JONAH

Good morning.

I think if I had to ask any of us to put up our hands this morning, if we're busy watching a series or two or three, most of the hands here would go up, right? Because we like a good series.

And there are some really good series.

on Netflix or, you know, Disney Plus or Prime Video.

There are some good ones that you can recommend and then there are others that are a complete waste of time.

But the greatest series you will ever follow is a series through God's Word.

Brilliant.

Because not only are the stories in God's Word captivating...

Yeah.

But scripture, the Bible, has the power to change your life.

So series can entertain you, but a series through the Bible is life-changing through the work of the Holy Spirit.

And so that is why we've just finished our series on Paul's letter to Titus.

And this morning, our new series drops.

And it's called Jonah.

And I'm sure that when I said the word Jonah, most of you thought, oh, Jonah and the whale or Jonah and the big fish.

And that's just the thing about the book of Jonah.

Many people dismiss the story of Jonah because it sounds, it's like fictional.

It's far-fetched.

And it's fine as a children's story, but no reasonable, logical adults would actually believe that these events really happened.

Even though Jesus himself spoke about Jonah as a real person.

And he spoke about these events in the book of Jonah as real events in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.

But as we go through this series over the next few weeks, we are going to discover that the focus of Jonah is actually not on some mysterious sea creature who swallowed a man.

In fact, the fish is only mentioned in three of the verses in Jonah.

The focus of the book of Jonah is not even on Jonah himself.

It's actually on someone far greater.

And as we will see, the story is still very relevant to us almost 3,000 years later.

So before we press play on episode one of our new series, I need to warn you, especially for those of you who are not familiar with the story of Jonah, that we are going to end on a cliffhanger this morning.

You're not going to hear the whole story.

Perfect.

in one sitting, but never fear, you can go and binge read Jonah on your own, and you can find out what happens.

In fact, I encourage you to do that.

because we're gonna go on a journey together.

So why don't you go and study the book of Jonah for yourself? Don't wait for us to tell you what it's all about.

Go and find out for yourself.

And I pray and I know that as you do that, you're not only gonna be challenged, but you're gonna be profoundly changed.

And so let's go on this journey together.

And if you have your Bibles, you can open them to Jonah chapter one, verse one.

I can hear the pages turning and it might be a bit tricky to find the book of Jonah.

The best is to go to Matthew and page back.

Jonah is between the books of Obadiah and Micah.

So now you know exactly where it is because I know all of you read Obadiah on a regular basis.

So I know that hint was very helpful.

So now that we all know where Jonah is, let's read from Jonah 1, verses 1 to 2.