Jonah 2-4

People matter to God.  All kinds of people matter to God – including people that we may be reluctant to love.  In this message, we are going to see how God in remarkable ways worked through even a reluctant prophet to unexplainably and powerfully transform a city.  Sadly, the prophet found no joy in it. Jonah hated the people in the city God loved.   Jonah’s legacy is enigmatic at best and maddening at worst.  Our desire is to take warning and learn what we can from Jonah’s hesitant faith and curious rebellion, because like Jonah, we are vulnerable to putting our preferences ahead of God’s desire.  In the end, God’s mercy prevails.

Pastor Tim Haugen

Jonah 1:1-17

God loves us and wants to involve us in His redemptive objectives.  But what if God’s objectives and our preferences clash?  In the life of the Old Testament character, Jonah, that clash prompted him to run from God.  Even in his running, God was merciful as He pursued Jonah.  But there were some miserable days and nights as Jonah ran from God.  What can we learn from Jonah’s story about God, and about our own propensity to run from God when we don’t get our way?

Pastor Tim Haugen

Daniel 6:1-23

Daniel started well, and Daniel finished well.  He was a man who lived the great majority of his life as an exile in a distant land.  He did not waver in his allegiance to God.  Daniel’s integrity had staying power.  When Daniel was thrown in the lion’s den, he was likely in his 80’s.  And yet in that undesirable place, he not only trusted God, but he experienced in rich measure the saving power of God.  Some of us may find ourselves today in life situations that are far from what we had hoped for in an earlier day.  God is ready to meet us right there – and to show us displays of His glory that we might otherwise miss.

Pastor Tim Haugen

Daniel 1:1-21

Few characters in the Bible lived as consistently with integrity as did Daniel.  From the time of his teens, he lived with a respectful, high view of God.  Though he could have been sulking through the disappointment of being exiled from his homeland, he instead lived with amazing resolve to honor God.  In Daniel 1, Daniel is a teenager.  On the stage of history, in his teen years, he was making choices to honor God that had huge implications.  He just was not going to be governed by fear.  He lived as though God was greater than the challenge he faced. On this Sunday, prior to coming to the communion table, we are going to watch a teenager boldly honor God – and we are also going to watch how God responded.  I am so hopeful that our middle school and high school students can be with us on this morning.

Pastor Tim Haugen