Please stand as we recite the Shema together.
The Shema
Hear O Israel!
The Lord is our God – the Lord Alone.
Love the Lord your God
With all your heart,
With all your soul,
And with all your might,
And love your neighbor as yourself. Amen.
Thank you, you may be seated.

1 Sam 22:8, "For all of you have conspired against me so that there is no one who discloses to me when my son makes a covenant with the son of Jesse, and there is none of you who is sorry for me or discloses to me that my son has stirred up my servant against me to lie in ambush, as it is this day." 
	 We have been tracing the reality of how self-pity can ruin a relationship with the Lord and with others if it is allowed to fester and infect the root essence of our beings. We all go through those times of poor pitiful me, no one cares, no one feels sorry for me, no one understands the troubles I’ve known! 
This is a matter of fact part of going through that process of death to self that is required. We first have to taste the vile bitterness of that which is the residue of our old nature. Then, when we get so sick of ourselves, we ask the Lord to eliminate it from our beings, no matter what the cost or what the road.
	One of the great examples in the Old Testament of this bitterness welling up, showing the need for the work of the Lord is the prophet Jonah. He went through so very much in the manner of the intervention of the Lord. This was in order to reveal that God needed to be honored and obeyed no matter what the cost and no matter what the course of this death to self. This was evident in the type of that death in the belly of the large fish. That instrument of Jehovah then spewed Jonah forth to go in the direction as deemed necessary by the Lord. 
	Jonah, after that awful time in the belly of the fish, went where the Lord directed and preached the message of absolute annihilation unless the citizens of Nineveh repented and changed their ways. All along, Jonah thought that he was declaring the doom of this major city. He had feared that the people would surely reign down the wrath of their indignation to the message he was to proclaim unto them. Jonah was filled with the dread of the consequences, until the point that the consequences of running away from the call of God became more vile and costly than the obedience required. 
	Once he made known the Word of the Lord to the people of that great city, there was a turning unto God and a forsaking of the wickedness which had precipitated the preaching of Jonah to begin with. This angered Jonah all the more, bringing out the bitterness and the bile that was deep within this prophet of God. 
He had been chosen by Jehovah to deliver the message that led to the repentance of the people. This highlighted, even more, the stubborn resentment in the heart of Jonah.
	Please open to the 4th Chapter of the Book of Jonah so we can read it together. Herein, we will see the bitterness of being that enveloped Jonah. The rebuke from the Lord should capture our attention. We should respond with a conscious desire for the Lord to deal effectively in us that which He had to work in Jonah.
	Jonah 4, But it greatly displeased Jonah, and he became angry. And he prayed to the Lord and said, "Please Lord, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore, in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that Thou art a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity. "Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life." And the Lord said, "Do you have good reason to be angry?" Then Jonah went out from the city and sat east of it. There he made a shelter for himself and sat under it in the shade until he could see what would happen in the city. So the Lord God appointed a plant and it grew up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to deliver him from his discomfort. And Jonah was extremely happy about the plant. But God appointed a worm when dawn came the next day, and it attacked the plant and it withered. And it came about when the sun came up that God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah's head so that he became faint and begged with all his soul to die, saying, "Death is better to me than life." Then God said to Jonah, "Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?" And he said, "I have good reason to be angry, even to death." Then the Lord said, "You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work, and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. "And should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?" 
	Jonah was so angry and so upset that the city was not destroyed that he asked the Lord to just take his life. There was so much bitterness and frustration and self-centered disappointment that Jonah did not want to live any longer, much like the cry of Elijah and so many others throughout the scripture. 
This is the destructive course of what bitterness and self-pity and resentment can bring forth in our lives. We also can lose the focus that we are here, right now, at this time, in the divine plan and purpose of God for those around us. Just as Jonah delivered the Word of the Lord and the people repented as a direct result of their coming face to face with the truth of Whom Jonah proclaimed, so do others see the effective work of the Lord in our lives. Many are called unto Him through the testimony of those whom God sends into their midst. 
Yet, often just like Jonah, we begin to focus on our suffering and on our uselessness in our own eyes. Our disappointment clouds the reality of God’s plan and purpose and we become miserable wretches crying out to no one in particular, “Oh poor, poor pitiful me. I wish I could just roll up into a ball on the ground and die.” Thus we suffer the anguish of self-pity and self-strife and self-loathing which can be disastrous except for the intervention of the Lord, as with Jonah. 
Even as Jonah had gone through those detailed ups and downs of his emotional state of being, especially after the worm killed the plant that had offered Jonah shade from the heat of the day, God intervened. He detailed exactly what was at stake with the testimony that was presented through this sad and mournful prophet. There had been a tremendous victory because the prophet had declared the Word of the Lord. Jonah was too self-absorbed to realize it, until the Lord laid it all plainly before him.
Then the Lord said, "You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work, and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. "And should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?"
Jonah’s miserable attitude forced God specifically lay out the reality that there were more than 120,000 people whose lives had been spared. This was because the Lord had made the provision, through this miserable and angry and resentful prophet, the truth of Who God was and the salvation that is found only in Him. 
Not only were these people spared, but consider those sailors who were shown that God is the only true God of all creation when Jonah told them to toss him overboard to save themselves. This is recorded in verses 8-14 of the first chapter of this Book of Jonah. 
Jonah 1:8-14, Then they said to him, "Tell us, now! On whose account has this calamity struck us? What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?" And he said to them, "I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land." Then the men became extremely frightened and they said to him, "How could you do this?" For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them. So they said to him, "What should we do to you that the sea may become calm for us?" — for the sea was becoming increasingly stormy. And he said to them, "Pick me up and throw me into the sea. Then the sea will become calm for you, for I know that on account of me this great storm has come upon you." However, the men rowed desperately to return to land but they could not, for the sea was becoming even stormier against them. Then they called on the Lord and said, "We earnestly pray, O Lord, do not let us perish on account of this man's life and do not put innocent blood on us; for Thou, O Lord, hast done as Thou hast pleased."
They had all been futilely crying out to their false deities and idols to no avail. Then Jonah proclaimed the reality of the Only Living and True God. He also detailed what had to take place since he had been so disobedient to Jehovah. 
In reality, to consider the numbers of people who were saved through the Lord’s mission given to Jonah is really quite awesome! We stand in utmost wonder and reverence of the Lord Who could have such a powerful ministry even through this disobedient prophet of gloom and doom. This was accomplished as Jonah told those in his sphere of influence of the truth of God, the Only True and Living Lord God Almighty. 
Accordingly, we might get ourselves discouraged since many of us do not have this type of a ministry to masses of sinners who need the salvation of God. We may only deal with family members or neighbors or workmates or schoolmates. Then there may be the various people who are presented to us by God at the supermarket, or the medical centers, or the various places of recreation. 
However few in number, we cannot let even this cause our self-pity to rise up and try to discourage and dissuade us from being the witness that God has chosen for Himself. He has put us in each of the places of our seemingly meager, yet mighty ministry of the living witness of the risen Lord Jesus Christ. We are to show, through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, the absolute difference that He makes in a life surrendered unto Him. 
  Jesus brings this home to us in Luke 15:7 with the parable of the shepherd who left the 99 sheep in safe pastures to seek out the one that was lost. That is our call, day in and day out. As Jesus concluded this parable, He made the statement that should cause our hearts to leap with the joy of Heaven when even just one life is saved through the witness that we bear of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Luke 15:7, "I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. 
	All of heaven rejoices with the Lord when there is even just one soul that is saved from the damnation of hell to join together in the eternal praise and adoration of the Lord God Almighty, Merciful and Gracious beyond all measure. We may not know how many people are influenced unto righteousness in Jesus Christ through our witness. Many may never be seen until we are in glory together declaring the majesty and the splendor and the adoration of Our Lord God Almighty and Glorious. But we must never allow anything of our self-piteous being to destroy the witness and the declaration of the life of Jesus Christ. Only God knows what His plans are for each one of us as we walk on this earth. He, Alone, is to be the focal reality of our hearts. It is not to be about us in any measure.
	The Apostle Paul has several aspects to relate to us about this entire matter. Please open to his encouragement to us in Rom 7:14-25. Herein he details the very battle with which we are dealing. He did not try to hide it. Neither was he too proud to declare that it was only through the power of the Holy Spirit that he could face and defeat this vile intrusion of the old nature upon the life that we now have in Jesus.
	Rom 7:14-25, For we know that the Law is spiritual; but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. For that which I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not wish to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that it is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which indwells me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the wishing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I wish, I do not do; but I practice the very evil that I do not wish. But if I am doing the very thing I do not wish, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wishes to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.  Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin. 
	It was to the Church at Corinth that we have recorded the outcome of this battle with the sinful nature that must be fought for the righteousness of Jesus Christ to be preeminent in our beings. It highlights the place that God has given us within the family of Christ. Fellow believers are used by God to bring forth encouragement and comfort and joy and fellowship and glory especially in the midst of the conflicts of this age. 
	Consider, for example and for support to all of us, 2 Cor 7:1-7. 2 Cor 7:1-7, Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Make room for us in your hearts; we wronged no one, we corrupted no one, we took advantage of no one. I do not speak to condemn you; for I have said before that you are in our hearts to die together and to live together. Great is my confidence in you, great is my boasting on your behalf; I am filled with comfort. I am overflowing with joy in all our affliction. For even when we came into Macedonia our flesh had no rest, but we were afflicted on every side: conflicts without, fears within. But God, who comforts the depressed, comforted us by the coming of Titus; and not only by his coming, but also by the comfort with which he was comforted in you, as he reported to us your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me; so that I rejoiced even more. 
	We need to stand with one another in Christ. We need to be uplifting to those who are fighting this battle, which we all fight in our own time and in our own way. We are here to be the witness of the power of Christ, not just for the sinner unto repentance, but for each believer unto sanctification. 
We are not the judges. We are not the committee of the declaration of right and wrong. We are those whose lives are hidden in Christ and open to be of service to anyone in need at any time with every means of the Spirit of God at our disposal. This is for the up building and the encouragement of one another in Jesus Christ. So be it and amen!

	This morning’s benediction is Lam 3:22+23. The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Thy faithfulness. Amen.