Introduction
I read a story recently about a 5-year old who decided to run away. The lady who lived next door saw him go, as she was outside cutting her grass. She said that she watched him walk up and down the pavement, in front of her house, hauling his little suitcase behind him. He would disappeared around the corner, and a few minutes later, he’d reappear and go past her again. After he had gone past the house several times, she finally asked: "What you doing?" He answered, "I’m running away from home!" “So” she said -- “why do you keep circling the block?" He answered, "because mum and dad won’t allow me to cross the road by myself!!"
Have you ever wanted to run away? To be honest there have been loads of times in my life when I have just wanted to run away – to run away from a problem or a situation or a person. We all probably have that feeling once in a while. We just want to get away.
You know since I have been in full time ministry I have lost count of the times that I just wanted to give up, walk away, run away. Sometimes even the pastor thinks that it might be better for everyone to let someone else have a go. There’s probably not a week goes by that at some point I just want to quit and as some people have said to me “get an honest job.” Do you know what ministers often dream about? They dream of having a 9 to 5 job, five days a week.
For those of you who are ‘Peanuts’ fans - One day Linus and Charlie Brown are walking along and chatting with one another. Linus says, "I don’t like to face problems head on. I think the best way to solve problems is to avoid them. In fact, this is a distinct philosophy of mine. No problem or situation is so big or so complicated that it can’t be run away from!"
What I’m saying is that we all have moments like that in life, moments when all we want to do is run, to get away, to escape. Don’t feel guilty about it – some of the greatest people who ever lived ran away:
• Adam and Eve in the garden after disobeying God ran away and hid from his presence.
• Moses ran away from Pharoah after he killed an Egyptian soldier.
• David who not only stood up against the giant but who also killed the giant – ran away from King Saul. Later he wrote in Psalm 55 ‘Oh, that I had the wings of a dove! I would fly away and be at rest – I would flee far away and stay in the desert. I would hurry to my place of shelter, far from the tempest and storm’.
• Elijah ran away from Jezebel.
• The disciples ran away from the Garden of Gethsemane and abandoned their Lord.
• And Jonah was a man who ran away from the call of God on his life.
Background
Now let me just give you a little bit of background information about this story.
Some later rabbinic traditions suggest that Jonah was the widow’s son brought back to life by Elijah in 1 Kings 17:17-24 but there is no concrete evidence for that. But we do know that Jonah was no novice – we do know that he wasn’t an apprentice prophet - this wasn’t a one off call. 2 Kings 14 tells us that Jonah is a prophet and a servant of the Lord. He lived in Israel and he served God as his prophet - as his mouthpiece. In fact his very name indicates that. Jonah means ’dove’ - which signifies a ’messenger’. And we’re told that he is Son of Ammitai - Son of ’truth’. He is a messenger of truth - God’s truth.
It was by God’s word through Jonah that King Jeroboam extended the boundaries of Israel in 2 Kings 14:25. That was his job as a prophet of the most-high God. It was his job to listen to the word of God and then communicate it to the people.
So it’s no surprise when we read in Jonah Chapter 1 and verse 1 that the word of the Lord came to Jonah, Son of Ammitai - it was his job to answer the call. But instead of obeying, instead of doing what God called him to do – Jonah ran away.
You know, I like Jonah. He’s real – and he struggles with issues I struggle with:
* What do you do when you don’t want to do what God wants you to do?
* What do you do when you know what’s right, but that’s just not the path you want to travel?
* What do you do when you and God just don’t want the same things for your life?
* What do you do when God’s plans and your plans just don’t match?
These are Jonah’s dilemmas. Are they yours? There’s a Jonah lurking in the heart of every one of us – times when our will is locked in a power struggle with God! Times when God tells us to obey! And the Jonah in each one of us says “No way!”
I want to say 4 things from this story this morning:
1) Learn to be a follower – not a runner
The first thing I want to say is ‘learn to be a follower – not a runner’. Verses 1, 2 and 3 quite categorically states that Jonah, the man of God hears the Word of God and willfully disobeys it. ‘The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: "Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me." But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD.’
Now God speaks to us in many different ways. He speaks to us through our prayer time. He speaks to us through the scriptures, he speaks to us through the preaching or through other people. Sometimes He might speak to us through our circumstance. And I will be the first to admit that sometimes it is difficult to understand what God is saying to us, sometimes it is hard to know what God is calling us to do.
But that wasn’t the problem here. Jonah knows what God wants, he knows what God desires of him, he understands what God has called him to do - God’s instructions, however they came, and we’re not told how they came, are clear … ‘Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me’ - and Jonah disobeys.
Why? Why doesn’t Jonah do what he is told? Well, there are a number of possible reasons.
1. Perhaps Jonah thought it was lost cause – Ninevah was so bad it was beyond hope, beyond the point of no return. A city of unbelieving idol worshippers – no-one would listen to him so why bother.
2. Perhaps Jonah thought the message was too severe and harsh. It was hard message wasn’t it - preach against Nineveh’s wickedness – nobody minds preaching about Gods love and grace and compassion, but no one likes being the one who has to bring a message of judgement. Perhaps Jonah wasn’t too keen on preaching fire and brimstone.
3. Perhaps Jonah was afraid - fearful for his life? Nineveh was the capital of Assyria - violent and brutal. The prophet Nahum calls Ninevah “that bloody city” (Nahum 3:1). – and he wasn’t swearing!! And he didn’t call it “that bloody city” for nothing. He goes on to say, ‘It is full of lies, full of plunder, never without victims! The crack of whips, the clatter of wheels, galloping horses and jolting chariots! Charging cavalry, flashing swords and glittering spears! Many casualties, piles of dead, bodies without number, people stumbling over the corpses—all because of the wanton lust of a harlot, alluring, the mistress of sorceries, who enslaved nations by her prostitution and peoples by her witchcraft.’
Nineveh was a bad place—nasty and cruel. It was the Assyrian policy to never keep their captives alive. People were tortured. When they took over a town in battle they would take any survivors and they would impale them on stakes in front of the town. They would skin their victims alive. After a battle they’d pile up the skulls of their enemies making pillars out of them. Their leaders would often remove the heads of their enemies and wear them around their necks. This is not a friendly nation or a friendly city - in fact this is the nation that eventually invades and destroys Israel in 722BC (you can find that in 2 Kings 17).
Perhaps Jonah thought – understandably - that to go and preach against Nineveh was a suicide mission, so he runs away.
4. But I think that there was one reason in particular why Jonah didn’t want to go there. It wasn’t because he though they were a lost cause, it’s not because he thought the message was too severe, it’s not even that he was too afraid. It was quite simply the fact that he hated the Ninevites!
Assyria was Israel’s enemy, and Nineveh was the enemies capital city. They constantly attacked Israel. They would kill the young men. Rape the women. In fact, right around the time this story in Jonah takes place, according to 2 Kings 15, the king of Assyria invaded the land. And in order to keep him from killing everyone, the king of Israel made every wealthy Israelite pay 50 shekels of silver to appease the king of Assyria. They were the neighborhood bullies. And the Israelites hated them.
So when God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach, Jonah must have said, "Forget it! I hate those people! Even if they listen to my message and repent of their sins, they don’t deserve the opportunity! And if they repent of their sins, knowing you, you’ll probably be nice to them and forgive them. And I don’t want that to happen. So I’m not going!"
Whatever the reason – and there’s never a good reason for disobeying God – but whatever the reason, whatever the excuse – here is Jonah, a believer, a man of God who hears God’s word clearly and disobeys it. Jonah was willing to do God’s work as long as it suited his own purposes.
But giving Nineveh an opportunity to be let off the hook was not something that he was willing to do. And so he runs away.
Now Ninevah is in the East. It’s in what is now northern Iraq. Tarshish is in the West, as best as we know it was a city in southern Spain. It was basically on the edge of the then known world. In the completely opposite direction to where God wanted him. Jonah wanted to get as far as he possibly could from God’s calling on his life.
But you know you can run away from God and not even move. You can run away from God and not even change your job, your church, or your ministry. If God is calling you to missionary work in China but you are sat here Sunday after Sunday, then you’re running away. If God is calling you to get involved with Sunday School – but you’re glued to your seat week after week – then you’re running away.
What is God’s call on your life right now? What is God asking you to do? What ministry is he calling you to? Why aren’t you doing it, enthusiastically and whole heartedly? Are you running from him?
2) Recognise God in the Storm
Point number 2. Learn to recognise God in the storm. Now notice that God did not stop Jonah going to Tarshish. He didn’t stop Jonah going his own way. He actually let him get as far as Joppa. When you wilfully disobey God - when you choose to live your way - when you choose to do what you want to do – God won’t stop you.
If you choose to stop reading the Bible, he won’t send a storm to get you reading again. If you choose to stop coming to church, he won’t send an earthquake to shake you up. If you choose to pursue a relationship with a non-Christian, he won’t send a flood to overwhelm you. If you choose to put your career or work before him, he won’t send a fire to wake you up. At least - NOT AT FIRST. He will let you go your own way, he’ll allow you to do what you want – but let me warn you, if you are running away from the call of God on your life then there’s storm lying just around the corner.
Now, don’t get me wrong, not every storm that comes our way is sent by God. Sometimes the troubles that come our way are just the stuff of life – the troubles that are common to everyone. Other times they are the result of persecution for doing the right thing. But there are times when troubles come because we are not following the voice of God in our lives. There are times when we are going through troubles and we want to blame the devil, but it might not be the devil causing it. Verse 4 says quite clearly that it was God who sent the storm on Jonah.
When we persist in disobedience - he will discipline. If you are being disobedient in the Christian life, do not for one moment think you can or will get away with it. And when the storm comes you would have brought it on yourself. Hebrews warns us to take God’s discipline in this life seriously and in Corinthians you read of believers who are struck down for making light of the Lord’s Supper.
And maybe some of you this morning are going through a storm at the moment. Maybe it’s a storm in your family, a storm in your work, or a storm in your finances, a storm in your health, or a storm in your ministry. And maybe just maybe, God is saying wake up – there was a storm raging all around him but Jonah was fast asleep. And maybe there’s a storm raging all around you but your fast asleep – oblivious to what’s going on or why it’s going on – and God is saying WAKE UP!
3) Your disobedience will affect those around you
Point number 3 - Your disobedience will also affect those around you. Jonah wasn’t the only one caught up in his storm – verse 5 says, ‘all the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own God.’
Our running affects those closest to us. Jonah may think that his argument with God is between him and God, but He brings the sailors into it when he boards the ship. We might think that our running from God is our own business, but when we run from God and the call that he has on our lives it will affect everyone who is in the boat with us – our family, our friends, our work-mates. Not only do they not receive the blessing that they would receive by being in relationship with someone who is following the will of God, but often they will have to endure the storm that God sends to bring us around.
If God has called you to a ministry in this church – and let me just say that each one of us has a ministry, a calling, a gifting that you can bring to this church. Then you should be fighting week after week to fulfil that calling. If God has called you to be a Sunday School teacher – then you should be fighting to get out into Sunday School every week. If God has called you to be a preacher, then you should be fighting to get behind this pulpit week after week. If God has called you to be a worship leader then you should be fighting to lead worship week after week.
You get the picture. The trouble is – when you don’t – other people have to step up to the plate and do it for you. People who aren’t called, people who aren’t gifted, people who aren’t equipped. And they become like the sailors in verse 13 who ‘did their best to row back to land, but they could not.’
And the whole church will go through your storm because you’re not committed enough, or faithful enough or bothered enough to fulfil the calling that God has given you, and equipped you to do.
4) God is a God of grace
Final point – The God we serve is a God of Grace. Just look at how obstinate Jonah was in his rebellion. In verse 12 he tells the sailors to throw him overboard. Despite the trouble he’s caused, despite the storm his resistance to God’s calling continues. He would rather die, he would rather drown than do God’s will.
So the sailors take him and throw him overboard. Jonah, the man of God is as good as dead, ‘But the Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love’ and God saves him – and looking at verse 16 he saved the pagan sailors as well. The last word in ch.1 is not judgement, but grace and mercy. Verse 17 ‘But the LORD provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.’
In the raging storm, there seems to be nothing but the anger of God for Jonah and the sailors. There seems to be very little hope, but while God holds the storm of his wrath in one hand, he holds deliverance and salvation in the other, right here in the middle of the storm God’s judgement and his salvation meet - his wrath and his grace unfolds!
And I want to say that as Jesus hung dying on the cross, on the face of it, there seemed to be very little hope - nailed, crucified, helpless - bearing the storm of the wrath and judgement of. But beneath the surface, God was preparing a deliverance, a rescue, our salvation - a resurrection from the dead. For at the cross - God’s judgement and his salvation meet - his wrath and his grace unfolds!
Conclusion
Can I ask you this morning where or what is your Ninevah? How far is too far for you to go for God? Are you running from something that you know God wants you to do? Maybe you’re afraid that there won’t be enough money. Or that you’ll lose some friends. Maybe you’re worried that God might make you go someplace in the world where you don’t want to go. Maybe you’re thinking, "Lord, you can send me anywhere. But don’t send me to….’
Maybe God is calling you to a ministry within this church, but you’re content to let others who are not called, fill the position for you. We all have our Ninevahs that scare us right down to our bones. But my prayer is that we become more like Isaiahs than Jonahs – that we say ‘Lord here I am, send me, use me’.
Let’s pray – you don’t have to wait for the storm.
