Episode Transcript
[00:00:20] Some of you have more than others.
[00:00:22] I can be a bit impulsive, so I kind of just live my life with this motto of the worst they can do is say no. Okay.
[00:00:32] Like, there's a part. You kind of have to have that a little bit to plant a church. The worst they could do is say no. So you just kind of go off and do it. And so sometimes it works out really well, and sometimes it doesn't. But when I was in college, I was a senior in college.
[00:00:45] I had finished out my last football season at Angelo State, and I was being a bit impulsive, and I really wanted a physical activity.
[00:00:54] So I joined an MMA gym.
[00:00:58] Yeah, that's. Somebody should have told me that at the moment, but I didn't have those kinds of friends sky like you.
[00:01:04] So I thought it seemed like a good idea. So I joined an MMA gym. And I did it for one week. And I wish that I could report to you that my experience was great and that I just beat up some guys and all that, but that wasn't my experience. So by the end of the week, you know, you train all week, and I learn all these moves and I'm building up all this stamina, and I'm like, dude, I think I can do this. It's like a first semester Greek student in seminary is like, I'm ready to go preach. And you're like, I don't think you are.
[00:01:31] And so I kind of had this idea in my mind that I was, like, getting pretty good mma. And then on Friday of that week, they let us spar.
[00:01:42] And this wasn't like bare knuckle boxing. We had these little mini gloves that they use in mma. I ended up sparring a guy who was about my size.
[00:01:50] And without going into too much detail or wasting too much time on my illustration, I ended up with a broken nose. So the guy kind of had got me in a headlock, and I tried to lift myself out, and when I did that, he brought up his knee accidentally, he said, and kneed me in the nose. I fell to the ground. I looked in the mirror, big cut. And I was like, oh, it's just a cut. And I went to the bat, and it was just broken, man. It was just a broken nose.
[00:02:16] And so I ended up having to get a ride to the hospital from one of my classmates, which was very embarrassing. And I get to the hospital, I wait in the waiting room, and then I go into the doctor's office, and the doctor comes in and looks at me, and he basically tells me he Says, hey, there's really nothing I can do for you now because you've, like, so many of the small bones in my nose had broken. He was like, I just can't really do anything until those reset.
[00:02:40] And here's what you have to do. So when those reset, you're going to go through a couple of weeks of having two black eyes. It's going to look like you got jumped. Basically, once those reset, you're gonna have to come back in and we're gonna have to break it again in order to straighten it out.
[00:02:56] And I heard that and I was like, nah, I'm all right.
[00:03:03] So I just kind of let it be. And I went two weeks and I had these tremendous black eyes and looked like I'd just gotten destroyed because I had.
[00:03:12] And I never went back and got it reset. Okay, here's the reason I. So I still have a crooked nose. If you look at it intently enough, you'll see it.
[00:03:22] But I simply did not want to revisit the pain. I didn't want to go back and revisit the pain that I experienced before in order to be healed.
[00:03:32] So here's my point, and here's what I hope for us this morning and what I've been praying for us for myself.
[00:03:39] Okay? In order for revival to happen. Which revival, by the way? Let me just define it according to Tim Keller, who I think has the best definition for revival there is outside of what the Bible tells us in different places is. Revival is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit that results in normal obedience.
[00:03:58] That's what revival is. Revival isn't emotionalism. It's not even necessarily large crowds of people getting saved, though oftentimes throughout the history of the church, that's what's happened. But it starts with a small group of Christians who experience an outpouring of the Spirit that results in normal obedience to the word of God. That's revival.
[00:04:19] You and I can't do it.
[00:04:21] We can't manipulate it.
[00:04:24] We don't put on revival services, okay? We don't. That's not what happens.
[00:04:30] Jesus says in John chapter three that the Spirit blows where he wishes.
[00:04:36] Revival is a gift of God's grace, and we ought to, I hope you're desperate for it.
[00:04:42] But in order to. By the. By the grace of God, for us to begin to experience, I think, some of that healing that the Holy Spirit can and desires to bring and bringing about this thing called revival in your life and in mine and in our church as a whole, we have to visit the Pain.
[00:05:02] And here's the pain and where we get to in our text, and it's going to come through a question I just want us to consider.
[00:05:11] Are we a sleeping church?
[00:05:17] What areas of your heart, as a follower of Jesus, are you friends, simply asleep to the things of God?
[00:05:27] Because where we find Jonah in the story this morning is asleep on the inner portion of a boat on his way in the opposite direction from the presence of God. Or so he thinks.
[00:05:43] Are we a sleeping church?
[00:05:47] Francis Schaeffer, one of my favorite theologians, said back in the 80s, the central problem of our age is not liberalism or Modernism, nor the old Roman Catholicism or the new Roman Catholicism, nor the threat of communism, nor even the threat of rationalism and the monolithic consensus which surrounds us.
[00:06:11] All these are dangerous, but not the primary threat.
[00:06:14] The real problem is this. Here's the point of pain.
[00:06:19] The real problem is the church of the Lord Jesus Christ individually, corporately tending to do the Lord's work in the power of the flesh rather than of the Spirit.
[00:06:36] The central problem is always in the midst of the people of God, not in the circumstances surrounding them.
[00:06:46] Now, if your quick, instinctive response is to say, yeah, guys, then you need to take a long, slow look in the mirror, as I do.
[00:06:59] Not only is the problem not out the primary problem, not outside of our walls, in the culture.
[00:07:05] Not to say there's not problems in the culture, of course there are, but that's the world. Don't we expect the world to act in some of those ways?
[00:07:15] But the problem is within the people of God and friends, it's not your brothers and sisters. It's us, it's you, it's me.
[00:07:27] That's where the problem lies.
[00:07:30] How can you and I expect this thing called revival to happen in the church and in the world if it doesn't first happen in you?
[00:07:40] And so what area of your heart this morning are you sleeping to the things of God?
[00:07:48] Now, to be clear, some of you in the room are not yet Christians. And I'm so grateful to God that you're here. The elders and I, we pray for more, for God to bring more and more folks in who are not yet Christians, that they would know the life in Jesus that we know.
[00:08:06] That's what we want. That's one of the reasons we planted Redemption Hill, because we want to see more and more people who are not yet Christians become Christians and come to know and love Jesus and be forgiven of their sins and have heaven as their future and all of those kinds of things.
[00:08:19] So it's not that if you're here and you're not yet a Christian, the Bible would say, friends, that you're not asleep, you're dead in your sins.
[00:08:28] But there are Christians in the room, followers of Jesus who are alive in Christ by the Spirit, but asleep in their hearts to the things of God. And we'll talk more about how to diagnose that in just a moment. So are we living awake to God or asleep to the things of God? That's the question this morning that we get to. So let's look at the text together.
[00:08:54] Jonah, 1, 4, 6.
[00:08:58] Here's what we have in the story so far. We have a man named Jonah who's a Jewish prophet. Anybody remember what Jonah's name means?
[00:09:10] Yep. His name means dove, and dove means silly or senseless. And so we've said over the last couple of weeks that Jonah, while a real historical person who really lived, also typifies the people of Israel and us, the church. And that oftentimes you and I are silly and senseless. We are, as the Bible says, like sheep who have all gone astray. We have one chief shepherd, one who has it all together, who's totally good and totally righteous and totally perfect, and it's not you and I. So you and I then have freedom to enter into this space. Not as impressive because we're not wearing. We have the freedom to be known.
[00:09:50] Okay, so Jonah typifies the people of God and that he is silly and senseless. Jonah is given the word of God. So verses 1 and 2 and 3 talk about how the word of God came to Jonah. Jonah. God calls Jonah to leave behind his place, travel to a place called Nineveh, which was about 600 miles north of Israel, it's modern day Mosul, Iraq, to travel to Nineveh and to preach the gospel to this group of Ninevites. And we've talked about how the Ninevites were this wicked group of people. They were terrible people. So if you can imagine the worst communist regime or the worst terrorist organization that comes to mind, that's kind of what the Ninevites were like. They were brutal and sadistic. And so Jonah, out of defiance toward the word of the Lord, goes in the opposite direction. And he doesn't just want to leave Nineveh, he wants to flee from the presence of God.
[00:10:41] And so what does God do? This is where we find ourselves in the story. He goes to a place called Joppa, and he boards a ship traveling to another place called Tarshish, which is in the opposite direction of Nineveh. This is where Jonah's at.
[00:10:54] And so verse four says, but the Lord.
[00:10:59] So in verse three, we get, but Jonah. The word of Lord comes to Jonah. God says, I want you to do this. Go preach repentance to the Ninevites. Tell them they're going to be destroyed if they don't turn from their wicked ways and turn to me. Jonah says, no, I'm not going to do that. And then in verse four, it says, but the Lord?
[00:11:16] Who is that?
[00:11:20] Do you ever stop and think about that question, who is the Lord?
[00:11:26] Like if a person who did not, who was not a Christian, came up to you and said, who is God? What would you say?
[00:11:36] Who is the Lord? Well, in the text it says that he who is the one who hurls a great wind upon the sea.
[00:11:44] And there was a mighty tempest on the sea so that the ship threatened to break up. There is no higher or more important question to answer in all of the world than this question. Who is God?
[00:11:58] Who is He?
[00:12:00] What's he like?
[00:12:04] Well, you can say that God is Creator.
[00:12:08] Nobody can hurl a storm upon the sea other than the One who made it.
[00:12:13] So God is Creator. You are not the creator. God is the Creator.
[00:12:20] All of the creation that exists in the world today is a shadow of the One who created us to be creative.
[00:12:28] God is Creator.
[00:12:31] God is also Sustainer. He's not just the One who creates all things. He's not like a watchmaker who creates a watch, ticks it, and then walks away to let it fend for Himself, for itself.
[00:12:44] So God is there, as Schaeffer would say, and he's made Himself known. He is Creator and He's Sustainer. He's intimately involved in his creation. He's the one that the Apostle Paul says in the Book of Colossians holds all things together.
[00:13:01] So when you feel like things are out of control in your life or in the world, you can be reminded that it's actually God holding everything together.
[00:13:11] He's Creator, He's Sustainer. God is Trinity.
[00:13:17] Okay, listen.
[00:13:19] This is the first. This is the heresy of the Church to say otherwise.
[00:13:25] God is God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. God is Trinity. One God. There is one God, Deuteronomy says, who eternally exists in three persons. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. And it's because God is Trinity that the Bible would go on to say that God is love.
[00:13:49] If God is not Trinity, he cannot be love, because love has to. Ontologically, it has to have an object of love. Does that make sense? So God the Father has eternally loved God the Son, God the Son has eternally loved God the Father, God the Spirit loves God the Son, who, et cetera. For all of eternity, God has existed in this amazing community of persons.
[00:14:17] God is love. And it's out of the overflow of the loving heart of the Father and the Son and the Spirit that He creates all things. God didn't need to create all things. He wasn't forced to. He wasn't obligated to. He wasn't lonely.
[00:14:32] God creates all things out of love because God is Trinity. We could say all of these things to a person who came up to us and asked, who is God? And they would all be absolutely true.
[00:14:43] But God also, as one author says, has a name.
[00:14:47] And if you were to come up to me and say, who's your wife?
[00:14:51] It would probably feel odd to you if I started listing off all of the things that Sidney did.
[00:14:57] She's a florist. She does this, she does this, she does this, and et cetera, right? What would you be asking if you asked about my wife? What's she like?
[00:15:06] So don't just list off her job descriptions like, tell me, what is your wife like? What is God like?
[00:15:15] I think in one of the most beautiful passages in all of the Bible, Exodus, chapter 34, verses 6 and 7, God discloses Himself. He reveals himself to his friend Moses, and he says the Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord Yahweh, a God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Keeping steadfast love for thousands or thousands upon thousands of generations is what that passage says.
[00:15:48] Forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty. Visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth. And this is who God is.
[00:16:05] This is what he's like.
[00:16:07] He's holy.
[00:16:09] He will not allow the guilty to go unpunished. And yet simultaneously, he's compassionate. He has steadfast love. He's merciful. He's kind.
[00:16:21] He's forgiving.
[00:16:23] This is who God is.
[00:16:26] This is why God sent Jesus. So we'll talk about in just a moment, to live the perfect and righteous life that you and I could not live, empowered by the Spirit as the perfect God man. And then to go to the cross and become sin so that we who are in him might become the righteousness of God. Your sin and mine had to be punished.
[00:16:48] That was the right thing to do, was to punish sin.
[00:16:53] But the good news of the gospel is that God himself has taken that punishment on behalf of his people, once for all, so that we would never experience the punishment, but only the grace and mercy and love of God.
[00:17:05] So this is who God is. And we see this expressed in God sending the storm upon the ocean or the sea by which Jonah is experiencing.
[00:17:16] Why did God send the storm to almost break up the ship?
[00:17:21] He did it because he's holy, and he did it because he's loving.
[00:17:26] This is the loving discipline of God on full display.
[00:17:30] Jonah flees from the presence of God and the call of God. And so God in holy love sends a storm upon the sea.
[00:17:42] So what is Jonah doing in the midst of all of this?
[00:17:46] Verse 5 says, But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had laid down and was fast asleep.
[00:17:56] So Jonah boards a boat in Joppa, which is a pagan community.
[00:18:02] As he enters the boat, we're told he went down into it. This is what the previous verses say. And we talked last week about how this. This phrase of Jonah went down into the boat is the same kind of phrase that the Bible uses when it talks about those who are going down into Sheol or down into death. It's the same idea in fleeing from the presence of God, Jonah was fleeing from life itself. And he was going down into the pit of death, into this boat. He went down into it.
[00:18:34] But because of Jonah's persistence in sin, our brother is sinking further and further into death. He didn't just go down into the heart of the boat. He went down even further, as we see in verse five.
[00:18:48] And this is tragic. And I want you to think about this for a moment, okay? So think about maybe people in your life that you've known or experienced, or maybe some going on, some that you know currently, today, who persist in sin.
[00:19:03] Okay? So they're walking in sin. They're confronted, lovingly, gently, by maybe a brother or sister in the church. And they just continue to persist, and they continue to persist, and they continue. So they sink further and further and further down into death, death, away from the life of God. This is what's happening to Jonah. He's persisting in his sin. And this is tragic for him, but it's not just tragic for him. It affects those who are around him.
[00:19:33] Goes on in the verse, verse five. And it says, then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his God, and they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for him.
[00:19:47] But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had laid down and was fast asleep. So the captains came and said to him, what do you mean, you, sleeper, arise, Call out to your God. Perhaps the God will give a thought to us that we may not perish. So here's what I want us to think about for the remainder of our time.
[00:20:04] Jonah was asleep. And what was the effect on the non believers around him as a result of his sleeping?
[00:20:13] It says that they were afraid that they began hurling cargo into the sea, which for these guys at this time was their very livelihood. They're hurling it all into the sea. The things that would have brought them income and provision. They're throwing them into the sea so that they can survive.
[00:20:31] But I think what's most tragic underneath all of this that we see in the story is not their physical responses necessarily, but it's they begin crying out to false gods that have no power to rescue them.
[00:20:45] And Jonah, who was asleep on the inner part of the boat, knew not only the God of the storm, but the God who alone had the power to save and rescue them.
[00:20:56] Jonah knew the one true God. And yet Jonah was sleeping in regards to both his identity as a child of God and his responsibility as a child of God. And because of that, the world suffered.
[00:21:09] The pagans in the world, the pagans in this story suffer when the people of God sleep. Friends, in regards to us who are followers of Jesus, living out our identity in the gospel as children of light, the world suffers.
[00:21:25] It is not a difficult thing to look out across the landscape of our culture and point fingers and point blame and talk about how bad everything is and how bad everybody is and how lost they are and how upside down morality is. It's not a difficult thing for us to do. I think what is difficult for us, what's difficult for me is to look in the mirror.
[00:21:49] And it isn't to say that it is only because of us that the world is the way it is. That's not true.
[00:21:57] People have personal responsibility.
[00:22:00] It's not to say that, but it is to say. It is to ask the difficult question, friends, in what way might we be sleeping when the people of God sleep? In regards to living out their identity as children of light, the world does suffer. Think about 19th and 20th century Germany, for instance.
[00:22:23] Biblical foundations for the Christian faith. This is a quote were assaulted, which led to a highly nationalistic church devoid of the gospel.
[00:22:31] And in that gap of leadership, Adolf Hitler rises to power and the world is at the brink does succumb to war.
[00:22:42] What does a sleeping church look like today?
[00:22:46] What does it look like in our hearts? Like in what ways might you and I be sleeping?
[00:22:54] On the positive side, when the people of God are revived, awakened to life in God, the world flourishes.
[00:23:07] This is a quote from Eusebius. It says talking about Christians during the Black plague. And maybe some of you have heard this, but there's this amazing story of followers of Jesus in the midst of the Black plague, when all of the non Christians around were essentially fleeing for their lives and doing everything they can to self preserve. And even so much so that when their family members got sick, they would throw them out of the house into the streets, so that the streets were filled, piled sometimes with dead bodies. The Christians were doing the opposite. And it began to spread the message of the good news of the Gospel all the way out, even to pagan leaders.
[00:23:42] And so Eusebius says, all day long some of them the Christians tended to the dying and to their burial. Countless numbers with no one to care for them.
[00:23:52] Others gathered together from all parts of the city. A multitude of those withered from famine and distributed bread to them all.
[00:23:59] He goes on to state that because of the compassion of the Christians in the midst of the plague, their quote deeds were on everyone's lips and they glorified the God of the Christians.
[00:24:11] Such actions convinced them that they alone were pious and truly reverent to God. Jesus says, when your good works shine forth, then the Father will be glorified. Now we know that for a church and Christians to be awakened by the Spirit to life in God, it doesn't. It doesn't only mean mercy ministry. It doesn't only mean that we go out and do good things for non Christians like this. I think you see an awakened church in the Book of Acts, chapter 2, verses 42 to 47. It's a beautiful picture of what the church should and does look like when by the power of the Spirit they're awakened to life in God. It says that they devote themselves to the apostles teaching that they gather together and they pray that they break bread together, that they sell their possessions and belongings to all and distribute to all so that no one among them has need, says signs and wonders are being done in and among them by the person and the power of the Holy Spirit. They live on mission telling other people about the good news of Jesus. When the church is doing these things, it says that the Lord added to their number day by day, those who are being saved. That's what an awakened church looks like.
[00:25:19] It's not a perfect church, it's not a sinless church, but it is an awakened and alive church.
[00:25:28] Richard Phillips says, when the church is actively awake, exercising its duties of godliness, prayer and gospel witness, things go well in the world.
[00:25:38] In this way, you may trace the world's advancement in the quality of life, whether through science, medicine, literature or political science, to the influence of God's people.
[00:25:49] Whenever the footprints of Christian disciples have marked the earth, they lead to an increase of peace, prosperity and well being.
[00:25:57] When the church is being the church, people who do not yet know God flourish. It doesn't mean that they always turn to faith in God. It doesn't mean that society always just immediately gets better. It doesn't mean that there won't be pushback.
[00:26:14] Certainly there will be when we proclaim the message of the gospel.
[00:26:21] But we can't expect revival to happen in the world unless revival first happens in our hearts.
[00:26:28] Unless revival first happens here in this place by the power of the Spirit that He awakens us out of our slumber.
[00:26:39] Can you expect the people in your life who are not Christians to be forgiving people? If you do not forgive, can you and I expect the overly anxious people that we work with in our workplace to know the peace of Christ? If worry rules your heart every day, can you expect that broken, non Christian couple on the verge of divorce to pursue unity and love together? If.
[00:27:10] If you're not doing that in the context of your marriage by the grace of God, we have to look in the mirror, friends.
[00:27:19] Stop pointing the finger, the pointer finger.
[00:27:23] Stop pointing and look in the mirror and ask an honest question.
[00:27:29] Am I awake or am I asleep?
[00:27:33] And I would ask this question just to assume that all of us have areas in our heart that are still asleep.
[00:27:39] What areas of my heart are still asleep and need to be awakened by the Holy Spirit today that I might live more fully alive to God?
[00:27:49] Positionally, you are fully alive to God if you're a believer in Jesus but not experientially.
[00:28:01] How do we know if we're awake or asleep? Here are some diagnostic questions.
[00:28:07] Are you devoted to the Word of God both personally and corporately?
[00:28:14] When I say devoted to the Word of God, I don't mean that you read five, six chapters a day.
[00:28:19] I mean in your heart. Is your heart's attitude one of I love the Word of God.
[00:28:26] I want to be more in the Word of God.
[00:28:33] Do you care about knowing and loving God more through good theology?
[00:28:39] We Talk about this all the time. When theology is an end in and of itself, we miss the point.
[00:28:45] Theology is always intended to be a conduit to more and deeper affections for God.
[00:28:51] But do you care about good theology knowing right things about God according to his word?
[00:29:04] Here's the third.
[00:29:06] Do you just go through the motions on Sundays, or are you engaged in the gathering of God's people?
[00:29:20] Do you talk to God in prayer?
[00:29:23] Do you have an ongoing relationship with the Father by which you talk to him throughout your day in prayer?
[00:29:33] Do you love the people of God around you?
[00:29:37] I mean, I read this last week thinking about community groups and just kind of a hypothetical scenario of a community group where they all meet up at the house. They've been together for, like, 10 years as a group, and everybody loves each other and all these things. They meet up together at a house, and one of the couples comes in and they say, hey, y' all, we need to start with some heavy news. So everybody gathers around the table, and this couple goes on to say, we're actually filing for divorce.
[00:30:05] And everybody in the group is shocked.
[00:30:07] And the author goes on to pose this question of like, is that a healthy group?
[00:30:13] That after 10 years, nobody in the group saw that coming?
[00:30:20] Do we love one another the way Jesus has commanded us to love one another?
[00:30:25] Do you love the people around you? Are you fighting for reconciliation? Are you pretty content with anger and frustration and annoyance and bitterness and all those kinds of things?
[00:30:39] Jesus said, by your love for one another, the world will know that you're my disciples.
[00:30:44] Like, that's not. It is impossible apart from the Holy Spirit, but it's not rocket science.
[00:30:49] It doesn't take a seminary degree to hear those words and say, Jesus literally meant those words.
[00:30:56] If we do not love one another, it doesn't matter so much what we say.
[00:31:03] So do you love the Christians around you? Do I love the Christians around me?
[00:31:09] Or is our heart asleep in regards to how urgent this actually is?
[00:31:18] Do you engage the non Christians in your life with gospel intentionality?
[00:31:24] Do you evangelize? Do you desire to evangelize?
[00:31:28] Evangelism is not an option, and it's not reserved for church staff.
[00:31:33] Evangelism is a call for everybody. If you're a follower of Jesus, it doesn't matter if you're not good at it. None of us are good at it.
[00:31:42] I shared the story with you guys last week about my attempt to invite a non Christian to church outside of a gym. She cussed me out, and I stumbled through my words like I was in seventh grade speech class again.
[00:31:55] Okay.
[00:31:59] Yet we're called to do it.
[00:32:04] Do you have assurance of God's love for you?
[00:32:11] I mean, are you consciously aware of the reality, if you're in Christ, of how loved you are, like how deeply loved you are by the Father? Keller says when the people of God are assured of his love for them, the church will be a beautiful place.
[00:32:28] This will be a beautiful and compelling place if the Christians in this room know intimately how loved they are by the Father.
[00:32:36] Because all the things that I'm talking about will flow from that.
[00:32:39] We will love one another if we know how loved we are by the Father.
[00:32:43] We will love His Word. We will love good theology, we will pray, we will evangelize. We will do these things the more aware we become of how deeply loved we are by the Father.
[00:32:56] So are we awake to God, or are we sleeping like our friend Jonah?
[00:33:07] God doesn't just send the storm to discipline Jonah.
[00:33:13] He sends the storm, as we've talked about, to pursue Jonah.
[00:33:19] And this is the same reason that you and I are here today talking about this whole idea of whether or not we're fully awake or sleeping to God is we're here because God desires you.
[00:33:31] He's pursuing you.
[00:33:33] He's coming after your heart.
[00:33:37] And so what's our hope for spiritual renewal? And we'll close with this.
[00:33:42] Tim Keller reminds us that revival will always begin with a re centering on the gospel, meaning spiritual vibrancy. Being more fully awake and alive to God will not begin out of a redoubled effort on our growth, looking at our life and saying, I need to grow in these areas. But a redoubled focus on the good news of the better Jonah, which is Jesus.
[00:34:01] Jonah was not the last prophet on a boat, was he?
[00:34:05] Isn't there this amazing parallel in the New Testament that we get this almost mirror image of Jonah's situation, who's asleep on the boat in the middle of a storm. And the better Jonah asleep in the boat in the middle of a storm.
[00:34:19] Mark chapter four, verses 35 through 41.
[00:34:22] The disciples say, let us go across to the other side. And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat just as he was, and other boats were with him. And a great windstorm arose and the waves were breaking into the boat so that the boat was already filling. But Jesus was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? And Jesus awoke and he rebuked the wind and said to the sea, peace be still. And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. He said to them, why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith? And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey him? It is Jesus alone through his willingness to go to the cross on our behalf that calms the storms of the wrath of God toward us.
[00:35:13] Jesus alone, who today? The risen Jesus alone, who today that can calm the storms in our heart? And so what do you and I need for revival? What do we need to be more awakened to the reality of God? It's not a redoubled effort to try harder. We need Christ to shine on us.
[00:35:32] Jesus, perfect life and obedience to the Father is your hope and mine.
[00:35:37] Jesus, death on the cross in your place for your sins and mine is your hope. Jesus, resurrection from the dead by which he defeated death and he defeated sin on behalf of all of his people is your hope this morning. And it's only by a redoubled focus on the person and work of Jesus that by the power of the Spirit our hearts and our church might be revived.
[00:36:01] So what if God were to do that?
[00:36:04] What if he were to revive sleepy Christians?
[00:36:09] What if he were to provide more assurance to you today?
[00:36:12] Here's my ask of you. Would you pray for this God? What areas of my heart are asleep to you?
[00:36:21] And as a addition to that prayer, not only what areas of my heart are asleep to you, but God, would you grow me in the assurance of your love for me today?
[00:36:31] Like, would you help me by the power of the Spirit, believe that I am eternally loved by you in Christ, that nothing can ever separate me from your love. Would you help me believe that? Like, I desperately want my kids to know how much I love them. The word that comes to mind when I think about my kids is precious.
[00:36:49] I think my kids are precious. I would die for them. I would kill for them.
[00:36:55] I love my kids ferociously. And my love for my kids is so tainted by my own sin. It is nothing compared to how loved you are if you're in Christ by the Father, he just loves you. He loves you so much. He wants you so badly to know how deeply loved you are. And the more you and I become aware of that, we will become awake to all of these things.
[00:37:20] So let's pray for that.
[00:37:23] There are some nominal Christians in the room, maybe who are only Christian by name.
[00:37:28] Maybe you think you're a Christian because of the way you vote. Maybe you think you're a Christian because of where you were born or what home you were born into, but you really have no affection for Jesus. There's no desire in your heart for Jesus.
[00:37:39] If that's you, let's pray that the Holy Spirit would do that today, that he would bring to life people who are only Christian in name but not in heart. And then finally, we want to pray that there would be radical conversion among us, among those who are not yet Christians.
[00:37:55] The Holy Spirit would waken dead hearts to life through faith in Jesus alone.
[00:38:01] Final quote. Keller says revival is like an avalanche.
[00:38:06] You get a few sleepy Christians waking up, a few nominal Christians getting converted, and a few really interesting, dramatic conversions from the community.
[00:38:17] And if there's a real support of extraordinary prayer, those first little pebbles can turn into an avalanche. And so let's pray that the Spirit of God would do that in us.
[00:38:41] Sam It.
