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Open on YouTubeDon Williamson shares how he drifted from his Christian faith in his teens and twenties before finding his way back through his wife Yuping Wei and a renewed relationship with Christ. Paul Condrell preaches on the sign of Jonah from Matthew 12, connecting the Old Testament story to themes of repentance and resurrection, and challenging the church toward cross-cultural mission and openness to all peoples.
Oh God, the battle belongs to you. And every fear I lay at your feet. I'll sing through the night. Oh God, the battle belongs to you.
And if you are for me, who can be against me? For Jesus, there's nothing impossible for you.
Though I see all the ashes, you see the beauty. When all I see is a cross, God, you see the empty tomb. So when I fight, I'll fight on my knees with my hands lifted high. Oh God, the battle belongs to you. Every fear I lay at your feet. I'll sing through the night. Oh God, the battle belongs to you. Almighty Fortress.
You go before us.
Nothing can stand against the power of our God. You shine in the shadows. You win every battle. Nothing can stand against the power of our God. Almighty Fortress, you go before us. Nothing can stand against the power of our God.
Our God.
You shine in the shadows, you win every battle. Nothing can stand against the power of our God. Almighty Fortress, you go before us. Nothing can stand against the power of our God. You shine in the shadows, you win every battle. Nothing can stand against the power of our God. Nothing can stand against the power of our God. So when I fight, I'll fight on my knees with my hands lifted high. Oh God, the battle belongs to you. And every fear I lay at your feet. I'll sing through the night. Oh God, the battle belongs to you. Oh God, the battle belongs to you.
His hands, his feet, my Savior on that curséd tree. His body bound and drenched in tears, they laid him down in Joseph's tomb. The entrance sealed by heavy In these stones Messiah stepped and all alone.
Sing, oh praise.
Oh praise the name of the Lord our God. Oh praise his name forevermore. For endless days we will sing your praise. Oh Lord, oh Lord our God.
Then on the third, at break of dawn, the sun of a—
then rose again. Oh dreadful death, where is your sting? The angels rose For Christ the King. We sing all praise. Oh, praise the name of the Lord our God. Oh, praise his name forevermore. For endless days we will sing all praise. Oh Lord, oh Lord our God.
He shall return in robes of white.
The blazing sun shall pierce the night, and I will rise among the saints.
My gaze transfixed On Jesus' face he shall, he shall return in robes of white.
The blazing sun shall pierce the night, and I will rise among the saints. My gaze rests fixed on Jesus' face. Yeah, you sing, come on, oh praise. Oh praise the name of the Lord our God. Oh praise his name forevermore. For endless days we will sing your praise, oh Lord. Oh Lord our God. Oh praise the name of the Lord our God. Oh, praise his name forevermore.
Forevermore.
For endless days we will sing your praise, O Lord. O Lord our God. One more time, oh, praise. Oh, praise the name of the Lord our God. Oh, praise his name forevermore. For endless days we will sing your praise. Oh Lord, oh Lord, our God. Oh Lord, oh Lord, our God. Oh Lord, oh Lord, our God.
And should I stumble again, still I'm caught in your grace everlasting. Your light will shine when all else fades, never-ending. Your glory goes beyond all fame. Your will above all else, my purpose remains. The art of losing myself in bringing you praise. Everlasting, your light will shine. When all else fades, never-ending, your glory goes beyond all fame.
Hey!
My heart and my soul, I give you control.
Consume me from the inside out, Lord. Let justice and praise become my embrace to love you from the inside out. —in all else fades, never-ending. Your glory goes beyond all fame.
Hey, my heart and my soul, I give you control.
Consume me from the inside out, Lord.
Let justice embrace, become my embrace. To love from the inside out. Everlasting, your light will shine. We know hell's fate never ending. Your glory goes beyond all fame. And the cry of my heart is to bring you praise. For me, inside out, oh, my soul cries out.
In my heart, in my soul, I give you control. Consume me from the inside out, Lord.
Let justice and grace become my embrace to love you from the inside out. Everlasting, your light will shine.
We know.
His faith never-ending, your glory goes beyond all fame. And the cry of my heart is to bring you praise. From me, sign out on my soul, Christ is everlasting, your love will shine. We love. Hail, faith never-ending, your glory goes beyond all fame. And the cry of my heart is to bring you praise from me. Side out on my soul, cries out for me. Side out on my soul, cries out.
Let's bow our heads in prayer. Lord, we thank you for your presence this morning. We thank you for your gracious kindness that gave us another morning, one that we weren't promised, Lord. So let us rise each and every morning, whether we're here or not, in person or online, wherever we we are. Help us to give us— give you thanks, knowing that each breath, each moment is a gift from you. And Lord, even when those moments feel painful, even when those moments feel like they take all that we have just to get a breath out, just to take a deep breath in, Lord, we know that you're still faithful. We know that you're still with us. You're still present and you're still guiding us even when we don't feel it, even when we don't recognize it. Lord, you're just that faithful, that when we're not faithful, when we're not present, when we're not focused on giving you glory, you're still there. You still love us. So Lord, we thank you for that. We thank you for that this morning. We pray that it wouldn't just be a thought in our minds, that your love would be your presence, your love would be tangible to us. And Lord, we, we need that because ultimately we can't live on our own. We can't live out of our own strength. We need your love. We need your presence. We need your guiding. We need you to fill us. And Lord, we pray that you would fill us to overflowing, that we will be able to come here to serve, to worship you. But then even more importantly, holy to be able to leave these walls and to continue doing the same. Lord, we thank you because you're so good that you empower us to do these things. So Lord, be with us this morning. We thank you again, you've given us this time. Would you help us to make the most of it? And would you bless those that are speaking and serving this morning in the message, in the sharing? We thank you, in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Oh, before you're seated— sorry— we'll be doing a time of welcome. So you can just greet the people around you for a few minutes.
Alright, alright, thank you so much everybody for greeting one another. And we, so let's go on and sit down and move on with our worship service. Alright, so So my name's Don Williamson, and I was asked by Pastor Paul to do some personal sharing today. I have a title for it, I have a PowerPoint slide, but there's two titles for it. There's "Prone to Wander," and then the second one is "Where There's a Will, There's a Way," and I'll explain those as we go along. Now, about 3 weeks ago, I did the call to worship, and if I can make this thing work— is it on? Oh, there we go. Alright. And as I mentioned, I grew up in Illinois. And pretty much if you look at the map there, from Chicago on south is all farm ground. Just all farm ground. Covered in fields and crops and things like that. Now— oop. If I can make it work. There we go. So I grew up in a Christian family. I grew up in a Christian household. Very much typical Christian family. I went to church regularly, every Sunday, even Wednesday nights and Sunday evenings a lot of times. And I believed in God and in Jesus. And that was pretty typical for, you know, the Midwest and during my time period, the '70s, '80s, '90s and things like that. Pretty much if you went around and asked people, they would identify themselves as being a Christian. Christian. In fact, if somebody were looking from outside the country into the U.S., pretty much the idea is that everybody in the United States is Christian. And this pretty much describes what they are. They grew up in a Christian family, of course. They went to church regularly and they believed in Jesus and God. And that was pretty much what people looked like. But as I grew older and got into my teens and especially into my, uh, 20s, There was no conviction over my sin. I knew I was a sinner, but I was not convicted about it. There was no confession or repentance. I mean, why would there if I wasn't convicted about my sin? And then there was no commitment to God through His Son. And you would think that, you know, with all this Christian upbringing, and my father was a pastor, that I would have had all those things. But I didn't. I lacked them very much. And so Christianity was basically just a characteristic. It was a descriptor. It was not a way of my life. Now, I got a question. I'm going to ask some of the youth here. I got a question for the youth out there. What is— before we go on the next slide— what is the shortest distance between two points? Line. Alright, straight line, very good, that's very good. That's right, a straight line. And that pretty much kind of sums up what it should be like for the Christian walk. There's you and there's God and it should be a straight line from one point to the other, but usually it's not. A lot of times what it looks like is this. There's a lot of off-ramps, there's a lot of on-ramps, there's construction going on, there's detours, there's rest stops, and it doesn't really ever seem like it's really straight. It should be. There's us and there's God and He calls us to Him, but it doesn't look like that most of the time. It wasn't in my 20s most definitely. Most definitely. And Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah talked about this. And I'll get to that in a moment, but one of the things that comes out of, piece of wisdom that comes out of Proverbs is that it says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and with all your and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. Now if you just read the highlighted part there, trust in the Lord and he will make your paths straight, that sounds pretty good. But you've got to read it all together because a lot of times we do lean on our own understanding. We lean on our own judgment as to how we should run our lives and what we should be doing with our lives. And that word of wisdom there tells us not to do that, to trust in God in all our ways. And that's really hard. All is a big big word even though it's only 3 letters. Because it says all, it doesn't say some. And so what happens is if you do that, it makes your, the road straight and a little bit easier to travel. Now I think that, you know, praise songs and worship kind of help us lead us back to God. And when I said that part of my message was titled Prone to Wanting, Prone to wander. There is a hymn out there. Oh, I clicked it too many times. But it says, "Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love." And every time I hear about that, I go back to those times when I did wander from God. And we've sung this here in the church. We've sung it here. Jonathan's sung it. I think Kevin's sung it. We've sung it down when we've done combined service. And that really speaks to me. We're prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Love. Isaiah talked about that too when he talked about Christ. He said, "We all like sheep have gone astray. Each of us have turned to our own way. The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." And that was Isaiah speaking to us over 2,500 years ago, and it still speaks to us today because we are like that. We all wander away from the Lord. Now there's another prophet out of the Old Testament that also wandered. And we'll talk about him later on in the message indirectly. But does anybody know of any Old Testament prophet that wandered away from God or tried to run away from God? What? Oh, Jonah. Okay, I heard it. Jonah. All right. So Jonah, the whale in the way. So we know the story about Jonah. I'm not going to go over it. It's a really popular story. Even little children know about it. About it. And as we know, Jonah ran away, wandered away from God, and God sent a whale to him to bring him back to the way, to provide a way back to the Lord. Now, as I said, I wandered in my youth, I wandered in my 20s. And one of the things that when we were singing here, when I first came in, the worship worship group team was practicing. And one of the songs they practiced but they weren't— wasn't part of the worship was a song that says that I called and you answered. So while I was wandering around, I had hardened myself to hearing God, to seeing God, into feeling God in my heart. I'd hardened myself to that. But at the same time, even though I had done this willingly and of my own free choice, I was still calling out to God. It says, "I called out and you answered." That's one of the songs that we've sung here before. And then even in the songs that we did today, the very last one, part of the one, the chorus is there, was, uh, from the inside out my soul cries out. And even though I chose to wander away from God, my soul was crying out. It speaks to this in Romans and Paul in chapter 8 when Paul writes about it, how our soul, our spirit cries out sometimes even though we don't know that we need that to be connected back to God. So And that's what happened. I was calling out to God even though I might not have realized it. In fact, I was probably denying that I was. But God once again heard me even though I wasn't maybe speaking it. And He answered. So how did He answer? He did answer me and He did provide a way. It was not a well though. What it was is He sent a young, beautiful international Chinese student to me. And her name was Yuping Wei. So he sent a Wei to me to provide me a way back. Yeah, I know. Play on words. A play on words, but a nice one. But yes, so— and what— and the interesting part is that I met her when I was in university. I met her in the fall of 2007. 2002, but in the spring of 2003, we started dating. And the day that we started dating was International Women's Day, which was celebrated yesterday here at the church with the ladies brunch. So it's kind of like an anniversary for us. Every time we talk about our International Women's Day comes around, we talk about that's how we started dating 22 years ago. So my wife was a graduate student, and if you— for a lot of you out there who have come from China and study here in the US, one of the things that you see or you— that happens when you do come to a university campus is that there are other previous Chinese on campus. And a lot of times they'll reach out to the new incoming students, international students. And the ones that reached out to my wife wife were Christians. She was embraced by loving, caring, and very spiritually powerful Chinese female students and researchers and professors when she got here. And they were telling her about the gospel and ministering to her on a daily basis. And as we started to grow in our relationship, her knowing that I grew up in a Christian family, also her perception that everybody here in the United States is Christian, her perception was that I should know everything about Christianity and could answer all her questions. I really totally destroyed her expectations because I did not. But as we came together as a couple and what that did, and I started attending a church with her, an international campus church with her, to spend time with her, that was my own self selfish desire, it forced me to come back into a connection with God. So that in the September— unless you can see it there, maybe it's too dark there, but I was really young, we looked really young there. I don't look that way now. That was 22 years ago. That was in September of 2003, and that is right around the time that I proposed to my to my wife, or my future wife there at my parents' house. And within 3 months we had married. We got married on December 20th, 2003. Remember, we only started dating back in March of that same year. And that was our first Christmas. We got married on the 20th, we celebrated Christmas on the 25th. And we were so poor, we were college students, we were so poor we couldn't afford a tree, so I made her one out of construction paper. And I don't know where I got Patrick at from SpongeBob, but yeah, we still have Patrick somewhere in a box. But anyway, so what happened with this is that I was crying out to God. I might not have realized it. I was lost in my sin. I was wandering in a desert of denial. I was lonely. Lonely. Didn't think I was. I felt empty inside. I didn't recognize it. I was lying to myself. And a lot of times we do, we lie to ourselves. We say we're doing alright when really we're not. And that's when our spirit cries out to God. Now, when we, uh, when I look about at that time, It's very special to me because at the time I didn't realize that God was doing this. It's only after and later on as I got back into the scripture, got back into a presence of God, that I realized that God was looking out for me. So in summary, and I want to kind of, oh, you know, the second part of the title was, well, there's a will and there's a way. That's what that middle picture is. There's a Don Williamson. And there's a Yuping way, so there's a wheel and a way there. Yeah. I got more as we close up here. I can't go on too long or else Roger will come up and start playing the piano to tell me, kick me off the stage. But in summary, what I want you to get out of this is that we are prone to wander. All of us, it's a human nature for us to wander away from God. Is. It's a consequence of Adam's sin. And part of that consequence is we get to become separated from God. And that separation leads us to feel empty inside, to want things that we think will fill us up, but they don't. And we're talking Let's talk about where there's a will. God wants us to be with Him. It is His will. There's a will. There's God's will. He wants us to be with Him. That is His will for us to come to Him. And knowing that, we also know that He will always provide a way. Maybe He will send a whale for you. There are no whales in Illinois. Maybe He'll send it some other way. It works for, you know, it's different things for different people. People. I think I got the better part of it. I'm glad he didn't send a whale. I'm glad he sent my wife. But he always pried a way back to him. And just the last part here. You can never wander too far or for too long from God. He will always find you. And the last thing I would like to say is that my wife didn't save me, but God sent her to send me back to the one who could. Thank you for listening to my sharing.
Let us read God's words together. Please rise. This from Matthew chapter 12, verses 38 to 41. 38. Then some of the teachers of the law said to him, "Teacher, we want to see a sign from you." He answered, "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but it will not accept the sign of the prophets." So, as the young man was 3 days anchored in the belly of a huge fish, So the Son of Man will be there 3 days and 3 nights in the heart of the earth. Men of the Near East will stand up for the judgment with him seriously and will condemn it. And now something greater than that. He will say, when evening comes, he will say, "It will be fair." And in the morning today, it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast. You know how to interpret the scary sounds, but you cannot interpret the signs. The wicked and adulterous look for a sign, but none will be given.
Thank you, Michael, and thank you, Don. The last time I was here a couple weeks ago, I shared about parables and how it's a very powerful way for God to speak to us, and the parable penetrates to our hearts. Our heart, and it forces us to interpret. And we look, for example, at the parable of the sower, and we saw how God is sowing the same seed, good seed, all over the place very generously. And there's nothing wrong with the seed, but when the seed falls in different kinds of soil, it ends up getting a different kind of reaction or a different kind of fruit. And so forced us to ask ourselves, ask yourselves, what kind of soil are we? Or as Don was sharing, he had the soft part of his life and then he had the hard part of his life where he wasn't— the seed was not bearing fruit. Well, to illustrate this point, I wanted to get a picture from our very own congregation elders and deacons meeting. And so here it is. And you can see in the faces— this is like the elders and deacons the time of Jesus. And they are— had heard the parable about the soil, and they didn't like that one very much. They said, "There's nothing wrong with us. We're the boss around here. We're the leaders. We're the ones entrusted with the interpretation of the Word. So you show us a sign. Something's wrong with you. You show us a miracle, and then we'll believe you." And who does that remind you of? Remember when Jesus met the devil in the wilderness and he says, "If you're the Son of God, show me a miracle." So they're really almost repeating the same sentiment as the very devil himself. But Jesus doesn't engage them. He just throws out this thing called "sign of Jonah." Go look at the sign of Jonah. That's all I'm going to say about that. Now remember, we just read He said, "What was the sign of Jonah?" And he mentions two aspects. One is that Jonah was in the heart of the belly for three days and three nights, so will I be. Well, what's so special about that if Jesus was going to be in the grave for three days and three nights? But it was obviously the resurrection that was coming that would be a sign to that generation that Jesus was indeed the Lord. And then he also mentions the repentance of the Ninevites. So I'm just imagining that those elders and deacons said, "Okay, we heard about the sign of Jonah. Now go home and we'll have another meeting tomorrow and we'll discuss it." And we read last time, 2 weeks ago, about Psalm 1 and how God asks us to meditate on his word. So I'm trying to imagine what the Pharisees and elders were thinking thinking about when they were meditating on the word. So the first thing, because Jesus had mentioned the 3 days and 3 nights, they would have gone on to think, well, what happened after Jonah was in the belly's— belly— after Jonah was in the fish's belly? It wasn't a whale necessarily, right? When he's in the fish's belly for 3 days and 3 nights, then what happened? Well, we know that this fish spit Jonah up, spit him out on the shore safe. So we know— so then we can imagine that they're thinking, oh, there's going to be this resurrection of the Messiah, and that will be the sign. And so indeed, Gina, Jesus is saying with the sign of Jonah that he will be like— that this will be a much bigger miracle than you've ever seen, bigger than healings and bigger than anything he did was when he was raised from the dead. And so they're going to ask themselves, can we believe that that is true? It also— we know that when, when Jonah is in the belly of the fish, he prays and he calls out to God, as Don was saying. And so then it's up to the elders and the deacons, that is the Pharisees, to decide, are they going to imitate Jonah in that way and cry out to God. As they're thinking about the story of Jonah, they might have also gone on to remember what led up to him being in the, in the belly of the fish in the first place. And that is from Jonah chapter 1. And I'm sure all of you remember this part about the fish, but you also probably remember how Jonah had been in a boat running away from God, and a big storm had come up. And during the storm the sailors are afraid and asked Jonah, hey, what, what's going on? And Jonah said, look, if you will throw me overboard, you will survive. And the sailors didn't like that answer. So Jonah's offering them willingly that he'll be thrown out. And in this way we see them— when Jesus says it's the sign of Jonah, he's also showing how in a way that Jonah offering his life for the sailors is like Jesus offering his life for us. Do you see what I'm saying? In other words, Jonah is a parable, and we looked at parables when Jesus says, "This is a parable." But we can also look at stories in the Old Testament as if they are parables. And if we look at Jonah as a parable and we see, okay, the soldiers— the sailors are on the boat. As soon as they throw Jonah off, what happens? The sea is calm, and indeed they are— they're saved by Jonah being thrown over. But it's real interesting when we watch how when he first offers to be thrown over, they say, "No, no, no, we'll keep rowing." They want to save themselves. They don't want Jonah's help. But finally they give up because they just can't do it. So we see the sign of Jonah then is not just being in the fish, but being raised from the dead, and also that he's willing willing to give himself up. Now when they're thinking about, again, about the story of Jonah, as Jesus had mentioned, there's this repentance among the Ninevites. And this is a picture of how when they heard the word, these Ninevites who weren't even Israelites, heard a very short sermon that Jonah said, "After 40 days your city is going to be turned upside down." They believed. And it says that God repented and decided not to overthrow the city after all. The whole city was converted. And so this also is a sign to, to the men, to the Pharisees that, look, these non-believers all believed, but here I am preaching and you are not believing it. So he said that you will be convicted by the actions of the Ninevites in this sign of Jonah. So now the elders are thinking that if they're considering this, they're saying, "Wow, there's a real contrast between the Ninevites, their attitude, and our attitude." And then finally in the 4th chapter of Jonah, which I don't know if you remember this part of the story, but after the Ninevites repented, is Jonah happy that his preaching was so successful? He's not happy, and he goes up on a hill to look over the city, hoping that God will still rain down judgment on the city in the 40 days. And the reason for this is, if you haven't looked at the history, that this country around Nineveh called Assyria are the very people who are going to invade Israel just a few years, few decades later. And he knew that they were their mortal enemy. Enemies. He didn't want God helping their enemies. So it's like today, we— who is the enemy of the United States? We probably think, you know, Russia is our enemy. So it'd be like God coming and helping Russia. Don't help Russia because that, that's bad for us, right? So we wouldn't want them to help, wouldn't want him to help Russia. So here God is helping the enemies of Israel, and so Jonah is big mad about it. And so he's going to sit on the mountain and he's going to look down and he's going to wait for God to bring judgment on. And he has 40 days to wait. But then God says, why are you so angry? You shouldn't be angry. And I don't want to retell the whole story of Jonah, but if you're thinking of what does the sign of Jonah mean, it's not just the 3 days and 3 nights and not just the repentance of the Ninevites, but it's the whole story of Jonah. Parable that we can think about what does it mean. And if the Pharisees are thinking about this part of the story, it'd be like this laser pointer. It's like, what happens if you're walking down the street and you see a red dot like this on your— around your heart? What does that mean? This means you've been targeted, right? Like in the movie, there's somebody that's got a rifle with a laser pointer, and that means they're about to shoot you. And so I'm imagining that the elders of— excuse me, the Pharisees are listening to the story of Jesus, are thinking about the sign of Jonah, and they say, wait a minute, we're like the angry— kind of like the bad guys. It's about us. It's about these proud Israelites who have been given— indeed, they're running God's church, they're God's people, and yet they're angry about about God's mercy. God is being too merciful. Now we just read when Jesus says that there's going to be a judgment and in the judgment these Ninevites are going to be your witness, they're going to be witnesses against you. And so I'm going to ask the question, what judgment is he talking about? And indeed there is a— you all know that Jesus cried, right? There was one story where Jesus Jesus wept when he looked at Lazarus in the tomb. But there's another time that he cried, which is just when he's on Palm Sunday after everyone said, "Hosanna, Hosanna." And he's on his way into the city and he cries. He weeps because he knows that Jerusalem is about to be destroyed and is going to be judged. I have a picture of it here. He knows that that's coming. Coming. And that's why he's crying about it. And he's telling the— he told these— he said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, don't cry for me," because people on the way to the cross, they were crying for him. He said, "You should be crying for yourselves because this is the judgment that is coming." And indeed, now we don't see this in the Bible itself. This happened in the year 70 AD. The Bible is written and just before that. So if you look, for example, at the Book of Acts, it all ends before this. But we know that from history that indeed Jerusalem was burned down just a few years, about 40 years after Jesus spoke about the judgment. So instead of 40 days waiting for the judgment of Nineveh, it was 40 years. And indeed the judgment came on Jerusalem. So what is this? How does this apply to us? Because although we kind of made a joke that, you know, our elders and deacons look like Pharisees, well, we're not really. We, we are God's people now. So it used to be the Israelites were the chosen people, and now some of them believed and they merged with believing Greeks, and now the church is the new Israel. So how are we to take the sign of Jonah because we don't have Assyrians and Israelites. It says in Christ there's no more Jew or Gentile, no male or female, no bond or free. So what is the application? So I, I, I'm reminded of how Jesus also— there's this quote where he says, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. We don't want to have the spirit of the Pharisees or the hard-heartedness of the the Pharisees. So even in a church or even in ourselves from year to year, from time to time, we could still be prone to wander, as Don would have said, back into that kind of attitude where all the men are standing around looking at Jesus with their hands on their hips, very hard soil. Or we could have the attitude of the Ninevites. Now this would never happen in our our church. Right, Xiang? We don't have these hard-hearted people in our— it's the church down the street. So just want to make sure you don't get the wrong— don't get it back to the elders that I compare them to the Pharisees. It's the church down there. But then we can also see this is like another layer of looking also at the last parable of the hard-heartedness or the good soil. It comes and goes. It could be right here in our midst. So it gives us a pretty clear idea of how we can apply this. But we know also that the battle that we're now having, the so-called spiritual battle, this is in our mind, in our heart. And it plays itself out all during the day, perhaps first thing when we wake up in the morning, last thing before we go to sleep. We have this light and dark, the struggle. We know Usually we have a pretty good idea of what the right thing is to do or to think, but we don't always do it. And so we're wrestling with it. And we could be our own worst enemy sometimes. But we have the good examples of guys like David and bad example, guy like Saul. A good example like Abel, bad example is Cain. So we have all the— the whole word is filled with these examples that we can bring to mind and then decide what are we going to do. Because do we face judgment? Is Wilmington going to be overturned in 40 days or 40 years? Maybe not the whole city, but guess what? I'm gonna be under the ground. I don't know about you. I'm gonna be in the belly of the grave for a lot longer than 3 days and 3 3 nights. This is a picture of my grandfather's gravestone. His name was also Paul. And so I've been there to check it out. So this is really, for me, this is like my last chance between now and then that I have while I'm going through that struggle, this struggle that I mentioned. So this is how one of the ways that I apply apply the story of Jonah is to look at how Jonah was willing to have himself thrown overboard to save the other guys on the sail— on the other sailors. Now, is that the kind of attitude I would have? Would I be willing to make sacrifice for people around me? That's why I'm putting like these 4 aspects of the sign of Jonah are still relevant for me. So the first is making sacrifices, and then the second, and I'm willing to trust Am I willing to trust that God has my back, that he's going to raise me from the dead, that I'm safe, that even in death I don't have to be afraid of it? And thirdly, am I going to keep this kind of attitude through my life, to be open-minded towards God's word and be good soil and not entangled with the worries of the world? And finally, am I going Am I going to accept other people, even my enemies, love my enemies, or I'm going to be angry and judge them all the time? So we can see how this story really is not just for Pharisees, it's for us and still relevant. But then there's another application, not just for me as an individual, you as an individual, but for us and our church as a group. Are we going to absorb this, you know, let the sign of Jonah also instruct us in how we go about our church life. And for example, do we teach that the death of Jesus made a difference? That it was— that we were on the boat, or we are on the boat, and it's only— we can't row ourselves out of the storm, but that Jesus said, okay, throw me over And so as a group, we accept and we teach that yes, it's the life of Jesus and his sacrifice that paves the way for us to be able to have hope of resurrection. And do we teach and model how having been raised— he's raised from the dead, that gives us hope of being raised. So we live differently now. And that's what our church has the responsibility or the privilege to do, to model the transformation like Jonah did before and after. And third, do we repent? Now, a lot of times we think of repentance like a one-off deal, like when I first came to the Lord I repented, but it's, it's not. It's like on a daily basis, or every time we step over the line, we have an opportunity to do that. And so we kind of encourage each other within the church when we see, or we see like Don's testimony or anyone's testimony about how they came back and what was it that led them to come back. And so we model that as a church. And finally, we want to model as a church not— we want to not model that, the anger. And that's one of the distinctives of our church is being cross-cultural is that if any Native Arabites out there, Assyrians, Iranians, Iraqis. If you were, we are going to welcome you, right? Are we going to say, "No Assyrians allowed and Ninevites go that way. Go to the Mandarin service. Don't come to our service." No, of course not. We have open arms regardless of nationality. So that is one way that we model. But guess what? How much time do we have. Is this, you know, this is like the gravesite of our church? No, only the church down the street. It doesn't have to be like this, right? We hope not. Now, a lot of you have heard of the Bible Project, right? And the guy that runs it, or one of the main guys, is called Tim Mackie. And I listened to him recently about what he had to say about Jonah Jonah. And he said the story of Jonah is about our worst tendencies. For those people who are God's chosen, they have these— can have these tendencies. And it's all about— that's what Jonah is about. He said it was for them, it was the chosen people, the Jews, but now it's for us. And so he says, he said, and I'm quoting now, we can become like the Pharisees with pride Pride, hard-heartedness, judgmentalism, tribalism, small-mindedness, inability to grow and change and let God's grace do its work, forgetting where we came from and forgetting our mission. When we think, "I'm doing God's work, so if someone opposes us, they must be opposing God," that's a modern-day Pharisee. And so the gospel's full of warnings against But it doesn't have to be that way. And this is why I call our churches cross-cultural but also cross-generational because we're thinking forward to the next generation. And with each generation we have new problems but also new ways to solve them. That little picture there is a diagram of the life cycle of a church. It kind of could go up, it could die, but it doesn't die because because it gets renewed. It gets renewed. So I just pray that our— we can remember these images of the sign of Jonah and it will be relevant for us even today. Let us pray. Father, we have your word day by day and week by week to take it in, to be transformed and to be challenged. It is a challenge. So Father, I just ask you for strength and wisdom for people to hold close to your word and to trust in your Spirit, to feel the benefits, to see them in each other, and to enjoy them together. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Oh, very loud. Could you all please rise and join us for worship? So this is actually the song that, um, Don mentioned at the beginning.
Falling on— falling on my knees in worship, giving all I am to seek your face. Lo, lo, I am is yours. My whole life I place in your hands, God of mercy. Oh, would I bow down in your presence. I was in such a room, and I called, you answered, and you came to my rescue. And I, I wanna be where you are.
You are my whole life. My whole life I place in your hands, God of mercy. Humboldt, I bow down in your presence, at your throne.
I called, I called you, and sir, and you came to my rescue, and I, I want I wanna be where you are. And I called you, Sir, and you came to my rescue, and I, I wanna be where you are. Oh, sing in my life.
In my life. Be lifted high now! Be lifted high now! Be lifted high— High oh, high oh! In my life be lifted high. Our world. Be lifted high in our love. Be lifted high.
One more time, I.
In my life. Be lifted high in our world. Be lifted high. Up, be lifted high.
And I called, you answered, and you came to my rescue. And I, I want to be be where you are.
Oh, I called, I called, you answered, and you came to my rescue.
And I, I just want to be where You are home.
You may be seated.
Who is Jesus? Jesus is the Son of God. He came to earth for us and died on the cross to wash away our sins. More importantly, Jesus defeated death and he resurrected 3 days later. What? Jesus rose from the dead? Yes, Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah, the Savior of the world, and our best friend. Oh, so that's the reason we should tell the story about Jesus. Psalm 3:16. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
I love to tell the story of bountiful things above, of Jesus in his glory, of Jesus in his love. I love I love to tell the story because I know it's true. It satisfies my longing as nothing else can do. I love to tell the story. It will be my theme and— to tell the oral story of Jesus and his life. Tell me of Jesus, a story so dear. Tell me of Jesus, who always is near. Tell me a story of grace from above, of Jesus, our Savior, and his ending life. I love to tell the story of grace from above, of Jesus our Savior and his unending love. I love to tell the story, it will be my theme in life. —glory to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love.
All right, we just have a few announcements. Um, for any further details on our announcements, please do look to our website, w— or sorry, em.wcec.church. Next slide. So do we have any, uh, new visitors today? We would have a gift for you. No one today. Okay, next slide. So Um, just a few things this, uh, week. So, uh, we would ask for the youth to help us with set up any chairs or tables down the fellowship hall after the service, um, after the Mandarin service. Momco is at 6 PM on March 11th, and Salt and Light Fellowship will again be on March 29th at 4 PM here in the chap— in the lounge. And then we have one more. Next slide. So the Honduras trip will be coming up this summer, and if you have interest in this trip, please contact Alex. Alex, would you stand up? He has his contact information up there. So it's 8 days, there's the cost per person, and you would be responsible for your own airline ticket. It is a wonderful time, as he has testified before at previous trips he's gone on. So a great opportunity to serve and actually learn how that serving is. All right, please. Yes.
For the youth, you do it before the Mandarin service. So right after that— Okay, sorry.
Yeah. Go downstairs and put up the table. My fault. All right, please rise for the doxology.
Now the benediction from Psalm 23. May the Lord shepherd you, and may you lie down in green pastures. May he restore your soul. May he lead you in paths of righteousness and be with you and comfort you. May he anoint your heads with oil, bestow his goodness and mercy on you all the days of your life. Thank you for being here today. Dismissed.
