Episode 25: God's Persistent Pursuit

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Brenton
This is further a weekly show for the people of Harmony Bible Church, where we seek to revisit and expand on Sunday sermons with the goal of growing deeper in biblical truth that transforms our lives. Welcome back to Further. I'm Brenton Graham, and today we have Clay Baker here. How's it going, Clay?

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Clay
Great. Thanks for having me.

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Brenton
Yeah, absolutely. So this last weekend we started our new series on Jonah, and you did first 16 verses of it. And I guess as we kind of hop into this series, can you kind of talk through what you think the the hope is to get out of this sermon series as we as we start through? Jonah, what are we what's the main goal of of going through this book?

00;00;51;22 - 00;01;20;07
Clay
Yeah, it's a great question. You've probably noticed that the series title is Mission and Mercy. And so I think we want to see two big things from this series. One is that God is a God of mission. He is at work. He was then in Jonah's day and he still is at work today on mission for His glory and then we see the second part of that, that his mission is to show mercy.

00;01;20;15 - 00;01;45;00
Clay
So he wants to communicate, display, bring his mercy to the world. And of course, you know, after Jonah's day, he did that through his son, Jesus Christ. And now in our day, we have the mission to proclaim the mercy of God through the death and resurrection of Jesus and how we receive, We receive his mercy simply by believing in him.

00;01;45;00 - 00;02;03;20
Clay
So that's our mission today. And I think that's what the series is all about. And I hope that comes across. I also hope that it gives us some context for all these conditionings that we're doing this summer, sending people to plant churches literally all over the world, as I briefly mentioned in Sunday sermon.

00;02;03;22 - 00;02;37;21
Brenton
Yeah, Yeah. It's good to see it kind of is already in. It's working out well with what's going on with our body, but also I think you kind of in your in your sermon here kind of hit the nail on the head with the title of your sermon was God's Persistent Pursuit. And I think that that really is what Jonah is about, is is God not only pursuing Jonah, but through Jonah pursuing different groups of people, not just the innovators.

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Brenton
You have you have other characters in here, too.

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Clay
So absolutely.

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Brenton
Yeah. I think it's good to think about it in that way.

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Clay
Well, even we'll see this coming this coming Sunday in verse nine of chapter two. Jonah, Jonah concludes his prayer with this emphatic statement Salvation belongs to the Lord. And that's somewhat ironic for Jonah to be proclaiming, because he's, as we know, he's struggling with, going to communicate that salvation to the Nineveh sites. But that really is the or at least one of the main points of the book of Jonah is that salvation belongs to the Lord.

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Clay
It comes from him, and it is up to him to determine whom will be the beneficiaries, the recipients of that. It's not for us or Jonah to say, but for God.

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Brenton
Yeah, it's good. So I'm going to start out here. I think there's there is some discussion, and I don't know how widespread it is of whether Jonah is actually a historical figure or if this was an allegorical story. So you obviously take the position that Jonah was a historical person, as do I. But what what kind of takes you in that direction?

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Brenton
What evidence would you point to to to say that this is not allegory?

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Clay
Well, I think the burden of proof would be on those to say that it's not historical. And I don't think they meet that burden. And you'll have the pleasure of talking with Christian and perhaps Nate next week about the great fish and what exactly that was or what it might have been. So I'll leave that to them. But I'll just point out that the probably most importantly to me and hopefully all of us, is that Jesus thought and treated the story as real as historical.

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Clay
So if you go to Matthew chapter 12, you see Jesus talking about the prophet Jonah, and he makes a pretty profound point. Pointing back to Jonah's story, he says, Just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish. So while the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

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Clay
So, you know, we believe Christians everywhere believe that the resurrection is a historical fact, a historical reality. And Jesus is pointing back to Jonah saying, hey, just just as Jonah was three days in the fish and then came out, so too, I'm going to be three days in the heart of the earth and then come out. So I think Jonah was historical, and the resurrection is historical.

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Clay
And Jesus pointed to Jonah for a reason there. Yeah.

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Brenton
Yeah. That's well, and you have not only in Matthew, you have Jesus talking about him, but you also have a separate reference to him from Second Kings, which you which you brought up on Sunday that he lived during the, the rammed jeroboam. And so yeah, I think we have things that point point to that being the case outside of it but I think there is I mean a few a few parts of the story do seem a little hyperbolic.

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Brenton
Like where you have the fish is, is the is the one that really sticks out to me. But I was thinking earlier as I was reading through this of like, why? Why is he running in the first place? Like, if we feel like we have this call on our lives to go do something. And you gave the example of you felt called to Chicago, but but then you were in San Francisco.

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Clay
Yeah. It would be as if I were called to go to Chicago, but instead fled to San Francisco.

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Brenton
But wouldn't the normal thing, like in our position, be like, No, I'm just I'm not going to run the other way. I'm just going to I'm just going to stay here and not do it. So to me, it seems a little like there are some kind of hyperbolic things in this in the story that make it kind of seem that way.

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Brenton
But yeah, I don't know. I just found the reading through this with fresh eyes. It was interesting to kind of think through some of these things.

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Clay
Well, it's a great story and and it it's just extremely well-written and well-crafted for a lot of reasons. And one of those, as you point out, Brendan, it's full of these extremes or ironies, as I said, you know, on Sunday. But yeah, I just think we have to remember that if a human author can do that in, in literature, then certainly the author of Everything God can do that and make these things come about and and then write the story through a human author in a way that's really clever and really powerful.

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Clay
Yeah.

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Brenton
Yeah, it's good. One thing that you said from Sunday was if we can come to know and trust that God's purposes are good, then we won't want to run or hide from him. And I kind of like to talk through this a bit. How how would you say we can start trusting God's purposes are good? Even even in situations where it doesn't feel good, it feels rough.

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Brenton
And in Jonah's than Jonah's experience, it's a storm out in the middle of an ocean. What? How do how do we in those situations going to trust God? Trust that he has good purposes for us?

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Clay
Yeah, well, I gave a couple kind of things for us to think about in that. One is our personal experience or even our personal observations of those around us. It kind of reminds me of a few weeks ago when I was preaching out of Romans chapter six, and we were talking about considering the fruit of sin, which is death, and how it's bad fruit and how we need to take the time to pause and just see that.

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Clay
And, you know, if you are caught in the grips of sin, let's say some kind of addiction or a pattern that's ruining relationships or something like that, I think you're going to be able to look around your life and see that this isn't working out well for you. And that that that perhaps there's a better way. And in fact, there is and it's God's way.

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Clay
And so with Jonah, though, you know, I use it because it's in the text analogy of the storm. And so there can be storms in your life that are perhaps, you know, the consequences of your actions. And if and if you're not experiencing that, I can imagine that you can look around at your maybe your friends or family members or something and you can see some storms raging.

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Clay
And if you don't have any storms in your life and you look around, you don't see any storms in your relationships. And you probably need to get to know some people on a deeper level because they're out there. They're happening. Yeah. And so that's one way, you know, that we can begin to trust and know that God's ways are better than ours, that his purposes are good.

00;10;02;09 - 00;10;28;01
Clay
But then I think the most fundamental way for us as Christians is to look back to the cross. And, you know, the most, I guess, surprising of ways, the fact that God himself would come and and die willingly give himself up and then be raised again so that we could live. And, boy, if we can't trust that, that's good, then we're really missing something.

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Clay
So I think we can just if if we can know and believe that God is good in that way, the most important of ways, then we should be able to trust him in the smallest of ways, too. Yeah.

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Brenton
Yeah. And I mean, along with that, we have, I mean, many records in Scripture of God working out His purposes and in the lives of his people and so on.

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Clay
The story of Joseph is a great, sure great one, you know, sold into slavery and imprisoned and but then rising to the highest of heights in the Egyptian government. And and through that, preserving God's people, they were going to potentially starve back in the promised land, but they were able to be preserved because God works through the sin of his brothers, of Joseph's brothers and and preserved Joseph and preserved the whole family.

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Brenton
Yeah, yeah. That is a good example. And I think especially what he said is he works through the sin of others. I mean, there was, there was many people that wronged Joseph in that, and yet it was all worked out for the good of his people. And so, yeah these are these are good stories to to study.

00;11;44;24 - 00;12;02;22
Clay
Yeah. And here you have Jonah sitting by disobeying. Sure. But God works for the good of Jonah and others in that he's saved sailors through that these, these unbelieving pagan sailors that perhaps would not have been saved had Jonah not been disobeying. But God just works it all out for good.

00;12;02;24 - 00;12;21;21
Brenton
Yeah. And that is one of the more interesting things I think, in the story, is that, you know, had had Jonah just kind of gone, okay, I'm going to go then, then some some of what happens that is good in the story does not that's not probably a good reason to disobey.

00;12;21;24 - 00;12;34;21
Clay
But you know, Jonah is still responsible for his sin. But God is just so big and so good, so powerful, so wise. He can he can work it all out for for his glory and our good in ways that we could never imagine.

00;12;34;27 - 00;13;02;16
Brenton
Yeah. Um, one thing that I did notice about this story is the difference between Jonah's response to the storm and the pagans, sailors. And Jonah seems to know why the storm is happening. At least he he should know by that point. He knows God is pursuing him. And yet it's. It's the sailors who end up crying out and worshiping God.

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Brenton
And even you had brought up on Sunday that you kind of read that what he was saying with a little bit of self arrogance in his voice, that that he's a Hebrew, he serves the God, he he serves the one true God and so well.

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Clay
Yeah, he's he says, you know, I, I if you're the Lord, the God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land and he's proclaiming that truth in the midst of a great storm that God's clearly bringing about And the sailors all get it then like, oh my goodness, you have really made angry the God, the God who made all this and who's about ready to wreck our ship.

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Clay
And so but and Jonah seems almost callous to all that or indifferent. You know, I can't get inside of his head. I can just see what's in the text. And and he doesn't seem to be too worked up about it. But the sailors, they start, you know, crying out to God. They they they cry out to this God who made the sea in the dry land to save them.

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Clay
Yeah.

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Brenton
Yeah. And I think what I what I see in there and something that I think I see in myself and others probably is just how commonplace and only the the mercy and grace of God is, but just the power of God to us. How, you know, if you've kind of grown up in the in the Christian religion, this the stuff can start to feel like Yeah I know.

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Brenton
I know that that's true. But.

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Clay
Well, yeah, Jonah's perhaps struggling with a little bit of a sense of entitlement here. You know, he's he's a Hebrew. I'm a Hebrew for the Lord. Right? And, you know, he's so he's part of God's chosen people. And he is really struggling with God's mercy potentially being shown to people who are not God's people, the invites. And so, yeah, he could he could be a little complacent in his in his identity or in his faith or in who God is.

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Clay
But then these sailors who are encountering the true God for the first time in a very real way, you know, they they have the proper reaction, which is fear and trembling and worship.

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Brenton
Yeah. Yeah. And I wonder kind of how we can because again, like, I think we see that in ourselves. And so how how can we kind of, I don't know, refresh that in our in our minds and our souls to to make this something that should it should leave us in far more than it does. Mm hmm.

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Clay
Right. Yeah. Well, maybe. You know, it kind of reminds me of something we talked about on Sunday of getting out of your comfort zone, and maybe, you know, I. And we need to do a better job of interacting with people who either aren't believers or who are newer to the faith. So maybe this is kids and the kids ministry or students in the student ministry or folks celebrate recovery or the cupboards or city hope or bridges or faith and finance or a mission trip or wherever, or just out in your neighborhood.

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Clay
But but getting out and interacting with people that don't know God or are just coming to know God, I think maybe that could keep it a little fresh for us. If you're teaching the basic truths of the faith that people that have never really heard it or are just trying to understand it, I think you'll probably see an excitement in them if they're receiving it.

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Clay
And you'll see a lot of hopefully a lot of growth in them. And I think that would be very exciting to you.

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Brenton
Yeah. Yeah. To kind of go out and see God working in tangible ways, seeing it firsthand because I mean, yeah, the and even the idea of the psalm, I forget where it's at, but restored. I mean, the joy of of your salvation I think to see I mean, again, the the way that God works through his grace and in his people and to actually see that happening, I think you're right that that is a that is a good way to keep that front and center for us and keep us kind of in worship of God.

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Clay
Well, I just think even of my own kids, you know, they're pretty young and I, I, I continue to see growth in them. And just like with me, it looks like a stock chart. You know, there's two steps forward, one step back up and down, up, down that. But to see the growth is exciting. And I'm just thinking about something that happened the other day.

00;17;31;28 - 00;17;53;06
Clay
We were saying prayers as a family and normally one of my children is fairly brief and yeah, I just doesn't say much during prayers. But then, you know, it just so happened the other day that, you know, he prayed a really nice prayer for a lot of other people and did it with no attitude. And and that was kind of a new thing.

00;17;53;06 - 00;18;11;06
Clay
And that was really exciting for me To see that and see how God works is working on him. And then he came back from his Sunday school on Sunday. And, you know, I asked the kids what they learned about and interestingly, they learned about the prodigal son, which is great because there's a ton of parallels between the prodigal son and Jonah.

00;18;11;10 - 00;18;35;11
Clay
Yeah. I don't know if they planned that or not of those. Awesome. But it was that that son of mine who normally wouldn't have been the first one to recite the story, he actually was able to recite it and a good amount of detail. So, so well done to the the children's ministry volunteers for sure. But also just seeing how God's working in him and growing him.

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Clay
It and it it is an exciting thing to see.

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Brenton
Yeah, absolutely. Um, getting back to the the idea of God's pursuit of us then, that really being what, what Jonah is about and kind of bringing that into today in the way that God still pursues us, um, not necessarily using big fish, but but we, I think us staying in the faith, us persevering in the faith is a work of God, right?

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Brenton
Mm hmm. It's a work of of God's grace staying in our lives, keeping us within bounds. How. How do you think he does that today? What do you think are the means that that God uses to to pursue us today?

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Clay
Well, I think there are many. But I you know, I mean, there's there's lots of different ways to connect with God and means that he uses to keep us in the faith. One of them, though, is just is his being around the body of believers, having people in your life to encourage you to call you out if necessary, and just to spur you on in the face.

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Clay
So I think of Hebrews chapter ten versus 24 and 25. The author writes, Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another. And all the more as you see the day drawing near. Hebrews has a lot to say in it about persevering in the faith and right in the heart of it there in chapter ten, the author says, Don't neglect meeting together.

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Clay
You know, keep stirring up one another to love to good works all the more. As you see the day, the day of the Lord drawing near. And so I think that highlights the importance of corporate worship and gathering together as a body. Regularly. Weekly at least. And so that's just one way. But of course, there's you know, there's personal Bible study.

00;20;59;12 - 00;21;27;15
Clay
That's God's very word that we have access to. There's direct prayer conversation with the Lord. There's the Holy Spirit in us, which we're going to talk a lot about in Romans Chapter eight. He's the seal, he's the deposit, he's the guarantee of our salvation. So it's ultimately it's God himself who keeps us in himself through himself. And he uses himself and all sorts of other means to do that.

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Brenton
Yeah. And specifically, you said on Sunday, if and when you do step off God's path into sin, God will be faithful to pursue you and bring you back to himself. And so presumably, Jonah was walking with the Lord before. Right. I mean, he's a he's a prophet. Has been and we don't have a lot of information about that.

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Brenton
But you kind of assume that he was faithful to that calling. Yeah.

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Clay
That's my assumption. Yes.

00;21;56;23 - 00;22;37;25
Brenton
And and then gets this this call and decides to disobey. And so you see. Yeah, you see God pursuing him here. And so just just to use that as kind of a, I don't know, a comfort in our own lives, knowing that there there are times where we'll kind of wander off into sin. But, but praise God that he is willing and able to to bring us back in and to essentially our salvation is not up to ourselves.

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Brenton
And I think that that that's a real comfort.

00;22;39;29 - 00;23;01;05
Clay
Thank God for that. Now he's the good shepherd and and Jesus said that it was his father's world, that he should lose none of them the father had given him. And so I'm trust in Jesus to keep a hold of me. And I've seen him in my life a number of times as I've tried to wander away. He's pursued me and he's he's brought me back.

00;23;01;05 - 00;23;19;23
Clay
And, you know, yeah, there have been some storms and I mentioned that on Sunday, though I'd, I'd rather lock with the Lord all the way. And not to say that there won't be suffering because there will be and, and there won't be difficulties in life. But it doesn't mean we don't it doesn't mean we cause all that stuff.

00;23;19;23 - 00;23;48;10
Clay
We don't. But some of it we do and I would like to avoid that as much as possible. And in the past I haven't. But God's still been faithful to me, you know? Right, Right before the verses I read, I read out of Hebrews ten versus 24 and 25, while verse 23 says, Let us hold fast. The confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

00;23;48;12 - 00;24;02;12
Clay
So my hope isn't in myself to keep on believing. My hope is in the one who promised. He's faithful even when I'm not, and he's going to keep me in him. Yeah.

00;24;02;14 - 00;24;35;09
Brenton
Yeah. And I think the last thing that I'll kind of touch on here is the idea of what what he pursued us for. So we see, obviously, that that God's pursuit of us results in our own salvation, our own sanctification, our own perseverance. But, but also one thing that you tried to get at on Sunday was that he saves us and he pursues us for with the goal of us pursuing others.

00;24;35;15 - 00;24;53;12
Brenton
MM. Right. And so, yeah, what, um, what does that look like? What, how, how can we kind of take the pursuit that we, that we find through, through, through God and, and use that to pursue others?

00;24;53;14 - 00;25;37;09
Clay
I've heard Pastor Chris say before that the gospel should be more like a conduit and not a cul de sac. And so it should be a through street, you know, going through us out to others. You could also use the, you know, the image of a of a cup that overflows that nice biblical analogy there. But, you know, we want to be filled to the brim with love for God and just, you know, his glory and his spirit filling us up and then that overflowing to others and you know, what that looks like in practice is just as being in love with him and reminding yourself of his grace for you, his mercy for you.

00;25;37;12 - 00;26;06;08
Clay
But then not keeping that to yourself, not trying to, you know well that up just in your own heart for you, but realizing that, hey, there's a whole world out there and there's somebody maybe right next to you that doesn't have that joy and doesn't have that peace and doesn't have all the good things that come from a personal relationship with God, and then letting that compel you, letting the love of God compel you to share that outward with with those who need to hear.

00;26;06;10 - 00;26;34;11
Brenton
Yeah. The to steal another one of Chris Carr's phrases. We're blessed to be a blessing. So and I guess thinking through through this story, the the fact that I mean, Jonah is kind of the perfect example here of the opposite of what we should be doing. Like he sees this, this group of people that he has a disdain for, which rightfully so.

00;26;34;14 - 00;27;01;10
Brenton
But but he's kind of considering these people as too far gone. They're they're they're not worthy of of God's grace. Like, I was worthy of God's grace. And so I think in some ways, he kind of forgets he forgets the mercy that has been shown to him and and considers himself worthy of that grace that he that he found, unlike these people.

00;27;01;12 - 00;27;19;12
Clay
Absolutely. And how easy is that for us to do to. Yeah. I mean, we just and that's why Romans has been so good. And yeah, not every week of Romans has been fun or easy or light. A lot of them have been kind of hard, painful truths, but it's a good reminder of just how lost we were before God pursued us.

00;27;19;14 - 00;27;21;28
Clay
Yeah.

00;27;22;00 - 00;27;42;17
Brenton
Yep. Yeah. And I think it's just a good exercise for us to think through of how how can we show ourselves as more, more merciful to the people we come in contact with? How can we kind of reform our attitude toward toward certain people that we that we struggle to love? Well.

00;27;42;22 - 00;28;17;04
Clay
Mm hmm. Yeah. You know, whether you're looking online or in the real world around you, you know, there are so many people who are so different from us and believe such different things. And quite frankly, sometimes it can be appalling the actions people take or the behaviors they manifest, the attitudes they express. But is a good or might Jonah's a good reminder for me that those people are not too far gone for the Lord and that His mercy, his grace is big enough for them and his heart is for them, is for the lost.

00;28;17;06 - 00;28;39;11
Clay
And they are know, spiritually speaking, they are no farther apart from the Lord than I was before he came to me. And so, I mean, I can't imagine two different groups of people than the Assyrians and the Jews. And yet God's heart was for the Assyrians, and he wanted to use a Jewish prophet to go reach them. And that's a good reminder for me today.

00;28;39;13 - 00;29;01;01
Brenton
Yeah. Yeah. And you had even brought up something I underlined in your manuscript this week was the fact that it's not totally unlikely that Jonah, being a prophet, and knew that years later Assyria was going to come and. And kill his people. Mm hmm. Right.

00;29;01;04 - 00;29;19;27
Clay
Yeah. I've tried to find some biblical grounding to. To kind of prove that he knew. And I was not able to do that. But it's my kind of, you know, fanboy theory, you know, I think he knew. 722 B.C. Assyria came and conquered Israel, and I think Jonah knew.

00;29;20;02 - 00;29;44;20
Brenton
Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, we. How easy is that for us for I mean, you would even mention like political enemies, things people that, that we see as like are our enemies, enemies of our country to, to kind of just lump them in a group of. Well they're, they're too far gone. They're. Mm. They're somewhere else and so.

00;29;44;22 - 00;29;55;00
Brenton
Yeah. I don't know. I think in some ways we need to be a little more honest with ourselves as we read through Jonah and, and understand that we're we're really not that different than he is.

00;29;55;02 - 00;29;57;24
Clay
Amen. Yeah.

00;29;57;27 - 00;30;16;02
Brenton
So. All right. Well, that's all I got. I appreciate you coming in. And I do look forward to you. I'm excited about where this the series goes. And I. I do look forward to to chapter four. I think. I think there's some good lessons in there.

00;30;16;09 - 00;30;22;11
Clay
Absolutely. Well, thanks again for having me. It's always a pleasure to be on and look forward to the next time. Absolutely.

00;30;22;14 - 00;30;32;15
Brenton
We will be back next week. Christian is going to be preaching in Burlington and Danville, so he'll be out here with us. But we will talk to you next week.