(Slide #1)
The Running Man: A Pursuing God
Jonah 1
In 1987 a movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger called “The Running Man” came out. This was a movie about a futuristic game show (set in todays time) that used convicted criminals as what they called “Runners” who, if they defeated all of the gladiators (the good guys) would receive their freedom. It was a life or death situation, and the reality of it was that all of the convicts were set up for failure. The game was rigged. Arnold played a character named Ben Richards, who was a ex-military helicopter pilot who had been set up in a failed military mission. He was innocent, but to win this game to prove his innocence to the country.
Today, we are going to look at a Running Man from the past named Jonah. I am sure you have all heard of Jonah. If you have been in church since childhood you probably know that Jonah was the Israelite prophet swallowed by a fish, spent 3 days in his belly, and then was spit out onto the beach. But there is so much more to this story than the “fish story.” As we look at the movie the Running Man and see that its idea of what today’s society was going to be was probably a little off, but looking back to the year 700 b.c., we see that Jonah, even though he lived in a much different time period, was a lot like us in many ways. We see a man who was called by God, who did everything he could shirk his responsibilities. We see a man who had been blessed by God, who takes it for granted. We see a man who keeps receiving the forgiveness and mercy of God, who keeps falling back into the same old patterns of sin. In fact, Jonah’s attitude and actions were representative of his nation Israel, who had been given God’s blessing and continued to shirk their responsibilities, take their blessing for granted, and fall back into the same sin, and no matter how many times they did this God saved them. As we look back on Jonah from 2015, I want you to see that in many ways we have the same tendency as Jonah to run from God, to run from our calling, to run from obeying God. We are as much “The Running Man” as Jonah, and we need to recognize that and start running to God and not from him.
So, with that in mind, today we are going to begin looking at the book of Jonah, and if you have your Bibles with you, we are going to read all of Jonah 1. If you don’t have your Bibles, it will be on the screen.
(SLIDE 2)
The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”
3 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.
4 Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. 5 All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship.
But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. 6 The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish.”
7 Then the sailors said to each other, “Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.” They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. 8 So they asked him, “Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What kind of work do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?”
9 He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”
(SLIDE 3)
10 This terrified them and they asked, “What have you done?” (They knew he was running away from the Lord, because he had already told them so.)
11 The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?”
12 “Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied, “and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.”
13 Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. 14 Then they cried out to the Lord, “Please, Lord, do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, Lord, have done as you pleased.” 15 Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. 16 At this the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him.
17 Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Today I want to show you 3 timeless truths that God reveals to Jonah in this first chapter.
(SLIDE 4)
God Takes Sin Seriously
Verse 2 says: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”
This is God speaking to Jonah. Now we don’t know how God spoke this to him, whether it was in a dream, a vision, a voice from Heaven, we are not sure, but two things we know: God is unhappy with Nineveh, and God has chosen Jonah to go warn them of their sin.
Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire and was located on the Tigris River across from what is today, Mosul, Iraq.
Nineveh was one of the oldest cities in the world, settled somewhere around 4500 b.c. It is mentioned in Genesis 10:11, where it says that the mighty hunter Nimrod went to Assyria and built Nineveh.
Even though Nineveh was destroyed by the Medes and Babylonians in 650 b.c. much is known about their culture and their atrocities through the discovery of their great library in 1850 that housed over 2500 stone tablets that told of their conquests and even had pictures of specific battles.
The Assyrian empire reached from Egypt to southeastern Turkey to Iran, including all the fertile river valleys of the Nile, the Jordan, and the Tigris and Euphrates. This was the largest empire yet seen in the world; and it got there using a new military weapon: terror. The Assyrian army was notorious for its brutality, and the Assyrians themselves made sure their enemies knew about their reputation. Their powerful bows, battering rams, and archers on horseback were also effective; but mutilation of prisoners, resettlement of whole populations, and a general rejoicing in butchery were what their victims told others about. Assyrian kings bragged in stone about their atrocities.
Their murals from Sennacherib’s throne room are as detailed as the evening news. We see the huge ramp the Assyrians built against the walls, and we see the battering rams on it pounding at the wooden gates. The defenders on the wall above sling stones and throw burning torches at the rams to try to burn them. Captured Judeans are brought to the king on his throne nearby. Other prisoners are being skinned alive, stabbed, beheaded, impaled on poles, their hands or feet or tongues chopped off, and their eyes put out. The barefoot and malnourished survivors leave the city with all they still own slung over their shoulders. They will probably be marched to Nineveh on foot. Some may be drafted into the Assyrian army to conquer other lands.
These were brutal and evil people and God had taken notice of their sin.
I don’t know about you, but the idea of God taking personal notice of my sin is frightening!
(SLIDE 5)
Many people in the world today ignore God and assume that he also ignores them. Many believe that God set the world into motion and allows it to continue along unnoticed. This text portrays God as one who perceptive, as a God who is active, and as a God who takes sin seriously. (New American Commentary on Jonah).
Oh, it is easy to say, “Come on Pastor, there is no one in here that is like the Ninevites. Plus, how unfair that God consider the whole city as sinful.
There is no doubt that sin is personal and we each have a personal accountability to God when it comes to our own sin, but we are also guilty in many ways by association (by not standing up and speaking out about systemic sin).
Much like Nineveh we live in a wealthy nation where selfishness and comfort are our idols. Millions of people around the world and even in our nation struggle in poverty and disease, as many people, including Christians, live in great wealth and comfort, sitting back allowing others to suffer.
Our nation’s leaders sit back living in great comfort, ignoring the atrocities of abortion, treatment of our elderly, treatment of our veterans, treatment of impoverished children, filled with greed, ignoring the numerous issues of social justice that are rampant in our nation, all the time padding their bank accounts, and distracting us from the real issues with silliness, such as the killing of a Lion, when millions of babies are being killed by abortion and having their body parts sold on the open market and millions of others are starving.
How have we come to this place in our nation? How have we come to accept the post-modern views where right is “What makes me happy?”
(SLIDE 6)
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight! (Isaiah 5: 20-21).
What I am saying is that we have become numb to the atrocities of our nation and leaders, and when we do this we are just as guilty. When we do this, if we are not careful, we begin to take on these same views, concentrating on building our own personal empire instead of reaching out to those in need (spiritual, physical, emotional).
(SLIDE 7)
Righteousness exalts a nation,
but sin condemns any people. (Proverbs 14:34)
For the nation or kingdom that will not serve you will perish;
it will be utterly ruined. ( Isaiah 60:12).
As individuals and as the Church, we are, first, to examine ourselves (attitudes and actions), to ensure that we haven’t become numb to any sin in our lives, repenting to God for these.
And I remind you that Repentance isn’t simply asking for forgiveness, but is turning away from your sin.
Repentance requires radical action.
And we should not only repent ourselves but remind others the importance of repentance.
Second, we should “cry out” to others about these sinful attitudes and actions that our national, state, or local leadership are taking on. We should cry out to individuals in our circle of influence that this wrong. You should cry out to your church leadership if we are taking on any sinful attitudes or actions.
We all have family members and friends that are being mislead by these beliefs of Self-aggrandizement. Our children and grandchildren are being taught that life is about “my pleasure at the expense of everything and everyone else.”
**We must be the ones to give the true message of hope that finds its strength in the power of Christ not in the power of self.
We must show them that they have an eternal hope that goes beyond this life, due to God sending his son to die for our sins.
It is vital that they understand that even though God is love, that doesn't mean that love is God. Love does not define God, God defines love. Love outside of God’s holiness and righteousness is a false love, and has no resemblance to the love of God (Warren Wiersbe, BEC commentary), and what Christian love is.
We serve a God that notices sin and takes it seriously, and we are called on to recognize sin, take it seriously, repent of it, and warn others of it also.
(SLIDE 8)
2. Running Isn’t Always Healthy
We are told by doctors that the best way to lose weight and stay healthy is to do aerobic exercise at least 3 times a week for 45 minutes each time, and running is one of the best ways to accomplish this, but Jonah illustrates to us that running isn’t always healthy.
In our Scripture today, the first thing we see Jonah do, as soon as God gives him his mission, is run.
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. (Verse 3)
So Jonah runs from God. Why?
To be honest, we have all ran from God’s calling on our life at some point. I don’t know anyone who has went to the extent that Jonah did, but I am sure that many have.
We run from God because we feel unworthy, incapable, trying to hide unrepentant sin that we don’t want to admit, or simply we are being selfish because we don’t want to make the sacrifice that God is calling for in our lives.
Is God calling you today? Is he calling you to reach out to someone? Is he calling you to confess a sin? Is he calling you to stop living a lukewarm Christian existence and to start living for him with all you have?
What is he calling you to do today, and why haven’t you obeyed?
(SLIDE 9)
***Let me remind you that an unwillingness to serve God is open rebellion against him.
It is disobedience which is sin!
****In Jonah’s case, it is easy to think that Jonah ran because he feared the Ninevites, but that isn’t true.
If you read ahead to 4:2, you will see that Jonah fled because he knew the Lord would have compassion on the Ninevites and Jonah detested them and didn’t want God to have compassion on them.
Are there people or people groups that you don’t reach out to because you are filled with hate instead of love? You are sickened at the thought of God forgiving them
Is there a person in your life that God is calling you to reach out to, but because of a past incident, or your unwillingness to forgive them, you refuse, forgetting that God forgave you of all of your sins you have committed against him?
Do you not reach out to people of other cultures because you have racist beliefs? We have a huge Hispanic population in our county (25% of Frankfort’s population). Are we reaching out to them as individuals? Are we reaching out to them as a Church? I cannot tell you how many Christians I know that make racist comments toward Hispanics in our community. Spin it anyway you want, it is wrong. It is a sin. And I will remind you that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and Joshua were all immigrants.
Do you not reach out to people of a different sexual orientation because they disgust you? Their worth is less than yours?
This was what Jonah was doing. This is why Jonah was running! Jonah hated that God would have compassion on these Gentiles, because all it would do was expose Jonah and the Israelites for who they were, a nation of people who had been blessed by God, but took it for granted and refused to repent of their sins. They weren’t much different than the Nineties in many ways. The refused to repent!!!
All throughout this first chapter, Jonah never offers to repent for his sins, does he?
In fact, he would rather be thrown over the side of the ship and die than recognize his sin against God. I do not see this an act of repentance or mercy on Jonah’s part to tell the crew who he was and to tell them to throw him in the ocean. It was simply another way for Jonah to run from his sin, to run from his disobedience. Jonah would go to any length to disobey God’s commands.
The pagan crew had more of a fear of God than the prophet from God’s chosen people! They at least feared God, and even recognized him for who he was (the most powerful of the Gods). Even though it tells us in that they recognized him and offered sacrifices to him, we must remember that the early pagans worshipped multiple God, so we don’t know if this meant they became converts to the belief in Yaweh.
How far would Jonah go to run from God?
When we look at verse 3, We also see the extent that Jonah went to run from his mission. Instead of traveling 500 miles east to Nineveh, Jonah goes to the nearest port and sets out west to Tarshish, which many scholars believe was the furthest known port in Southwestern Spain, some 2000 miles away. Jonah goes as far away from Nineveh as possible.
And you even have to wonder, did Jonah sell all he had to charter this boat himself, so he could run from God. Did he sell his house and all his possessions? Did he abandon his family? Was he the only passenger? We don’t know, but we know that he would go to any extreme to disobey God and make himself more comfortable.
We do the same thing as Jonah. We have all ran as far away from God as we could run before.
(SLIDE 10)
And I tell you today that there is always a boat waiting to go to your Tarshish. Satan loves to provide you transportation to disobedience. He revels in it.
But the consequences are the storms. Yes, there are storms of life that just happen, then there are storms of life that are the consequences of our sin.
These usually happen when we compromise our beliefs, try to take shortcuts, or when we blatantly and defiantly disobey God.
And we can see from Jonah’s situation that our sin doesn’t just bring the storm to us but others get caught up in it too. We put others in danger when we decide to disobey God!
And what we do is start making excuses like Jonah probably did, so that we feel better ourselves:
“God is calling me to Tarshish, not Nineveh”
“They need the Lord in Tarshish too. I will minister to them”
“I’ve prayed about it, and God is really leading me to Tarshish”
"I have peace in my heart about this decision.”
“Look at the circumstances. I had the money. The ship just happened to be there. It must be God’s will.”
“God opened the door in Tarshish.”
“God closed the door in Nineveh.”
“I love Nineveh, but I’m not the right person to reach those people.”
"I just feel like going to Tarshish is the right thing to do.”
Whenever we decide to disobey, we can always find an excuse (Ray Pritchard).
And it is through these excuses that we continue to sink deeper in sin, to the point where we are no longer honest with God or ourselves if we are not careful.
God gives us the freedom to make choices, but they come with consequences.
Every single day we make choices that show whether we are courageous or cowardly. We choose between the right thing and the convenient thing, sticking to a conviction or caving in for the sake of comfort, greed or approval. We choose either to take a carefully thought-out risk or to crawl into a shrinking shell of safety, security and inactivity. We choose either to believe in God and trust him, even when we do not always understand his ways, or to second-guess him and cower in the corners of doubt and fear.
Bill Hybels
As the old saying goes, “You can run but you can’t hide.”
And the thought that we can hide from God is completely ridiculous, isn’t it?
Running from God is not healthy or possible
(SLIDE 11)
3. God constantly pursues us
All throughout this first chapter we see that God is the hero and Jonah is the unwilling prophet.
As we go through the chapter, and the entire book of Jonah, we will be reminded over and over that God is control of all situations. No one or no thing is out of his reach. We see that God not only provides the ship for Jonah to get on, he also provides the storm, the waves, and the fish, not to work for Jonah’s purposes, but for God’s purposes. No matter how in control of his future Jonah believed he was, God is the one in control of this situation.
(SLIDE 12)
If God decides he wants to use you for something you better stop running. He will make it happen no matter what he has to do to get you to listen. When God pursues, he wins!!!
The question is, how far will he let you go? How far will he let you sink to get your attention? How far are you willing to go? How far will you try to run before you realize that it’s impossible to flee his reach?
But the good news today is that God never stops pursuing us is that no matter what we have done, he is always ready and willing to offer us forgiveness, mercy, and grace.
The history of God’s relationship with mankind is one of us running and him pursuing. Don’t get me wrong, God is not a God that is pacing around Heaven worrying or fretting whether Mark Sanders is going to give his life to him or not, but he is a God who is so loving, forgiving, and full of grace that he will do anything to reach me.
We all want to be noticed and loved, but in the back of our minds, even when it comes to people who know us the best, we are all afraid what someone might think of us if they truly knew our past, our present, our thoughts, or our attitudes. We have an inborn fear to make ourselves completely vulnerable or transparent to another.
But God doesn’t care whether we are a brutal Ninevite, a pagan sailor, or a running prophet, his love knows no boundaries. His mercy knows no length. His forgiveness knows no limit.
We are told in Romans 5 that “while we were sinners, Christ died for us.”
This verse alone proves that God desires a relationship with us. This verse alone proves that he already knows us. This verse alone proves that it is ridiculous to think we can run from him!
YOU are an open book before God, whether I want to be or not.
(SLIDE 13)
He knows you intimately, yet loves you deeply.
This kind of love is scary. It is brutally honest. There is no way to hide anything, or to put on the “I’ve got it all together” face. He knows better! He knows everything about you!
Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the Heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. Ps 139:7-12
Think about that for a minute. God is not asking you to be transparent with Him—He is telling you that you already are! He already knows you completely!
To be honest, we have no control in this. We are unable to make God love us. This puts the ball completely in His court. We have to trust Him to keep His end of the relationship, even when He knows who we really are. And if you ever have doubts that you can trust him, pick up his word and read example after example of his love for mankind. As ridiculous as it sounds when we actually put it down on paper, we are hard-pressed to believe that He will always love me no matter what. We live in a world where love has conditions, so to think that God loves us unconditionally is humanly impossible. Surely there is something I could do to seal the deal. But we don’t have to worry about that.
God loves you with passion and purpose. Are you willing to accept His pursuing love? Your response to that question will not change God, but could profoundly change you. Are you willing is the question? Run to God today! Run to the God who has sacrificed it all to be in a relationship with you! Don’t wait.
