How Long Will You Stay Outside

Stay Outside

Jonah 2:1-8 John 12:1-8 9/20/2020

One of the treasured memories I have as a kid was walking home with my cousins or friends, and then getting caught in the rain. We would take off running as fast as we could heading to the house. When we reached the porch, we would be laughing and watching the rain come down. The harder it came down the more the excitement of having escaped the large raindrops.

But it seems like often times, there would be one of us that would stay outside in the rain pretending as though it was the greatest place to be in the world.

The only problem with staying in the rain too long, is that it causes your clothes to get drenched. It’s not good to stay in cold wet clothes for too long because if you do, you might get sick. Some might get a cold, but a few might get pneumonia, and if you don’t realize you have it, you could end up dying. It’s

amazing how something so innocent looking and even fun at first can lead to some very bad consequences.

If only little things with bad consequences came to us in neon lights maybe we would think about them a little longer.

The God who created this universe has looked at all of us, and came to the same conclusion about each of us. Each of us looks like a mess that needs to come in from the rain.

Plain and simple, we are in need of God’s grace to make some needed adjustments and changes in our lives. The strange thing is, even though we are a mess, God wants to be in a relationship with us. That’s even more amazing when God knows the absolute truth about us.

In Matthew 23:37 Jesus says to a group of people who wanted nothing to do with him, “so many times I have wanted to gather you together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.” Jesus wants to offer us care and protection, but we would rather stay outside of what he’s offering. We’re like the person who insists on staying outside in the rain.

In the Old Testament, there was a guy by the name of Jonah that God called to do a mission. God wanted Jonah to go to the city of Ninevah and tell the people to change their ways or God would destroy their city.

Jonah didn’t like the people of Ninevah, and he wanted God to destroy them, so he took off in another direction to make sure they did not get the word. Jonah wanted God to wipe them out, and he was not about to tell them that God would give them another chance if they changed. He did not want them to experience the love of God through him.

Can you imagine saying to God, I don’t want others to experience your love through me?

Jonah bought a ticket on a ship to make sure he couldn’t get back to Ninevah even if he wanted to. He knew nobody would turn the ship around for one passenger, especially a ship in the middle of the Mediterranean sea that was headed west for Spain. He wanted to stay outside of God’s will for as long as it took for Ninevah to be destroyed.

How many of us realize there is a part of Jonah living inside of us? We know what God has told us to do, but we don’t want to do it because we don’t like those people right now. We want to stay outside of God’s will so that we can get back at those people.

Who are those people? It could be our spouse who hurt our feelings by saying something or doing something we didn’t like. It could be our children, who have gotten on our nerves. It could be our parents who are getting into our business, or it could be our neighbors who are loud and obnoxious, leaving trash on the street.

God has the audacity to tell us, I want you to be my representative to them right now. Go and show them my love through you. I don’t know about you, but sometimes when God does this, I want to be like Moses, and say “oh God, couldn’t you choose somebody else to do it.”

Your pride rises up inside and you say, but God, they don’t deserve it after what they did. God smiles and says, are you talking about the same way you don’t deserve my love and grace. Did you know that our pride can become an idol?

Anything that keeps us outside of God’s will is an idol. There is a verse in Jonah 2:8 that says, “they that cling to idols, turn away from God’s love for them.” So when my pride keeps me from being willing to be used by God, then I am deliberately turning away from God’s love. If I’m turning away from God’s love, what am I turning toward?