01 Sep Jim Shekleton – Woonsocket | “God’s Grace in the Dark”
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WOONSOCKET PERMANENT LOCATION: As you know we have a permanent location for Woonsocket Campus – your talent is needed. If you have any experience in carpentry, HVAC, etc., let us know.
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Take a Tuesday and have you and your small group register and you can all be in the audience together!
Family Group Leaders Workshop: BACK ON FOR SEPTEMBER TEAM NIGHT! Sept 18 at 6:30p. Food, Worship and then Breakouts. Group Leaders who have family groups that are interested, please click below to register! Get some insight and share some ideas on how to manage kids in group! There is no childcare provided at Team Night so please plan accordingly.
Classes
Starting Point: What is Christianity all about? Is the Bible really more than just a book? Who is Jesus? No matter where we are in life, we all have questions. Starting Point is a great place to explore the faith and have safe and open discussions about some of life’s toughest questions.
Growth Track: One Class happens 3 Sundays a month; Discover, Deepen, & Dedicate; you will get answers to the most frequently asked questions about Waters Church and have an opportunity to ask your own. This is the perfect place to get to know the “Why” behind the “What” of who we are as a church. Takes place on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Sunday at 11:30 and is one session. You only need to attend one of these Sundays.
Baptism Class: 4th Sunday of every month at 11:30.
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Key Verse: Jonah 2:1-9
Jonah was a Prophet. The only recorded story of Jonah is one we are all familiar with, Jonah and the Fish. There must have been other things worth recording through his other experiences, but this is the one we find in the Holy Scriptures.
There are several messages related to Jonah’s story: God has a purpose for everyone; don’t try to run from God; disobedience has consequences; listening to God is better than not; God hears prayers.
Info on Nineveh
– The most important city in Assyria, 500 miles away from Israel.
– God saw their wickedness
– Nahum explains evil plots against God; exploitation of the helpless; cruelty in war; idolatry, prostitution, and witchcraft.
– Not Jewish people, Gentile people that were thought, by the Jews, to not be worthy of God’s salvation
– Roughly 600,000 people in the city; 120,000 people that don’t know their right from left (children)
– God wanted the Ninevites to have an opportunity to repent
Jonah’s Story is All About God’s Grace
1. JONAH SHOWS US THAT DISBELIEF COMES IN ALL SHAPES AND SIZES.
Q. What disbelief you have had (reconciliation is impossible, I just need to deal with this sin, etc)? When in your life, as a Christian or not, have you not believed in God?
2. JONAH SHOW US THAT GOD RESPONDS TO PRAYER AND REPENTANCE.
Jonah experiences God’s grace in the darkest time of his life – consumed with disbelief somewhere deep in the sea in a fish running from God
● Jonah prays a prayer of thanksgiving while in the darkest part of his life Jonah 2:1-9. Prayer of thanksgiving because he realizes he would have died if not for God’s grace. He realizes he too is a sinner undeserving of God’s grace.
● Jonah thought he would die in the water, he didn’t know about the fish, he didn’t ask for the fish or think there was any way he would be saved
Nineveh experiences God’s grace in the darkest time of their life
– consumed with sin and known by God for their evil.
– What did Jonah say when he got there? His second call to Nineveh says “…proclaim to it the message I give you.”
Q. What was a very dark time in your life, when God had responded to your prayers?
Breakthrough in my life begins with repentance.
Q. When have you experienced breakthrough in your life because of true repentance?
3. JONAH SHOWS US THAT WE ARE NOT IN CHARGE OF GOD’S GRACE.
Jonah was more focused on himself than on God’s Grace.
● He refused initially because he wanted Nineveh to destroyed and not forgiven. Jonah knew that God was compassionate, merciful and would forgive Nineveh if they repent. Jonah thought Nineveh deserved what was coming to them because of their wickedness/evil ways. Jonah 4:1-3
● Maybe you’re like Jonah and have thought that certain people or groups are too far gone and undeserving of God’s salvation/grace/mercy. If not, maybe you were the one that someone else thought was too far gone and undeserving.
Q. How has God’s grace in your life deepened your faith? Have you ever thought that you were (or someone else was) ‘too far gone’ or too evil to deserve God’s grace and why?
4. JONAH POINTS TO JESUS.
Jesus is the truer and better perfect Jonah.
Q. Before hearing this message, what do you remember learning about Jonah? What part of Jonah’s story sticks out in your mind sticks out the most and why?
● Jesus is the truer/better/perfect Jonah
● Lived a life others couldn’t – not everyone was a prophet in his day. Jesus lived a perfect life NOBODY could.
● Jesus NEVER refused his mission/purpose
● Jonah’s dark place was in a fish. Jesus’s dark place was buried in a tomb.
● Jonah didn’t conquer anything but Jesus conquered sin and death!
● Jonah thought he would die and was returned to earth after three days; Jesus knew he would die and was dead for three days and rose to life
● Jonah’s purpose was to share a message of salvation and repentance to a city of 600,000; Jesus’s purpose is to share a message that through Jesus there is salvation to ALL ○ Nineveh was a big bad city that was thought unworthy of God’s salvation and TOO far from God to be saved ○ The big bad WORLD that’s thought unworthy of God’s salvation and TOO far from God to be saved
Make time for prayer and fellowship and allow yourselves to end on time.
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