My End is God's Beginning
Updated: Sep 15
Pastor Stan Mons + Family Sunday
Sermon Transcription:
We're going to get started on this next third family Sunday of 2026. The first family Sunday, we talked about Jericho, and the kids and adults alike helped us remember something. Let's see if the kids remember. Okay. Worship, trust, obey, and it will all be "okay". You remember what about the second family Sunday when Jesus healed the blind man? Do you remember that Jesus does good things when he uses? "Me", there you go. Some of you remember. See, this family Sunday, I'm so excited about the word that the Lord gave me because sometimes we believe in Jesus, but the power of the cross doesn't seem to rest on our life. And that can be extremely confusing. I remember growing up believing in Jesus. I believed He was real. I believed He was the son of God. But I did not know Him. He had never spoken to my heart. He had never shown me things that I hadn't learned from another person who knew Jesus. When I opened the Bible, it was a tough read. Let me tell you, I did not have the power of the cross on my life even though I believed in Jesus. And so that's really what the word today may speak to in our life. And here is what we're going to teach each other and try to remember by doing an extraordinary activity in church where we yell a little bit again. Amen. Amen. The kids have already practiced, but here go the kids alone. Okay? If you're a kid at heart, that's great. You keep that to yourself. Just kids. Young kids. Okay, here we go. My end. "Is God's Beginning."
Okay, you can do better than that. Danik, I know you can get loud. I know you. Let's try that again. My end. "Is God's Beginning." That's better. Now, the adults. Let's see if the adults can do better. Alex, I see you right there. Let's see if the adults can get louder than the kids. My end. "Is God's Beginning." You're not trying. You get to be a little bit of a kid at heart today. Okay, all the men, don't matter what the women think, we know that the child in our hearts just wants to get loud. Let's do it on family Sunday. Okay. My end. "Is God's Beginning." That's better. One more time. Only the kids. My end. "Is God's Beginning." It's clear who's really got their hearts into it this morning. My end is God's beginning. When we look at a story in the Bible, doesn't really matter if it's in the Old Testament or the New Testament, when we look at a story, no matter how old you are, you should always ask God a question. When you open the Bible, and it don't matter if it has pictures, it don't matter if it is a kids Bible, doesn't matter what kind of Bible it is, you always ask God a question. I like to ask him this: God, when I read this story, what can I learn about the cross?
See, I know the Bible ain't about Jonah. The Bible is about Jesus. And the more I know Jesus, the more I am experiencing the closeness to him, the more I know Jesus. Fear cannot stay attached to my heart or my mind. The more I know Jesus, the more I can walk in the freedom that he bought for me. So, I love to ask Him when I'm about to read a story like the story of Jonah, which I love. I loved it as a kid. I love it as an adult. I ask Jesus, "What can I learn about the cross?" And there's many things you can learn from a story like this, but today I want to know what I can learn about the cross. Let's go into the story of Jonah as we keep in mind. My end is God's beginning. That was very, very lame, church. Let's try it again. We're going to do it a few times so that you don't forget. My end "Is God's Beginning." That is getting somewhere.
Jonah chapter 1. Let's start in verse one: "The Lord gave this message to Jonah, son of Amittai.
Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh. Announce my judgment against it because I have seen how wicked its people are." Now, for all the kiddos here, never grow up to say like I've heard some adults say, "Well, if God would speak to me, I would do it. If I would actually hear from God, then I would abandon my whole life and start following him." Some adults talk like that. You don't talk like that. You just listen because God is speaking and you become a doer of what he says. Jonah right here hears directly from God what to do. He says, "Get up." And not only get up, Abraham heard get up. God didn't tell him where to go. Jonah hears get up and hears where to go. He has an assignment, a word, a direction from God. Watch what happens.
Verse three. "But Jonah got up." He got the first part right. "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." You know, it is amazing how many believers do the exact same thing and say, "Oh, I had no clue." The Lord tells us to not care for any of the things of this world. Says, "Seek my kingdom. Seek my righteousness. The rest it'll be added on to you." Here we have the will of the Lord, direction from the Lord for our life. And so often we go the opposite direction. I got to make sure I have enough to pay the bills at the end of the month. I got to make sure I put away some for retirement. I got to make sure this, that, and that the kids can go to college. I have to make sure going straight in the opposite direction of what the Lord told us. Well, the Lord says that, but he doesn't really mean it. So, I can get up. I got half of it right. I go do something, but what I go do is not exactly what the Lord told me.
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, bought a ticket, went on board hoping to escape from the Lord by sailing to Tarshish so easily. We can make a plan and we just hope that if this plan works out, we just get to do it and keep it opposite direction. What happens in the life of somebody that believes in Jesus and says, "I'mma do it a little different." Verse four, "but the Lord hurled a powerful wind over the sea, causing a violent storm that threatened to break the ship apart." You see, we'll see later in the story that no matter how hard they rode, no matter what they did, they could no longer move. Not in the direction that they wanted to go and not in the direction that the Lord had in store for Jonah. When we go the opposite direction, when we start to do what is wrong, it may not, you may say it's not sinful what I'm stuck in or what I'm doing and you may be right. That doesn't mean that you're not going in the wrong direction.
You may be believing in Jesus and you may be stuck not feeling the power of the cross on every area of your life. When you witness to people, there seems to be no conversion. When you tell your family about Jesus, it may as well have been from any religion. There's no power in it. There's no— they don't see anything in your heart. They don't see anything in your mind. There's no real change. It's just you believing in Jesus and you go to church, but the power of the cross is not present. Rowing however hard you want, but you're not able to accomplish God's direction. You're not really able to enjoy the world either. Verse five. Fearing for their lives, the desperate sailors shouted to their gods for help and threw the cargo overboard to lighten the ship. But all this time, Jonah was sound asleep down in the hold in the bottom of the ship.
So the captain went down after him. "How can you sleep at a time like this?" he shouted. "Get up and pray to your God. Maybe he'll pay attention to us and spare our lives."
Then the crew cast lots to see which of them had offended the gods and caused this terrible storm. When they did this, the lots fell on Jonah, identified Jonah as the culprit. "Why has this awful storm come down on us?" They demanded, "Who are you? What is your line of work? What country are you from? What is your nationality?" Jonah answered, "I'm a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land." The sailors were terrified when they heard this, for he had already told them he was running away from the Lord. Oh, why did you do it? They groaned. And since the storm was getting worse all the time, they asked him, "What should we do to you to stop this storm?" "Throw me into the sea," Jonah said, "and it will become calm again. I know that this terrible storm is all my fault." Instead, the sailors rode even harder to get the ship to land. But the stormy sea was too violent for them and they couldn't make it.
Then they cried out to the Lord, Jonah's God. Oh Lord, they pleaded, don't make us die for this man's sin, and don't hold us responsible for his death. Oh Lord, you have sent this storm upon him for your own good reasons. Then the sailors picked Jonah up and threw him in the raging sea, and the storm stopped at once. The sailors were awed by the Lord's great power, and they offered him a sacrifice and they vowed to serve him. Now the Lord had arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was inside the fish for three days and three nights. You see, as people, no matter how old we are or how young we are, very often and very easily, we can start going into the wrong direction. And it can be something so small you may feel like you're losing a grip of the closeness of Jesus in your life, and he showed you that he wanted to spend time with you every morning and you just stop going into that direction and you have good reasons. But now you're rowing and it doesn't seem to go anywhere.
It can be much bigger than that. Jesus may have called you to start serving other people and you knew exactly what he called you away from and what he called you to do and you ended up however you got there in a different direction. Now the wife didn't agree with it. Your husband, you didn't know how to tell him. And now you are going into a different direction and stuff gets a little stormy. And now some areas of your life, they don't seem to go anywhere.
You can get stuck in a besetting sin. And no matter how hard you row, you are just fighting a storm all by yourself. The cross, the power of the cross seems to not be present to deal with your issue. The power of the cross doesn't seem to be present to help you finally fix your marriage or your relationships that you have at school or your ability to just listen to your mom.
When we have been going the wrong direction and we cannot row our way out of it, you have to come to the end of yourself like Jonah did. Jonah must have had a good dosage of pride.
When God speaks and you hear and you understand and you get up and figure out what is about the exact opposite and go and do it, you got guts. And the only way that we break that cycle of when we choose sin or we choose our own direction and we get stuck in life here on earth.
We're called to live for eternity and yet we can get so stuck in our life here on earth rowing left and right and it doesn't really seem to work out. You have to come like Jonah did. Eventually it took a lot for Jonah to come to the end of himself, to come to the end of his plan, his strength, his pride. You also have to come to the end of your plan, your strength, your pride, because my end "is God's Beginning." there has to come for every single one of us. And this is one of those really hard things about what is called repentance. Remember how I believed in Jesus, but the power of the cross was never on my life? I believed, I just didn't repent. I didn't turn away from my direction for my life. What I wanted to do with my life, who I wanted to marry, how I wanted to go about my life, what I wanted to do with my days, what I wanted to do with my body, what I wanted to do all the time, me, my will, my direction.
I didn't want to wholeheartedly turn and start doing what God wants and start doing what he has in store for my life. I never wanted that. And there has to come a moment before God and before man. Just like Jonah had this moment between him and God, he already knew. But there had to come this moment before man where he began to say, "It's me. I'm the one that is wrong. I'm the one that is going in the wrong direction." Until you come to the place where you say to God and where you publicly confess, I'm going the wrong way. I'm doing what I want to do with my life. I'm not doing what God has in store for my life. Until you come to that place, the power of the cross of Jesus Christ does not begin to work in your life. But what do we see in the story of Jonah? The moment Jonah does it, the moment he comes to the end of himself, what does the Bible say? God had arranged for a fish. See, God had a plan arranged for the moment where Jonah would finally come to the end of himself. And instantly, miracle power is now on his life. This fish takes him to the beach, spits him out onto the beach.
Now his calling is back on track. What he should be doing with life is back on track. He didn't roll one second to get to that beach. God got all of that figured out because He has a plan arranged to bring to pass what God wants to do in our life. He wants to begin something that you and I can never do. My end. "Is God's Beginning." See Jonah and this is really important for— is there any Christians in the house? You call yourself a Christian? You in trouble for the Christians in the house. Jonah has this false peace. And it's such a popular thing nowadays in the church to walk around as a Christian and to explain away every life's decision you make and say, "Oh, no. I prayed. I got peace about it." Oh, you may have peace about it. Jonah had peace. Jonah was able to fall asleep right there while others were panicking in a storm. Even though Jonah was going the wrong direction, Jonah was going against the Lord. Jonah was in all kinds of consequences of his actions. Couldn't see it. Total peace as far as Jonah was concerned. Other people could see the consequences. Other people could see the storm.
Jonah is just, "Oh, I got peace about this. God will understand." You can be so falsely at peace with things you're doing, not sinful stuff, just your direction, that you fall asleep in the heart.
Others may see the warning signs in your life and you are no longer alarmed and you just say I got peace about it. People tell me they got peace about it. That means very little to me nowadays because you can have fake peace. You can have false peace. You can have peace with your husband. You can have peace with the government. You can have peace with your finances. None of that means you have peace with God. Anybody can have all of these fake versions of peace. That doesn't mean you have peace with God. God has a mind. God has a plan. And unless you are walking with God and unless you know that the decision you are about to make is one that comes from the heart of God. You know, in other words, that God would never question your decision. If it was up to God, he wouldn't make a different one.
Only when you're walking like that, you have peace with God. You're not at odds with his will. You're at peace with his will.
There's no disagreement between what you are doing and what he wants. If you have peace with God, you can go. There will be no giant that can stand against you. There will be no miracle power that will be lacking. So your feeling of peace can never be your guide. Never be mistaken with that. Your feeling of peace cannot be your main guide in walking with God. You can know the heart of God. You can know the mind of God. And this is how you make peace with God. You know his mind and you do His will. Now you're at peace with him. Matthew 7 verse 21, Jesus says this about it "not everyone who calls out to me Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, only those who actually do the will of my father in heaven will enter." See, when a man or a woman, a boy or a girl has peace with God, they have stopped going in their own direction and they have now made peace with the fact that God is God and I have to listen. I have to walk in obedience. I have to trust Him. I have to go with what He says. I have to go with His plan. I have to go with His power, His strength, His love, His strategy.
I have to do what God wants to do today because I trust that always ends better than my plan.
My end. "Is God's Beginning." See, in order to see God beginning to change your life around, it doesn't matter what area. You may feel like you are still stuck in your sin today. And this is still true. You're probably here because you're considering that God may be the answer to the challenges in life. The greatest challenge of all, eternity in hell. Only God through Christ Jesus is able to resolve these problems. But in order to begin seeing God change your life around for the very first time or again because you got stuck somewhere rowing and you realize, I think I've been doing it my way with my strength, my plan, my direction. I was waving God's banner, but I'm going the wrong direction. See, this story of Jonah shows us something about the cross. Remember what we prayed? God, show me the cross in this story. God does it, the change, the miracle change. He does it through the power of the cross. See, the Bible's about Jesus, not about Jonah. So, when we look at a story, we don't look at the stories of Jesus and say, "Lord, what can I learn about Jonah?"
We look at every story in the Bible and say, "God, what can I learn about Jesus, about the cross?" And we look at the story of Jonah and the sailors know, "Well, this is going to be his death. This is the end." They even pray, "God, don't hold us guilty for his death. Here he goes." And Jonah knew as well. He didn't know there was a fish ready. He didn't know what kind of plan God had arranged to get him out of this situation. This was Jonah's end. And three days he goes into the fish pointing towards the story of when Jesus went on the cross and into the grave. For three days. And the Lord is showing you and I Jonah had such a fall because of going his own direction. And that fall should have been his end. It should have been the death of Jonah. And a fall that should have been the end becomes God's beginning. There has to be a dying. Your life coming to an end so that God can give you a whole new life. I always tell the adults, you cannot have a double life. Jesus only gives you one. You can have your own or you can have a new one. You cannot have a double life as a Christian. You can't have it both ways.
But if you trust him enough to say, "It's me." Everybody on this boat, "It's me. I've been going in my own direction.
I've been making my own plans and now I'm rowing and I can't make out of life what I know it should be. And I cannot make out of life what I actually want it to be. I'm stuck. A fall that should have been the end becomes God's beginning." That fish, three days in the fish that represents the cross. Here's what we learn. The cross can break the worst fall. The cross can break any fall that you throw at it. It doesn't matter this morning if you have walked around with your sins whether they are secret or openly and they weigh heavy on you and you feel like you cannot get close to God. You cannot be forgiven. You cannot walk with the Lord. Couldn't be that you have a call. It don't matter if you have walked with the Lord for a long time and there's this one area in your life and it's just not going anywhere. You don't have the power to change. You have it in other areas of life. That's the confusing part. But this particular one story of Jonah shows us when you come to the end of yourself, no more plan, no more your direction, and you're willing to say to God and openly, I've been going in the wrong direction.
I've been doing it wrong. It is the cross that miraculously gets you back on track. It is the cross that miraculously breaks the worst fall that should have been your death. That's how it feels when we choose to trust Jesus. It feels like we're not going to come back from this. It feels like it's going to cost too much. It feels like we're going to fall to the ground unless God miraculously picks us up. And it's so hard to believe sometimes that he will do those miracles just for you. But my end is God's beginning. If you great grand miracle. He has done the miracle in the fish. He has done the miracle in the grave. He has given his only begotten son so that when whoever realizes they are going the wrong direction and they believe on him and turn to him, he will solve the greatest problem of all time would stand with me for a moment, no matter your age today, if you say, "In this service, the Holy Spirit of God brought something to my mind and I realize now I've been going in the wrong direction."
Today, you can end it. You're not waiting for God to do a great grand miracle. He has done the miracle in the fish. He has done the miracle in the grave. He has given his only begotten son so that when whoever realizes they are going the wrong direction and they believe on him and turn to him, he will solve the greatest problem of all time and change the direction of your life from ending up in hell to ending up with him for eternity. And as you walk with him and you learn to give every challenge to him and say, "God, I'm wrong." But I believe you have a plan, every time you turn to him, there's the miracle of the cross, the three-day miracle of resurrection that gives undeserved miraculous power to fix in your life what you can never row away out of your life. You can end it today and only you. God doesn't choose for you when to end it. He has given you the gospel. He's already given you his word just like he did to Jonah.
And he is asking us, "When are you done?
When are you done in all of your pride?" So worried to say in front of people finally, I'm the one that's wrong. I'm the one that is causing this storm that makes my rowing, my strength accomplish absolutely nothing for the kingdom of God. I'm the one that's wrong. This needs to end. I need a God beginning in my life. Put an end to it and you will see God begin a whole new journey for you. No rowing for you. It will be a miraculous journey. You don't deserve it. It's something you'll be able to testify about. He gave it to you. Now, if you want that, I want to invite you in person to come forward for prayer right here at the altar at this time. If you want that, you want a God beginning in an area of your life, there's something you notice today, going in the wrong direction, God is giving you an opportunity to show symbolically in front of people, I'm the one going in a wrong direction. I need a God beginning in my life. It's saying, God, your plan, your strength of getting this thing figured out, but to put an end to it, say, "I'm not going to I'm wrong. And it's saying it publicly. I need this to end. I need a God beginning in this area of my life.
If that is you, come join us. And for those that are online, I want to invite you to tell somebody you trust, somebody you know loves Jesus. Tell someone what the Holy Spirit of God has brought to your mind today. That you've been going in a wrong direction and that you are committed to turn away from your way, your plan, your strength of getting this thing figured out, but to put an end to it, say, "I'm not going to rely on my strength. I'm not going to use the fake banner of some kind of a feeling of peace. I'm going to stop fighting for my will, my direction, my way of doing things. I don't need to be rowing like this. I need a God beginning to this story. I need a God beginning that gets me back on track. I need a God beginning. Make sure to share it with someone. I'm the one. It's me. I need a God beginning. Lord, we come before you today, Lord God, young and old.
-Pastor Stan Mons
