June 28, 2026 - God Didn't Find Someone Else

And here's how I want to do it this morning. If you can put that first verse up there, how many of you can see the orange letters? Anybody? Okay, we're not colorblind in this room. Okay, I am going to read the white, and then all together we are going to read the orange. So anywhere there's orange, that's your part. Whose part is it? It's your part. That's right. So let's read this together. Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim it to it, the message I give you. Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city. It took three days to get through it. Jonah began by going a day's journey into the city, proclaiming 40 more days and Nineveh will be overthrown, and the Nineveh believed God. Let's stop right there. Let's stay at one more time. The Nineveh believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them from the greatest to the least put on sackcloth. When Jonah's warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose up from his throne and he took off his royal robes and he covered himself with sackcloth, and he sat down in the dust. And this is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh. Read it like you're making a proclamation. This is the proclamation he issued by the decree of the king and his nobles. Do not let people or animals, heard or flocks taste anything. Do not let them eat or drink, but let people and animals be covered with sackcloth, let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows, God may yet relent with compassion, turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish. And when God saw what they did, when God saw how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and he did not bring on them the destruction that he had threatened. This is the word of the Lord. When I was a kid on Saturday mornings, I would wake up and I had a practice. I had a habit. First thing I would do is I would make my way to the cabinet and there on the cabinet at shelf, we would have boxes of cereal. Some of you, you're like scrambled eggs and bacon and all of that on Saturday morning, not in the McCullough House growing up. We were bowls of cereal and so back then, they didn't even try to hide that it wasn't healthy. I would sit down to a bowl of super sugar puffs, they were called, super sugar puffs. I mean this thing is like diabetes and a bowl. Like you get that and a syringe of insulin next to it. I mean it's literally like that. And so there I would sit with my super sugar puffs and I would sit down in front of the TV and I would watch a steady diet of cartoons. You remember Saturday morning cartoons, all the old folks in this room? Yeah, yeah. I was right on the edge of that time. I mean I'm going to be 54 here in a month or so and so I was on the edge, but I remember the steady diet of loony tunes and Donald Duck and Bugs Bunny and all of the things. And then after the Saturday morning cartoons would end, a show would come on, a show would come on on ABC. And it was a show that whenever it came on, it was like you wanted to see the beginning of it. It was, it went like this. Some of you, you will remember this. It started by saying, spainting the globe to bring you the constant variety of what? Sports, that's right. The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat. How many of you can picture the guy on the ski jump, the agony of defeat? The human drama of athletic competition. This is ABC's what? Why? Oh, you are all cultured people. You are my people this morning. And I would watch that every week. And I would think about the thrill of victory. And I would think about the agony of defeat. And then I thought to myself, every single sport knows that. Every single sport knows when the shot goes in. Every single sport knows when the goal is scored. Every single sport knows when the record is broken. The thrill of victory. But then there's also the backside to that. The agony of defeat. Everybody say that together. The agony of defeat. And we all know what this looks like. This is when the quarterback throws the interception and loses the game. This is when the basketball player steps up to the line and all they have to do we say is make two free throws. We all yell from our couches like we've never missed a free throw. We all yell, just make your free throws. And they step up and they miss their free throws with three seconds on the clock. Right now soccer has come to America. We're all learning the rules together. But you'll see it in soccer when a goalkeeper watches the ball slip under his hands, the agony of defeat. The agony of defeat. And in fact, there is a posture that I think is really real, that many, many people take on when they experience the agony of defeat. It's this. They're alone on the bench. Their teammates like just leave me alone. Don't bother them right now. Their head is down. They have a towel over their head. Their shoulders are collapsed inward. This is what the agony of defeat looks like. Winded and weary and wondering. Like if I'm even meant to be on this team. And I wonder if you've ever felt that way. One of the most popular stories that preachers tell about the agony of defeat happened in 1929. It happened in the Rose Bowl. And it happened to this guy right here. His name is Roy Regles. Roy Regles-- he played football for the University of California. And in the game, Roy Regles recovered a fumble. And then he ran 60 yards in the wrong direction. Finally, a teammate tackled them just before he crossed his own goal line, resulting in a safety that gave Georgia Tech two points that ultimately those two points decided the game. Half-time Roy Regles is sitting in the corner of the locker room. He's got a blanket over his shoulders. He's crying. He's in that posture. And in that room there, it was uncharacteristically quiet. Half-time was ending, and Coach Nibb's price looked at the team and simply said, men, the same team that played the first half will start the second half. Everyone in the room moved to the door except for Regles. The coach walked towards his broken player and said, Roy, didn't you hear me? Didn't you hear me? The same team that played in the first half will start the second half. And Regles looked up with tears on his face. And he said, Coach, I can't do it. I have ruined you. I have ruined our university. I have ruined myself. I can't face that crowd to save my life. Coach Price took a put a hand on Roy Regles's shoulder and said, Roy, get back up. The game is only half over. And Roy Regles got up. And he went back onto the field. And he played the entire second half. You see, that coach knew that the game was only half over. And that the story wasn't finished. Now, last week we left Jonah laying on the beach vomited from the belly of a whale. And that picture and Roy Regles have a lot in common. Because there's been a point for all of us when we have found ourselves wondering, is it going to go on? Is there anything else that can happen? Where we identify, we feel like we failed in some way. Maybe it was a marriage that was fractured or a business decision that failed catastrophically or a failure that became public or a calling that we ran from. Maybe you feel a little bit like Roy Regles sitting in the locker room and you're like, I don't want to go back out there for the second half. I don't want to go back out there for any more of this. Maybe you've lived through a season where you felt clearly and undeniably wrong and you thought to yourself, God, you're going to have to pick somebody else. God, you're going to have to choose somebody else. I see this happens sometimes in the church. We don't quit church. We don't quit fully on God, but what we do quit is we quit believing that God would ever use us. We take a seat on the end of the day. the bench and we've been sitting there ever since. John Ortonberg called Jonah the patron saint of refused callings, the patron saint of refused callings. And you know the story, we've caught walk through this story. Jonah was a textbook case of refusing callings in his life. Jonah didn't fail quietly. He failed spectacularly. Jonah gets an assignment from God and he says, "Nope, I'm not doing that." He puts on his running shoes and he runs the opposite direction. He runs so hard that he ends up in the belly of a fish in the dark and the deep and he has nowhere to go. And then God retrieves him and puts him back on dry land. And here's where we interact with Jonah today. Jonah doesn't have a lot going for him at this point. Jonah doesn't have a lot going for him at all. He's got a documented history of being disobedient to God. He's got minimal enthusiasm for an affection for the people he's about ready to preach to. We'll see that next week. He's more concerned with his own comfort than he is with God's compassion. And all of that, he probably smells a fish on everything he owns. We had some guys who went fishing today. Not a single one of them smelled like fish, which makes me, or they went fishing yesterday. And not a single one of them smells like fish, which makes me wonder if they caught any fish, Greg. If they caught any fish at all. But picture Jonah, reeking a fish. And God says, "No, I've got a plan for you." This is the story of Jonah. And this is where we find Jonah in Jonah chapter 3. There's four kind of scenes or movements, if you will, in this passage. And I just want to walk through him this morning. Here's the first one. You could call this the recommissioning, the recommissioning versus one and two. The word of the Lord came to Jonah. Everybody say a second time. This word is, this sentence is loaded. It's my understanding that this Hebrew word here for a second time, the only place that it shows up in the entire Old Testament is right here in the book of Jonah. It's God saying, "I'm not done with you, Jonah." It's God saying, "I have a plan for you, Jonah." It's God saying, "Jona, I know that you just walk through failure and flight and storms and fish and desperate prayer. I know that you've walked through all of that." And the very first thing God says in Jonah chapter 3 is that the word of the Lord comes to Jonah a second time. And I think it's interesting. God doesn't say, "Jona, let's debrief this a little bit before we move on." It's just the word of the Lord comes to him a second time. God doesn't say to Jonah, "Now Jonah, before I can use you again, I need just to get a few things straight." He says, "No, this is the word of the Lord comes to him a second time." Or, "Jona, I've been watching your attitude. I'm cautiously optimistic, Jonah." No, the word of the Lord comes to Jonah a second time. And I find it interesting. If I was God, if I was God, I would have revised the assignment. I would have said, "Jona, you didn't get it right in the first place, so here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to downsize the assignment. I'm going to make it a little easier for you. I'm going to make it a little less problematic. God didn't do that. The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time." Or, "I might have offered Jonah a polite reassignment." Like, Jonah was out there on the front lines. I might have said, "Jona, maybe we could use you back here in the back room filing papers." Maybe that's what we can do. But God doesn't do that. I might have lowered my expectations for Jonah. The word of the Lord comes to Jonah a second time. Now, some of you that are really bright and really intelligent, you will notice that chapter one and chapter three, the beginning words, are virtually identical. Did any of you notice that? Any of you? There's one brave soul. So you might have if you read it. One, the beginning of chapter one and the beginning of chapter three is virtually identical. In fact, I thought of it this way. And chapter one, you go to the next slide. In chapter one, Jonah is running and hiding and sleeping and sinking. The word of the Lord comes to Jonah and he runs and he hides and he sleeps and he sinks. But then in chapter three, the word of the Lord comes to Jonah and he rises and he walks and he's speaking and he watches a city change. He is the same man who is serving the same God and he has the exact same assignment and it is a totally different response. Jonah chapter one, God here, God speaks to Jonah and he runs hard to the west. And in chapter three, he gets up and he goes to Nineveh. Same man, same God, same assignment, different response. God didn't offer a revised call. God said, here's the word of the Lord. It is for you, Jonah, arise and go to Nineveh. Jonah's failure didn't alter the mission. And so God recommissions Jonah. God recommissions Jonah. Here's the second kind of movement in this passage. There's the recommissioning. Then there's what you could call the obedience. The obedience. So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Remember two chapters prior, two chapters prior, Jonah gets up and he doesn't go to Nineveh. He runs to Tarshish. He runs hard, the other direction. But in this case, Jonah rises up, goes to Nineveh, smelling a fish over everything he has on him and he does it according to the word of the Lord. There's something here about obedience that stands out to me. Jonah, we will see in Jonah chapter four, he had his fair share of reservations. Jonah had, didn't have a whole lot of affection even for the people that he was preaching to. But here's Jonah and he rises up in an obedient way and he makes his way to Nineveh. Listen friends, you may not feel ready for what God has asked you to do. You might have more questions than answers. You might have bumps and bruises from things that happen in your life before. You might say, you know what? I'd rather just sit here on the bench and watch the world go by. But Jonah chapter three verse three is your text today. Jonah arose and went. He arose and went. Sometimes God will call us. He will call us into something that we don't fully understand and the response is simply to be obedient to God. I wonder where you might need to say yes to God today. Here's the third thing, the message. The message that Jonah preached. This is where the, that I told you about there were two sermons. This is what the first sermon was just going to be about was the message that Jonah preached. Jonah began to go into the city a day's journey. This vast city that they say it would take three days to get through. Some people believe that was actually geographic and that it was a huge city. Other people believe that it's like saying, well, if you're really going to connect with people, if you're really going to interact with people, it's going to take you three days to do that in Nineveh. It's like you can't just show up and leave. No, for for Jonah to get through this city, it was going to take three days and Jonah began to go into the city and he went a day's journey and he called out and listened to what he called out. Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. How's that for encouraging? 40 days and Nineveh is going to be turned on its ear. I think this is interesting. This sermon from a correctness point of view had no business making a difference. That they teach you in school a certain way that you're supposed to preach. This is not a three point sermon. There is no compelling introduction. There is no contextualized language. There is no elegant closing illustration. It's just five words in Hebrew. 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown. That's the message that he preached. 40 days in this city, the most feared empire in the ancient world will be overthrown. I find it interesting that in the midst of this moment, this is the message that Jonah proclaims that this city is about ready to be turned upside down. And when the news gets to the king, something really amazing happens. The most powerful man in Nineveh rises from his throne and he takes off his robes which would have symbolized all the authority he had and all the position he had and all the power he had. And he puts on sack cloth. Remember the best illustration that I could rethink up for sack cloth is remember kids programs when we were little and we would take like eight year old kids and dress them up in burlap like they were all the shepherds. That sack cloth. They would put sack cloth on them. And the king sits down in the dirt. That's a humbling thing. The message that this city could be overthrown reaches the king and the king is like God could it be. In fact, That's what he says. He says, "Could it be?" One commentator, E. M. Bound says, "I don't know how to overstate what the image would be of a king sitting in the dirt would have meant to a Hebrew reader." This is not a minor concession. This is imperial pride, prostating itself before the word of God. This is a king who hears the message, and he's just like, "I am undone." And then he says, "Who knows? Who knows?" Who knows? Maybe God will turn and relent from his fierce anger so that we will not perish. Who knows? That's what is wondering was. God, who knows? He hears that his city may be overturned. He hears that none of them might be turned on his ear, and he says, "Who knows? Who knows if God comes through in this moment? Who knows if God shows up in this moment? Who knows? Who knows? Who knows?" Man, I got to that point and I thought I could preach just about a who knows moment in our lives. Have you ever had a who knows moment? Where you're just like, "God, I don't know how this is all gonna turn out. I don't know how this is all gonna pan out. I don't know how all of this is gonna play out, but God, who knows? Maybe God, you will come through. Who knows? God, maybe you will relent. Who knows? God, maybe you will show up. Who knows? Who knows? I was sitting at the Bloomer Bakery. How many of you know where the Bloomer Bakery is? Oh, a lot of you do. These are my pie people, yes. I was at the Bloomer Bakery, and I was sitting there with Ron Gormon, and some of you know Ron Gormon, some of you don't. If you don't know him, it's okay. He was around here. Ron Gormon's about 193 years old. He used to be on staff here. He's a wonderful man. He lives in Spooner. He's just a great guy. His wife is better than he is. He's just a good guy. And I'm sitting there with Ron, and Ron and I, we spent a lot of time talking about O'Claire Wesleyan Church before I came and walked through that journey of being coming your pastor. And I remember where we sat in the corner booth, and I'm eating sauerkraut and dumplings. That's something that I didn't have growing up, and man, it's good. And I'm eating sauerkraut and dumplings and pie, and Ron's asking me questions about what do I think about coming to O'Claire? And what do you think about coming to O'Claire? And honestly, my response, if you could summarize it into two words, it was this, who knows? Who knows? Who knows what God might do? Who knows what God might do if we humble ourselves before Him? Who knows what God might do in my own heart and life? If I humble myself before Him, who knows what might happen through the hearts of people? If we humble ourselves before Him, who knows? Who knows? Who knows? God sees what they did. The Bible says, and the King, he's so earnest in telling them, turn from your wicked ways and repent, and call it what it is. Say, this is where I need to repent. And he's so earnest in this. He's like, don't even feed the animals, and don't even give them drink. In fact, put the sack cloth and ashes on the donkey's too. That's what he says to do. And God responds, and when he saw what he did, and he saw how they turned from their evil way, that God relented of the disaster that he said he would send to them, and he did not do it. The King said, who knows? And God sees repentance in the hearts of people. He sees humility in the hearts of people. He sees surrender in the hearts of people. He sees people coming to God. After hearing this simple little short message that just says, turn to God, turn to God, turn to God, and the King says, who knows? And God sees that. And when God sees what they did, how they turned, God relented. God relented. I love this. Jonas' message wasn't long. Some of you are like, I wish you would preach like Jonah more often, because Jonas' message wasn't long. Jonas' message wasn't like a picture of rhetorical skill. Jonas' message was not even rooted in a whole lot of enthusiasm for the audience by to whom he was preaching it to. It was incredibly short. In Hebrew, it was only five words long. But that message did not. The authority of that message did not depend on Jonah. I read this week that this will be on the screen. That George Burns once quipped that the secret to a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending and to have those two as close together as possible. Some of you are like, Amen, preacher. Amen. Jonah had that down. He had the beginning and the ending down as close as possible. And when the King heard that message, he said, who knows? Who knows? Here's the response. I've already talked about it a little bit. But the response of the people is verses 5 through 10. The people of Nineveh believed God. I was reading that this week and I was like, I don't want to run past that. Do you remember that the people of Nineveh, that these are people that you didn't want your daughter bringing a Nineveh home and saying, look who I'm going to get married to. Like Nineveh, these are bloodthirsty, angry people who you would swear would never change. And the people of Nineveh believed God. These are the people that they're talking about on the evening news that are causing all that ruckus and all that headache and all that heartache and the people of Nineveh believed God. These are the people. These are the people that people would say, you know what? I don't think that those Ninevehites are ever going to get their act together. And the people of Nineveh believed God, they called for a fast. They put on sack cloth from the greatest to the least, from the top of any organizational chart to the bottom of the ladder. And they called on God. And God saw it. And God responded. God responded. I got to this point and I thought to myself, cities can still change. Cities can still change. Nineveh did. Cities change when God's people believe that obedient, faithful, broken messengers who are carrying a word that they didn't invent can show up and speak it anyway. And I thought to myself too, not only can a city change, but Jonah had no idea what he was starting. And in fact, Jonah went in and he preached 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown. That was the message that he preached, which I am sure to his listeners or at least firmly in his mind meant 40 days and God's going to burn this thing to the ground. But there's a flip side to what he also said. 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown, not just burned to the ground. 40 days, Nineveh could have brand new life. 40 days, Nineveh could be turned on its ear. 40 days, revival could come. 40 days, God could move in ways that no one would expect him to move. The more I drilled down on that calling that he said, in 40 days and 40 days, the many commentators were saying that Jonah had one thing in mind. He had destruction in mind, but God had revival in there's mind. And Jonah didn't know what he was starting. Jonah thought he was pronouncing the end and what he ultimately realized was the beginning. He didn't know that a city would be transformed. He didn't know that in Luke 11, Jesus would hold up the Ninevites as a picture of responsiveness to God. He didn't know that billions of people across the years would read the story of Jonah and walk away and say, you know what, I want to be a person who opens my mouth when the word of God comes to me a second time. He didn't know. He didn't know, but God used him. And God stirred in the hearts of the people in so deep of a way that it was undeniable. So I want to end where I began. The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. I really wrestled with how to close this message because I wanted to be more than just, oh, that's a nice story about Jonah and oh, wow, Ninevites was changed. And I prayed that this is really personal in our hearts. First, I wonder what would happen if you heard that verse and you put your name there. The word of the Lord came to fill in the blank a second time. The word of the Lord came to Chad a second time. The word of the Lord came to Hugh a second time. The word of the Lord came to Greg a second time. The word of the Lord came a second time. What if God is giving you a second chance? Because that's what he does. I was thinking about four groups of people that I wanted to talk to really quickly as I land this message. There might be some of you in this room today and you need to hear this second invitation, the second word. You've kind of checked out and you're here. You thought that your failures were too great. Your addiction was too much. Your how you blew things up was way off the charts. And you'd say, God could never use me. And maybe today you need to hear this. The word of the Lord has come to you a second time, a second time, get up and go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim the message I give you. Get up and proclaim the message I give you. Maybe that's you today. And you just need to know that there's a second time for you. Or maybe today you're in a camp that you would be in this camp. You need to arise and go. Maybe you know exactly what God has called you to do. Maybe you know exactly what God has invited you into. A check you need to write, a letter you need to send, a prayer you need to pray, an encouragement you need to offer, a word that you need to have, whatever it may be, a relationship you need to begin. And you have put it off. You have put it off. You have put it off. And you've been waiting like, well, when I feel ready, when I feel certain, when I feel like I've got my feet back under me, Jonah chapter three, verse three is your text. It's time to arise and go. It's time to get back at it. Maybe today. Maybe today God has spoken to your heart. And you just need to say, God, I need to speak something. I need to speak something. There's something God that you've given me to say. And it might not be polished and it might not be fully formed, but there's something that I need to say. And God, just as you gave Jonah something to say, God, would you give me something to say? Maybe today there's something that you need to speak. Here's the last one though, that I think you've got to hear loud and clear. All of us today, maybe we need to turn. Because when the people of Nineveh hear this call from God, when they hear that 40 days, and Nineveh is going to be turned on his ear, they repent. They repent. They call it what it is. They don't make excuses. They don't make, they don't argue with God on it. They don't say, are you sure, God? They fall flat on their faces before God. And they say, God, we're a wreck without you. We are nothing without you. God, we are wronged you. God, we have stepped out of line of you. And they fall down before God. And it says all the way down to the animals, which if I'm a donkey, I'm wondering like, what did I do wrong? I actually did some further digging this week, because I asked myself, why did they put sackcloth on the donkeys? Why did they put sackcloth on all the animals? Why did they not even feed the animals? And the best answer I could come up with is they were saying, God, this is how serious we are that we were wrong before you. Maybe there's an area in your life today that you need to turn. Maybe there's an area in your life that you've been entertaining something, and you've just saying, well, this is just who I am. I'm a red blooded American, and God says, no today you need to turn. Maybe today you've run from God, and you've run the other direction. And today God would say it's time for you to turn around. And I don't care if you're eight or 80. I said, it's time for you to turn around. Maybe today you need to turn. Maybe today you need to speak. Maybe today you need to arise and go. Maybe today you need to receive the second word, this word from God. I remember many, many years ago, this is almost 30 years ago now. I remember many years ago, I knew of Wesleyan Missionary, his name was Ed, Ed Parman. And I always love asking missionaries their story. I always love saying, well, how did you get from where you are to where you went? And Ed was a missionary to Mexico, and Ed told this story to me. I never forgot it. He said that it was a Sunday night at his church. Barely anybody showed up at the service. He said, we were kind of just grind him through the service, the way the you grind through the service. We were singing blessed assurance, Jesus is mine, and it was just kind of, we were getting through it, but nobody was really into it, you know? And at the end of the message, the pastor said, the pastor said, maybe it's your time to say yes to God. Maybe it's your time to say yes to God. And Ed Parman said, he got up from where he was seated, and he walked over to his wife, and he said, honey, it's time. It's time. And she knew with that meant, and he knew with that meant, and for them saying, it's time, men, it's time for us to take a step into serving God and being a missionary in this way. I don't know what God has for you, but I know that today, today, it's time. So I'd like you to bow your heads, worth me. The band's going to come back up, and I'd like you to bow your heads with me if you would. I'd like you just to reflect for a moment in your own heart. Where is it that you need to say yes to him? Where is it that you need to trust him? Where is it that you need to rely on him? Where is it that you need to turn and say, God, that's a mess. Is there a sin to confess? Is there a hurt that you caused that you just need to pick up the phone this afternoon and say, I was wrong. I think that today might be your nana of a moment. That today might be the day that God says, you know what, it's time for you to say, you know what, God's not finished yet. Who knows? We're going to sing a song together, and as we do, I'd like you to sing it with humility in our hearts. And as always, if you want to kneel and pray, these altars are always open for you to kneel and pray. But let's just spend some time humbling ourselves before the Lord and asking God for His help in this moment. [Music]