May 5, 2012 - Church at Worship

Sermon: "Preaching Part 3: Jonah: When God Expands Your World" - Randy Roberts

Pastoral Welcome: Genevieve Koh Isidro

Baptism: Richard E. Haller - Randy Roberts

Child Dedication: Caleah Daisy Koperski - Randy Roberts

Children’s Feature: Rob Mohr

Meditation:

To do so no more is the truest repentance. – Martin Luther
 
One of the most fundamental marks of true repentance is a disposition to see our sins as God sees them. – Charles Simeon
 
Years of repentance are necessary in order to blot out a sin in the eyes of humans, but one tear of repentance suffices with God. – French proverb

Scripture Reading: Jonah 3:1–5, TNIV - Ashley Winn

Sermon Notes:

Repent! What do you think of when you see that word? Does your mind’s eye see a
grey-haired evangelist, pounding the pulpit, eyes flashing, calling on people to change?
Or do you see a person kneeling alone in prayer, asking God for the gift of forgiveness?
Or maybe you see a street preacher, bellowing out to the uncaring crowds. If you see
that third image, you are coming close to the image of Jonah in Nineveh, preaching to
the Ninevites. The only difference is that the crowds who heard Jonah were anything but
uncaring. They responded wholeheartedly.

But does a prophet from the long ago and do the inhabitants of an ancient, repentant
city have anything to do with us today? Do we modern folks need to hear a message of
repentance?

I love these words from the pen of Ellen White: “At every advance step in Christian
experience our repentance will deepen” (Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons, p.
160). Clearly, then, repentance is not a one-time act; it is, rather, an ongoing attitude of
turning to God. Further, it is a turning to God that results in life change.

Helmut Thielicke puts it this way: “A salty pagan, full of the juices of life, is a hundred
times dearer to God, and also far more attractive to men, than a scribe who knows his
Bible … [and yet] in whom none of this results in repentance, action, and above all,
death of the self. A terrible curse hangs over the know-it-all who does nothing.”

So maybe Jonah’s message is relevant for us today. Just how relevant is our focus
today?

Yours in the name of the God who ever pursues us.

Randy Roberts
Senior Pastor

Note: Baptisms and Child dedications are in the Extras section of the DVD