What to Do with a Second Chance

The word of the Lord came to Jonah. Say it with me a second time. Go to the great city of Nineveh and Proclaim to it the message I give to you. Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh.

Now, Nineveh was a very large city.

It took three days to go through it. Jonah began by going a Day's Journey Into the City, proclaiming it's the best prophecy and preaching ever for 40 more days. And 40 more days and Nineveh will be overthrown. And I'll close with this.

The ninevites believed God.

God, we thank you again for your word. Use it today, help people implement it and apply it in their world throughout this week. It's in Jesus name I pray, amen. Today I want to talk to you about what to do with a second chance.

What to do with the second chance?

My wife reminded me. I say reminded me. She told me for the first time this week because I didn't grow up in the church. I started going to church when I was in eth grade and I that's long younger than some of you, but it was it's older compared to a lot of people I knew.

Like my wife, she grew up in church.

Her dad's a pastor, so she did all the kid Church stuff that I don't know about. And one of the things she did was watch Veggie Tales. Anyone in here watch Veggie Tales? Just not currently.

Maybe you did in the past too.

That's why you didn't raise your hand. I'm an adult. I did not watch veggie, I do not watch V, so, I think the first one that they put out was about Jonah, right? Anyone?

I think that might have been one of the first ones they put out- is super old, ancient and biblically barely accurate.

So I don't watch it. But one thing that they had- and she told me about this this week as I was telling her about the message I would preach- is there's a song in it. Anyone know the name of that song? It's called the God of second.

Y'all don't know, good, I, you know let's go with the Bible, not Veggie Tales, but it's called the God of second chances.

It's some corny song that they play that she memorized when she was younger and I want you to know. I could have preached on the truth, right, the reality that God gives Second Chances, but I wanted to talk more about what we do with that second chance today. But it is true, I don't know where you came from or what you even did this week or this morning. Some people- because I know how it is to get kids up in the morning- some of you argued with your spouse on the way here and took a little extra second to get your stuff together before you hopped out the car and saw that parking volunteer right like it took you an extra second.

Whatever you came from, maybe you're sitting in guilt about it.

Maybe you feel like you can't go forward. Whatever, God is a God of Second Chances. If you have never trusted in Jesus and you've lived your life like Jonah did in the first two chapters away from God, you can turn today and God will give you a second chance to live your life. This is why Jesus talks about being born again.

He's literally saying: you get a second chance, you get a doover, because the power of God in your life can radically shift the trajectory of your life.

Everyone in here- I don't care if you're a Christian or not, follower of Jesus or not, serving on a team or not-, you think you're a good parent or not. I don't care where you are. God will give you a second chance. Right now all it takes is turning toward him the way that we do.

That is what I want to talk about, though I think this will be helpful for you.

It might be too practical for some people in this room who want me to go super deep into the Scripture and tell them about, some random things that they've never heard of, even though they've read Jonah 10 times. Right like, this is going to be a deep message if you've ever heard one, but it's not deep, like a lot of people think. Right, where they want, they want information, not inspiration, right? So it's going to be deep.

If you allow it to be so, I want to ask permission to invite you to engage periodically through this message.

Just say yes, if I can. Can I, can I invite you to engage? All right, y'all already doing anyone in here. No, I'm not going to ask, but, our service today was a little different than I heard y'all worshiping, so let's engage today.

It's going to be fun, all right.

My first point that I want to give you- and I'll pull it right from the text- my first point is: I think, in order to work, our Second Chance- the way God calls us to- is: we need to listen to a different, different word. We need to listen to a different word. Look at your neighbor to your right and if there's no one to your right, just pretend. If you look to your right and say, say you need to listen to a different word, left side did great, right side, you can work on it next time: listen to a different word.

One of the biggest problems in my life is I'm listening to the wrong voices.

I'm listening to the wrong voices. The text starts like this. It saysthe word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. Go to the great city of Nineveh and Proclaim to it the message I give you.

We know that Jonah listen, because I just read the text to you this time.

But the word of the Lord came to Jonah the first time and he didn't listen. The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time and it appears he listened. When the word of God comes to you and he encourages you to follow Jesus, when the Bible encourages you to live life a different way, it's not only important that we listen to that word. It's important that we recognize that there's another voice constantly speaking to us.

For me.

I know the word better than a lot of people. That's not bragging, I just I know. I know what most people don't know it right. So I know it better than a lot of people.

But this voice often, especially on a bad day, is still, is still louder, like the word that Jonah could have felt, could have been the same thing he felt the first time, which caused him to go in the opposite direction.

But we know through this text he goes in the right direction. But we find out later in the text that it he didn't really take in the word of God, because there's another voice, another word that is prominent in his life. For him, I think it's this ethnocentrism, like a focus on his people group at the expense of the rest of the world, that God called them to, to speak life into and to reveal who God was to right. So I think that's what it is for Jonah.

It could be some insecurity, could be some other stuff, but I think is that Jonah is just a bad prophet and do have the right mindset.

But for us, I think the voice that tends to come in when God calls us in a specific Direction, even if we might go in that direction a little bit. Like you showed up today. That's amazing. Give yourselves a hand if you.

I know it was hard for you to get here.

It was. It was different, it was a shift, so you came, but there was a voice. What did that voice tell you? Here's what the voice tells me.

The voice tells me that I did something wrong that morning, the day before or 10 years ago, and since I did that wrong thing, I'm incapable of truly embracing what God has called me to do.

The Voice also tells me, that, because I'm new to this, I can't understand God. Right, right, you. You show up and say: I've never read the Bible like this is hard, so God probably won't speak to me if I would. To boil it down, really, what that word tells us is that when God says we can, we hear that less than we hear the voice that says I can't.

You're going to learn this about me.

If you're a volunteer, and especially a leader, you've definitely heard this from me. If you're my wife, you've definitely heard this from me, because you know me better than anybody else. If you're my kid, you've heard this from me. This is a truth that I hold to, but it's also something I think is biblical.

If you say I can't, and then whatever it is afterwards, there is a limiting belief occurring, I'm I'm not saying you can do everything right.

I want to be very clear. I'm not telling you that if you walk out of here and say I can dunk this basketball, I'm not saying you're going to dunk the basketball, some of you could. I'm not saying, when you walk out of here, I, I can be a great parent, that you're immediately going to be the best parent that ever existed. I'm not saying to speak this into existence by saying I can't.

I'm saying, when you say I can't, you cut off what could be and you fail to recognize this very truth that comes straight from the word of God that With God, all things are possible.

Everything's possible with God. Luke 137 tells us this. If anything, you see throughout the entirety of Scripture that God is above all things, he can control all things and he can move in and around all things. God is fully capable of doing what you are incapable of doing.

But when you say I can't, what you were doing is you were saying to God and the word of God: maybe he can, but I'm not going to put any effort, energy or thought process into it.

I'm just going to say I can't. It's when you say I can't that you don't step into some of these things that I want to give you. You've got to listen to a different voice. Rather, if you come up to me and you say I can't, and it could be intense, so I can't sing, I was like: hold up, hold up for a second.

That'll be me every single time.

If you say I can't sing- and this is something some people are not great at- I want to be very clear. Some of you, you're not going to be on stage singing, and that's okay. God has a plan for you. But when you come up to me and you say I can't sing, What I Hear- and this may be just bad personality on my part, but what I hear- is a limiting belief that is going to inhibit you not just from singing but from doing.

What other options are there?

It's really not until you say I can, maybe that you start exploring what God has for you in specific areas, but let's just go with singing. You say I can't sing, I so hold up. Maybe you can't, maybe you shouldn't sing, or I might have them try out for something. If they want to sing.

Sometimes I have to tell them no, but when it comes to simply saying I can't sing, what you're also saying is: I, I can't maybe consider what it looks like to learn an instrument.

You're saying: I, I can't ever sing. Right, when you say I can't sing, what that tends to tell you is: I don't need to work on it. I'll tell you this: I was toned deaf when I was in high school. I'm not saying I'm great now, but I'm better than toned deaf.

You know what I'm saying.

So when I- but if, if I had said I can't, I would never have tried, tried to start guitar, I would never have tried to impress girls at, at, at, at bonfires and any was. I should never have done that, but I would never have tried. And if I had never tried and moved in that direction, I would have never been a worship leader for seven years. And so when you say I can't parent the right way, well, you're often you're not just cutting off things that you would never even look for, you're also cutting off the possibility of making progress in a specific area.

And in our faith, we've got to recognize that God sent Jesus on purpose, not only so that we could be saved for all of eternity, but so that we could have an abundant life here.

And an abundant life here is taking God's Will and implementing it here in the world and enjoying what we see. So. So when you say I can't, you're unintentionally. I'm not saying you're a bad person.

You're unintentionally saying I can't with God.

But if you can shift that belief system, if you can shift the word that you're hearing and take God's word- this is what I do not just not just when I'm trying to accomplish something, but when I'm trying to remove something from my life, I take God's word. I don't do it all the time. I'm going to be clear. I'm not perfect up here.

If you think I'm perfect and you want me to be perfect, this is not the church for you.

I'm someone who feels like a hypocrite at least half of the time that I'm preaching to the people in this room. I'm trying, though, and I know Jesus and that's what it takes in order to move forward. I'm not saying I can't. I'm saying I'm saying I'm trying, but when I want to get rid of something- one of the things I'm trying to get rid of right now is: is the voice that makes me anxious or the word that makes me?

The word that makes me anxious is: is comparison voices.

It's a voice that says, well, I don't have this, but somebody else has this and honestly, I joke around. I say, if I didn't ever look at what other churches were doing after their 10- first 10 weeks, I would love every bit of what I'm doing. But the problem is, I listen to a voice that says, hey, you should go see how they're doing so that you can get better. But what accompanies that voice is, you should then look at what they're doing and, compare yourself to what they're doing and find ways for what they're doing to be negative.

Let me make it more clear.

That did not make sense at all. To make it more clear, you look at what somebody else has and you make excuses for why they have it and you don't have it. That is a mindset that doesn't get you closer to God, doesn't get you further in your progress. It just keeps you stagnant, because it's a voice that is limiting and, honestly, paralyzing.

This is the voice that comes every time you're scrolling and you look at another family who has a cuter kid than you, or you look at a family, who seems to be super successful.

Or if you're doing a job and they're doing the same type of job and they're super successful, and you don't even know why they're successful and you're like, well, they must have this to feel better about yourself. But you don't feel better. You just feel shame about where you're not, and then you're stuck in this head space, . The Bible says that there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the spirit has set us free from the law of sin and death.

Sin and death bring shame, and if you're filled with shame, you've got to recognize what God's word says: that in Christ Jesus, you are a new creation.

The old can pass away, the new can come. You, you, you got to. You got to listen to a different voice. I don't want to beat that like a dead horse.

I just want you to knowe you got to listen to a different voice.

You might need to isolate what that voice is. Some of us have been calling it Satan, but it's something that we've indoctrinated ourselves with. We've been saying I can't so long that I don't believe I can do much of anything. It's not just Satan.

You keep telling yourself that and you can blame Satan all day.

But if you keep telling yourself that you're not going to get where you want to be, so I want to encourage you. Whatever voice it is, Satan's voice is real. You need kick that out of there. But your voice is not always helpful either.

Whatever's in here, that negative, self-critical voice, get rid of it.

And the way to get rid of it is to go put something in its place, and the best thing to put in its place is God's word. God's word-, it's sharper than any two-edged sword. It'll Pierce through Soul, Spirit. It helps you rightly divide what is true in the world.

God's word-, naturally it's just got good advice in it, but supernaturally it's got God's presence in it, and when you read it, his presence comes to you and you are changed.

I know that sounds crazy, but I'm telling you it's true. Just like you can speak Jesus over stuff, you can read God's word, word, and it will go into your life and change everything. All right, so I want to move on because I belabor that point. You do have to listen to a different voice.

But another thing you have to do is you have to maintain a different posture.

You have to maintain a different posture. Some of the people in this room recognize that posture matters when it comes to progress spiritually or just regular progress. Here's what it says in the text. It says: Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh.

Now, Nineveh was a very large city.

It took 3 days to go through it. It says: Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Here's what. Here's where I pulled posture from that.

He changed directions.

He, he, he looked in a different direction, he marched in a different direction. I don't know where he was looking or what his thought process was, but formerly he was going the opposite direction and then he turned. After the fish spit him out and a whole lot of cramping and frustration and all that other stuff, he went the right direction. I've had a lot of wise people in my life inform me of this reality that your posture influences your perspective, your posture, .

One person is this just very practical piece of advice about prayer.

He said: when you pray, your posture really, really matters. He said: if you pray sitting, sitting down, you got to be careful about how you're sitting down, because it'll shift your mindset when you're praying. He said a lot of people pray when they're trying to go to bed. It's just they natural thing before they go to bed and they pray like this.

They say: Lord, I love you, may have a good day tomorrow.

I just, God, I pray that U tomorrow doesn't suck as bad as today. Did that? That Sally at work who's been trying to step on my throat and getting in that promotion. God, I just pray that you would give me that promotion instead of her.

I like her, she's cool, but I it's me.

You know, Lord, don't you love us? Got, that's what happens. You do it. You know you do it because you forgot all day, because you got busy doing all the stuff you wanted to do and the stuff that's not natural to you don't do.

You push off to the end of the day.

So, anyways, you laying down and you praying, then you fall asleep. I've done the same thing, POS. Look, look at your neighbor. Your other neighbor, the one you didn't look at earlier, say: posture matters, posture matters.

So what my friend told me?

He said: I know it's weird and it's slightly uncomfortable, but when you put yourself into a slightly uncomfortable position. It enables you not to be like like too relaxed, but also you know you're not completely stressed out and if you put yourself like on your knees or or, or maybe, like they said, Angels prostrate fall with. That means, as they lay down right like, you put yourself in a position where you're not going to fall asleep, but you're not going to stress out or cramp up, but you put yourself in a lightly uncomfortable position that forces you into a place where you are focused. Now, that's just with prayer.

But your posture matters in every aspect of your life.

Jonah's posture mattered. I'll show you something about posture that my coach taught me in front of a bunch of people when I was in high school and it was the most embarrassing thing that I had that year. I had this habit where I would stand a weird way and my coach noticed it. He didn't like how the posture influenced what he thought about my character, and so he pulled me up in front of the class and, he said: hey, Matt, come here, come here, come here, stand the way you were standing just now.

And he said: y'all tell him what he looks like.

And they started listing off charact. He looks lazy, he looks like he's not interested, looks like he doesn't care. It looks like he could be doing something else. And they kept just listing stuff.

And I remember thinking I never forgot it, that's all.

I'll say. Not, we won't do that to you. In fact, won you. I'm just kidding, we won't do that to you.

But it was helpful for me because what he was teaching me was that my posture not only influenced my own mentality, but it influenced the way people, people viewed my mentality.

The posture made a huge difference and so now I try to stand differently in your faith. Your posture has a huge impact on whether you're going to make progress. Our posture before Christ: we were not only turned away from him, but we had certain mentalities right. Maybe it's a posture that says, when you wake up in the morning, how can I receive today?

Maybe it's a posture, that expects bad things to occur.

Maybe it's a posture of like I'm not physically engaged, which has an impact on listening skills, productivity at work. I can keep going on how posture impacts you and not only hurts you physically. If you're hunched over like this on a computer, it hurts you relationally. It hurts you when it comes to your position at work and it will hurt you spiritually.

It could also, equally, on the opposite side, help you, and so God, I think, is calling us to maintain a different posture.

This is why the psalmist he said: I lift my eyes to, to, to ground level. Is that what he said? He says: I lift my eyes- anyone know where? To the hills, to the mountains.

I lift my eyes to the hills, where my help comes from.

That's what he says, and all throughout Scripture, you see that people's posture has an impact on their progress and on their perspective, and so I want to encourage you with this. If you would, if you come in here, maybe adjust your posture. Be intentional about your posture when you're sitting there talking with your spouse. Be intentional about your posture half the time I'm sitting there and my wife comes and wants to tell me about her day and I- I just like, started a Netflix show and I just started it and she sat down right when I just started.

It had even got through the first opening credits and I'm sitting there and she knew I was watching it.

But she sat down and wanted to talk to me about her day and. Then I'm sitting here like I paused it. How do you think that's going to work it? It doesn't work.

Well, this is like you can tell.

You don't have to look at Jonah to know how that dude was sitting on the front end of this book and at the back end of this book literally says later on in the text: he's waiting to see what the Lord was going to do, what you going to do, Lord, with them. N posture makes a huge difference. Like if you simply adjust it. I'm not saying you should do this right now because, because I don't want people looking at you, but if, if you like, or if you got your phone, if you phone your Bible, that's cool.

But if the texts are coming through, I know how makes a difference.

Or if you're like I'm not saying that's you. I'm saying there's a posture adjustment you can make in your life. I don't know exactly what that adjustment is, but if you can adjust your posture, I think it will make you ready to receive and move forward in a way that God's called you to. I know that sounds simple.

It's really really small adjustment to make, but I think it does make a difference.

It's not super spiritual, but it has spiritual implications. And then, the third thing I want to encourage you first is listen to a different voice or a different word. Maintain a different posture is our second point. The third point is: lean into a different pattern.

Lean into a different pattern.

How many of you think habits matter when it comes to your relationship with Jesus? Okay, just a couple. I mean a few on this side, a few Less on this side. I need you to know when it comes to your eternity with God in heaven.

I think when you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you can be saved or you will be saved.

I believe that with all my heart. And I think so many people in the church who would claim to be Christians, they believe that truth. That's amazing and you're going to spend eternity with God. But your life is living below abundant, maybe even mediocre or miserable, because your habits have not caught up with your belief system.

And God calls us to lean into a different pattern.

I love it. You know, pattern doesn't always mean you got the right perspective. Sometimes you got to change your pattern in order to shift your perspective. This is what happens with Jonah, right?

It says in verse four: Jonah began by going a Day's Journey Into the City proclaiming 40 more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.

He began like if you've read the book, you know Jonah done finish strong. But he started. Let's give, let's give him a second, let's give him a second. He just got spit out of a fish, we don't know how long ago, and now he's walking in the same direction that God called him to do.

He goes there, he done preach a great sermon.

I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't like a- I don't know a Billy Graham level sermon. But Jonah said: hey, repent, 40 days, City's going to be destroyed. Yep, all right, you know that's Jonah, but he, he went there, He adjusted his pattern and while we don't want to be like Jonah, I think is helpful, at least he went in the right direction. Some of us, if we can adjust our patterns, will adjust our perspective.

I got a personal trainer in the room and he's looking at me saying: yeah, you should do that, Matt, you should adjust your pattern and it would adjust your perspective so that you can hit your, exercise and fitness goals.

Right. This is how our our bodies work. If you can adjust a pattern, it will adjust your perspective. I think we need to lean into a different pattern.

What do I mean by that?

In terms of all practicality, like, how do I live my life differently, Matt? Well, let's look at how typically people live their life here in Phoenix. What I've noticed is people live their lives very similar to the way I tend to live my life, which is: let me fill my calendar and let me, like, do what I can. Once I fill my calendar.

Let me fill mine.

My wife's going to fill hers. I'm GNA, fill my kids, and this is not necessarily a bad thing. I think productivity is helpful, I think all of these things are helpful, but let's fill these things into our life. And when it comes to the things that can be really healthy for us- let's just take Jesus, for example-, we incorporate him on one day during the week or in one small portion of our mind and we don't put them at the center, and so we start doing all of these things and it gets us into a place where we're tired, frustrated, we're just like kind of depressed and discouraged in many aspects of our life, even if we've got the people there, things that we want to grow in, or we want relationships that hit a certain level that none of our relation ships are hitting, and we wonder why.

Well, I think if you can shift your pattern and start revolving all of those things around Jesus, that's where the change is going to occur.

Just like I said at the beginning, if you speak Jesus into every aspect of your life, it might seem pedantic, but just saying the word makes a difference. That's a pattern like, like if you say Jesus, whisper it under your breath, say it out loud. You know, when you're in argument with your spouse, you need to probably modulate the way that you say Jesus. But like, when I'm in an argument and you get so flooded- I don't care who started the argument, someone gets flooded at some point and you're, you're sitting here feeling like if I the next thing I'm gonna say is going to make them walk out, or the next thing that I say is going to make us continue to argue.

And I'm trying to get to bed right now because I got to get up at 5:30 in the morning.

How do like? How do I finish this combo? I don't even know how to do it. Y'all know the feeling if you're a husband or a wife.

You know the feeling I'm talking about where these emotions are building up.

You don't know what you can say if you just say- don't say it out loud out. I want to be careful on that one, because if you say Jesus, sweetie, that would be, it might not work in that context. But if you just Jes, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, help me, it's a pattern. It's small, it is a pattern.

But if you can shift patterns, you'll shift your mindset and you'll get so far in where God's calling you to go.

Jonah shifted a light pattern and you know what Jonah's going to fall back later in the text. But when he, when he went and adjusted his pattern, there was progress and the progress didn't just impact him. He, he goes and preaches, he just does it, literally doing it some average mid Bas level like terrible sermon. And verse 5 tells us that the ninevites believed God.

If you can change your habits, you never know what that will produce in you and around you.

You've got to shift. You've got to shift those. For me it gets really difficult and I don't ever want to be the person that just gives my examples. There are others I can think of, but I want to be vulnerable for a moment.

I really really struggle to shift my patterns. My pattern, one of my patterns, is to stay up late. Right, whether it's scrolling Tik Tok or watching a show or, catching up on things I didn't get done throughout the day, I'll stay up late and then I wake up a little bit later in the morning. And when I wake up a little later in the morning, my mindset is: I'm frustrated because I didn't wake up as early as I intended to, and then I'm starting off the day at a negative space, and then I revert back and those voices and other words start coming in and I find myself less and less productive throughout the day.

If so, my goal in just one area is: I'm trying to change that one thing, because if I can change that one thing, then in the morning I'm going to wake up, I'm going to actually naturally listen to the correct voices and then, as I listen to those voices, they're going to draw me closer and closer to Jesus.

I might, because I got up earlier, I'm going to open God's word. Because I open God's word, I'm going to speak nice things to my kids when they take a long time to wake up in the morning and I just want to, like, rip them out their bed or throw water on them and all, hey, son, Jesus loves you, why don't we wake up and go eat some weedies? Okay, come on, buddy, like I. It's going to change my mentality.

And then, since I was nice to my kids and I was nice to my wife, then I'm going to go to work and I'm going to be productive and I'm going to sit there.

I'm not stressed out about the thing that I said to my spouse that I shouldn't have said. I'm being productive today and you know what, since I read God's word, there's someone sitting across the way from me in the coffee shop, and God's word tells me: how are they supposed to hear unless someone brings them the word? So I'm going to go, bring them some encouragement, bring them some edifying language, shift my speech so that eventually, maybe they'll know Jesus. And then I'll continue to go through my day and I'm going to finish my work early and, since I got some extra time, I am going to do what my trainer wants me to do and go work out, and then when I work out, then I'm going, she's off, yeah.

Then when I work out, I come home, I feel great endorphins are going.

I'm sitting here, then I make a healthy dinner, not just grab something from the closet- and then, after I eat my healthy dinner, I go to bed at the normal time, because, since it was healthy, I had to make it, and then I put kids around the table and then we prayed over our meal. And all of a sudden, my family is Shifting Around Jesus, because I changed one little habit. I, I just you've got to shift them, though, and I'm talking to, to, to people who I know the Habit is to wait, to decide what you're going to do on the weekend, to see if something maybe better comes along. I, I know the Habit is to, when you go to a group of people, say: you know what I'm, I've got this insecurity and I want them to like me.

So, rather than you know, do what God's called me to do, I'm going to allow them to influence me in a way that might pull me away from God, and then again, listening to the wrong words, I could keep going and going, and going.

It is so crucial for us to shift our pattern. And the way that we shift our pattern is by what Joshua says, and I repeat it all the time: he just choose today, because our God is a God of Second Chances. You don't have to stress out about yesterday. Someone told me on Thursday I was stressed out, as was my trainer.

He told me on Thursday I was stressed out because I had been working out all week and I only see him once a week and I was like, hey, we got to talk for the first 30 minutes minutes cuz I ate wrong and I slept wrong and I didn't work out this week and I'm just tired and I don't want you to kick me out of the program.

So let's just talk about this. He looked at me and this is wisdom from him that comes straight from Scripture. Whether he knew it or not, is this? Forget about yesterday.

And Paul says this: I, this is what I do, forgetting what lies behind.

I press on to what is ahead. This is what I do, this is what we're called to do, this is how you shift your patterns. Forget about it, because you have a God who is a God of Second Chances and third chances and fourth chances and fifth chances. It doesn't really matter to God.

What matters is that you turn toward him.

And this is how we do it. We shift our patterns. And the final point that I want to give you: verse 5. Again: the ninevites believed God.

My final point is this: you've got to believe for a different result.

You got to believe for a different result when I walked in here this morning. It wasn't a surprise to me. Here's why, CU, when I woke up, I woke up thinking I wonder what is going to happen today? And so when I walked in, I didn't even know about this, but there was some stuff on the stage that I had to move and I was like man, I need to send someone some pictures of this.

It's like, but I won't, cuz I don't want to get kicked out the school.

And then, and then C is trying to do that and I'm like, yep, I knew it was going to be something. What was I believing? For? Nothing good.

I was expecting the worst.

That is not a resurrected life. That is my old life. I've been made new and I know I've been made new and I know I'll spend eternity with Christ Jesus. But my current, it still struggles.

This is what Paul struggles with.

He says: I know what to do, but my, My Flesh doesn't enable me to do it, and so, while I know what to do, I don't always do it, and I feel bad about the fact that that I don't do it. So what I've come to the conclusion of is what I've already told you here. He says this in chapter 7 of Romans, but in chapter 8 he comes in and he says: there is therefore now no condemnation. Forget it.

Forget it, it's not helpful.

Move forward and start believing for something better. He says: greater things will he do through those who followed his disciples. He will do greater things, but we've been living content with lesser things, and I just want us to be a church that isn't content with lesser. I want us to look to Jesus, start making these adjustments to who we listen to, make these adjustments to how we posture ourselves, start making these adjustments to our patterns, so that it is natural for us to believe the best about people and to believe the best about God's calling on our life.

You could say it in the form of one of our values, which I've given you two, so I might as well give you three.

One of our values is that we imagine more, and if God can do immeasurably more than we can ask, think or imagine in Christ Jesus, then why am I imagining so little for my life? We got to believe for a different result, and we all know, if you've read this, Jonah was not believing for much of a result at all. In fact, he was hoping for the opposite result. But we don't want to be like Jonah.

We want to recognize that when we wake up, you know what his mercies are new and fresh every morning, and if his mercies are new every morning, I can look for those and I can accomplish what he's called me to and I can move forward effectively.

You got to believe for it, though. You got to believe for for that different result. You know the world says that insanity is the process of doing things over and over and over and over again, expecting a different result. I think that's probably still true.

The difference is, we do that when we don't incorporate Jesus into our life, but once you incorporate Jesus, you can start practicing, like raising your kids, husbanding or wiing, even the things that you watch and interact with.

You can start practicing in a new way and simply because you spoke Jesus into your life, it's different. I need you to know like you can have a lot of similar things in your schedule, but when Jesus is at the center, it's fundamentally different and altered. That's all it takes to believe for a different result, and so my encouragement to you is: you've all been given a second chance. What does it look like for you to start or continue this, this process of being shaped and molded into God's pu, his, his good work, his Masterpiece?

And I know Jesus saved you on the cross, but he did save you for a purpose.

He created you so that you could enjoy him and you might have eternity with him. But if you're not enjoying him in the present- this is how we work on it. We start shifting the words we hear, the posture we have, the patterns we walk in and the belief systems that we have, and there are some people you've not started this process, and so I want to give you this opportunity, very briefly, to trust in Jesus for the first time. I genuinely believe he's the ingredient.

That's it.

Christ is the ingredient. It's in him that we live and move and have our being. It is in Christ that all things hold together is what Colossians tells us, and so I want to introduce you to Jesus today, and the way that we do that is by praying a prayer. It's not a magical prayer, but it's a prayer that helps us align our thoughts to God's thoughts, where we do what Romans 10 tells us: to confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord.

So if everybody would bow their heads and close their eyes, I want to pray this prayer all together, out loud, so that the people who are praying it for the first time don't feel unnecessarily uncomfortable.

So let's pray this out loud together. God, I believe God. I believe that Jes, Jesus Christ, is the Son of God. Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

I believe he died on the cross.

I believe he died on the cross and Rose from the grave, Rose from father, forgive me of my sin, father, forgive me of my sin, make me a new creation. Make me a new creation and I will follow you, and I will for the rest of my life, for the rest of life. It's in Jesus name that we pray, and God's people said: can we celebrate those who just trusted in Jesus?