Christians Walk the Walk

1:10But what is the fear of the Lord? Well, according to Scripture, the fear of the Lord is a deep reverential awe for God and his holiness, his power, and his majesty. A deep reverential awe for God and His holiness, his power, and his majesty. The fear of the Lord results from an encounter with God or with the works of God. After Isaiah sees his vision of the Lord in Isaiah chapter 6, look what Isaiah says. He says, Woe is me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.

2:00For my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts. After Elijah prays, and fire from heaven consumes the offering and the altar and all the water around the altar as he confronts the prophet of Baal, the prophets of Baal, look at what happens in 1 Kings 18. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, The Lord, He is God, the Lord, He is God. Even when God sends angels to represent him, every single time people are terrified.

2:43And the angel has to begin with the words, Do not be afraid. So the fear of the Lord is a deep reverential awe for God and His holiness, His power, and His majesty. You believe. You believe that he is God and you are not. You believe that he is the creator and you are his creation. You believe that he is the judge and you will be judged by him. Lots of people claim to fear the Lord. Lots of people claim to have a deep reverential awe for God.

3:24But how do you know if you actually fear the Lord? This morning we're beginning a four-week study through the book of Jonah. Jonah was an Israelite, a prophet who lived during the 8th century BC. And according to 2 Kings chapter 14, he prophesied during the reign of Jeroboam II. This was about 30 years before the nation of Assyria conquered the 10 northern tribes of Israel, just known as Israel, in 722 BC. Jonah is a fascinating book.

4:01If you read any other prophetic book in the Bible, the focus is on the message. The word of God that is spoken through the prophet of God to the people of God, that is the focus of every other prophetic book, the message that is to be spoken. You get very little background about the prophet himself. But you see, the book of Jonah is different. Of the book of Jonah is not the message, but the messenger, Jonah himself.

4:36In fact, Jonah's message to the Ninevites, when translated into English, is exactly eight words long. So the focus of the book is on Jonah. It isn't on the message, but the messenger, and that's because the message of the book of Jonah is the messenger. The messenger is the message of the book. You see, the prophet Jonah serves as a foil, he serves as a contrast to the God that he claims to serve. We've called this series compassionate God because the compassion of God is evident on every page of this book.

5:18God shows compassion to everyone in the book of Jonah, to the pagan sailors, to the wicked Ninevites, even to the wayward prophet himself. But Jonah displays no compassion for others, only for himself. He's not concerned about what happens to other people, only what happens to him. And at the end of the book, we should be asking ourselves: do I have God's compassion for other people? Do I care about other people, what happens to them in this life and in eternity?

6:00Or do I just care about myself? But today we begin where all good stories begin at the beginning. In chapter one, we're going to focus on Jonah's claim to fear the Lord, the God of heaven. And friends, like many people today, Jonah claimed to fear God. But just like many today, and maybe like you, he didn't back up his claim. He talked the talk, but he didn't walk the walk. So what we're going to see today is this: those who fear the Lord must walk the walk, not just talk the talk.

6:54We'll begin by looking at Jonah, who talked the talk, but did not walk the walk. Now, you heard in the reading here, let's start in verse 9, kind of in the middle of the passage this morning. Jonah claims to fear the Lord. Look what he says in verse 9. And he said to them, that is to the sailors, I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.

7:18Jonah says that he fears God. But at this moment in his life, that is just talk. Because you cannot say that you fear the Lord. If you do not obey the Lord, look with me back at verse 1. Now, the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me. You see, friends, God's command is clear. Jonah is to go to Nineveh, the largest, the most important, and the most wicked city in all of the nation of Assyria, and to preach against it. That command is perfectly clear.

8:04And the reality is, God's commands to us are perfectly clear. His commands to us are perfectly clear. Our problem is not a lack of clarity, it's that we don't often want to obey. Look at this famous quote from Mark Twain. He said, It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it's the parts that I do understand. Amen. Jonah understood God's command. He just didn't want to obey it. So, what does he do?

8:40Verse 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 on board to go with them to Tarshish away from the presence of the Lord. Now, Nineveh was located at about 500 miles northeast of Israel, about 200 miles north of modern-day Baghdad. But instead of heading to Nineveh, Jonah goes to Joppa. That's on the western coast of Israel, the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea, and he boards a ship bound for Tarshish. Now, we don't know exactly where Tarshish is located. That city was long gone thousands of years ago, but from the port of Joppa, you've got one choice: go west, pretty much the opposite direction from Nineveh.

9:37Now, why would Jonah do that? Why would he disobey God's clear command to go and preach to the Ninevites? We might think that it's because he was scared. Wouldn't you be scared? The Assyrians were brutal people, as the Israelites were about to find out in 30 short years. They did things that for sure would be considered war crimes today. They were awful. They committed atrocities of all manner. I would be scared to go and preach to the Ninevehites.

10:13But as it turns out, fear was not the reason that Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh. It was because he had no compassion for the Ninevites. He wanted God to judge them. He did not want God to have mercy on them. And later on, In the book, Jonah admits that. So let me give you a spoiler alert. If you've never read this book before, after Jonah preaches to the Ninevites, they repent. They turn from their evil ways. And God relents from the disaster that he was going to bring on them. And that makes Jonah very angry. Look at what Jonah says in chapter 4, verse 2.

10:55That 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. Jonah admits that the reason that he didn't want to go and preach to the Ninevites is because he knew God's character, that God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and that he relents from disaster when people repent. He knew this, and Jonah did not want that. He did not want the Ninevites to repent. He wanted them to be judged. He wanted them to perish.

11:40He was like James and John, the disciples of Jesus, after the Samaritans rejected Jesus and his ministry. Look at Luke 9 on the screen. And when his disciples, James and John, saw it, they said, Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them? James and John were Jews, and Jews hated the Samaritans. They didn't want Samaritans to receive God's mercy and grace. They wanted them to receive God's judgment. And that is exactly how Jonah felt about the Ninevites of his day.

12:24I wonder about you. Are there people in your life that you actually don't want to receive the mercy and grace of God? Are there people in your life that you actually want to receive judgment? Perhaps it's people of a different skin color, people of a different ethnic or cultural background, Republicans, Democrats. Are there people that you actually want to be judged instead of receiving the mercy and grace of God? Jonah doesn't want the Ninevites to receive mercy, and so he goes to Joppa, he pays the fare, and he boards the ship. And why is that? The reason appears two times in verse 3 and three times in the chapter. Look at verse 3. He is going to flee from the presence of the Lord. How very interesting. Remember what Jonah said in verse 9: that he fears the Lord. Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. Jonah had great theology.

13:38He believed that God was omnipotent and omnipresent. He is all-powerful, and he is everywhere, and he is going to flee from God's presence. Friends, this reminds us that all sin is foolish and irrational. All sin is foolish and irrational. It is so easy to look at Jonah and say, I can't believe he thought that he could run away from God. But haven't we all done that? Haven't we all run away from God? Some of you are doing it right now. You are living as though you can run away from God. Now, I doubt you are actively thinking that in your mind.

14:32I doubt that you've ever thought to yourself or said to yourself, I'm going to run away from God. I'm going to go someplace where he can't see me or find me. I doubt you've ever thought that, and I doubt Jonah thought that. But that's what he's doing. He is acting like he could run away from God, that he could get to some place where God could not see him or find him in a boat or in Tarshish.

14:57Look at Hebrews 4:13. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Sin is foolish. Sin is irrational. God knows everything and sees everything. And we will give an account for everything that we say, everything that we think, everything that we do in the light and in the darkness. We cannot run or hide from God. So Jonah is actively disobeying God. He's trying to flee from his presence, but God is full of compassion and he will not let Jonah, his wayward prophet, get away. So in verse 4, we see that he hurls a great wind, causing a mighty tempest, this huge storm, and the ship that Jonah is on board is about to break apart. It is so bad that these professional sailors who do this every day are scared to death, and each one of them is crying out to his God.

16:12So to lighten the load and to increase their chance of survival, they begin hurling the cargo into the sea. And in the midst of this incredible storm, the screaming sailors, the cargo being thrown into the sea, where is Jonah? Look at the end of verse 5. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had laid down and was fast asleep. Jonah is actively disobeying God. He is in the midst of a terrible storm and he is having the nap of his life.

16:58Friends, this reminds us that it is possible to disobey God and feel nothing. We learned in Romans 2 last year that every one of us is given a conscience. That word con science, conscience, it means with knowledge. We do everything we do with the knowledge that it is either right or wrong, good or evil. The conscience is a good gift from a good God. But, friends, sin has affected our consciences, and so they are not infallible gods. And in Jonah's case, his hatred for the Ninevites muted his conscience.

17:47If Jonah were sinning in some other way, maybe his conscience would have bothered him. And he would have thought to himself, I shouldn't be doing this. I shouldn't be disobeying God, but not this time. Because when it came, To the Ninevites, Jonah had learned to turn his conscience off. That is why we need God's word. Because God's Word is an infallible guide. Just because we feel good about a choice that we are making, just because our consciences are not bothering us, that doesn't mean that we're doing the right thing and honoring the Lord.

18:32Our conscience is a guide and it's usually reliable, but only the word of God is infallible. And so Jonah, no matter how he felt about it, he was in sin. He was disobeying God's word. And Jonah was committed to his disobedience, wasn't he? After Jonah finally confesses to the sailors that the disaster is, in fact, his fault, the sailors ask Jonah what they need to do to stop the storm. And by now, you would think that God has Jonah's attention. Jonah has tried to flee to Tarshish, but the Lord sends the storm. He tries to hide in the bottom of the boat, but the captain goes down there, wakes him up, and says, you need to pray.

19:26He tries to keep quiet while the lots are cast, but even That fails because Proverbs 16:33 says, The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord. You would think that at this point, Jonah would realize that he is wrong, that he is sinning, that he cannot run from God, that he needs to repent and obey. You would think that after the lot was cast and it fell to Jonah, and the sailors said to him, What do we need to do to make this storm stop? that he would have said, This is all my fault. Just turn this ship around and bring me to Nineveh. I'm in sin and I need to repent.

20:14You would think that would happen, but he doesn't do that. What does he say? Look at verse 12. He said to them, Pick me up and hurl me into the sea. Now, let's be very clear: Jonah is not saying, Throw me in the water and I'll swim back to shore. I'm sorry that I inconvenienced you. He's saying, Kill me. Kill me. In other words, Jonah would rather die than repent. Jonah would rather die than repent. That's how hard his heart was toward the Ninevites. That's how committed he was to his disobedience. He would rather die than repent.

21:16And, friends, we can all end up in the same spot. We can all get there. You can get there with any sin: lying, abusing alcohol, gambling on sports, pornography, an ungodly relationship. You can get to that point with any sin that you would rather die than repent. You would rather die than give up your sin. Disobedience will wreck your life. And it will wreck the lives of everyone around you. Don't we see that in the text?

22:00Sin is never just a private matter. That is one of Satan's favorite lies to you. You're not hurting anyone else. Your sin is not known by anyone else. It does not affect your relationship with your parents, your siblings, your children, your roommates, your friends, your fellow church members. It's just between you and God. It doesn't affect anyone else. That is a lie. All sin affects all people. It is never just a private matter. The sailors lost all of their cargo and almost their lives because of Jonah's sin. And still, Jonah is at a place where he would rather die than repent. Jonah said he feared the Lord. He talked the talk, but he was not walking the walk.

23:00Nothing he said in this chapter, nothing he did in this chapter backs up his claim that he fears God. But the book of Jonah is filled with irony. You're going to see this if you haven't seen it before. And the irony here is that the pagan sailors act more righteously than Jonah the prophet, who claims to fear God. I mean, think about it. Jonah does not care that he's put the sailors in danger, but the sailors throw all of their precious cargo. This is their whole job. What do you think is going to happen to them when they get to the port and they have to tell the business owner, we threw all of your product into the sea?

23:43They threw all that stuff overboard because they were trying to save each other's lives. Jonah does not pray or seek God one single time. But as soon as the storm starts, every single pagan sailor is Crying out to his God. The captain comes and wakes Jonah up. What are you doing? Pray. They don't know what to do, and so they cast lots. This is a spiritual exercise. They're saying, we need some kind of supernatural power to figure this out. They seek God. They pray. Jonah doesn't do this a single time.

24:22Jonah tells the sailors to kill him. What do the sailors do? They reject that notion out of hand. They grab the oars. They row as hard as they can to try to spare his life. They put their lives at further risk to try to save Jonah's life. And Jonah never, ever repents or asks for forgiveness. But the sailors cry out to God to forgive them for throwing Jonah overboard, and they ask God not to hold it against them. The last verse of this section says, verse 16, take a look. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.

25:06Isn't that remarkable? The pagan sailors act more righteously than Jonah, the prophet of God. And the chapter ends with the pagan sailors fearing the Lord, not Jonah. They offer sacrifices to the one true God. They make vows to serve him and him only. Brothers and sisters, Jonah talked the talk. He said he feared the Lord, but his actions spoke louder than his words. But those who fear the Lord must walk the walk, not just talk the talk.

25:45So, what does that look like? What does it look like to fear the Lord? Fearing the Lord means that we obey God's commands, we obey our consciences, we repent of our sins, and we receive God's forgiveness. First, we must obey God's commands. Jonah said that he feared the Lord, but he blatantly disobeyed God's command. Look at Luke 6:46. Saw this verse a couple weeks ago. Jesus asks, Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I tell you?

26:30What a piercing question. Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I tell you? Friends, those who fear God obey God. It really is that simple. If somebody has painted a picture of Christianity for you that does not sound like that, you have not heard about Christianity. Those who fear God obey God. It really is that simple. You see, it's not like God used to be faithful. Concerned with obedience back in the Old Testament times, but now that Jesus has come, he does not care how you live. You can call yourself a Christian and not obey any of God's commands. It's not like that at all. If you go back to the Old Testament, when King Saul disobeyed God, he tried to justify his disobedience by saying, But Lord, we held a worship service.

27:24Surely that makes my disobedience okay. And look what the prophet Samuel says to him, 1 Samuel 15. And Samuel said, Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to listen than the fat of rams. When I was in college, I had a lot of fraternity brothers who claimed to fear the Lord, claimed to be Christians. They talked the talk, but they didn't walk the walk.

28:03And so at our last chapter meeting, senior night, all the seniors get to address the whole chapter. And I quoted from the book of 1 John, chapter 2, these verses. By this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments. Whoever says, I know him, but does not keep his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word in him, truly, the Lord is in his word. Love of God is perfected.

28:34Friends, if you say you fear God, if you say that you have come to know Him, but you do not keep His commandments, I don't call you a liar. Christians don't call you a liar. God calls you a liar. God does not want your sacrifices without your obedience. Those who obey, fear the Lord, obey God's commands. It really is just that simple. Second, if we fear the Lord, we must obey our consciences. Because Jonah was disobeying God's command, his conscience should have bothered him. He should have been troubled by the fact that he was attempting to flee from God's presence. But he wasn't. He was seemingly at peace with his disobedience, catching a nap in the inner part of the ship. Friends, that should not be the case. Believers should not be able to disobey God with a clear conscience. That's why we need to work to calibrate our consciences to the word of God so that what we feel is right or wrong in our hearts matches up with what God says is right or wrong in his word.

29:58We saw Paul teach the Principle just a few months ago in Romans 12. Look on the screen. Paul said, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. You see, as Christians, our standard is not what does the world think is good and acceptable and perfect. Our standard is what does God say is good, acceptable, and perfect. So we need to be continually transformed by the renewal of our minds, seeking to calibrate our consciences to the Word of God. Then our consciences can help us discern God's will and follow it. Those who fear the Lord obey their consciences.

30:53Third, we must repent of our sins. Those who fear the Lord repent of their sins. You know, for me, the lowest point in chapter one is when the sailors ask Jonah what they should do to stop the storm, and he says, Pick me up and hurl me into the sea. Even the pagan sailors found that solution unacceptable. But friends, as we saw, Jonah is in a place where he would rather die than repent. Think about that. When he sinks to the bottom, Of that sea. When he dies, he is going to stand before the Lord and be judged. And he is in a place where his sin has made him so foolish and irrational that he thinks he's going to go stand before God with his arms crossed, defiant and disobedient. That is a scary, scary place to be.

31:57When Jesus began his public ministry, he started it with these words. Look at Matthew 4: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Why does Jonah refuse to go to Nineveh? Because they are wicked people who have opposed God and God's people. What is Jonah doing? Opposing God and the people that God intends to call to be his people. Jonah is doing the same thing that he's passing judgment on these other people for. And Paul condemned that hypocrisy in Romans chapter 2, didn't he?

32:43Do you suppose, O man, you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that? God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance. Friends, we're going to see that God is treating Jonah better than he deserves. He has been so kind to him, pursuing him and calling him to repent. And he's going to do that through the fish. He's going to do that through the plant that will shade him from the heat. God's kindness is meant to lead him to repentance. And the same thing is true for you and me. God has been so kind, so patient with every one of us. His kindness is meant to lead us to repentance, to turn away from our sin and obey his good commands, remembering that we are going to stand before God to be judged, to give an account. Those who fear the Lord repent of their sins.

33:52And then finally, we must receive God's forgiveness. Those who fear the Lord receive God's forgiveness. Now, Jonah does not get to this point at the end of chapter one. As we know, he is sinking to the bottom of the sea with his arms crossed. But he does get there. He gets to the point where he repents and receives God's forgiveness. How do we know that? Because this book is in the Bible. And the only person that would have known the details of this story and be able to record it and put it in the Bible is Jonah.

34:42So, the fact that this is included in Scripture is proof that Jonah recognizes later on after all of these events, I have been a fool. I have acted as though me and my sinful, wayward, disobedient people deserve compassion from God and these Ninevites do not. I have been a fool, and I want everyone to learn from my sins and mistakes. It seems clear from the fact that this book is in the Bible that Jonah got to the place where he recognized that, repented, and received God's forgiveness. Because that's the only way you can confess your sin to God and others, isn't it? That you recognize that you've erred, that you've sinned, that you've done wrong, and you need to be forgiven.

35:33So, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, the challenge this morning is that if we say we fear the Lord, we have to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. We cannot say that we fear God while we disobey God's word, disobey our consciences, refuse to repent, and refuse to receive forgiveness. The whole Christian life is one of repentance and faith. So, I want to challenge you this morning to consider where in your life you may not be walking in repentance and faith as a Christian. If you have grown comfortable with anything less than complete obedience in every area of your life, today is the day to acknowledge that. Today is the day that you can say, God, I've been compromising. I've been compromising with my finances, with my boyfriend or girlfriend, with what I'm looking at on the internet, with how I'm treating this particular area of my life. This is the day that you can say, Lord, I've been making excuses for my disobedience. I see that clearly now.

36:48You can turn from that today and walk in faith and repentance. That's what God is calling us all to. Every one of us has places like that in our lives. That's one reason we need the church, because we can't see it. Jonah couldn't see it. So take this opportunity, Christian. Examine your life. For others, perhaps you've been running from God for a long time. You didn't board a ship, but you took a path that led you away from God.

37:24And maybe you turned your back on God and you sprinted as far as you could in the other direction, and you're Thinking to yourself, how would God ever take me back? For others, it wasn't this dramatic moment where you just said, I don't want to follow Jesus. I don't want anything to do with God. You just slowly turned around and slowly walked away to the point where today you're like, How did I end up here? How did I end up this far from the Lord?

37:59So, whether you sprinted there or you walked there over years or decades, you're in a place where you know you are far from God and you're thinking to yourself, how can I ever get back to him? Oh, friend, I have good news for you. The Lord has never let you out of his sight. He has been pursuing you and he is pursuing you even this morning. You do not need to go find God, he has already found you.

38:38Look what Jesus says in Luke 19. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. Friend, you don't need to find God. All you need to do is turn around, repent, and receive the forgiveness. That Jesus offers you through his life, death, and resurrection. I hope you'll do that today. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for the clarity that the book of Jonah provides. We don't want to look at Jonah and see this person who is very unlike us.

39:46A person that we look at and we think, what a fool. How could he ever do such a thing? But I hope and pray that wherever we are this morning, we'd be able to look at Jonah and say, wow, that's just like me. God, I pray that you would open our eyes to see what we can't see. That we would see those areas where we are walking in disobedience, where we are disobeying our consciences, where we've refused to repent and receive your forgiveness. Would you show that to us just as plain as day?

40:26Because we want to honor you. We want to. Worship you. We want to offer acceptable worship to you. God, I pray that you would seek and find the lost among us this morning, whether they ran away from you or walked away from you over a long period of time. I pray that the person of Jesus would appear beautiful to them. That they would go to him this morning, knowing that they will be received with open arms because Jesus came to seek and to save the lost.

41:11God, we thank you for your word and how it pierces us, how it divides joint and marrow, soul and spirit. It just cuts to the heart. I pray that our lives would be different as a result of your Spirit's work through the Word this morning. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.