Series: Jonah and the City
Here am I... Send Someone Else, Pt. One
Jonah 1:1-2
This morning I want to begin a study of the life of Jonah. This first message I’ve actually broken in two, so this week I’ll preach part one and next week I’ll preach part two.
God calls specific people to specific places for specific purposes. I believe that each of you have been placed here at Evergreen to fulfill a specific purpose. The question is, are you fulfilling that purpose? In Jonah’s case, we will see that God’s purpose for him was to go to Nineveh to preach against the sin of it’s people.
Jonah’s response was quite the opposite from that of the prophet Isaiah. When God asked, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” Isaiah’s response was, “Here am I. Send me!” But when God called Jonah, Jonah said, “Here am I… send someone else. I’m on my way to Tarshish!”
Today, there are many believers that are a lot like Jonah. For some of us, our Nineveh might be reconciliation. For others, it may be repentance. Then there are those whose Nineveh might be restitution.
But the fact remains that a lot of us are on boats that are sailing for Tarshish while God is saying, “Go to Nineveh.” This morning I’m asking each of you which direction are you headed in? Because there’s really only two roads in the life of the believer. One leads to Nineveh; the other leads to Tarshish. One road is the will of God; the other is disobedience to His will.
Again, God calls specific people to specific places for specific purposes. Are you fulfilling that purpose? Because there are people in your circle of influence that I’ll never be able to reach, and there are people in my circle of influence that you’ll never be able to reach. Therefore, everyone of us are indescribably valuable to God. We all play a special role in the body of Christ; no one is unimportant.
Let’s get started this morning by looking at…
Jonah’s Call (Jonah 1:1-2)
The first thing I notice is that Jonah’s call was…
A. Personal
What was true of Jonah back then is still true for you and I today: God’s call is personal. Jonah was a real person who lived in a real city and God called him to perform a real task. The Bible says, “the word of the Lord came to Jonah”; it was a personal call.
If we were to break this verse into two parts we we would see two very important things. First of all, this wasn’t the word of man…it was the “word of the Lord.” You see, men don’t call us…God does! Jonah had a God who spoke to him. Secondly, God didn’t call Habakkuk, Amos, Obadiah or any of the other prophets to go to Nineveh. He called Jonah.
I don’t know how God spoke to Jonah. Obviously, he didn’t have the written word of God like we do today. God could’ve spoke to him audibly, like He did with Abraham. God could’ve spoke to him in a vision, like He did with Peter or Ezekiel. Or maybe God spoke to him in a dream, like He did with Joseph. It could've simply been an impression on his heart, but how He spoke to him is not important. What’s important here is that a human being communicated with God almighty!
Even more amazing is the fact that God still communicates with us today, and it’s just as personal! It’s strange to me how it never occurs to some believers that the same God who spoke to the prophets in the OT still speaks to us today. They don’t have a problem believing that God spoke to Jonah, but to think that God would speak to them is extremely difficult.
Have you heard from the Lord this week? If not, maybe it’s because you haven’t spent time with Him. We serve a God who still speaks to us personally through the Holy Spirit and through His Word. The writer of Hebrews puts it this way:
God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds (Heb. 1:1-2).
What are we doing about the fact that God speaks to us personally? Maybe it would be better for me to tell you what we shouldn’t do. Later in Hebrews we read:
“Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts” (Heb. 3:7-8).
I’ll never forget the day that God spoke to me. I can’t really describe it, but I know He did. It couldn’t have been any more real if He were sitting right beside me physically in my truck that day. God spoke to me and called me into the ministry and I knew at that moment that I wouldn't find true happiness regardless of what I did or how much money I made apart from surrendering to His call.
One big misconception when it comes to God’s call is that He only calls preachers. That couldn’t be any more further than the truth. God calls teachers, oil field workers, business owners, housewives, bank tellers and carpenters. David said that God makes known to us the path of life, and in His presence is fullness of joy (Ps. 16:11).
Another good thing for us to remember that has been very helpful in my calling is that God doesn’t call the equipped, He equips the called. God knows you. He knows your strengths and your weaknesses. He knows your past and your future. Even before we were formed in the womb, He said:
“I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you” (Jer. 1:5).
One of the most beautiful things about having a life in Christ is that He gives us a purpose; He calls us personally to Himself. God is interested in what you do: at school, on the ball field, at work, at home, at Wal-Mart, when you’re struggling with sin, in good times and in bad times.
The second thing I want you notice about Jonah’s call is that it was…
B. Pointed
God told Jonah to “go to Nineveh.” It was a clear call; it was pointed. It was urgent. He didn’t say to go to Jerusalem, or Joppa or anywhere else. His call was to Nineveh.
Nineveh was a great city in what is now modern-day Iraq. Its streets were 20 miles long and its walls 100 feet high. These walls were so wide that three chariots could be driven side-by-side across the top of them. The population is believed to be somewhere in the hundreds of thousands; it was a city of great wickedness.
Now why in the world would God tell Jonah to go to Nineveh, a Gentile city, when God was working with the Jews? To tell you the truth, I don’t know why God picks certain places. I mean, have you ever thought about why were you born where you were born and not in another country or even another century? Had that been the case, your life would be dramatically different from what it is now.
Like a lot of Israelites in his day, Jonah believed that God blessed His people in two ways: first, by directly blessing Israel; and second, by sending difficulties on their enemies. Well things haven’t changed much, have they? A lot of people today believe that if someone’s not living right, then they don’t deserve to have certain things. And just because we go to church, we deserve everything. Well, that’s not the way it works.
These folks had it in their minds that God loved them and them alone. But, before we shake our heads in shame we need to understand that in some ways we’re no better than them. We too, at times, think that God loves us more than He does others. So when we read that God called Jonah to go to Nineveh, it should remind us of our commission to go and take the Gospel to everyone…not just people like you.
God loves Russians, Iranians, the Lebanese, the Syrians, the Israelis, the Palestinians. The Bible says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” Now, Because “God so loved the world”, believers are called to share their faith with others even when they don’t want to.
The third and final thing I want you to notice about Jonah’s call was that it was…
C. Purposeful
God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and “cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.” (v. 2)
That’s a pretty big assignment that God has given Jonah. I mean, he would be one small voice among a city full of wicked people, calling its people to revival and repentance. Think about that. What could one man really do?
I want you to notice that the verbs in this second verse are all commands. “Arise”, “go”, “cry”. Here’s the thing: If you want to be in the center of God’s will, you need to realize that when He calls you to do something…it’s not an option. Some people might hear God’s call and they’ll say, “Well, that’s a pretty big decision…I’ll have to think about it”, or my favorite, “Let me pray about it.” Usually when people say “let me pray about it” you can go ahead and mark that down as a “no”. Their decision has already been made, they’re just too afraid to say it.
God wasn’t calling Jonah to be successful, He was simply calling him to be obedient. God wasn’t telling Jonah to go and preach theology. He wasn’t telling him to go and talk about religion. He wasn’t asking him to address their social issues. He didn’t tell him to go and set up a food bank and begin a clothing ministry. His command was to preach against their sin. I look around at our nation today and I see a lot of wickedness.
I thank God for those in our nation who are standing against the wickedness that has contaminated our society. But sadly, I see a lot more people running to Tarshish than I see going to Nineveh. Surely, in these times, God is calling more people to do what He called Jonah to do.
I especially fear for the future, or lack thereof, of our young people because of this cancer that the media is spreading to their minds. They want us to think that certain things, which are blatant sins against the commandments of God, are ok because they’re normal; everybody’s doing it; it’s just the way things are. There’s no moral compass in today’s society any longer. We have a problem and that problem’s name is sin; it’s rebellion.
Now I’ll admit, it’s not easy to cry out against wickedness. It’s even harder when, like Jonah, we are few among many. But I believe the main reason it’s hard is because we can’t cry out against the sins of others when we have sin in our own hearts and lives. So could this be the reason so few Christians are standing against sin today? So here’s the deal, God has called us to a specific purpose, and that purpose is to cry out against the wickedness around us. But in order to do that, we must first repent of the sin that is present in our own lives. Would you do that today?
