Jonah

Auto-generated from the audio — may contain errors.

0:00 The rest of us, we're thinking about these stories of God working in the world through people. We got started on this back looking at the Great Commission where Jesus says, hey, I've accomplished, I've survived the crucifixion, moved through the grave, accomplished the resurrection. And now I'm here in the resurrected body on earth, standing on the hill of Galilee so that

0:33 all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Jesus says, therefore he sends out the 11th, right? And as he's commissioning them, Matthew tells us that some of them believed and some of them doubted. He's commissioning out into the world to announce the gospel that the new king has come, the king of all kings, to bring in a reign that will never end. He's sending emissaries who some of them believe and some of them doubt.

1:04 And it's funny to me that God works through doubters and believers, that the God who has all authority in heaven and on earth doesn't just take care of the work himself. Said it before, but it's worth imagining together. Wouldn't it be cool? If Jesus just stayed on the hill to Galilee and like some people make a pilgrimage to Mecca, we could make a pilgrimage to Galilee and go up the hill and see the ancient of days

1:34 on the throne and ask him which job we should take and who we should be married to, right? And he could just tell us, right? Wouldn't that be nice? Of course he didn't do that. He left. He us sent it into heaven and sent people and it's kind of bizarre that he works through these people, but what we've been looking at is when you consider the whole story of Scripture, the character of the God of creation and life, the one who made the world an imagined life in the beginning through the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who established Israel as

2:07 a city upon a hill, as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, and then who brought the Christ. When you look at the character of the God of creation and life, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of the Christ and the cross, then the God of the church, you see there's a consistent way that the God works in the world and often it is through people. So we've been looking at stories of people who God has worked through in the world. Last week Demetrius walked us through the story of Joshua who it's crazy, he fights all these

2:43 battles and at the end of his life when he stands there and says, as for me in my house we will serve the Lord in this land that God gave us, we realize all these battles were the way that God was accomplishing the blessing that he had promised to Abraham and the people of Israel. And so that there are times where life feels like one battle after another and it could be when you look back at those battles that those were the ways that God was delivering blessing that he promised.

3:13 We looked at the story of Joshua. Today I want to look at the story of Jonah like I mentioned, we're going to get it right this week. The story of Jonah. It's funny, it's a story that kind of looms large because it's like the story of Noah's Ark, it's like this kind of fanciful story but it's kind of hard to find, I don't know if you've ever tried to find Jonah in a paper copy of the scriptures, it's tricky because it's not very big. And so it's this far through mine.

3:45 If you go to the beginning of New Testament and then go left a little bit and if you get to like Joel or Ezekiel and any of the major prophets you've gone too far, go back to the right and we're looking at Jonah. Jonah chapter, well Jonah's only four chapters, we're going to look at the story in general. It's a pretty short book, like I said four chapters, 10 to 12 verses per chapter. I remember one of my favorite professors at seminary, Dr. Reed Lessing, he was an Old Testament professor, he taught me Hebrew and then Isaiah in the prophets.

4:19 And in the Isaiah in the prophets class he told us we were going to translate the whole book of Jonah and we all rolled our eyes and groaned until we got there and realized, oh that's not that bad. It's not that long actually. You could read it pretty easy in one sitting, the story of Jonah. And I'll just give you the broad picture to start out, just give you the spoiled art, we'll run through the whole story and then I want to look at what God is asking Jonah to do and what he's doing through Jonah. So you remember maybe the way the story goes.

4:51 If you look at the very beginning of Jonah chapter one, now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, son of Amatol, saying arise and go to Nineveh, that great city and call out against it for their evil has come up before me. Remember that before that great Christ event, the crucifixion, resurrection, ascension and then Pentecost, before Pentecost where the spirit is sent out on young and old men and women to dream dreams and prophesy.

5:23 If God wants to communicate to the people, especially in Old Testament times, they don't even have the Old Testament scriptures all the way assembled yet. They've got the Pentateuch but they don't have the prophets. They maybe have chronicles but maybe not kings, right? They got the Psalms. But if God wants to speak to Nineveh, it's not like the Ninevites are there and can pick up a Bible and read the word of God. It's not like they can go to a quiet place and encounter the spirit of God. If God wants to speak to the people of Nineveh, he's got to call someone on whom

5:54 he's given the measure of the spirit to go speak his word out to the people. So he calls Jonah to go to Nineveh. And remember, Jonah is not interested in going to Nineveh, right? Jonah, get up and go up to Nineveh. There's a lot of poetry in the book of Jonah, I remember because I translated it years ago. And God says, go up to Nineveh and Jonah goes down to Tarshish, right? He does the opposite of what God calls him to do.

6:27 He says, hey, arise and go up. Jonah charters a boat, gets down on the bottom of the boat and goes as far as he can afford to go in a boat from the port where he lives, go down all the way to Tarshish to get away. He does not want to go. We don't have Jonah's side of the story necessarily. So we don't know specifically why he doesn't want to go to Nineveh.

6:57 Maybe there's someone specific there he doesn't like or maybe the food there is not great. But a lot of people have kind of inferred that the reason that Jonah doesn't want to go to Nineveh is because Nineveh is not an Israelite city. If there are Israelites there, they're living as expatriates. It's not a city in Israel. It's not a city that has really any history with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

7:29 Nineveh is like one of the biggest cities in the known world at the time. They have fantastic hanging gardens. It takes several days to walk through Nineveh. It's a big place, right? And it becomes the capital city of Assyria, an enemy empire. And so one reason Jonah might not want to go and take the word of God to the Ninevites is that's them, not us.

8:02 Jonah is not interested in doing the work of God because he knows his camp and his camp is not over there, right? He's not going to those people. He would go to his people, but he's not going to those people, us and them, right? As old as there are people, Jonah is not interested in going to Nineveh.

8:33 The other reason may be a little bit more understandable or defensible, Nineveh is the Assyrians. We're bad dudes. I mean, if you are in the business of empire building in the ancient Near East, you are brutal. And the Assyrians were brutal. You just start googling around and looking around.

9:04 You can find some pretty horrid stories of what the Assyrians would do to nations they had captured. We know a little bit more about the Romans in their empire building because they're newer, but the Assyrians, the Romans learned their dignified practice of crucifixion from the brutal pagan practices of empires like the Assyrians and the Persians and the Babylonians. The Assyrians, you hear rumors of them doing things like cutting off the noses and ears of the people that they had captured so that people would see that they were ruined by

9:36 the Assyrians. They are the ones who came up with the idea of burning, emulating people alive as like lampposts at parties for the nations they had conquered. Wicked folk, sacrificing young people, children of the nations they had conquered to show their dominance and stamp out generations and other nations. Straight bad. And Jonah, he's going to go down to Tarshees, but if you would jump to the end part of the

10:10 reason when Jonah finally goes to Nineveh and preaches and he says, you guys should relent, God's going to destroy the city, then they do relent. And so God changes his mind when the Nineveh's repent and God changes his mind. Jonah says to God, see this is why I didn't want to come up here. Because I knew you were going to let these wicked folk off the hook.

10:41 It's them and they are terrible and you're going to forgive them because they did the sackcloth and the ashes. Jonah says, so Jonah, God calls Jonah to speak on his behalf to the Ninevites. He says, go up to Nineveh and Jonah goes down to Tarshees and at first I'm like, you dummy, why are you so us them? And then I'm like, I kind of get it actually.

11:13 Those people are terrible and I don't want to give them any chance. I don't want to work with them. I don't want to be around them. They're terrible. So he goes down the opposite way. And then if we were to read along, I can't find it all. So you just have to take my word for it. This is how the story goes. This is my second week in a row on it, I remember. He gets in the boat and he's finding a way from the word of God and God sends a storm

11:47 and all the guys in the storm are like, this is terrible. They're seasoned sailors but the storm is bad. They're rocking so much that they're taking on water and so what they would do is they try and get the boat to float up higher in the water so they start throwing everything off the boat. The stuff that they're going to make money on, all the stuff that they're sailing down to Tarshees, they're getting paid to deliver, they're throwing it over because they're like, we're going to lose money but at least we'll save our life. But the storm keeps coming bigger and bigger and it's rocking more and more. And they start praying to their gods and they ask everybody to pray to their God.

12:20 We've all got different gods. Tell the God to cut it out and it's rocking and it's not stopping. They go down to the bottom of the boat and they find Jonah just chilling. They're like, why don't you pray to your God? He's like, look, this is probably my God because my God is the creator of all things. So it's probably my God and Jonah's like, just throw me overboard. This is the first time, not the last time, Jonah's like, I'd rather die than do this thing God is asking me to do.

12:51 I just kill me. It's a raging storm that is scaring and threatening to sink a boat. He's not like, I'll swim ashore. He's like, just throw me over and I'll be done and at least I will have avoided having to do this terrible thing that God has asked me to do to go work with these terrible people, them. Right? They throw them over and then this is where the sword gets famous, right?

13:25 God sends a fish, opens his mouth, swallows Jonah whole. And he's alive inside the belly of the fish. He's in there for three days. You know, in the ancient Near East they had this idea that it would take the journey down to the underworld and back would take him to three days if he wanted to go down there and go back. And so what they're telling us is that God goes down into death and gets Jonah.

14:02 Right? And then at the beginning of chapter three, the whale, I mean Jonah has a prayer when he's in the belly of the fish. He's like, thanks for saving me. I read it carefully. That's all he says. Thanks for saving me. It's a beautiful prayer and good on him. God went down into death and got him and he prayed, but he's not like, now I'll do what's right. He's not like, let's go deliver the Ninevites, me and you together Lord.

14:35 He's just like, thanks for saving me. Holy cow, you are so kind. And he is. But look at this kicker, Jonah chapter three, then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. Well, just before that, the end of chapter two, so chapter two verse 10, and the Lord spoke to the fish and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land. So the professor I had talks about, there are some large fish in that area, archeologically,

15:07 that maybe could have pulled this off, but it says that he's in there with the seaweed. And if he comes out, if he's vomited out by a large fish, he's covered in a lot of disgusting things, either white or blue. He's got seaweed on him. Profits already are weird. They're not people you want to hang out with. If they come out looking like they came out of the belly of the fish with stomach acid on them and stuff, they are not everyone staying away from this dude. And so the fish vomits him out.

15:39 In the very next thing, he vomits him out onto the dry ground. And then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time saying, arise and go to Nineveh, the great city and call out against it the message that I tell you. Now surely, God has other prophets, you know, who haven't done this thing.

16:10 And Nineveh, I mean, Nineveh, the Assyrians are wicked folk and they're not Israelites, right? But it is a big wealthy place. Like in, in, in, if what Jonah fears, if, if going and announcing God's word to the Nineveh means that God's salvation comes to the capital city of Assyria and wicked people are redeemed

16:46 and restored, then what a thing to participate in. The redemption of the capital city of Assyria, three days to walk through it, kings and royals repenting. And this seems like a pretty good opportunity for prophets who are usually out in deserts and disregarded, I'm saying. It seems like a pretty prime job actually. And Jonah said, no, Jonah got called by God and he did everything.

17:23 He said, I'd rather die than do what you're asking me to do. And God rescues him out of death, though Jonah didn't ask him to. Remember the passage while we were yet dead in our sins, did Christ rescue us, die for us. Jonah wanted death and God against Jonah's wishes, raises him from the dead and then gives him the job again.

17:55 God certainly does not need Jonah in order to preach the message to Nineveh. Let him do it anyway. You must really like Jonah. Isn't that funny?

18:29 He must really know and like Jonah better than Jonah knows himself. He must really like him. He gives him the second chance. Go do it again. Jonah does, we don't get the whole sermon. It would be interesting if we got the whole sermon, but we don't. We just get this one little line. It says, let's see, yet 40 days, Nineveh shall be overthrown.

19:06 This must have been his punchline. If I'm like working on a message for you all or Demetrius and I are working on a message or Brian, always it's like, what's the punchline? Let's make sure we have the gospel punchline. The good news. If this is Jonah's punchline, there's no gospel here. It's not like, hey, repent and God will relent. It's like 40 days, take care of your business. He's going to destroy the place.

19:38 Jonah, it sounds like he's still in his wrong head here. Though God has rescued him, he still would not like them to be rescued. You know what I'm saying? Though God has rescued Jonah, Jonah would still not like them to be rescued. He goes in and announces judgment. And punchline, all the way through by the end of Jonah chapter 4, the end of the book,

20:10 it closes with a question, will Jonah ever get on the right side of God? Jonah starts on the wrong side of God, and though he is saved and given a second chance, he's on the wrong side of God. Jonah's on the wrong side all the way through. Jonah is wrong all the way through. He's wrong. He's not interested in the mercy of God redeeming the ones who are far from God.

20:40 He is not. He is interested in the judgment of God coming for those. Even though he is spared from judgment and resurrected from life, he still, Jonah is wrong. And God uses wrong headed Jonah. This is interesting, you guys, because part of my contention with walking you kind of

21:16 laboriously through all these stories in scripture of God working through people in the world is because my contention is that God will work through you in the world. Probably already has. It probably has lots more out in front of you. And I think that's great. I think it's great that God will work through you in the world.

21:46 It is a danger though. Because sometimes if you find all the good that is done through you, it may have you thinking that this is evidence that you are right. I think I told this story before, but maybe the second or third time I ever preached.

22:23 When I was in seminary, they assign you to a church where you have to do work and then towards the middle of your seminary, before you go out on your internship, they've got to let you preach a couple of times. And I was at this church at the time, was the largest church in our denomination, right? Which isn't saying much, but they would have like one, their large sanctuary maybe sat like 1100. It was a big room. And the first sermon I preached there was on Saturday night, they give the seminarians

22:56 the Saturday night service just to hedge their bets. And I killed it. I want you to know. So good. I mean, just killed it. And it was my first sermon. I was like, holy all week long. The only story I thought about was the story I needed to preach. I prayed twice as long as I prepared. Like I had all these little things I had learned about how you're supposed to preach. I just did everything right. Second time is a third time I was a mess that week.

23:27 I don't remember exactly why. I just remember I'm a mess. And I thought this sermon is going to be terrible and not help anyone. And of course, maybe you've heard of this is what happens after that one. The first two everybody was like, oh great job. The third one where I was terrible, someone came up and was like, oh my gosh, how did you know exactly what I needed to hear this week? That was amazing. And without even thinking about it, because I just was like so taken aback, I just was

24:02 like, well, God must really love you because He came through a whole rotten mess to get you what you needed. And I realized that there are times where God will work through people who are just broken and a mess because He wants to get out there in the world and He does it through people.

24:38 So here's one punch line coming for you. You may have stuck your head in the sand to the calling of God. You may have witnessed brokenness that stirred your heart in justice, that stirred your heart and you tamped it down and walked away. You may have seen a need that you could address, mercy that you have the capacity to give and

25:13 decided not to give. You may have harbored anger when you glimpsed an opportunity for kindness and repentance. You may have walked away from God's calling on you in the world, large or small. But God gives second chances all the time. And it doesn't actually matter if you have walked away from the call of God.

25:48 He got Jonah up out of death, spit him out of the mouth of a fish and said go try again. If you have walked away from the call of God in your life, that's okay. He can call you again. And you may be straight, wrong and a mess just like Jonah.

26:23 You may be just wrong. You may be actually in your mind working against the way of God and He will still, it does not preclude you from being used by God in the world. Walk towards the call anyway. Part of the most people think the whole story of Jonah, I mean the repentance of Nineveh notwithstanding, that there are, I think it says, 120,000 in the city who are saved, that

27:03 the story of Jonah is about God trying to rescue Jonah. Trying to turn Jonah's heart towards mercy instead of judgment. I'm saying that God has rescued him and put him to work in the world in order that he might not miss the redemption that's given out through him. So I'm saying you might be wrong and broken. You may have walked away from the call of God, but walk towards it anyway. Keep your wrongness and your brokenness and walk towards him anyway because as God works

27:37 in the world through you, he might awaken something that brings you back to the place of redemption. Don't wait until you are right to do the work of God. I'm saying. Don't wait until you are free of all doubt and misconception. Don't wait until all of your motivations are pure. Don't wait until you are unassailable in your virtue to begin the work of God. Start now because as God works through you, he might redeem you.

28:09 Transform your heart and mind. I was thinking about an example for this for you to land on, my gospel punchline. There's this story that's included. There's a couple of stories of Jesus raising people from the dead. The little girl to Lethachum, Lazarus come out. There's one that's kind of anti-climactic that's really incredible. He's in this town called Nain. There's a widow, a woman whose husband has already died and now her son has died.

28:46 Particular problem, if you're a woman, your husband dies. Now you've got to go live with your son because remember, only in this culture, only men can own property or possessions, it's just a bad time to be a woman in the world. This widow from Nain now has lost her son. She's ready to be. It's going to be real hard for her. Jesus is walking by and he sees the funeral procession. Jesus is a rabbi. He does rabbi things in rabbi places.

29:17 He got to be clean to go into the temple to participate in the holy rituals of the synagogue. Death is unclean. People walk by and they expect Jesus to keep his distance from the brokenness, from the wickedness, from the death. But Jesus walks next to the funeral procession to everyone's alarm. Not only gets close to the evil, to the wickedness, to the brokenness, to the death,

29:50 but puts his hand on the casket. And when he does, it does not defile him, but life comes through him into the place of death and the kid sits up and goes back to his mother to protect and take care of her while she yet lives. There is enough mission, purpose, significance, calling, holiness, righteousness, fulfillment,

30:25 hope, love, generosity, beauty, wisdom in God for you. You need all the things. So empowered by the gospel, we get to work. And as we work, the gospel changes us. Just like it did for Jonah, we hope. That's what we're supposed to take away from Jonah.

30:57 Don't be like Jonah. Have a soft heart instead of hard. Leave redemption and give it freely. That's the grace of God. Let's pray that we won't be like Jonah. Hey, Lord, thank you for the story of Jonah. We do pray that he found his redemption. We assume in your mercy he did. Give us the same mercy that we would find redemption and good work in the world on your

31:31 behalf and to your glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.