Sermon Tone Analysis

Good morning, Gateway Chapel

If we haven’t met...

Sermon notes in the back...

Scripture

Prayer

Good morning, again!

One of the things we regularly say at Gateway Chapel is we are a church on mission to plant churches and make disciples who hear, love, and obey Jesus.

And one of the ways we live out that mission to plant churches is we are part of a network of churches called Acts29.

If you know your Bible you know the book of Acts has 28 chapters, so Acts29 is not some heretical extra biblical text but it’s basically saying the story of God’s kingdom expanding that we read about in Acts is still happening today.

To explain a bit more about Acts29, we have a 2 minute video to watch together.

Acts29 Sunday

Why are we watching this today?

Be encouraged to know you are a part of something so much bigger than this building.

What we are a part of this morning is something that is so much bigger than Sumner, Bonney Lake, Lake Tapps, Auburn, Enumclaw.

We are a part of the kingdom of God which is international and growing and expanding.

Be encouraged to know that Gateway Chapel is partnering with other churches around the world to plant churches and make disciples who hear, love, and obey Jesus.

In 2021, Acts 29 welcomed 58 new churches into our diverse, global community—including 30 brand-new church plants!

There are hundreds of church planters in our pipeline and expect our global network of churches to nearly double in size over the next few years!

I also want you to know that being a part of Acts29 means your church and church leadership are not on an island.

One of the hardest parts of my first year being a pastor, was feeling like I was alone.

I felt like if I opened up to other pastors they would see through me and say, “Yeah Chris, you’re not really cut out for this.”

But guys in this area like Rob Mayer from Gospel Life church and Rob Steinbach from Seaside church and Chris Rich from Mercy Life and Adam Sinnett from Downtown Cornerstone have become encouraging friends and have fed my soul which allows me in turn to serve you.

While Gateway wasn’t planted by Acts29, many of you found out about Gateway Chapel through Acts29 and the folks who show up saying, “Yeah we heard about Gateway through Acts29 are people who have stepped into our community and blessed this family.”

Gateway gives 3% of our overall budget to Acts29, which means that when you give to Gateway you are helping plant churches around the world.

But we want to be more than checkbook Christians, we want to partner prayerfully with Acts29.

And so I’d like to ask that you join me in prayer this morning for all the churches in Acts29, but also specifically for those in the Puget Sound.

Mercy Fellowship - Marysville

Coram Deo Church - Bremerton

Seaside Church - Bremerton

Downtown Cornerstone - Seattle

Icon Church - Seattle

Trinity West - Seattle

Taproot Church - Burien

Soma Eastside Church - Issaquah

Gospel Life Church - Puyallup

Sufficient Grace Church - Puyallup

If you want more information, you can visit Acts29’s website or there are brochures in the back.

Feel free to grab me too and ask any questions.

Jake read scripture

Who has seen the movie Planes, Trains, and Automobiles?

I’ll give you a pass to say you’ve watched an R Rated movie in church.

It’s a classic comedy with Steve Martin and John Candy.

If you’ve never heard of it before your parents may have it at home on VHS.

We’re going to watch a one-minute clip from that movie, a famous scene of the two main characters in a car on the freeway.

ROLL CLIP

Fantastic.

The reason I showed that was what’s the message the couple is screaming?

You’re going the wrong way!

Turn around!

As Jake read in Jonah 3, which is our text this morning, Jonah’s message to the Ninevites is very similar.

Turn around!

You’re going the wrong way!

In Jonah 3, we find out how the Ninevites respond to this message, what it might mean for us today, and how this points us to Jesus.

Pray

If this is your first time here or it’s been a while, let me briefly catch us up to where we’re at today.

As a church family we’re calling 2022 the Year of Biblical Exploration.

We’re walking through the story of the Bible from a 30,000 foot level to see how it’s all one big story that connects to Jesus.

We even have a working definition of the Bible, let’s read it out loud again together.

The Bible is a library of texts - both divine and human - with a unified story that leads to knowing Jesus and growing in Jesus.

We recognize that reading the Bible is a weird activity.

Your friends aren’t getting up early on the weekend to read ancient middle eastern religious documents.

But we follow Jesus, we believe he is the savior of the world, and Jesus loved his Bible and viewed all of life through the lens of Scripture.

The goal of Bible reading is not to get more Bible into my life (read 5 more minutes a day and think God loves me more) but to get more of my life into the Bible.

How does my life fit into this story?

And so the last three weeks we’ve been talking about Jonah.

Jonah is a prophet, and prophets make up a big portion of our Bibles.

But Jonah is really unique in a couple ways.

1 - He’s really bad at his job.

The whole book of Jonah is a kind of comedy.

Much like Homer Simpson, Michael Scott, or Steve Martin and John Candy in Planes Trains and Automobiles, Jonah does the exactly opposite of what you expect.

And we’ve talked about how we’re like Jonah…comedically rebellious but also dearly loved by God, because Jonah’s name means “Dove” or “My Beloved.”

2 - Jonah is really well known in America.

Veggie Tales, the “whale” which the Bible actually says fish as we learned.

But we think the story of Jonah is just a story about morals.

David and Goliath is a story about bravery…be brave and you’ll win your battles!

And Jonah is a story about being a nice person…and if you don’t, God will chase you down with a fish!

But as we read in our definition, the Old Testament is more than a divine rule book, it’s a unified story that points ahead to the kind of prophet we really need, Jesus.

So let’s keep reexamining the story of Jonah together this morning, and read verses 1-3 together.

Jonah’s second chance

Jonah has come out of the fish, and has a new lease on life.

This is his second chance!

1 Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” 3 But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish.

So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.

1 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord.

Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth.

So in chapter 1, God’s word comes to Jonah the son of Amittai - which in Hebrew means “My Beloved, the son of Truth” - and this beloved son of truth RUNS from God to Tarshish.

And yet even despite himself, he saves a boat full of Gentiles without doing anything right.

But in chapter 3, Jonah is now a man reborn.

He’s gone through his own baptism into the belly of the fish, and we think, “Maybe he’s a new man!

Now he’ll obey God!”

And so far, it looks like that is the case.

He doesn’t go to Tarshish, he takes the nearly 600 mile journey from Joppa to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD.

Notice the main driving force in this story…the word of the LORD, the most powerful force in the universe.

And this is setting us up for what feels like a real American story.

Failure to success.

Rags to riches.

In the words of your favorite band Chubba Wumba, Jonah got knocked down, but he’s getting up again, you’re never gonna keep him down.

He’s fixed!

Right?