Life On The Run From God!
Reading: Jonah 1v1-10
As you read the books of 1st and 2nd Kings,…you find that the nation of Israel was in a mess.
In fact,…they were in a desperate crisis.
King after king over Israel,…except Hezekiah and Josiah,…were corrupt and did not serve the LORD in the way they were supposed to.
They did not destroy the places where the pagans were worshipping, as God commanded them to do.
In other words,...it was a time of major crises for God’s people.
The Bible says,…that the Kings did evil in the eyes of the LORD,…and with that came consequences for the nation’s disobedience.
But those were also the days in which God was at work in the hearts of men and woman.
God was working through people like Elijah and Elisha,…and He was raising up servants to speak His Word with power to the people who were living in sin,…and disobedience.
…and so Jonah appears to be one of those men God raised up to preach His Word to the Nations.
In other words,…he was God’s man in his generation who was raised up for the crises of disbelief and sin,…and when you think about it,…that was not only true of Jonah,…but it is also true today that God wants to raise up men and woman for the crises of our generation.
This generation today is corrupt and full of sin,…and God has seen the crises we find ourselves in,…and He is calling you to go and preach to those people.
But,…Jonah’s problem was not that he did not understand God’s calling,…no,…he had a moral problem with going to Nineveh.
In other words,…when God asked him to go,…God’s will and Jonah’s will came onto a collision course!
In other words,…Jonah had his own desires and his own plans and ambitions to fulfil in his own life.
Jonah had his own concepts and his own ideas of how things were to be done,…and how best he could serve God.
…and I fear,…that Jonah does not stand alone in this,…even today.
Therefore I believe there could be people here this morning who don’t want to go and speak God’s Word to a people whom they despise.
I believe there could be people here this morning who are afraid where God might send them,…so they live their life on the run from God.
It like that song that goes, “Oh God please, don’t send me to China”.
…but I’m afraid,…too many people’s theme songs are, “Please God,…don’t send me at all”.
…because we don’t always understand why God wants us to do certain things,…yet
God doesn’t ask us to depend upon our own understanding or logic,…God wants us to trust Him.
So this morning I hope that God will reach out to you,…whether you are a young person or an older person,…that God will reach out to you if you think you are too old for God to make any big spiritual changes in your life,…that God will somehow reach out to you and rescue you from spending the rest of your life on the run from Him,…that you will again turn back to Him even if you have made decisions in the past that have ruined your life,…decisions that have put you into a certain system of life that is not God honouring.
…because you might already have decided that nothing is going to change you,…not even God,…and now you are like a dead fish floating down stream,…wondering aimlessly through life.
This morning I want to show you what happens to a man or a woman who lives their life on the run from God…when a person just says NO to God.
I know there are young people here this morning,….young adults even who know they are on the verge of permanently going the wrong way with their lives,…and spending the rest of their lives moving away from God.
This message is for you:…-…Stop running from God!,…and do the things that He’s has asked you to do.
I know there are people here this morning who for all practical purposes come to God with their lips but not with their hearts,….come to church with their bodies,…but do not arrive with their Spirit,…who give freely of their money,…but don’t physically want to go to another country or across town and serve God there.
You are some place else,…running from God and refusing to accept His will for your life.
...and you know you have made decisions in your life which are in exact contradiction to what God wants you to do,…just as Jonah did.
This message is for you: Stop Running From God!
And maybe your reputation is,…that you have told people that you really want to serve God on the Mission Field,…or serve Him in some other way.
Maybe you made the commitment to serve God long ago,…but today you’re hiding from God,…and you have never come to the point in your life where you have actually acted
upon that call of God on your life …Why?…because of decisions that you have made in regard to that calling on your life.
“Well God you know,…I have a secure job now.”
“God I just got married and I need to settle down first”,…or whatever reason it may be,… and you are busy living a life on the run from God as you are sitting here this morning.
This message is for you: Stop Running From God!
But then you might ask me, “Guy,… is the call of God only on certain people’s lives in the church,…or is it for everybody?”
Well,...in answer to that question,…we have to ask the question, “What constitutes a call on your life?”
Listen very carefully now, “It is the awareness of a need,…and the capacity to meet that need”.
“What is that need that we are talking about here?”
The need is for all people on this earth to hear that Jesus Christ died for them,…and that He can forgive their sins and give them eternal life…-…and listen now! …and you and I as Christians have the capacity to meet that need through Jesus Christ in us.
You see,…from the story of Jonah you will learn,…that the pulse beat of God’s heart has an evangelistic rhythm.
In other words,…God loves men and women so much,…that He will pursue them with His love in order to bring them to repentance and faith in Him.
…and so Jonah’s story presents to us is a cry of the heart to lay aside all our reluctance and our disobedience,…to lay aside all of our flimsy excuses and to fulfil God’s Great Commission to preach the Gospel to every creature.
…to preach to the nations who are in crises.
…and God is asking you the question this morning, “Will you be that person?”
You know,…there was a letter written many years ago now by some Communists in Latin America,…and it describes to us some of the most passionate commitment these people have to their man-made cause,…yet it displays something that should also characterise your life and my life as Christians:
“We Communists have a high casualty rate.
We are the ones who get shot and hung and lynched and jailed, slandered and ridiculed and fired from jobs,…and in any other ways made as uncomfortable as possible.
A certain percentage of us get killed or imprisoned.
We live in virtual poverty.
We have been described as virtual fanatics.
We are fanatics.
Our lives are dominated by one great overshadowing factor - the struggle for world Communism.
We Communists have a philosophy of life which no amount of money could buy.
We have a cause to fight for,…a definite purpose in life.
We subordinate our petty personal lives into a great movement of humanity,…and if our personal lives seem hard,…we are adequately compensated by the thought,…that each one of us, in his small way,…is contributing to something new and true and better for mankind.
There is one thing in which I am in dead earnest,…and that is the Communist cause.
It is my life,…my business,…my religion,…my hobby,…my wife,…my bread and meat.
I work at it in the daytime, and dream of it by night.
Its hold on me grows, not lessens, as time goes by.
Therefore,…I cannot carry on a friendship,…a love affair,…or even a conversation, without relating it to this force which both drives me and guides my life.
I’ve been to jail because of my ideas, and if necessary,…I’m ready to go before a firing squad for what I believe in.”
Now,…if Communists will do that for their cause,…what a challenge this poses to us as Christians,…who not only see the social need of people out there,…but also the eternal need of people who are on their way to Hell?
“On who then rests the call of God?”
On everyone here.
Listen!,…We have no call to stay at home,…but we have a command to go!
You see,...the Bible gives us a command in Matt. 28,..it’s not optional,…not debatable,…it’s a command,…and it says, “Go into all the world…”,…and that word “Go” literally means to “travel”,…or “to go from one place to another”,…-…travel into all the world and tell people about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
…and so what it means is this,…young person, older person,…the call of God is upon your life to preach the Gospel of God’s salvation to the nations who are in crises.
God is calling you to proclaim the Good News of Christ to your friends who are lost in drugs and sex and disobedience to their parents.
God is calling you to a nation who is in a crises.
God is calling you to a nation which finds itself in all sorts of wickedness and sin.
…and so this morning,…if I can then make an appeal to you,…I will simply hold up the life of Jonah as an example….and one little verse,…verse 3,…which gives you the insight into the life of a man who is running away from the call of God upon his life.
Verse 3 says, “But Jonah got up and went in the opposite direction in order to get away from the LORD. He went down to the seacoast, to the port of Joppa, where he found a ship leaving for Tarshish. He bought a ticket and went on board, hoping that by going away to the west he could escape from the LORD.” (NLT).
Let me then share with you four characteristics of a person who spends their life on the run from God.
In other words,…there are four things that will mark your life when you live a life on the run from God’s calling upon your life,…and so I want you to carefully consider if these characteristics perhaps fit into your life right now,…because if they do,…then you are living a life on the run from the call of God upon your life,…just as Jonah did.
…and by the way,…when you run away from God and His will for your life,…you are not running from a God who wants to do you in,…-…you are running away from the God who can only do you good.
You are not running from someone who wants to mess up your life,…you are actually running from someone who can make something beautiful out of your life.
So you must understand,…it is no little thing to reject the call of God upon your life.
The Four Characteristics of Someone Living Their Life On The Run From God.
1. When You Live Your Life On The Run From God, You Live Your Life Under A
False Perception.
This is what Jonah said according to verse 3.
He said, “I can get away from God,…and I can manage my own life”.
I want you to notice the two false perceptions Jonah had here.
a. He had a false perception of who God was.
In other words,…he was under the impression that you can get away from God’s will for your life and there weren’t going to be any consequences in doing that.
Applying it to our lives,…he thought he could come to church,…- pretending to be doing something for God,…but in fact be doing nothing for Him,…and God would not know about it.
…and so Jonah tried to get away from the presence of God.
The fact is,…that if you cannot hide from God,…that also then means that you cannot hide from the discipline of God,…when you live a life running from Him.
In other words,…at the very moment which you move away from God,…God in His love for you,…will discipline you like He did with Jonah.
b. Jonah had a false perception of himself.
He said,…that he could manage his own life.
He thought,…that he had his own answers to life.
He thought,…that he could do a better job than God of running his own life.
“Do you know,…there are people here this morning who have been labelled as being out of the will of God?…people who are running from God?”
…and now they arrogantly try to be the best at being out of the will of God that they can be?”
And this is what they say, “If I am going to be a failure,…then I am going to be the best failure that there is in this church.”
And somehow you come to the point in your life where you say to yourself,…that I am going to do it my way,…and not even God is going to tell me how to run my life.
So Jonah had a false perception of God and of himself.
2. When You Live Your Life On The Run From God, You Cannot Rely On God’s
Provision Anymore.
In other words,…when you get out of God’s will for your life,…you loose God’s supply.
...because God is not going to pay your way away from Him!
God is not going to be the source of supply for your sin.
God will not do that.
So often I see people who are out of the will of God for their lives,…desperately scrambling just to stay alive,…doing anything they can do just to make a few quick Bucks here and there,…without having any thought about it if any of it was morally right or good.
So if you live outside the will of God,…you will loose God’s provision for your life.
…and that’s when you start trusting in a failing source of supply.
It’s like this true story told about a man some years ago.
He said there was a time in his life when he served the Lord.
There was a time in his life when he loved God,…and served Him with all of his heart.
In fact,…he and his whole family served the Lord at one time.
He said,…that he did not have a whole lot then,…but he sure was happy.
He loved his family then,…he enjoyed life,…and he did not have all the stuff that he got now,…but he surely was happy.
…and when he thinks about good memories,…those where the days that he thinks of now,…and although he did not have much then,…he sure was happy.
Then he said this, “I had an opportunity to make some money”.
…and he got involved in it and he made a lot of money. (Nothing wrong with that).
And he said, “Now I have more things than I’ve ever had.
I’ve got all kinds of stuff that you can only dream about.
But I am not happy now,...my family is not happy,…in fact,…we are on the verge of getting a divorce.”
He said, “I cannot work hard enough to keep it all going.”
In other words,…the reason why his family was falling apart,…was that he was never at home enough.
He had to work long hours away from home to support that kind of a lifestyle.
…and so I want to warn you,…that it does not take large quantities of money to come between you and God’s will for your life,…- just a little,…placed in the wrong position,…will obscure your view of God.
And here is the tragic thing when you’re in a position like that.
When you hear the call of God upon your life,…you say no God, “I have another plan for my life”,…and for the rest of your existence,…you will wonder why everything in life comes to you so hard.
The fact is,…that God will not pay your way away from Him,…and you will pay your own fair away from God,…just as Jonah did.
3. When You Live Your Life On The Run From God, You Start Trusting In A False
Security For Your Life.
Everybody has to have some security in life…and so if you loose God as your assurance of security in your heart,…then you’ve got to build another kind of security system into your life.
It may be Stock Market or Real Estate.
It may be that you own something that is worth big money,…or you try to accumulate things.
I don’t know what you have as your security,…but I know that everybody has to have some security in their life.
Yet so many people lose that security overnight!
…and maybe you are sitting here this morning,…and you have sensed the loss of God’s protection upon your life,…because you have moved outside the will of God for your life…because you are constantly living a life on the run from God…and you are relying on a fragile and weak protection.
4. When You Live Your Life On The Run From God, You Start Associating With
The Wrong People.
“Do you know,…when you live a life constantly running from God,…you begin to do anything you can, just to get associated with other people, except people from the
church?”
You will even try and buy your way into the wrong friendships.
…and by the way,…whatever it took you to get their friendship,…that is what it’s going to take to keep their friendship going,…because they are not true friends in Christ.
…so your life will be characterised,…as you run from God,…by the wrong friends you have made.
You will sit around with those so-called friends of yours,…and you will talk about how hypocritical Christians are…you will talk about how boring it is to go to church,…you will talk about the fact that the church does not cater for your needs.
…and you will talk about how bad the church is,…and that nobody is happy with the Leadership of the church…and you will get to the point that you start to criticising Christians and God.
…and so you’ve have been miserable,…and you’ve been making it miserable for everybody else as well.
So you start gathering up people around you who are like yourself,…running away from the call of God upon your life.
“Can I ask you a serious question then?”
“Do you perhaps see any of these characteristics in your life as you are sitting here?”
What Do I Change In My Life And Stop Running From God?
a. Take Notice Of The Direction Of Your Life.
Well,…there came a time in Jonah’s life while he was running from the call of God upon his life,…that he realised he was wrong…and then he turned to God in repentance and did what God asked him to do in the first place,…when He called him to go and preach against Nineveh.
In other words,…Jonah realised he was wrong in living a life on the run from God.
Jonah realised,…the adventure of a life with God begins when the comfortable patterns of the old life are left behind and you answer the call of God upon your life to be a voice for Him to the nations who are in crises,…to nations who are in desperate need of hearing the Gospel of Jesus Christ..
…and God wants to say to this morning, “I have a plan for your life.
I have a call upon your life this day,…and I want to encourage you to do My will for your life here on earth.”
The question is this, “Would you be willing to change your mind and your heart just as Jonah did?”
“Are you willing to learn from this man of how important it is to do what God says you must do?”
b. Respond Now To God’s Call.
You see,…if the call of God comes to you,…and you do not respond immediately,…that then is not true obedience.
In other words,…obedience is immediate,…or it is not Obedience at all!
No past privileges that you might have had,…no past obedience to a certain task,…no past fruitfulness in ministry can ever substitute your present obedience to the call of God upon your life right now.
Great blessings only bring present fruitfulness when they are met with continuing obedience.
In other words,…you cannot substitute your past spiritual record for the present responsibilities of God on your life.
…because so often we put God on hold all the time.
“Is that obedience?”
So maybe you need to stop in your tracks right here,…right now,…and confess that you have not responded to the call of God upon your life,…to be a voice for Him to the nations in crises…and then do the will of God for your life.
I’m afraid,…too many people have put God on hold for such a long time now.
Yes,…perhaps God has called you onto the Mission Field,…or into the Sunday School,…or even to be a Preacher,…but you have put it off,…living a life on the run from God.
I want to tell you then,…that God is not finished with you as yet.
You can always re-enlist!
I know it is difficult because I have experienced it myself when God suddenly interrupts your comfortable life and asks you to go on a Mission with Him.
I know it is difficult when you get that feeling that God is tapping you on the shoulder and calling you into His service.
“But what can be greater than working for the God who has given you eternal life
in Christ?”
Its like this story many years ago of an Italian hermit who was found dead in his house.
He had lived by himself his whole life,…but when friends were going through his house to sort out the few possessions he had accumulated,…they discovered 246 expensive violins hidden away.
Virtually all of his money was spent buying violins.
Yet,…his misdirected devotion to the instruments had robbed the world of their beautiful sounds,…and because he selfishly treasured those violins,…the world never heard the music they were meant to play.
…and maybe you have also treated your faith and your witness of Jesus,…just like this man treated his violins.
You are hiding your light,…your are hiding the answer to the need of so many people who need Jesus in their lives,…just as you needed Him once.
…and so,…by not answering the call of God upon your life,…you are not sharing the light of Christ you have in you with the many people out there to whom you could have witnessed,…and they are left in spiritual darkness.
You know,…some researchers estimate,…that as many as 95% of all Christians have never led anyone to Jesus Christ.
Now,...if that is true,…then 95% of the world’s spiritual violins have never been played.
You see,…true devotion to God is not to run away from Him when His call comes to you, …but to say, “Yes Lord,…Here I am,…use me,…send me to the nations who are in crises.”
Conclusion.
God is calling you by name this morning in a very intimate way,…and in a very similar way,…just as He called Jonah by name.
He is not out to ruin your life or to mess it up when He calls you,…but to make something beautiful out of it.
The story of Jonah is then picture of a very weak person God used for His glory,…and He can do the same in your life as well,…if only you will answer His call upon your life this morning.
You see,…God used Jonah in spite of who he was,...and God can do the same in your life as well.
You might be like a Moses this morning who said to God, “I don’t have the gift of speaking”,…yet God used him in spite of who he was.
You might even be like a Gideon this morning,…whom God called to lead an attack on the Midianites.
He argued with an angel of God,…explaining why he couldn’t do it,…but God used him.
You might be like a King Saul this morning who stood head and shoulders above everyone else,…yet he hid amongst the luggage when Samuel came to anoint him king of Israel.
You might me like a Jeremiah this morning,…whom God called to be a prophet to the nations in crises.
He debated with God on the basis of his tender age,…as though God had forgotten how old he was,…yet God used him.
Listen!,…God can use you in spite of who you are!
“Can I ask you a serious question again?”
“How long has it been that you’ve been running from God?”
“How long has it been,…that you have been saying to God, “Just hold on,…not right now,…I am just a little busy here God”.
“How long has it been,…that you’ve been running in the opposite direction from God?”
“Don’t you think it is time to stop running from the call of God upon your life,…and start serving Him in the way He wants you to serve?”
You see,…God gave Jonah the opportunity to recommit his life,…and God is here this morning to give you another opportunity to recommit your life to His calling upon your life.
“Will you do that?”
We have a spiritual crises in our land these days,…and God is looking in your direction to come and serve.
Question is, “Will you be that person this morning who will stand up and say, “Yes Lord,…here I am,…send me?”
