Jonah 2 Series

Good morning. So, today we’re going to be painting in some broad strokes again. On Friday we looked at the first two chapters in the book of Jonah. To recap, God called Jonah to bring a message to the people of the city of Nineveh. Jonah didn’t want to do what God wanted him to do, so Jonah ran away from God. But God didn’t run away from Jonah. God pursued Jonah. Eventually Jonah repented, and surrendered himself to God. But his deliverance came in the form of a stinking great fish and being vomited out of the fish onto dry land.

So, the three things we learned, or maybe relearned or refreshed, are:

1. Even when we run from God, He doesn’t stop pursuing us.

2. God is not surprised by our rebellion.

3. Deliverance isn’t always glamorous, in fact, it can be downright messy and disgusting.

Those were 3 broad-stroke lessons from Jonah 1 and 2, but we did not learn everything that we can from those chapters. Alas, those other lessons are for another time. This morning we are going to look at Jonah 3 and 4. Again, we aren’t going to be able to exhaust the amount of what we can learn, but I think we can pull out some valuable things.

Read Jonah 3 and 4

The first thing that sticks out in Jonah 3 is that our rebellion against God doesn’t mess up God’s plans, or God’s plans for us.

Right there, chapter 3 verse 1, “The world of the LORD came to Jonah the second time.” God wasn’t done with Jonah yet, in fact, He still had the same job for Jonah to do as He did before Jonah’s rebellion.

Have you ever felt like you’ve messed up so bad, done so much wrong, run away from God for so long, that He can’t use you anymore? Maybe you see yourself as being so broken that, although God may love you, and he may save you, but there’s no way he has a plan for my life, and definitely not anything resembling his call on me when I was younger.

Well, the message of Jonah is, you’re wrong. Your rebellion, no matter how bad it was, no matter how long it lasted, did not mess up God’s plan for you. You are not that powerful.

Throughout the Bible we can read example after example of people who were disobedient in one way or another. People like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. People like Moses, David, Solomon, the whole nation of Israel. People like Peter, Paul, and the other Apostles. But their rebellion did not mess up God’s plan. They weren’t that powerful, and neither are you.

The next thing I want you to understand from the story of Jonah, that I mentioned on Friday night, is that God cares about all people, and he calls them to Himself. You see, Israel had gotten a big head. When God established His covenant with Abraham, and then Isaac, then Jacob, and then with all of Israel, He set them apart as a chosen people. But this being the chosen people, the elect, had gotten to their heads.

The nation of Israel and its leaders, both political and spiritual, began to believe and teach that because they were the chosen elect that they were the only people God cared about. They believed that God liked them and that because they were the “elect” they were guaranteed “salvation” and everyone else was condemned.

But that was never what God intended when he chose Israel out of all the other nations of the world. His intention was that Israel would be the conduit of God’s blessing to the World. Israel was supposed to be God’s emissary of love to all nations, calling them into right relationship with God.

When God first called Abraham, in Genesis 12, he said that in him, that is through the family and descendants of Abraham, all of the families, or nations, of the earth would be blessed. And God says the same thing again in Genesis 22.

But the thing is, Israel failed miserably at this purpose for their existence. Over and over Israel rebelled against, and disobeyed, God. Over and over Israel hated and cursed the peoples and nations to whom they were called to be a blessing. Over and over, they failed. But Israel’s failure didn’t surprise God, and it didn’t change God’s plans.

Time and time again God reminded Israel that they were not the only ones He cared about. And here, in the book of Jonah is a prime example. God calls Jonah to go and preach to the city of Nineveh. Now, as I said on Friday, Nineveh was not a nice place to visit. It was about as opposite of a vacation hot spot as you can get. But most importantly, they were not Israel.