies. God wants to forgive them. Jonah cries out for revenge. God cries out for mercy.

So it's given to contrast those two things. A third purpose of Jonah, which is what we're going to deal with this weekend, is to show you how God uses his people in the world. To show you how God uses his people in the world. God using you to bring people to himself is what we call, you ready? Evangelism. Now, I know that word terrifies some of you. And some of you that normally don't come to church are like, see, this is why I don't come to church, because you Christians are always talking about how to convert the rest of us. And I hate that. I understand. You should rest assured that that word makes most believers as nervous as it makes you.

There's a sense of this. In fact, I've heard of a definition of evangelism as two very nervous people talking to each other. Okay? One nervous because he's being talked to. The other being nervous because she's the one doing the talking.

All right? Most of us are paralyzed when it comes to evangelism. Because you're like, well, I don't know where to start. I wouldn't know what to say. You're terrified about saying something wrong. You're terrified about creating some unbelievably awkward, socially awkward moment.

Right? I understand that. I have been there. I have been in more socially awkward evangelism encounters than anybody in this room, I can assure you. I understand that reservation that you have. Becoming an effective evangelist comes from believing two things, two very simple things, both of which you're gonna see in this story.

All right? Here's number one. Number one. One of our pastors helped me see this and I thought it was just so simple and so clear and so helpful. Number one, or letter A, salvation belongs to the Lord. It comes from believing that salvation belongs to the Lord, Jonah 2.9. It's like I showed you in this text. Jonah's sermon was not even that impressive. Five words long. His heart wasn't even in it.

Right? I mean, he didn't pray that they would listen to this and he didn't say it with tears. In fact, anything, he was praying that they wouldn't listen. In chapter four, you find out he's praying, basically saying, hey God, you know, I want you to shut their ears and close their hearts.

I want them to totally reject this. His heart's not in it. He's a hypocrite. But God used it.

Why? Because God is the one who works salvation. You see, the Bible teaches that repentance is something only God can work in our hearts.

That's not something we can do. He's the one that convinces people to believe. He's the one who arranges circumstances so that we want to know God. 1 Corinthians 12, three. No man can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.

It doesn't mean you can't utter the words. It just means that nobody will, from their soul, confess the lordship of Jesus unless the Spirit of God puts that in them. Ephesians 2, eight and nine. For it is by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It's the gift of God.

So here's the question. What does that refer to? For by grace you've been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. If you have your Greek New Testament open, and I know that almost all of you do, you will notice that that refers to the whole previous sentence. In other words, it's not just Jesus' death that is a gift to you. The faith to believe in that gift is also a gift to you. John chapter one, verse 13.

To as many as received him, John says. To them he gave the right to become children of God who were born, not of blood, nor the will of flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. It's not something you inherited from your parents.

It's not something they could teach you. It's not something I can stand up here by the will of the flesh and convince you of. God does it in you. John 6, 44. Nobody comes to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. That means that people can't come unless God draws them.

And if God's drawn them, they'll come. Now that might make your mind hurt. And it might raise some questions. But it should also make you relax.

Because that means the weight is off of your shoulders. It's not on you to convince them. God does the drawing and the convincing and the persuading. You can give the finest presentation of the gospel ever. And if God is not working in their hearts, then what you said won't have the slightest effect. At the same time, you can give the lousiest presentation of the gospel. And if God is working in their hearts, much like Jonah gave the lousiest presentation of the gospel ever, God will use it because salvation belongs to God.

You know, I know this firsthand. There have been times that I had preached sermons, maybe here, maybe somewhere else. And like in the middle of the sermon, I'm like, this is the best sermon I've ever preached. And I can just feel it, man. I can feel the spirit of God just moving you, man. I'm like, my illustrations are on.

I'm being funny. I tell stories. And people have got tears in their eyes. And I'm like, man, that was good.

And then after it's over, just, you know, based on how you usually tell these things, nobody. Seems like nothing happened in people. Like, oh, it was kind of a funny story.

But nothing happens in somebody's heart. There have been other times that I had preached, I mean, what I would really consider to be the worst sermons ever. I mean, halfway through it, I'm like, Lord, forgive me. I mean, I get to the end, and I want to pray like this. I'm like, Jesus, I felt like this a couple times here.

Jesus, I'm sorry. Jesus, I know there were people that were thinking about becoming Christians up until now. And I have convinced them not to be a Christian. I'm not even sure I'm a Christian any longer, Jesus, after that sermon. And somebody comes up to me at the end of this just overwhelmed with God's work in their life. And I can almost feel God laughing in heaven.

He's like, I just want to prove it's not you. It's not your persuasive word. It's not the will of flesh.

It's me. Salvation belongs to me. People aren't converted by my eloquent speech or the persuasive powers of your flesh. They're converted by the power of God. You see, at the end of the day, we're not dealing with skeptics who need to be persuaded. We're not dealing with bad people who need to be convinced to become good people. We're dealing with dead people who need to be raised to life.

That's not something you can do. That's something only the power of God can do. I've referenced this before, but it's like that movie The Princess Bride. You remember that old classic movie where you get the person, he's like, oh, he's dead. He's like, no, no, he's not dead, he's nearly dead. And they get the little thing and they do something to him because he's only nearly dead. That category doesn't really exist. People who are outside of Christ are not like nearly dead.

They're dead. And for somebody that is dead to come out of the grave, it takes a work of God, not because I stood up here and gave a sermon that was powerful, made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and told some funny stories and made you cry once. That's not what does it. It's the power of God and sometimes he takes people like Jonah, who speak the word of God even against their will and all their hypocrisy because salvation belongs to him. So in one sense, I want you to, you gotta interpret what I'm meaning the right way.

In one sense, I want you to relax because the pressure's not, it's not on you. Salvation belongs to whom? To God. Salvation belongs to God.

Number two, or letter B. Faith comes only by hearing. Faith comes only by hearing, that's Romans 10, 17.

Now, that's not obviously in Jonah, but you see it there in Jonah 2 or Jonah 3. God's instrument of life is his word. The word of God is not just information that God wants us to know.

It's not commands. The word of God has a power in it. The word of God is a power.

All kinds of analogies in the Bible for this. 2 Corinthians 4, 6 says the word of God is like the ray of sunshine that brings life to the earth. 2 Timothy 3, 16 says it's like the breath of God that creates life out of nothing.

1 Peter 1, 23 says it's like an imperishable seed of life that burst into fruit even in the most dead places. Isaiah 55 says that the word is like the rain that comes down from heaven and makes the earth sprout and blossom. The word of God is a healing rain on our hearts that brings life out of death. The word of God is not just information or commands. The word of God has in itself the power for you to do the very things that God is telling you to do. Think of it almost like when Jesus on earth would tell somebody who was lame, he would say rise, take up your bed, and walk.

Now that command coming from anybody else has no effect. Jesus' words, unadorned, just because he said them, have in themselves the power for that guy to obey that command. The word of God has in itself the power for us to obey, the power for us to believe. So here is the important part for you. The word of God cannot do its work where people haven't heard it, which means that our objective is to get the word of God into people's lives to get them in the presence of it because then and only then can God do his work. Please don't misunderstand me. Our objective is not their salvation.

Why would I say that? I understand what you mean when you say that because we're not just trying to preach to everybody. We want to see them become Christians. But my objective, your objective is not their salvation.

Why? Because salvation belongs to God. And it's because people don't understand that they have this unbelievable paralyzing burden on them that keeps them from doing the one thing that God would have them do.

It didn't belong to me. The win in my column is when I am sharing the word of God with people, see. Isaiah says that God's word will not return to him void. It will accomplish all that he has purposed for it. You see, God is at work all around you like he was in Nineveh.

But there's a part that only you can do. You see, I think most people have, they live with this myth that God is somehow magically just bringing people to church and bringing people to faith and they just show up and come forward and get baptized and that's just how it works. No, God is at work all around you but there's one thing he will only do through you and that is speak the word of God. Give you kind of a deep thought here.

You ready for this? You study the book of Acts. The only beings who preach the gospel in Acts are humans. Now Acts is filled with all kinds of crazy stories about God doing some pretty wild stuff but the one thing that only a human being does is preach the gospel. And in fact, it's kind of like the way it's written is almost, it's, if you've never seen this, there's this big point trying to be made.

I'll give you some examples. Acts chapter eight, three chapters right in a row. Acts chapter eight. Acts chapter eight, there's a guy that they call the Ethiopian eunuch who's reading the scroll of Isaiah and it says that he's reading, you know, traveling through the desert and he's up in his little chariot or whatever, he's reading it and he comes to the part in Isaiah 53 about Jesus dying for sins and he's like, I don't know what this means. Okay, so what God does is rather than like appearing as an angel to him and explaining to him what that means, he gets Philip from over in Samaria and he teleports him, all right, mind you, teleports him out into the desert so that Philip can, Philip's like, well, what am I doing here?

He said, just hang on, just wait. Here comes the chariot, he hears the guy reading, he's like, oh, I know why I'm here and he shares the word of God to him. Now, why would God, a God who could do anything, why would he even just like save Philip the trouble, let him stay there in Samaria, if he's gonna go do all the magic stuff, why not just do it himself?

Only a human being can do it. Acts chapter 10, jump to that one. There's a guy named Cornelius, he's a Roman soldier. He's been seeking God. Something's not right in his life, wants to know God, so he's like, God, I wanna know you, et cetera, et cetera. So God appears to him as an angel in a dream and says, Cornelius, your prayers have come up to God. God wants you to know him too, that's good news. And so what does the angel do?

Does he go ahead and explain to him what the gospel is? No, he says, I'll tell you what, once you go over and find a guy named Peter, who's on the other side of the city, and I want you to get him to explain it to you. So meanwhile, other side of the city, Peter's up on top of the house where he's staying for evening prayers and as he's praying, he falls into a trance in one of the oddest dreams ever recorded. A sheet falls out of the sky and in the sheet are all kinds of unclean animals, pigs and squirrels and dogs and a voice says to Peter, rise, kill and eat. And Peter's like, I don't wanna eat that, it's unclean. And the voice says, I'm God, don't argue with me. And so Peter wakes up from his dream and trying to figure out what it means. What does this pigs in a blanket dream mean?

Okay, that's my name for it. What does it mean? And just then, somebody knocks at the door and he goes down and Cornelius says, hey, I had this angel show up and tell me I need to talk to you. And Peter's like, I had these pigs fall out of the sky and somehow they think it has to do with you and he preaches a gospel to him.

Why? Did God go to all that? Because a human being's the only one that can do it. In between those is Acts chapter nine. You know this story. Paul, Saul at this point, traveling down the Damascus road, ride his horse, God appears to him, knocks him off the horse, knocks him on his back. Jesus appears to him and says, Peter, whatever your name is, Saul, what are you doing? It's hard for you to kick against the prodding of the Holy Spirit and Saul's like, oh, I'm sorry, you know. So what does Jesus tell him to do? Well, see, Saul, you gotta understand that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

You're gonna write that one day, all right? For the wages of sin is death. He doesn't do that. He says, go talk to Ananias and Ananias shares the gospel with him. Why didn't Jesus just go ahead and close the deal? You got a guy on his back and you're standing there in the clouds, go ahead and share the gospel. No. It's always gotta be a human being that does it.

Always. You will not find one illustration anywhere in the Bible where anybody but another human being actually shares the message of the gospel. The point that's being made dramatically is that the word of God has to be spoken to the lips of a human. But God is all around you doing the rest. See, if you would just open your eyes to those two facts, that salvation belongs to God and that faith only comes by hearing and hearing only by you, it would have the most profound effect on you. Believing those two things makes you into a bold, confident, and effective person who shares the word of Christ with others. Jonah did these two things and with all of his feelings and mess-ups, God still used him in amazing ways. You're listening to Summit Life with pastor, author, and theologian J.D.

Greer. We're in a series called Cast Away and if you happen to join us late today or if you'd like to catch up on previous messages in our study in the book of Jonah, visit us online at jdgreer.com. There you can listen to all of our previously aired broadcasts free of charge. Today is the final day to request our latest Summit Life resource, the 2021 Day Planner. The beginning of the year is a great time to challenge ourselves in the discipline of Bible reading. If you'd like to take that challenge and read more of the Bible than you ever have before, we have a tool to help you do that. We've included a year-long Bible reading plan in the 2021 Summit Life Day Planner.

It will take you through key passages of every book in the Bible in just one or two chapters per day. We'd love to get you a copy as our way of saying thanks when you donate to support this ministry. Summit Life is funded by listeners like you, so when you give, you're actually giving to another listener by helping them dive into the gospel. Join that mission by giving today and remember to ask for the Summit Life Day Planner. Call 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220. Or give online at JDGrier.com. And if you aren't signed up for our email list, be sure to do that today. It's the best way to stay up to date with Pastor JD's latest blog posts and to make sure that you never miss a new resource or series. It's quick and easy to sign up at JDGrier.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch, inviting you to join us again next week when Pastor JD continues this series called Cast Away. The Book of Jonah is more than a colorful story about a man being swallowed by a big fish. There's more to come next week on Summit Life with JD Grier. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Grier Ministries.