salvation yahweh

I'm going to read from Jonah chapter 2, just verses 8 and 9. Those who regard worthless idols forsake their loving kindness. But as for me, I will sacrifice to you with the voice of thanksgiving that which I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to Yahweh. You may be seated. Ever since I decided to preach through the book of Jonah, I've been looking forward to getting to Jonah 2, verse 9.

It is one of the most well-known verses, I think, maybe in all of Scripture, particularly with the Reformed crowd, when you meet somebody who claims to be a non-Calvinist or somebody that doesn't believe the doctrines of grace, one of the easiest things to do is quote Jonah 2.9, salvation is of the Lord or salvation belongs to Yahweh. In the original language, there's actually only two words there, salvation and Yahweh. And so there's ways that the vowels are moved around or the letters are moved around.

There wasn't vowels so much. And the grammarians have figured out, you know, what case the words are. And that's where they get the belongs to or salvation is of God. but Jonah is making a proclamation here and I want to point out just briefly if you turn to Psalms chapter 3 that once again Jonah appears to be quoting scripture that he would have had committed to his heart Psalms chapter 3 he says we'll just start in verse 7 arise oh Yahweh save me oh my God for you have struck all my enemies on the cheek you have shattered the teeth of the wicked he says salvation belongs to Yahweh your blessing be upon your people it certainly smacks of the same concept salvation belongs to Yahweh, salvation is of Yahweh in Romans chapter 11.

So we're going to do things a little bit backwards today. We're just going to look at verse 9, but we're actually going to look at the last phrase of verse 9. Salvation belongs to Yahweh. And then we're going to look at the phrase that comes before that. But as for me, I will sacrifice to you with the voice of thanksgiving that which I have vowed I will pay. and I'm going to make the case that the beginning of verse 9 is the practical application of the truth of the end of verse 9.

Let me do a little play on words that might help you remember this sermon. I've been told that if I had some points and maybe outlines that that might help people out once in a while and you're certainly welcome to jot down as I speak You can make your own outline if that's helpful to you. But sometimes there's a little more structure. And in Romans 11.36, some of you will have this verse memorized.

If you don't, it would be a good one. So like if you're a little guy like Ezra. Is there an Ezra in here? Is there a guy named Ezra? A good verse to memorize would be Romans 11.36. Do you want me to tell you what it says?

It says, using a little bit of a different meaning of the word from than what is meant in Romans 11. So I'm not trying to say Romans 11 is saying the same thing as what I'm saying right now. But it's that salvation is from God. Now, it comes from God, I think, is actually the concept in Romans 11, 36, that from him everything comes. But what I want to share with you today, what I want to proclaim to you is salvation is actually from God, meaning you're saved from the wrath of God.

And that's important. So turn to John chapter three. We'll just look at some verses here to prove each point. We're not going to go in depth as a confessionally reformed church. we already have all assented to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith that is utterly, what we'll say for lack of a better term, it's Calvinistic. You know, he was a Presbyterian, so he certainly wouldn't have signed it.

But the salvation doctrine in the London Baptist Confession of Faith would be the same as the Westminster. And the idea is that God is the one who saves. God is the one who originates salvation. God is the effective working power in anyone's salvation. As Jeremy told us before we began our part of the worship, when we were being called to worship, if you're dead, oh no, you said that as part of chapter 9, I'm sorry, so it was after we started, but if you're dead, you can't do anything.

So if you believe you dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked following the prince of the power of the air before you were made alive quickened as it says in Ephesians 2 then you have to assent to the fact that something outside of you had to be the power that saved you. And that thing outside of you either had to be some other created thing, so it was the preacher, or it was your mom, or it was your dad, or it was the evangelist, or you have to give credit where credit is due, which is that it's God who makes people alive. it's God who makes people born again. And it's the result of being born again that you believe the gospel and are saved.

You don't believe the gospel, and then as the result, God responds by making you born again. You're not the active agent. You're not the initiating agent of all these things. But so salvation is from God. Look at John 3.36. So I said all that to tell you, if we finish and you think, Well, I want to go way deeper.

Let me know. Because simply talking about the doctrines of grace, we could, you know, just five sermons right there. If you do the total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement or definite atonement, effectual calling and perseverance of the saints. So we could do five weeks just on the five points of tulip if we wanted. But salvation is from God.

In John 3.36 we're told, He who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son will not see life. And in my version it says, but the wrath of God abides on him. The default position of any sinner is that the wrath of God already remains upon you. From the moment that Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden, all those who are in Adam in the covenant of works are also seen by God as sinners.

And God's wrath abides on sin. If you go back just a few verses to John 3, 16, we have, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. And then if you continue, for God did not send the son into the world to judge the world. Well, that sounds nice. He didn't send him in here to judge.

But that the world might be saved through him. Well, that sounds really great. Right. Non-judgmental. Just Jesus is all about salvation. But keep reading.

He who believes in him is not judged, but he who does not believe has been judged already. In some of your versions, I think it says condemned. he's been condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. The default position of any sinner in Adam from the moment of your conception is that you are, in fact, under the condemnation and wrath of God.

You cannot escape it through any means other than the salvation, the provision provided by God through Jesus Christ. so in order for you to be saved at all you need to be saved from god you need to be saved from god's wrath turn over a few pages over to romans chapter 1 i guess turn to the right in your bible since we were in john just to prove once again for you that this is what we are saved from Romans 1, 18. God's wrath is revealed from heaven, it says here. This is actually a case for the natural theology that says, we don't even need the Bible to be aware that we're condemned.

This is why people invent religions all over the world, because everybody wants their sin expiated. Everybody has a sense that they're under God's wrath because it's clear from nature. It's why we invent psychotherapy to make us feel better about our sin. It's why there's different religious practices all around the world. And every religious practice that people come up with on their own, as well meaning, I guess you could say it is to some extent, because if people legitimately feel guilty for sin, that's a good thing. when the object of their faith is not the Lord Jesus Christ himself, they're always going to invent some other mechanism by which they're going to be saved.

And it's always going to result in something other than God being their means of salvation. And when God is not your means of salvation, you have no hope. And so you may you may know some very good people in your life, people who actually like Martin Luther prior to his conversion, were well aware that they were under the condemnation of God. People who knew this has to be fixed for me to be okay.

And in fact, it has to be fixed for me to even feel okay. Martin Luther used to do all sorts of things to himself. Self-disciplines, times of prayer, confession. because he felt the guilt and stain of sin so strongly upon himself. And as long as he was seeking righteousness to come from himself, he could never satisfy that guilt. He could never satisfy those senses.

But then it was when he found this verse right here in Romans 1, before the verse we just read, verse 17. In it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. as it is written, but the righteous will live by faith. It was actually when Martin Luther found that verse that it hit him that it's faith. It's faith alone that can save me in another.

And so you are saved from God because you need to be saved from God You have no hope If you are going to stand before God on your own one day and you have the right to do that you have the right to make that decision we say And I've met people who I've explained the gospel to them. I've explained the condemnation of God that they are currently under, and their response is, I will stand before God on my own merit, and if he's not happy with it, I don't want to be around him. which is sad. At least it's a little bit intellectually honest compared to what a lot of people do, right?

We don't want to swallow our pride. And we don't want to get to the point where we will admit we need an outside Savior. And so what we do is we suppress the truth of God's wrath because we love our unrighteousness and we hate the feeling of guilt that it gives us. The reason why we're in the cultural battle we're in today over words about whether or not boys are boys and girls are girls, and whether we can murder children in the womb, and all of these big bad issues, it started with more minor ones.

It's been creeping up for a long time. We actually live in the end of this amazing philosophy that's come to be in our country. But the reason why we have these battles is that the people that you know that want to push real hard to do what they call women's rights and be pro-choice and the people that want to push really hard for LGBTQ plus and all the other letters that will get added to that and the people that are very soon going to be defending pedophilia as OK. these people are trying to satisfy a primitive urge inside them to just feel right.

And rather than go to the God who can cleanse them of their sin, they deny his existence in their mind. They make themselves fools in the eyes of God and really in the eyes of men. And rather than go to him for help, Instead, they need to try to erase the feeling and they erase the feeling with drugs, alcohol, eating disorders, psychotherapy, astrology, Enneagram stuff, all the different mysticism things that people get into. and then because I think I don't want to try to say because like I know but because I think everybody knows Jesus Christ is the one true God of the universe we create Christian versions of all these like it's not good enough to just say hey I'm a pagan I want to do yoga I got to create Christian yoga I got to Christianize everything because it makes me feel a little better about my sin and then you have these other people that are just outright God haters and atheists and they're happy to try to erase Christ openly.

And so you need to be saved from God. His wrath abides on sinners. If you are not in Christ today, God's wrath abides on you now. It means to remain. It remains on you. It's a present, tense, active wrath that will one day be fully poured out on the wicked on the day of judgment.

According to the catechism, the souls of the wicked will at their death be cast into the torments of hell with the devil and his angels forever. Unspeakable torment is what is described for the souls of the wicked. What we desire is to be saved from that. God tells us to flee from the wrath that is to come. So although God's wrath actively remains upon sinners today, the mere fact that any sinner is breathing is the mercy of God and the forbearance of God upon them at this moment.

And we know from 2 Peter 3 that the reason God has not returned to simply judge the wicked yet is because he actually is patient towards all those who would believe. And so if you're sitting here today, you're a Christian, you're suffering, there's a part of you that wishes God would just take you home. There's a part of you that wants Jesus to just come back.

Hopefully a lot of you just wants Jesus to just come back. We eagerly await his return. You also recognize wholeheartedly that the reason he hasn't returned is there's still Christians that he wants to make who are not yet Christians. And we're thankful for that. So point number one, you must be saved from God. Similarly, Jonah was saved from God's wrath.

Jonah was in the storm of God's wrath. Jonah was the cause of it, just like we're the cause of it. Jonah's a type of Christ in a lot of ways. He's also a type of us. And Jonah needed one power to save him. All the sailors on the ship, making all the sacrifices and vows to their false gods that they could possibly make, couldn't put a dent in that storm.

Emptying the cargo of the ship out into the sea so that the ship would be lighter wasn't going to change, that that storm would have killed them all. Only the way God said that Jonah could be saved and the ship could be saved would they be saved. And then they were abundantly saved from God's wrath itself. Second point, salvation is to him. Salvation is to him.

So salvation is from him and to him and through him. Turn to John chapter one. Almost all the verses we're going to look at today are John and Romans. Everything I going to tell you today can be found throughout Scripture though John and Romans don corner the market on these truths but John and Romans tend to be very good books for seeing the truth of the power of Jesus Christ to save and how he chooses to do it.

Salvation is to him, from him and through him and to him. I'm doing it in the wrong order, but it's how I wrote it. Salvation is to him. Look at John 1, chapter 12. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name or to those who believe in his name. We have an additional help if you're a Calvinist, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

So if you're going to be born again and you're going to be called a child of God, according to John 1, 12 and 13, it's not going to be because of your blood. so on your first thought you're like okay so what does my blood have to it's talking about family relation if anybody's done evangelism for any length of time you know what most people say to you when you say uh hey will you take this track are you going to talk about the lord i won't say most people but there's a significant number of people i meet the response is oh my dad was a pastor oh my grandpa was a pastor the new more common one i see is, oh, my mom's a pastor right here. It's as if people think that because their family member or relation was dedicated to God, that somehow they are a child of God. They're in his kingdom.

There's someone here. So, Jeremy, you want to just go make sure everything's okay? It's probably just from the other church or something, but thanks, Jeremy. When people think that their family line is what's going to put them in the family of God, they are actually erring. It's part of the problem, I think, with Presbyterian covenant theology that people are considered in the new covenant simply by virtue of being born into a Christian family.

And then they go through the ritual of being sprinkled with water at a church. They call it baptism and then they say they're part of this covenant family. And I think John 1, 12 and 13 helps us resolve that. Secondly, you have to be born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh. It's not your own flesh that can make you born again. It's not by your power that you can do anything to cause yourself to be born again.

This is not something that happens because of your decision. It's God's decision. And then finally, nor of the will of man. Just to explain that briefly. It's not because somebody else bestows salvation on you. So just like the baptized infant in a Roman Catholic or Presbyterian church, that doesn't confer anything upon them.

In fact, in the Lutheran church, it's very important who baptizes you. So anybody that thinks that when you go into a religious ritual, that the other man in the ritual or the man who's performing it has some power to confer upon you forgiveness, they're mistaken. You must be born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

But the point is, is you're saved to him. Salvation is from him and his wrath and to him. One of the common misconceptions of our culture today is the idea that everyone is a child of God. We have a idea that, yes, we are all the offspring of God made in his image, as Paul says in the book of Acts. And we all in some way look back to him as the creator.

But to be a child of God is a special thing that God has made only for his children whom he adopts into his family. That's very offensive to many people. When God creates people in Adam, he tells us in the book of John that they are by nature children of wrath. There he says they're of their father, the devil. He's talking to the Pharisees and then in Ephesians.

We're by nature children of wrath. If you're a child of wrath, you're not a child of God. Do you understand? If you are following the prince of the power of the air, you're not following the prince of peace. Do you get it? But you're saved to God.

So when you get saved, it's not like, oh, hey, you prayed the prayer. Now you believe in Jesus. now you can put your name on the Christian list somewhere and go to a Christian university. Or now you're automatically, you're a church member because you said you believe in Jesus. You are saved to much more than that. You are saved to be adopted into God's family.

Adoption is an act of God's free grace whereby we are welcomed into the number of His children and we have a right to all the privileges of being sons of God, including a shared inheritance with Jesus Christ. You are saved to Him. Look at Romans 8, 15-17. Romans 8, 15-17. So many passages we could go to. You're also saved to become God's slave.

You're saved to become a servant of God. You're saved also to become his child, though, to go to him. You go from something to him. Romans 8. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry out, Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, also heirs.

Heirs of God and fellow heirs of Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, so that we may also be glorified with Him. You're saved to God. There is hope. If you know somebody who is part of a religion, where they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and they do not immediately become a child of God, they are missing one of the benefits of salvation. If you know people who believe that they can lose their salvation once they get it, that means that these people have to either believe they're not adopted into God's family or they have to believe that once adopted into God's family, they can lose that status as God's child.

You're saved from his wrath. You're saved to God for his use, for his purpose, and also for your comfort. You'll remember Jonah was saved to God. God didn't save Jonah from the storm just for funsies. When God saved Jonah, it was for a purpose, that Jonah might fulfill his commission to go to Nineveh and do what he was already commissioned to do. When Jonah says, that which I have vowed I will pay, I think a portion of that is that Jonah's going to go fulfill his commission as a prophet that he certainly had already agreed to, I hope.

Finally, salvation is through him. Turn to John 14. John chapter 14. Salvation is through him. We're saved from the wrath of God. We're saved to be servants of God, adopted by God, children of God.

And the way we are saved is only through him. More specifically, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. John 14, 6, Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. If you want to go to God, you go through Jesus Christ. In Hebrews, we're told those who draw near to God can always come to God through him because he always lives to make intercession for them.

Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life. Focus right now is that he's the way. anyone who tries to get in by another way is like a robber or a thief jesus christ is the only way he is the door to the sheepfold in bunyan's pilgrim's progress there's a scene where somebody is trying to get into the celestial city or you know on the path and they're trying to go through a different door than the one the evangelist told them to go through and you just get this idea that yeah that's really it's really stupid and in the in the book it seems so obvious and then you think about it with jesus christ i already described for you that most people you know are very religious people there's very few real atheists out there and even people who are atheists they're actually You're very religious about it if you want to get technical. But most people are regularly trying to atone for their sins.

They're regularly trying to go through another door. If you don't believe me, come with us sometime. Come to Planned Parenthood with us. And you can just stand on the sidewalk and you can talk to the Roman Catholics. You can come to Ohio State with us. Yesterday was a great day at the Ohio State University. and it was one of the most conversational days with with the people who were Notre Dame fans and I think part of it was is I don't think Ohio State fans are particularly religious I think they're kind of just sort of post-modern and they're just kind of leave other people alone-ish almost but these Notre Dame fans I reckon a lot of them at least are nominal Catholics and they were pretty well happy to engage a little bit and you talk to people and you can find out really quickly that they understand that they're sinners.

They understand it. They know that they're sinners before God. They just don't want to go to God for the mercy. They want to provide for themselves. Most religions have a creation story. They have an explanation of what man is, an explanation of what God is, and they have an explanation of salvation. and then they have an explanation of what's to come.

But almost every religion you find will have some concept of, I've done wrong, it needs to be made up for. There's only one religion that has the truth, and that's Jesus Christ, the way, the truth, and the life. You are saved through him, and through him alone there is no other way. Well, what about the really nice guy who's in a jungle in some remote part of the world where the gospel hasn't reached?

That's one of the beauties of being a Calvinist, is I can be absolutely sure that if that guy is elect, God will get a missionary there. And I also can be absolutely sure that that guy is as guilty an Adam as I was and deserves hell if nobody reaches him. The grace is that you got saved. The problem isn't that somebody else doesn't. The real problem is that you got saved.

And praise the Lord, it's not really a problem. But it a theological hurdle you have to get over that when you realize you got saved for no reason whatsoever in you When your pride can be crushed low enough to realize that, wow, I don't deserve salvation any more than any of the people who, we'll just take an example, yesterday at Ohio State were mocking us. that the people who stood there and openly blasphemed God and yelled at his preacher and gave dirty looks to Jeremy and Matthew, that those people who were as hateful as possible to us actually are no further away from deserving salvation than any of us were at any point in time. And in fact, I'd reckon to say that I was far less deserving if there was even a scale which there's not.

Salvation is through Jesus Christ alone because none of us have any goodness of our own or any righteousness of our own with which to even come to God to seek his favor. It's through Jesus Christ. Romans 10.13 reminds us. Romans 10.13 reminds us. Excuse me. Yeah, Romans 10.

I keep turning to the chapter. So if I say Romans 10, 13, I'm turning to Romans 13. My brain is not doing it right. When I did Psalms 3, 8, I went to Psalm 8. All right, Romans 10, 13. Excuse me for that.

For whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? So you want to get saved, you got to call on the name of the Lord. How are they going to do it? It's a good question. How will they believe in him whom they have not heard?

So if you have to call on the name of the Lord to be saved, how are you going to call on him if you don't believe in him? Then the question comes, well, how will they believe in him if they haven't heard of him? I mean, Paul's not an idiot. He might be the smartest man that ever lived, frankly, but he's certainly smarter than all of us, and he's inspired by the Holy Spirit right now.

So maybe we have to take seriously what he's writing. It's not just the musings of some guy that's kind of wondering a couple philosophical questions. He's telling us something. That it is impossible for you to call on the name of a Lord you don't believe in. And it's impossible for you to believe in a Lord that you've never heard of. And so when you're worried about the guy in a foreign country who hasn't heard the gospel, and that's going to become your excuse for you not believing the gospel because, well, it just wouldn't be fair to this random guy I don't even know.

Maybe instead of that, you should quit everything you're doing that's a waste of time. go learn the guy's language and bring the gospel to him. Because there's only one way that person's going to be saved. He tells us, how will they hear without a preacher? And how will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who proclaim good news of good things.

That's an Old Testament quote. My wife sent it to me this morning, actually. However, they did not all heed the good news for Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our report? So faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. The only hope you have of being saved from God's wrath to be in God's family is through Jesus Christ alone. And the only way you're going to be able to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ is if you know enough about him that you can believe in the right Jesus Christ.

This is why we make theological distinctions and people will accuse us of splitting hairs and someone, I don't have one here, someone will take our confession and say, well, this is dumb. Why do you have this gigantic 32-chapter confession of faith when all you need is simple belief in Christ? And one of the reasons is that simple belief in something called Jesus is what most of the world has in some respect.

At least most of Christendom. There's like 2 billion Christians in the world or something. Most of them are Roman Catholic, I think. you need to know who the right Jesus is and you need to believe in him correctly. Do you know there's people who will tell you they believe in Jesus and they'll say lots of Bible quotes? You keep talking to them long enough, you'll find out that they're modalists.

They don't believe God is three persons. If you don't like that I would call someone like that a heretic, then just go back and read the Athanasian Creed from like 1800 years ago or 1700 years ago. The church has already condemned a lot of heresies. We don't need to revisit them just because a sincere, well-meaning, nice guy you meet today believes it.

Everyone who calls themselves Jehovah's Witness, everyone who calls themselves Mormon, they all believe in a false Jesus. So they can call on the name of Jesus all they want, but they're not calling on the name of Jesus. Don't commit the word concept fallacy with this verse. Just because somebody says, Jesus, Jesus, take the wheel, right? Doesn't mean they're talking to the same Jesus that actually hung on that cross, shed his blood for sins and then rose again and is coming again to judge the wicked and the dead.

You understand me? Salvation is through him and through him alone. And that's why we proclaim him. Acts 4.12, there's no other name given among heaven or given among men under heaven whereby we must be saved. There is no hope apart from faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, which is why we send missionaries out. A quick one for you, apologetically.

When somebody makes the argument, well, if there's like islands, it's always an island and it's always a jungle. It's really interesting. But if there's a place somewhere where there's these really great people and they know, they know they've offended some God. And we figured that out because we can tell by their religious paraphernalia that we found that they clearly were making sacrifices and they clearly had some sense of guilt for sin And the postulate is always well because they well God will see their heart and God will save them even if they never hear of Jesus That's what people will tell you.

And if you haven't heard it, you just haven't talked to enough people yet. if it's true that people who never hear of jesus can be saved then the most hateful thing you could do is obey the bible's call to go out on missions and proclaim the gospel the worst thing you can do is translate the bible into somebody's language that they might actually hear of him because now they're accountable and might go to hell it's just irrational there's one way there can only be one way it actually only makes sense that there's one way once you start to think about it all logically god is perfect god is holy and the only way to approach god has to be through god and praise the lord because we needed a high priest who could identify with our weaknesses that God became man. And so we can actually go to a man and we can actually bring a blood sacrifice, which God doesn't have blood. So we needed a man and we can actually bring that blood sacrifice to God and we can come to him by faith.

And we're also going through God, not just a man. So there's a certain hope there. This is why I struggled to believe that people who believe they can lose their salvation somehow are actually really saved. Because if you're actually resting upon Christ's completed work, I don't understand how you could do anything that would somehow mar that. If what you've already done in your life wasn't bad enough to outdo Christ's sacrifice for you, then what are you going to do as a Christian that's going to forfeit it?

Rest upon Christ and Christ alone. Salvation is through Him. It's through Jesus. And it's through the means by which Jesus also provided it. You must come to Jesus Christ by faith and faith alone. And as we read in Romans chapter 8, you must identify with Christ in his suffering.

It's one of the reasons you're baptized is that you're actually symbolizing your death to self and going down into a grave, which, interestingly enough, you can't do if someone pours water over you. You can't symbolize his death, burial and resurrection if somebody sprinkles you. But if you go down under the water and then you come up from the water, you can symbolize actually dying and being raised to new life.

And so you must die to self, take up your cross daily and come after him is what he says. Jonah had to die. Jonah had to at least go into the grave for three days, the belly of that fish. and of course I told you I think it's quite possible he really died and was brought back to life. You are saved from him, to him, and through him. It's all for his glory, like we're told in Romans 11 when we get that same phrase.

But what's the result of all this? Let's say you got saved. Let's say you're born again, and you realized, I was dead in my trespasses and sins I was actually really happy there I didn't want anything to do with God in fact people had told me about God and I was quite content to not care about God and then God by his own strong right hand and by his own will one day made me born again gave me new affections, new life now I love him I realize I've been saved into his family I'm now a joint heir with Christ as I travel this earth.

I recognize my sinfulness that I still carry in my corrupt flesh. I hate it. I eagerly await his return. What should I do? Well, we die to ourselves and we pay our vows and offer thanksgiving to God. And that's what Jonah said he would do, right?

That which I have vowed I will pay. I'm going to go do the things I ought to do. I'm going to do that which God has commanded. He says he's going to praise God with the voice of thanksgiving. Right? With the voice of thanksgiving.

Hebrews tells us, through him then, Jesus, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of lips that confess his name. If you are a Christian today, you do not go to your land and find the spotless sheep and bring it to a temple. You don't even do that once a year. If you are a Christian today, when you approach God, you do exactly what people have always had to do to approach God and you bring a sacrifice.

But when you come and you bring your sacrifice, you come knowing that the sacrifice has already been made. That the once for all sacrifice of Jesus Christ was made for you. And so you don't need to bring a new sacrifice. You come to God on the basis of the already accepted sacrifice, the blood of Jesus Christ. And so when you come to God and make a sacrifice, your sacrifice is of yourself.

It's from your heart. It's praise to God. And it's thanksgiving. one of the problems in Romans 1 that occurs when we deny the existence of God. Romans 1.21, For even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, or give thanks It like the two marks of a Christian You praise God glorify him and you are thankful to him You recognize him as the provider You give thanks to God.

You make sacrifices for God, not because God needs anything from you, but to show your heart. So think about this for a minute. For some people, the idea of taking 10%, and I know that's not a New Testament rule, I think it's not a bad rule, though, So taking 10% of whatever you make at work and donating it to church and missions and all the different things that we can do with that.

So some of us, it just seems like a lot because our parents didn't teach it to us. Inflation, inflation has gone up, but salaries have it. Right. So when we think about taking our money and sacrificing 10% of it for God, that sounds like a lot. if you weren't already there. But if you think of it as it's all God's money and he's letting you keep 90%, it changes the perspective a little bit.

It's not even a sacrifice. It's kind of like, wow, I don't deserve any of this. It's his. And so part of being a Christian is wanting to praise God and wanting to make sacrifices for him. Do you maybe have to change your lifestyle a little bit from the neighbors if you're going to donate eight, five, or ten times as much to church as they might? Yeah.

Yeah, you would, wouldn't you? If you're going to live in an environment where you try not to rack up credit card debt and all the different things that we can do in our culture so that we can have all the catchy things everybody wants, yeah, you might have to live very differently from the way other people live. But Romans 12, Paul tells us, I exhort you, brothers, by the mercies of God, Present your bodies as a sacrifice.

Living, holy, and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. Present your bodies as a sacrifice. Our bodies we give to God now. So in Jonah's day, they had their lambs and bulls and all these things that never could take away sin. But in our day, we give thanks. We give praise.

Psalm 34, I will praise Yahweh with my lips. His praise will continually be in my mouth. Let us exalt His name together. Let us make our soul boast in Yahweh. In 1 Thessalonians 5.18, that's where we're told, Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and then give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Rejoicing, praying, and giving thanks.

2 Corinthians 4.15, a couple more verses, just to wet your whistle about being thankful, praising God. But I'll tell you this, people will know if you're thankful because you'll say so. Right? If somebody tells you thank you for something, that's like you're looking for a sign, right? What kid in perverse generation seeks a sign? You want to know if someone's thankful?

They'll say thank you. If you want to know if you're thankful to God, Are you thanking him anywhere near as much as you complain about your circumstances? There's a good indicator for you. If you complain to the, if you complain, not to God, I'll say, but if you complain about the circumstances, the sovereign God of the universe decreed you'd be in, that's a pretty good sign that you're not so thankful right then.

2 Corinthians 4.15 For all things are for your sakes so that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God. Your salvation from Him, through Him, and to Him is intended to have the result of glorifying Him because you will praise Him for who He is and what He has done and you will be thankful to him for all that he has done and all that he is. Finally, Ephesians 5, verse 4.

One more verse to look at. Same concept, though. Well, we'll go back a couple. Beginning of the chapter. Therefore, be imitators of God. So because God has saved you, because he has elected you from eternity, because he's adopted you as sons in love, therefore be imitators of God as beloved children walk in love just as Christ also loved us and gave himself up for us an offering and a sacrifice to God is a fragrant aroma but sexual immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you as is proper among saints nor filthiness and foolish talk or coarse jesting which are not fitting so you got all these big bad things And it's like, so what else should I do?

If I can't do all those bad things, what should I do? And Paul says, rather the giving of thanks. It is amazing how a thankful heart that is bent on praising God. Honestly, there's not even room for all the other things. and so just like Jonah we are saved from him through him and to him that we might offer sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving to our God and so if I could do one more scripture quote I'll say go and do likewise I'd like to invite the men to come up and pray right now particularly about what we just heard and then we will come to the table.