Your Purpose is to Surrender

March 25, 2018 Speaker: Tara Detiveaux Series: Surrendering to Your Purpose

Topic: Purpose Scripture: Jonah 4:1– :11

You Purpose is to Surrender

You Can Run but You Can’t Hide

Don’t Waste the Fish

You Are More Than Fish Food

And Then Jonah Chapter 4, for me the most confusing Chapter of Jonah

  1. You could say Jonah had a problem of Racial tendencies.

That is a problem within us.  Oh, you go to that church.  Oh, the pastors are white, why would you go there.  Oh, their kids are from the Philippines, I don’t even know where that is, but I know it’s Asian.  Oh, they have Spanish translation and try to sing some songs in Spanish every now and then.  Oh, they are diverse.  I could never go there. And they are economically and culturally and socially diverse as well.

Jonah had this heart issue.  Not those people.  Not that race.  Not that culture.

  1. You could say Jonah was not concerned with the Plight of the City (and Schools)

Houma-Thibodaux, La.

  • 5-yr. violent crime rate change: +42.8%
  • 2011 violent crime rate: 314.6 per 100,000 (total: 661)
  • 2016 violent crime rate: 449.1 per 100,000 (total: 954)
  • December unemployment rate: 4.6%
  • Poverty rate: 20.9%

Houma-Thibodaux is one of three Louisiana metro areas to make this list. As recently as five years ago, it was the safest city in the state. There were 315 violent crimes per 100,000 people in the area in 2011 — the least of any Louisiana metro area tracked by the FBI and far below the 387 per 100,000 U.S. violent crime rate at the time. By 2016, the metro area was no longer the safest in the state, recording a violent crime rate of 449 incidents per 100,000 residents — well above the U.S. rate of 386 per 100,000.  The surge in crime is a relatively recent phenomenon in Houma-Thibodaux. The area’s violent crime rate fell or remained relatively steady from 2011 through 2014 — only to spike sharply in 2015 and remain high in 2016. Crime rates often increase in periods of economic decline, and Houma-Thibodaux is one of only two metro areas considered to report a higher poverty rate in 2016 than in 2011. Half a decade ago, 16.0% of the population lived in poverty compared to a 20.9% poverty rate in 2016.

Jonah has this heart issue. 

Never is he concerned about Nineveh. 

Never does his heart break for the people within Nineveh.

Never once is he concerned with the path of destruction that they are on and the proclamation that God has decreed.

Jonah 4:1-11 (Jonah's Anger and the Lord's Compassion)

Vs 10: When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly (turn back to vs 10 of previous chapter), and he was angry. And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” And the Lord said, “Do you do well to be angry?”

(that is a weird translation that means “Have you any right to be angry?”

Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city. Now the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” 10 And the Lord said (explanation of the parable), “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11 And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”

I don’t about you but immediately my bible goes to Micah (the next prophet)

The end.

No more.

No more appointments.  No more fish.  No more plants. No more worms.  No more east winds.

No more chances Jonah.  No more appointments.

People and scholars have tried to find the end to the book of Jonah, but simply put this is the end.

We see a Jonah angry at God.  Wanting to die. And we have no idea what happens.

But I think it might be the point.

We have no idea if Jonah finishes well.  Does he get it together and surrender to God’s purposes in His life?  We have no idea.  But I can ask you the question today.

What will prevent you from finishing well? 

What will prevent you from surrendering to God’s purpose?

For Jonah it was he didn’t like How God has used him.

He didn’t like the set of circumstances that God had put him in.

He didn’t like the way God was moving.  It seemed unfair.  Unjust. 

Jonah dethroned God. 

The whole story is of a man that thought his ways were better than God’s ways.

And we do the same today in our job,

in our family,

in our circumstances,

in our position,

you name it and we think we know better but the secret of finishing well and not being a Jonah is

The secret is Christ in me, not me in a different set of circumstances.

But godliness with contentment is great gain.  For we bought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.  But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.  1 Timothy 6:6-8

If God wants to save a nation, so be it He’s God.

If God wants to condemn a nation, so be it He’s God.

If God wants you to toil and labor more than the next person on the side of you, so be it He’s God.

If God leads you through a path of unexplained suffering, so be it He’s God.

If God wants you to be an unglorified door holder in His house, so be it He’s God.

If God want you to send you to a people that are ever hearing but never understanding, ever seeing but never perceiving, and calloused and dull like the prophet Isaiah, so be it He’s God.

If God never allows your dreams to be fulfilled and a house with a picket fence and 2.3 kids, so be it He’s God.

If you kid never comes back to the Lord, so be it He’s God.

If God never rises you to the position you want, so be it He’s God.

If the money is never where you want it to be at, so be it He’s God

If God never comes through in the way that you had hoped for, so be it He’s God.

Success in your life is not built on the outcome, it’s built on your surrender to God!!!!!!

We are just looking for a well done good and faithful servant from HIM!!!

Not from our peers or what they think of our outcome, our social media or what they value, or books, or fame, or people, or family, or job, or whatever you have has important to you….

Altar Call and Story of Elizabeth Elliot

5 men in the jungles to share the gospel of Jesus.  Gave up everything.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/qs7TE_AzlME/hqdefault.jpg

He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot loose.  --Jim Elliot

And a savage Indian tribe known as the Huaorani were becoming more familiar and they even gave guy named George an airplane ride.  The tribe had heard from another tribe that the missionary’s intentions were ill and ten men attacked with Jim Elliot being the first killed.

And their bodies floated down the river.

Kids left without fathers.  Young wives without husbands.

And the question became why? To what cause God?

Elizabeth Elliot goes back to that tribe that killed her husband and tells them of Jesus and they repent like Nineveh and turn and people say that is why the husbands/father were killed but Elizabeth Elliot writes….and I think we should be reading the writing of people who live like this…

God is God.  I dethrone Him in my heart if I demand that He act in ways that satisfy my idea of justice.  It is the same spirit that taunted, “If Thou be the Son of God, come down from the Cross.” 

There is unbelief, there is even rebellion, in the attitude that says, “God has no right to do this to five men unless…they turn.

God is God.

Were they successful?

The world would say they were successful because they turned to Jesus…

But they were successful because they said yes to Him.

Was Jonah successful?

From man’s position it would seem that Jonah was successful because Nineveh changed…

 but from God’s perspective Jonah was not successful because he didn’t change.

But from God’s perspective?

I don’t know because his end is not written of but it is obvious that God quit talking and appointing.

Are you successful?

And the question is the same…

Are you surrendering to your purpose?

Are you surrendering to God?

Success in your life is not built on the outcome, it’s built on your surrender to God!!!!!!

More in Surrendering to Your Purpose

March 18, 2018

You're More Than Fish Food

March 11, 2018

Don't Waste the Fish

March 4, 2018

You Can Run But You Cannot Hide