Elevation with Steven Furtick - What About The Worm

Episode Date: April 12, 2024

What have you seen as a burden that God intended to be a blessing? In "What About The Worm?," Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church shows us how to shift our perspective, even in the middle of uncertainty.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation Church, and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope it gives you perspective to see God is moving in your life.

Enjoy the message. Today I want to preach about Jonah. Are you excited about the Word of God? Praise the Lord, I am too. Jonah, chapter 4, verses 5 through 11, where I want to pick up today. God helped me do this the right way. It says in Jonah chapter 4, verse 5, that Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city,

and there he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade, and waited to see what would happen to the city. So he is in a passive position. He is not in a proactive position. He is waiting to see what would happen. And I guess we could just say off of that one verse that that is one way to live your life, to wait to see what's going to happen. Or, somebody say, or you can make it happen. Touch somebody and say, you might as well make something happen.

Then the Lord provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head, to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was super happy about the plant. But at dawn the next day, God provided a worm which chewed the plant so that it withered. When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint, and he wanted to die. And he said it would be better for me to die than to live. But God said to Jonah, is it right for you to be angry about the plant? How many of you get upset about stupid stuff sometimes?

And Jonah said, it is! And I'm so angry! I wish I were dead! But the Lord said, you have been concerned about this plant, though you didn't tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. Some of the stuff you're worried about is temporary. And it'll be over before you can even get good and mad about it.

And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh in which there are more than 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left? And also many animals. With that anticlimactic conclusion, the book of Jonah is over. But I just want to ask one question of this text today, is also the title of my sermon. I want to ask the question, what about the worm? What about the worm? You may be seated.

One of my friends went through something so horrific a couple of years ago when he lost his daughter. She was five years old. My daughter Abby is currently five, so while it is impossible for me to understand his pain, I have some frame of reference. And when he lost his daughter the night that I called him, I was telling him how God God was somehow going to get him through it and all of these words. You've struggled to find a way to say something that hopefully has some meaning to somebody at a time like that.

And fumbling around to try to find some words to comfort my friend, I told him he was a hero in our generation. God would use him in a great way because he is an exemplar of faith. That's all I could think of to tell him at the time. One of the things that I told him later because we had many conversations, and he taught me much more than I taught him, but with one particular conversation, we were talking about how eventually he would tell his story. But one thing we agreed upon, and I said it to him and it resonated, is make sure you don't tell the story too soon. because if you tell the story too soon, you won't even know what the story is about. And my friend, he pastors a great church in Montana.

He has a church of thousands in Montana, which I didn't even know thousands in Montana went in the same sentence. But God's Houston. He wrote a book. He's been here to preach. And his book is all about the pain that he experienced and the purpose of the pain. But if you tell your story too soon, sometimes you will only see the pain, you won't see the purpose. Then you won't have the perseverance that is needed to accomplish the purpose of God. Now we come to Jonah, and it is impossible to do Jonah justice in one little sermon, this legendary loser of the Bible. Boy, we're really hard on Jonah, aren't we? This guy ran from God.

You would too. He had to go to a people that were, well, we could call them in modern day terminology terrorists. To the capital city of Assyria, to a barbaric people and preach a message of the potential of repentance. Now, when you preach about Jonah, usually you're going to hear something about how he ran from God. The Bible says that. I believe it's in verse three. I didn't look it up this morning, but I believe it's in verse three. Is it in verse three where it said that Jonah ran away from the Lord?

So when you're preaching to people, you're always preaching to somebody who is running somewhere. I realize that everybody in this room is running from something to something. Running from the Lord is how they put it. I just want to say, yes, I want you to tell. I want you to leave the church when I say, say this, but that Jonah probably didn't see it at the time like he was running from God. Do you know what I'm saying?

It's not like how many of you have ever run from God's purpose for your life before, even if you just did it for 15 seconds? I know you're really holy. But how many of you have had a season where you knew God wanted you do something? You don't want to do it, and you kind of did everything possible to do it, not do it. And sometimes it'd just be easier to do it. Like in the story of Jonah, he goes to a port called Joppa, and he finds a ship, and the Lord told him to go to Nineveh.

Well, Jonah decides to go to a place called Tarshish. Here's what interested me in studying the map of Jonah's journey. When I looked and traced where he went, I found out where God told him to go was only 500 miles away from where he was. Where he went to get away from where God told him to go was 2,500 miles from where he was. You know, sometimes you've got to work harder to disobey God than it would be. to just do what he told you to do in the first place? No, I'm serious. I wish some of us would apply as much creativity to obeying God as we do to disobeying Him.

Some of you are really creative sinners. You got alibis and allies. You got two phones to help you sin. I'm going to come to this side. I think I wore them out already in this early in the sermon. But sometimes it would just be easier to forgive than to hold on to the grudge. Why is it that we would rather run 2,500 miles away from God than 500 miles to our assignment? I think it's because when we're in our story, it's not as simple.

I've been preaching this all year. I hope you're not getting tired of hearing it, but I've been understanding the blessing of perspective. Usually perspective only comes with reflection. That is, the Bible was not live tweeted. Do you understand this? The book of Jonah was not written while Jonah was running. If Jonah had written this when he was running, he would have said, I'm being logical. I'm being practical.

That's how he would have said it had he written it while he was on the run. Touch somebody and say, don't tell your story too soon. Because it is only after John. Jonah has done the will of God and experienced a lot of different things and seen the results of his rebellion as well as experiencing the transformative power of repentance after his resentment that he is able to say I was running from God. I wouldn't have known I was running from God until that storm hits. See, because we always want to blame every storm that we face in our life on the devil,

especially however long you've been in church. Usually you end up talking about the devil more after being in church 20 years than you talk about God. Because everything is the devil. That's one advantage that people who don't go to church have over us and getting their lives together. They don't have a devil to blame. We just put everything on him. We don't have to deal with ourselves. I am preaching, Lord.

You hear me? So Jonah, the Bible says, can I preach about Jonah? Can I preach about Jonah? The Bible says that Jonah went to Joppa. And he got on a ship and he paid the fare because somebody said, when you run from God, it'll always cost you something. I'm not preaching about that today, but I could. And then the Bible says that he went down from Joppa down to Tarshish.

And somebody said, when you run from God, you'll always go down. But when he got about, I don't know, let's say he got about halfway there. And it seemed like he was working, he was asleep under the debt. sleeping while the storm was happening because God sent this storm because God will allow things to come into your life to get your attention because he's not going to allow you to be content in your complacency. All of a sudden the sailors realized that the reason that they were experiencing the storm was not because of something they had done but something that this prophet, this

rebellious prophet had done and he was asleep under the deck and when they woke Jonah up and said, call on your God. He said, well, I can call on him, but it won't do any good. Because if I pray while I'm headed in the wrong direction, my prayer is just a pretense. So what you've got to do is throw me off the boat and the storm will stop. And so I have thought about that one thought that some of you are going through a storm, not because of something that you did, but because of who you have on your boat. In fact, In fact, I preached it at a youth convention one time, at a Pentecostal youth convention one time, and my message was called, throw Jonah off your boat. And I was preaching it to girls who are dating guys that are dragging them down.

And so I would encourage some of you, maybe you don't have Jonah on your boat, but maybe he's in your phone. And I think some of you, the most spiritual thing you could do while I'm preaching, and I don't even mind if you do it. You don't even have to listen to me is use that swipe feature. your phone and you know that red one that says delete some of y'all got Jonah in your phone you've been texting Jonah talking to Jonah and wondering why your life's going down but today is your day touch somebody say delete so when you preach about Jonah can you tell i like to preach about jona because i've seen myself in jonah i've seen myself rebelling against something god has called me to do. I've seen myself go 2,500 miles before I realize this is ridiculous. There's no way

that I'm going to be able to run from the presence of God. Where can I go from your presence? If I send the heavens, you're there. If I make my bed in the depths, you are there. So I know what it's like to run and then find out after you run, you can only run so far before you hit a roadblock. And so I know it's like to run and I know it's like to having some relationships that probably I don't need anymore. And all of that is good as well as preaching on the subject of racial reconciliation. It is interesting to note that Jonah was effective and ministering to people that he didn't even like. For when he finally did open up his mouth and preach to the Assyrian people in the capital of Nineveh,

there was great repentance in the land. I don't think that the book of Jonah is about racism, but I think it does apply because we see here a guy on the outside judging what it's like to be people on the inside. And from his own perspective, inside of himself, he comes to all kinds of conclusions about what kind of people God can bless and what kind of people God can't bless, and what kind of situations God can work in, and what kind of situations God can't work in. Jonah finds out in the midst of that,

that to the ends of the earth, the compassion of God will reach to anyone who will call on the name of the Lord. And so we see that picture of reconciliation in the book of Jonah. But mostly what we know about Jonah is that he spent three days in the belly of what the Bible calls it great fish, which we usually call the whale.

Let's get a look at the whale. Right about the time that the storm started raging in Jonah's life, God sends a whale to pick him up. And I don't know because I am not privy to the communication that took place between the whale and how God got the whale in the right position at the right time to know that this is where Jonah is going to be when he's about to drown, that the whale had, I don't know how God spoke to the whale to go get Jonah. If it's anything like finding Dory. God used echolocation, and maybe God said to the whale, go get Jonah. Come on, people. Come on, that section right there, no love. Come on. Did you see the movie? You know, certain types of whales they admit a sound so God said to the whale go get Jonah and the whale

said to God oh okay it interesting how the whale had better sense to do what God said than Jonah did and the whale swallowed Jonah up and delivered him so the book of Jonah is the book about rescue now I need to know I'm preaching to Because there's a chance I've got the right sermon, but I'm preaching it to the wrong people. Has there been a time in your life? I'm just asking where God rescued you from a situation that your own disobedience created. Anybody? Anybody? Anybody? Has God ever sent a whale to pick you up? Now, it's an important thing to note that God saved Jonah, but the accommodations weren't that luxurious.

Could have sent a cruise ship. Royal Caribbean. He could have sent a freight liner, but instead, he put him in a deep, dark place. See, because if God rescues from your trouble and makes it too comfortable, you'll be quick to get back into it. So God said, I need to put you in a dark place. for a minute so you'll remember what disobedience feels like. What I've noticed though is that sometimes we miss God's provision because we're so picky. We don't like what God sent to pick us up with and we would rather drown by ourselves.

One time in the first year of our marriage, I got really sick. It wasn't serious, it turned out not to be serious, but it felt serious at the time because I couldn't eat. Every time I would eat, it would just burn all down in my insides, even when I would drink water. And so this went on for like seven days. I didn't know what the problem was at the time, and I was really enjoying putting on 50 pounds in my first year of marriage, and this interrupted my plan. That really is true. I put on 50 pounds in the first, I think it was 18 months of our marriage. because Holly is a fantastic cook and she is also a temptress.

But man, what happened that I didn't know at the time, I took this pill, this antibiotic that went down and got stuck in my esophagus and then it burned into my esophagus. So then every time I would try to eat or drink water, I couldn't do it. And so it got real bad and at the time I traveled and preached all the time and I was always driving, you know, up and down the roads. Usually just driving more than flying. And so I was going from one place to the other. It's been about a week that I had been hurting and I didn't know what was wrong.

I went to see this doctor and kind of said some things and I didn't know what's going on. And so I'm driving to my next speaking engagement, right? And I'm calling Holly and I bust out my razor. Phone. And I'm like, man, it sucks. I can't, I still hurts. It hurts worse and worse and worse. And she goes, you are going to the hospital.

You're going to drive yourself to the hospital. I said, I got preach engagement. She said, you're going to cancel. They can find another preacher. You're something's really wrong with you. You need to go to the hospital. You're going to go to the hospital. You're going to call them and cancel.

And I never called anybody I canceled before. I don't think I've done it since. And so I didn't want to do it, but I did it. And I started driving to the hospital. I'm driving the hospital. And I remember I've got a couple of hours still left to go because I'm out of town. I'm driving this other town. And so I drive by this hitchhiker and decided to pick him up.

Because that's what you do when you're driving yourself to the hospital. You pitch up hitchhikers when you are a Christian like me. Now, I don't even know why I picked him up. It was a season in my life when I picked up hitchhack, just I don't do it anymore. But this guy gets in my car and I don't really feel like talking because I'm driving myself to the hospital because I have a hole in my esophagus as burning my life away. This guy's all talkative, all chatty and everything. So we'd ride together a couple minutes and I'm low on gas and I pull into the gas station

and I'm feeling like cheerful, not a cheerful giver, but I decided to if you probably want something to eat. So I said, hey man, I said, I'm going to pump the gas, you go in the gas station, get yourself something to eat, whatever you want, I'll come in and pay for it afterwards. He goes, well, actually, I see a McDonald's over there. And it wasn't like one of the McDonald's that was right there in the gas station. I'm going to have to go now through the drive-thru and go to McDonald's. But I said, all right, you know, Jesus said, go the extra mile and all that.

So I'm like, all right, man, let me pump the gas. We'll go to McDonald's. We're going through the drive-thru at McDonald's, and I'm just going to order whatever. ever, you know, because I can't eat anything. And so here I am ordering food for a guy. He's sitting there. I'm going to smell this food in my car and this delicious McDonald's food. That's right.

I'm not too good for McDonald's. I said it was delicious. Not that health conscious. Freak. And so I'm going to order, and he interrupts my order. And he's like, no, I want a quarter pounder. Hold the mayo. Hold the onions.

I said, all right, he wants a quarter pound. Let me get a quarter pounder, hold the mayo, hold the onions. He said, and some chicken selects. Now, listen, this was not some skinny hitchhiker. He didn't look like he needed a meal that bad, so my compassion is running out quickly. I said, all right, he wants a quarter pounder, hold the mail, hold the onions, and some chicken selects. He said, and some fries. I said, and some fries, please.

He said, and biggie size. I'm thinking, I'm not saying this, because remember I'm a good Christian. I'm a man of God. I'm thinking, you should be grateful to get a ride. Now you want to hold the mayo, hold the onions. You got me spending $75 in the drive-thru at McDonald's, and I can't even eat. Then he took it way too far. He said, can I get on McFlurry?

I said, no, he'll have a water. And I got him a water. It's interesting how he can go from, I just need a ride. God, do I need some chickens? Isn't it interesting how you can go from God if you'll have mercy on me, a sinner? It's interesting how you can go from God if you get me out of this situation. God, if you'll just be with me. But then over time something happens along the journey and you start thinking, you know,

I don't like the way it smells inside of this whale. It's interesting how when you started serving God, you didn't need people to notice you. You were just glad to be known by God. over time you start getting real picky. I came to tell you today that if you'll get grateful, see, this is what Jonah did. He's in the belly of the fish and the Bible says that in Jonah chapter two for several verses, he's complaining, he's blaming, he's talking about seaweed around his head, he's talking about the pillows that raged over him. He's describing in detail his distress. But watch chapter 2 verse 9. I love it because the Bible says that when Jonah made

this shift. Everybody say shift. He said, but I, with a grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed, I will make good. I will say salvation comes from the Lord. And I don't think it's any coincidence that in the very next verse, after Jonah got grateful, even in a hard sense, When Jonah got grateful, even in the belly of a fish, when Jonah got grateful, he got out. I came to make an announcement. When you get grateful, when you open your mouth, clap your hands, shift your mindset, lift your eyes and give God praise. Come on touch somebody say, I'm coming out with a shout. I'm coming out with a shout. You didn't touch your neighbor. You don't like to shout.

Maybe it's like, but that's not my pen, nanotikang. No? No, it's not your personality type until you get excited about something. Found out that gratitude is the gateway into the provision of God. Look, isn't it interesting? Let's just study this for a moment. It's interesting. That the Bible says in Jonah 1, verse 17, that the Lord

provided a fish. Do you think Jonah saw it that way when he was being swallowed? Probably not. Thank you, Lord, for this provision. It didn't feel like provision at the time. At the time, being in the belly of the fish is a problem. So sometimes it takes time before you and see the problem as the provision. And this is where I want to spend a moment with you today because it unlocks something for me upon reflection when I saw that in the book of Jonah, which is four chapters long, there's a Hebrew word that is used four times to describe four different events in Jonah's life.

And the word is Mena. Hebrew word is Mena. Translated into English, it means to appoint, to prepare, or more accurately, as the NIV renders it, to provide. If there is one thing that I have learned about God in walking with him and pastoring a church, it is that he can be trusted to meet my needs. I wonder have you learned that in your life yet. If you have, I want you to just say out loud right now where the devil and everybody in your seating section can hear you.

Come on, Gaston. Say it out loud. The Lord is my provider. You said that like you believe it. You said that like you've had some moments in your life where the money was low. You said that like you've had some moments in your life where you saw no way to stay afloat. And so God sent something in your life to swallow you up. The Bible says that God provided a fish to swallow Jonah.

Mana, manna, you might have heard about manna before. That's the stuff in the Old Testament that when the children of God were wandering in the wilderness because rather than go straight into the promised land, they wanted to go 2,500 miles around and around and around and around in circles. But God said, I'm going to feed you, even though you're frustrating me, and he rang down this stuff from heaven, and they called it manna. That's what they called it. They were calling it that because of this Hebrew word, manna.

Spell a little differently, but that's where they got it from. It was God's provision. So do you know what they did when God sent the provision? They complained because they didn't want manna. They wanted meat. provision does not always come wrapped in your preferences. I'm going to preach this today no matter who says amen. I feel like I'm on something.

God's provision in your life doesn't always come. Biggie size. Doesn't always come hold the onions, hold the mayo. And they complained about the manna. And Jonah complained about the fish. At the time, it was only after the story was over. Most scholars believe that the book of Jonah was not written by Jonah himself, but it was written based on the report that he gave after he got back from doing what he didn't want to do. So it could have been months later, could have been years later, that Jonah is talking about his experience, and he calls it manna.

At the time, it seemed like misery. But later I saw it as manna. Only through the perspective of reflection can I see that today's misery might be tomorrow's manna. So that I look back over my life. Come on, is this good? Is this all right? And he says, the Lord provided a fish, a whale. And then check this out.

Jonah goes into Nineveh. He preaches 40 more days in Nineve will be destroyed. God gives the Assyrians a second chance, and Jonah doesn't like that he gave the Assyrians a second chance. He liked it when God gave him a second chance. Sometimes we want God to give us provision and give other people punishment. But how many know if God gave you a second chance, you're not too good to extend grace to others either. Jonah doesn't like it though He doesn't like the package that God's provision comes in

So he preaches and he preaches with effectiveness So people doesn't even like and God does something he didn't expect him to do And the Bible says that this did not seem right to Jonah Do you know that that's where a lot of our misery comes from Is that we have our own ideal and imagination of how things were supposed to go And when anything contradicts our imagination is ideal, we feel like we have a right to be angry because it didn't meet my rules. Don't you see, God?

This is how I was supposed to be married at age 23. And I'm 23 and a half. Tina got married. And she dresses like a... She's not even that holy. So he goes out and he sits down. And the Bible says that he made himself a shelter because it was a hot, a hot, you know, and he's day. Not Charlotte, North Carolina hot, certainly not Toronto, Canada hot. It was Middle Eastern

hot. I'm talking about 110 degrees. And he needed a shade, so he made a booth for himself. Little shelter. He went outside the city. Now, that's significant. He went outside the city God sent him to before God released him. No matter what shelter you make for yourself outside of God's assignment for you. It will never sustain. And he sits down and he's mad and he's got a bad attitude. But if we've learned anything about God from the story of Jonah when God sent the whale to swallow up a man who was in the water because of his own disobedience, it's that God doesn't wait for your attitude to get right before he gives you his attention and takes care of you. And so now Jonah is sitting under the shelter that he made and God does something interesting.

It is the second time that the word manna appears in the book of Jonah. It says in verse 6, chapter 4, the Lord provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah's head, give his bald head some shade. I like to picture Jonah bald just dramatizes the story a little bit more. I think about being bald and how hot his head would be. and then the Lord covers his head with this plant, this castor oil, over his head. He's sitting there, and he likes that plant, boy. He doesn't care very much about people, but he likes plants.

Here's where I see that for everything that Jonah has seen God do, he still doesn't get it yet because he got outside of the fish. That was a miracle. But he never got outside of himself. The most miserable place in the world to be trapped is not in the belly of a whale. It's inside of yourself. Inside of your selfishness. A lot of believers get delivered from their sin, but they never get delivered from themselves.

And so all of life is spent in the shade of you trying to find your own comfort. And, oh, Lord, thank you for the plant. Isn't this a pretty plant? Yeah, but how about all those people? Oh, people are unpredictable. I like plants. And the Lord said, I knew you liked plants. That's why I provided the plant.

But now that I see that you're more focused on the plant than the people, I got to take the plant away. So look at the third thing that God provides. He provides the whale to deliver Jonah, the plant to comfort Jonah. Here comes the worm. Now if we were writing the story, we would not use the word manna to describe this worm. Because watch what the worm does. The Bible says at dawn the next day, God provided a worm.

provided a worm. I heard about Jonah in the whale, but what about the worm? Can we see the worm? This is that thing in your life that comes along just when you've gotten yourself comfortable. Just when you've figured out how life is supposed to be. Just when you got your retirement account right where it's supposed to be. You got your little comfortable situation. And Jonah's settling in as a spectator in a situation where God has called him to be a participant, and he's sitting outside the place of his assignment, and he's got a shade over his head. And here comes the worm. And the worm made Jonah furious.

Jonah got so mad at God about the worm, because not only did God send a worm, but after God sent a worm to destroy the plant that was shielding Jonah from the sun, then God provided the fourth thing. He provided the whale. He provided the plant. He provided the worm. And then the Bible says in verse 8, he provided the wind. It's a Seraco. It's a kind of wind that beats on you so hard that you have to run for shelter. Now God is making sure that Jonah can't stay outside of the city and find shelter. And at the time Jonah is furious. Why did you take my plant away?

Why did you take my boyfriend away? Why did you take that out of my life? What did you mean? Don't tell your story too soon, Jonah. Because what you're going to see, if you see it through the lens of a God who loves you. loves you, you're going to see that the whale and the worm were working together to serve a purpose in your life. At some point after Jonah has gone back home, he sits down to tell the story of what happened

when God sent him to Nineveh. And by the time he tells the story, he says, you know, at the time I thought it was misery, but it was actually manna. It was all God's provision. And see, I don't know how Jonah finally got this perspective, you know, because the Book of Jonah doesn't tell us. When the Book of Jonah ends, he's still sitting there with the sun beating down on his head. He's still sitting there trying to figure out what to do.

But at some point he sees it that the whale that delivered me and even the worm that destroyed the thing that was comforting me, it all came through the hand of God who knows what's best for me. I don't know how he got this perspective. I know he didn't talk to James because James didn't write his epistle until hundreds of years later. If he would have talked to James, James could have told him about joy. Count it all joy, my brothers.

When you face trials of many kinds, when you see worms crawling up and creeping over your head, trying to destroy the comfort of your life. God's not trying to kill you. He's trying to keep you alive, and nothing can grow in your comfort zone. So from time to time, God is going to have to let something come in your life that destroys your comfort so you can fulfill your calling. And now Jonah sees the same God that rescued me with the whale, sent the worm to deliver me from myself.

But he didn't talk to James. James wasn't around. James could have told him every good and perfect gift comes from above. Everything that comes into your life can be a gift if you know what to do with it. My friend didn't know that at the time he lost. Losing his daughter wasn't the gift, the difference that he's making now telling others they can have hope too. That's the gift, but you won't know that. You won't know the purpose of the worm if you write your story while you're in it.

We watched a young lady get baptized in our church today who went through some horrible things, but she's got some wisdom. She found out that the purpose of the worm that took away her shade, was to send her back into Nineveh to rescue others who need to be saved. I need somebody who this teaching is resonating with to begin to praise God for his purpose and provision in your life. I know Jonah didn't get a chance to talk to Jesus. You know, I was imagining what if Jonah could have talked to Jesus?

And Jonah is explaining to Jesus. He's like, man, you don't know what it feels like to be me. And Jesus said, oh, really try me. And Jonas said, no, man, for me, it was easy. You're the son of God. But for me, it wasn't that easy. For you, it was easy. For me, it wasn't easy.

See, I had to go down from my comfort to a place to minister to people that were my enemies. And Jesus said, oh, really, tell me more. Because I kind of did the same thing. When I left the comfort and the prestige and the pristine environment of heaven to be born of a virgin and wrapped in flesh and I came to my own and they received me not and they nailed me to the cross and from the cross I uttered the words of forgiveness that became the redemption of the world. And Jesus said, what else, Jonah? John said, well, you don't understand. I had to spend three days in a dark place. I had to spend three days in a place where it looked like there was no hope.

And Jesus said, really, then what happened? And then Jonah said, well, after three days, I got spit out. And Jesus said, well, I know something about deliverance coming out of dark places. after three days. Don't you see it? Jesus is our greater Jonah, our deliverer, and work together for the good. And the worm.

Never memorize another Bible verse. Do Romans 828. And read it until your eyes cross over. I mean, read it, read it, read it, read it, and read every word, and then think about that word, think about the next word. For we know that all things are good.

Come on, do a frame. We know, ah, do it again. Paul's not that naive and neither is God. You know, there's nothing beautiful about the worm when it's chewing through your plant. That's not what we're saying. That's not my message. My message is that the God of the whale that delivered you. is also the God of the worm.

The whale, the worm, and the will of God. You know, the whale and the worm were a tag team assigned to Jonah. And when the whale got done dropping Jonah off in Nineveh, he said to the worm, to your... And the echo location went out, hit the worm. The worm said, all right, I'm going to be in position. because we both have one job to get Jonah back to the place of his assignment. Once his shade was gone, he had no choice but to go back into the place where God wanted

him to be. The whale, the worm, and the will of God. And we know that all things, all the whales, all the whales, all the world. the worms, all the big things, all the little things, all of the blessings, and yes, even the burdens too, all of the things that feel good and all of the things that hurt like hell. God said, I'm going to use all of it, all of it, all of it, all of it, all of it. dark thing, every destructive thing. All of it.

Somebody shout all of it. All of it. All things work together for the good. Does anybody love the Lord in it? I need you to jump up on your feet and praise him if you love him and praise him. Things work together. Here comes the whale. Here comes the worm and all things.

Somebody shout all things. Work together. Thank you for joining us. special thanks to those of you who give generously to this ministry is because of you that this ministry is possible. You can click the link in the description to give now or visit elevationchurch.org slash podcast for more information. And if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe,

you can share it with your friends. You can click the share button, take a screenshot, and share it on your social stories and tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening. God bless you. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Thank you.