08/28/11 - Loving the Unloveable - Pastor Tony Ashmore

Pastor Tony Ashmore continues the series "GO!" with part 4, "Loving the Unloveable" in this Sunday morning celebration.

GO Part 4
Pastor Tony Ashmore
Sunday, August 28, 2011

www.mylifegatechurch.com


Sermon Notes:

Matthew 6:12
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Matthew 6:12 (NLT)
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and forgive us our sins,

as we have forgiven those who sin against us.

Romans 9:20
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Romans 9:20 (MSG)
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Who in the world do you think you are to second-guess God? Do you for one moment suppose any of us knows enough to call God into question? Clay doesn't talk back to the fingers that mold it, saying, "Why did you shape me like this?"

Matthew 10:5
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Matthew 10:5 (MSG)
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Jesus sent his twelve harvest hands out with this charge:

Becoming Unloveable—Making it Hard for People to Love You
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-   Jonah 1:3 Running from God because we often run to the strangest, most hazardous places and make the dumbest, most irrational decisions.

Jonah 1:3
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Jonah 1:3 (NLT)
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But Jonah got up and went in the opposite direction to get away from the Lord. He went down to the port of Joppa, where he found a ship leaving for Tarshish. He bought a ticket and went on board, hoping to escape from the Lord by sailing to Tarshish.

Becoming Unloveable (continued)
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-   Jonah 1:2 Just being downright mean.

Jonah 1:2
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Jonah 1:2 (NLT)
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“Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh. Announce my judgment against it because I have seen how wicked its people are.”

Becoming Unloveable (continued)
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-  Jonah 1:17
   Jonah 2:2
   Jonah 2:8
Running from God = Running from Grace.  We become graceless and hard to love, arrogant, prideful.

Jonah 1:17
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Jonah 1:17 (NLT)
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Now the Lord had arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was inside the fish for three days and three nights.

Jonah 2:2
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Jonah 2:2 (NLT)
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He said,

“I cried out to the Lord in my great trouble,

and he answered me.

I called to you from the land of the dead,

and Lord, you heard me!

Jonah 2:8
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Jonah 2:8 (NLT)
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Those who worship false gods

turn their backs on all God’s mercies.

Becoming Unloveable (continued)
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-   Jonah 4:2   It wasn’t fair!

Jonah 4:2
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Jonah 4:2 (NLT)
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So he complained to the Lord about it: “Didn’t I say before I left home that you would do this, Lord? That is why I ran away to Tarshish! I knew that you are a merciful and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. You are eager to turn back from destroying people.

Becoming Unloveable (continued)
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-   Jonah 4:10-11  Forgetting what really matters, what really counts?

Jonah 4:10-11
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Jonah 4:10-11 (NLT)
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Then the Lord said, “You feel sorry about the plant, though you did nothing to put it there. It came quickly and died quickly.  But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness, not to mention all the animals. Shouldn’t I feel sorry for such a great city?”

So What?
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-   Who are our Ninevites? To whom do you find it hard to extend grace?
-   How am I making myself “hard to love”?  In what areas am I running from God?  Where are the “graceless” areas where grace has been replaced with pride, arrogance and justification?

Luke 7:47
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Luke 7:47 (NLT)
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“I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.”