Faith Community Church Of Hopkinton

Check out the videos Pastor Dorian references in this message!: First World Problems Read by Third World People: https://youtu.be/k3HrkQaPHAA This 9-Year-Old Girl Creates Beautiful Care Packages for Homeless Women: https://youtu.be/2pH4hsFodkc Dear Water: You Are a Blessing | World Vision: https://youtu.be/A_FTqaOTj74

Pastor Mike references this song in his message. Check it out!: https://youtu.be/6Hi-VMxT6fc   Jonah was angry that he was so successful. He didn't want these people to receive forgiveness. He felt they deserved to be punished. Jonah knew God's character. Throughout the whole story, he knew that God was loving, kind and merciful. He would forgive. God sends an object lesson. God reveals the true nature of Jonah's faith through a plant. Jonah was a religious man who did not see the world through God's eyes. He was comfortable and content with his own security and safety. He did not care about the people who, he believed, deserved what they got. He didn't care about the 1% of his world. He especially didn't care about the 1% who felt were undeserving of freedom and forgiveness. He didn't understand that he wasn't deserving either. God leaves us with a question that causes us to examine our own motivation. Shouldn't we share God's concern for people's salvation more than our own comfort?

Jonah had a powerfully successful ministry: the whole city converted. Ninevah was in tough shape. Their nation had diminished in power, influence and reputation. A famine had struck the land so the people were suffering economically and physically. They were looking for hope and Jonah delivered it. The people jumped on the prospect of God's help and dedicated themselves to change. God proved Himself faithful once again. When they converted, He forgave them. Its amazing, God is eager to respond to our repentance. Jonah's ministry was wildly successful. A whole city relented from its evil. We're not sure what the 'evil' was but they relented. Did they deserve to be punished? Probably. Did they deserve mercy? No. But God's love in amazing. He turns enemies into followers. Ninevah is an example that anyone can turn to God if we give them the chance.

To check out the videos Pastor Mike references in this episode go to: https://youtu.be/K-H35Mpj4uk (In the Heart of the Sea - Final Trailer) http://www.iamsecond.com/seconds/wayne-huizenga/ (I Am Second - Wayne Huizenga) Life is miserable when you don't obey God. We run from His call into trouble. Jonah thought he was dead. He sank into the seas and God sent a most unusual salvation. It was an object lesson. Jonah was reminded that death was terrible, separation from God miserable and disobedience dangerous. In the depths of despair, Jonah cried out to God and God saved Him. Jonah is a story of God's grace - for those who don't Him and those who do but rebel. Jonah received grace. He was given a second chance in order to serve God. Sometimes God will make us miserable in order to save us. We may sink in desperation, drowning in the consequences of our own choices but we are never too far gone for God's grace to reach us. God saved Jonah through unusual means to catch his attention. He wanted to forgive Jonah

Jonah received a clear, direct call from God to bring a message of change to a specific people in a specific place. The call was undeniable; Jonah didn't want to do it. So, what do you do when you don't want to do what God wants you to do? One option is to run, avoid the responsibility. This is a particularly appealing option when you don't like the people—you believe they deserve to be punished—and don't want to help them. Obedience is a sign that we love God and see people the way He does. We want everyone, even our enemies, to find hope and reconciliation. Because of love, we should understand that the best action towards the worst people is to help them find salvation. We can run but God has a way of following us wherever we go. God is determined to reach the unreached, even if He has to shake us up to get us to help. We can run, but that doesn't mean life will be better for it.

God gets angry. So does Jesus. God gets angry at injustice and oppression. Christ gets angry at suffering and with leaders who seek their own benefit rather than the benefit of those they lead. They both hate to see religious leaders neglect their responsibilities to shepherd God's people and twist religion into something that weighs people down rather than free them. Unfortunately, anger can be destructive. We can become instinctive, lashing out with anger before we realize it and then find ourselves overwhelmed with remorse because of what we said or did. Anger can be difficult to control. But God promises freedom from sin. He also promises to renew our minds and fill us with peace. We can retrain ourselves. We can find ways to direct our anger towards good actions and healthy levels.

Envy is the only emotion that makes it's way in the Ten Commandments (covet). It's an expression of lust and greed as well as a possible motivation for stealing, murder and adultery. It is a force that directs many sinful behaviors. Interestingly, it can also be a motivating force for good as well. The Greek word for 'lust' can be used to describe the passion that drives our godly ambitions. When we see people advancing their lives, improving their relationships and growing spiritually, envy can motivate us into personal action. We can want that good for our own lives and make positive changes to get there. The trick is not letting envy drive us into temptation and sin but to let it propel us towards good action.

Expressed in a healthy fashion, sadness can motivate us to be compassionate as we identify with other people's suffering. Sadness also gives us the opportunity to evaluate the true worth of what we have lost. In addition, it allows us to express our love for a person who is gone as well as the pain we are suffering from life's tribulations. Left unchecked though, sadness can grow into despair or depression.It has the power to immobilize us. We stop living in the present because we can't move on from what we have lost. We isolate ourselves from relationships and sink into inaction. We see the world through a dark lense and lose joy. The Bible is clear that expressing sadness in healthy ways is cathartic (just read the Psalms, the Prophets and Lamentations). The key is learning how to express it in ways that don't overwhelm us.

To check out the video Pastor Mike referenced this week: https://www.youtube.com/v/IY-FzWumn_A?start=122&end=216   Fear is an interesting emotion. We are called to 'fear God' - respect His power, His wrath over injustice and His holy distinction. Healthy fear can also keep us from danger and personal harm. Yet, it can immobilize us so that we try to control life and relationships in order to minimize threat. Because of fear, we may not take risks that could grow us or advance our mission in life. Godly people surrender to the fact that life has inherent risks that we cannot control. They learn to distinguish between a foolish risk (one whose outcome can be detrimental) versus a risk of faith (one whose outcome can be beneficial to other people, God's reputation or God's call on your life).  Godly people grow familiar with God, His nature and power, so that they have confidence and security in Him to protect them. They stop trying to control the conditions of their life and relationships by learning t

God's love transforms. The grave becomes a stage for life. Where once guards secured a lifeless body, an angel protects a monument to victory, a garden of hopeless grief becomes the scene of celebration - all because God's love has won. Christians pushed worship from the end of the week to the beginning because they wanted to always remember the amazing display of love, life, hope and peace that emerged on Sunday. Their devotion to Jesus Christ moved them out of hiding, in fear of their lives, into the crowded streets to declare that God's love had won. Eventually, their awe over God's love in Jesus Christ would push them all over Europe, the Middle East and into Northern Africa. They would transform communities, heal the sick, build institutes of learning, translate the Bible into multiple languages and declare the life that God offers through Jesus Christ. Even when they faced their own execution, they possessed joy because love had won.

To watch the video Pastor Mike references in this week's message: https://www.rightnow.org/Content/VideoElement/164591   Throughout the record of the Old Testament, God demonstrates, displays, and describes His loving nature but there is the sense that it is like looking at a photo of the Grand Canyon. You see it and catch glimpses of its majesty but don't fully comprehend it. So God sends Jesus. He is known as the "word" (a concept with multiple applications). He is full of 'grace and truth', a phrase to draw us back to God's self-declaration. Jesus described His relationship to God in unprecedented terms of intimacy. He claimed His words were God's words, His actions were God's actions. He personifies the love of God. If words could not describe it, then the life of this unique man would. Jesus is God's love painted in action, released in words, felt through tender touch. All we need to know about God's love is in Christ.

To watch the video Pastor Mike references in this week's message, go to: https://youtu.be/TaNM_T1d1as   God's love is the reason why people turn to Him during times of suffering. Sometimes we realize that the suffering is the consequence, as warned by God, for our actions. We feel the pain of our choices and realize our folly so we turn in humility to God. Sometimes, we suffer because the world is a harsh place. The wicked prosper and the righteous do not. We turn to God in our confusion and cry out because we trust Him. We are willing to continue to obey because His love gives us the hope that His ways are better even if it doesn't seem so in the immediate circumstances. Sometimes, we suffer because we follow God. Our call drives us into places where persecution, sacrifice and opposition occur. Because of the love we have experienced, we want to bring that love to others so we are willing to suffer in order to do it. Whatever the circumstances, it is His love that draws us to Him.

To watch the video Pastor Mike references in this message, go to: http://www.iamsecond.com/seconds/james-caldemeyer/   God's love becomes the reason why we can ask Him to forgive our sins. He first demonstrated it in the Garden when He covered Adam and Eve's shame. Forgiveness and mercy became part of the description of His nature. Because He knows our inability to not sin, He promises forgiveness based on His nature: eternal, complete, gracious and unexpected. Properly understood, it compels us to confession because we know we will be forgiven. Anyone who uses it as an excuse for sin doesn't understand it. God's love, which gives birth to mercy, is the reason why a holy God could stand the presence of an unholy people. Mercy is the reason why we return to God. It is the reason why we change for God. It is the most powerful, convicting, gentle force we know, purging us with forgiveness so complete we are transformed into something new. 

To see the video referenced in this message: https://youtu.be/UrvaSqN76h4   God's love provides the motivation to prayer. We come to Him because we know He wants us to come to Him. We can walk into His presence with confidence, not fear because our Father loves us. God knows us intimately, even knowing what we will ask before we bring it up. He wants to provide in a way that demonstrates His love so He answers our prayers in a manner that catches our attention. When He answers, we can receive His will because we know that His love is the driving motivation behind what he gives us (even if it is not what we asked). God's love draws us into prayer. God's love drives Him to call us to prayer. If we understand this, then we will be motivated to pray with confidence, hope and joy.

To see the video Pastor Mike references in this message: https://youtu.be/VCdqwowpr4Q When Moses asked God to show Himself.  God chose to describe Himself in terms of love. While all the other religions emphasized power and holiness and fear, the God of Israel emphasized His love. The term He used as the primary description of His nature is as indefinable as He is. It is a description of love that is unexpected and complex. This demonstration of His very nature was so profound that it stunned Moses. He fell to the ground and worshipped God, offering His obedience. This is the secret to true spirituality. When we understand the loving nature of God, we are overwhelmed, caught in a holy moment of stunned silence. All we can do is worship Him. The idea became a thread woven throughout the Psalms. People who experience want nothing but His presence in their life .They become willing to follow this type of God anywhere, do anything He asks.