Amazing Grace or Accustomed Grace?

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Speaker: Dave Royes
Scripture: Jonah 4
January 16, 2022

Sermon Outline

1. Literary Structure of Jonah

• Jonah 1: Jonah commissioned and disobedience → Jonah 3: Jonah recommissioned and obedience

• Jonah 1b: Jonah and pagan sailors → Jonah 3: Jonah and pagan Ninevites.

• Jonah 2: Jonah’s grateful prayer → Jonah 4a: Jonah’s angry prayer.

• Jonah 4b: God schools Jonah in compassion.*

2. Accustomed grace: Jonah’s angry prayer
3. Amazing grace: God’s gracious pursuit

• His appointing is perfect

• His word is persistent

• His compassion is plentiful

4. Extending Grace: The author’s hanging question

“We sing about ‘amazing grace’ and speak of ‘amazing grace’, but far too often it [grace] has ceased to amaze us. Sadly, we might more truthfully sing of ‘accustomed grace.’ We have lost the joy and energy that are experienced when grace seems truly amazing.” — Sinclair Ferguson

*Adapted from David Dorsey, Literary Structure of the Old Testament (Baker Books, 2004).

A Most Unlikely Repentance

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Speaker: Dave Royes
Scripture: Jonah 3
January 9, 2022

Jonah 3: Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.” So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days' journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.

The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.”

When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.

Sermon Outline

1. A recommissioned prophet*

2. A repentant people

• Their repentance is Godward

• Their repentance is sincere

• Their repentance is comprehensive

3. A Relenting God

*Highlight’s God’s perfect patience

Salvation Belongs to the Lord

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Speaker: Dave Royes
Scripture: Jonah 2
November 21, 2021

God’s Grace Toward Insiders and Outsiders

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Speaker: Dave Royes
Scripture: Jonah 1
November 14, 2021