Morning Worship - Sunday 31 January 2021, the Free North Church Inverness - Jonah 3 Surprising Mercy

Sunday Morning worship from the Free North Church, on Bank Street by the River Ness in the heart of Inverness, for Sunday 31st January 2021, conducted by Rev Angus MacRae.

In response to Government public health regulations, and the spread of a new more easily transmitted variant of the Covid-19 virus, the elders have suspended all in-person worship at the Free North for the whole of January and February 2021. All our services are now ONLINE. We will keep this under review as the situation develops and will advise the congregation of any changes.

This is the third talk in a new Sunday Morning series of studies in the Book of Jonah. Today the title is: SHOCKING JUDGEMENT, SURPRISING MERCY - Jonah 3:1-10.

Praise items include: Facing A Task Unfinished (a new version of a great missionary hymn by Getty Music); Psalm 67 (Scottish Psalter); Thy Mercy, My God (Sandra McCracken’s version of a great old hymn).

The church offers an online Youth Alpha Course on Sunday mornings at 10 am, and an evening service at 6 pm. Prayer and Bible Study is available at various times through the week. Download the Service Guide for full details. Visit freenorthchurch.org to learn more and for contact details.

SERMON SUMMARY - SHOCKING JUDGMENT, SURPRISING MERCY
The book of Jonah is filled with unexpected events and surprises. By sending a Hebrew prophet to pagan Nineveh, God reminded Israel of the surprising and undeserved scale of his grace towards sinners. There are at least 4 surprises in Jonah chapter 3.

SURPRISE 1). GOD SENT JONAH (AGAIN)!
He has a lot to learn about grace, and so do we. But wonderfully, God’s word came to him a second time. He was told to get up and go to pagan Nineveh with God's message.

SURPRISE 2). GOD SENT A WARNING OF JUDGMENT.
The message was stark (conveyed by just 5 words in Hebrew): forty more days then Nineveh will fall. The time of waiting and testing suggested hope to the inhabitants of the city. God had the right to judge them, but perhaps he would relent…?

SURPRISE 3). GOD TURNED THE CITY TO REPENTANCE.
Amazingly, the citizens believed God. They moved through the three stages of real repentance. They accepted their guilt with sorrow; they cried out in faith to God for help; and they changed by turning back to God and his ways. The Shorter Catechism describes as repentance in similar terms: “a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavour after, new obedience”. Do you need to turn your life around, by the grace of God? No sin is too terrible. At Pentecost God accepted the repentance of many who had cruelly murdered God’s own Son on the cross. He will accept you, as you turn to him.

SURPRISE 4). GOD TURNED HIS HEART IN MERCY.
God was not being inconsistent, by relenting / repenting / changing his mind. He was acting in line with his holy and merciful character. But Jesus warned the people of his generation to take care not to miss the sign of the prophet Jonah. If we have heard about Jesus, we must repent or face a far worse judgement than Nineveh faced. Share with others the shock of judgment, and the wonderful surprise of mercy for all who turn back to God.

We hope to welcome you again soon to our online worship, and to in-person worship when that can safely resume.

Please visit the website freenorthchurch.org to learn more, and for details of how to get support.