Grace Community Church, Winchester, VA
www.gracecommunity.com
Watch this message at https://youtu.be/NDlefgUVE-A
Chuck Swindoll said, “The clock of life is wound but once, And no man has the power to tell just when the hands will stop. To lose one’s wealth is sad indeed. To lose one’s health is more. To lose one’s soul is such a loss that no man can restore.”
Every hour 5,417 go to meet their Maker. 39 People died while we started this sermon. How did God equip you and what are we as a church doing to help reach lead people to a closer relationship with God? The reason we gather here on Sunday is not for the value of entertainment; good music, a motivating speech, warm fellowship. All of these things have a good and essential purpose, but they are not THE reason.
We come here to worship God (that’s obvious). However, it does not stop there. You have a higher calling, but we have a tendency to run away from God. This is called disobedience or sin. The good news is we serve a loving and merciful God. This is the basis of the Book of Jonah.
What are some common reasons that you do not share your faith with others?
The majority of believers do little with their faith beyond Sunday worship and morning devotions. Our relationship with Christ requires us to be sticky and influence others. Most believers do little with their faith, and most churches do a poor job equipping the saints for the work of the ministry (Ephesians 4:12). All-the-same, we all have a commission, the Great Commission and we all have been gifted by God to help fulfill that commission.
We begin our series of Jonah quite directly with the issue of disobedience and a wayward prophet refusing to answer God’s call.
I.Understanding the History and Context of the Book of Jonah
Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, (Jonah 1:1)
When one thinks of Old Testament prophets, the image of firey preachers proclaiming the judgment of God against a rebellious people, or an entranced visionary seeing mysterious images of the events of the last days, come to mind. We think of Isaiah in the throne room of Heaven or Daniel and his statue as conventional prophetic images of the Old Testament. Then we come to study the Prophet Jonah.
The actual author of the Book of Jonah is not readily known. Linguistically, we can see that the Hebrew dates the authorship back to pre-exilic times. Couple that with 2 Kings mentioning Jonah and we can narrow the date to somewhere between 800 and 900 BC.
The story of ‘Jonah and the Whale’ is familiar to many, especially children growing up in Sunday School. This incredible nautical event typically overshadows the real message intended by the author which is God's mercy to rebellious people. So, what kind of prophet was Jonah?
Jonah the Prophet is mentioned in 2 Kings 14:25 and by Jesus in Matthew 12:40. Consequently, the narrative of Jonah is much more than a parable or a legend. Jonah was a real person, and he had a real problem. Because we know that Jonah was a real person, we can see that Jonah is filled with man’s failures, contrasted with God’s love. The prominent message of the Book of Jonah is about God’s mercy to those who least deserve it. We will see something in Jonah that all of us can relate to in our own lives: a constant struggle between our will and God’s will.
God's will is perfect, but most of us run away from it, rather than toward it. We want to be in control. The greatest men and women in the history of the Church were those who learn to stop trusting themselves and trust in God alone. Missionary statesman Hudson Taylor had complete trust in God’s faithfulness. In his journal he wrote: Our heavenly Father is a very experienced One. He knows very well that His children wake up with a good appetite every morning...He sustained 3 million Israelites in the wilderness for 40 years... Depend on it, God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply.”
II. Disobedience Leads to Indifference in Our Relationship With God.
Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2"Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me." 3But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord. (Jonah 1:1-3)
The first chapter of Jonah does not begin with salutations or authors. It starts with what would be an underlying or secondary theme of the book: God speaks. This is where Jonah’s struggles begin. For that matter, it is where most people struggle with God. God speaks His will to us through the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. When God speaks, it is usually for instruction and command. The rest of the Book of Jonah describes how Jonah responded to God’s voice.
The first chapter of Jonah does not begin with salutations or authors. It starts with what would be an underlying or secondary theme of the book: God speaks. This is where Jonah’s struggles begin. For that matter, it is where most people struggle with God. God speaks His will to us through the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. When God speaks, it is usually for instruction and command. The rest of the Book of Jonah describes how Jonah responded to God’s voice.
The opening line of Jonah is reminiscent of the opening lines of Genesis, “And God said…” (Gen. 1:3). Or the opening line of John’s Gospel, “In the beginning was the word” (John 1:1). The phrase, “the word of the LORD” appears seven times in Jonah. It is here that all people must make a choice of how to respond to the Lord, just as Jonah made a choice.
God’s word comes to Jonah with what seems like a simple command, “Arise and go to Nineveh.” This is also seen in the Great Commission by Jesus, “Go into all the world…” (Matthew 19:20). The command to Jonah and the command to us is to show God's love and mercy to people who least deserve it.
Nineveh was the largest city in Assyria. The Assyrians were known for their brutality and evil. Some would even call them a terrorist state. The parallels today would be the most violent terrorist organizations or narcotics cartels, who strike their victims with bloodthirsty glee. They appear in the Bible as repeated enemies of God and God’s people. Apparently, their evil was so great that God was sending Jonah to warn them of impending judgment.
Obedience is the mother of success, and success the parent of salvation. (Aeschylus)
God calls us to be a light. Jesus tells us that we are the salt and light of the earth (Matthew 4:19). Our lives and our relationship with God are the foundation of being that Salt and that Light. God needed a light in Nineveh and so he asked Jonah to go. Jonah turned and ran the other direction. That is disobedience, or another word for it is sin.
Your faith in Christ is about so much more than you alone. Your faith is a testimony of God’s mercy and love. 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 believe and trust him or to second-guess doubt. Disobedience leads to indifference with God. My guess is that Jonah’s choice to flee was the result of a slow erosion in his relationship with God. Some of you today are just like Jonah. You are not trying to do anything wrong or even sinful, but you have allowed little sins to creep into your spiritual walk. This leads to slow and subtle erosion in your life.
There are Nineveh's all over the world and right here in Winchester. When we run away from God we look like the rest of the world. What the world needs is godly people and godly churches.
III.Disobedience Distances in Our Relationship with God
But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord. (Jonah 1:3)
There is almost a sense of comedy in Jonah’s response, but what can be seen as comedy is actually what will be Jonah’s undoing. Jonah did arise and instead of following God’s command as he had with Jeroboam in 2 Kings, he does the exact opposite. He commissions a boat to go to Tarshish and flees in the exact opposite direction. The writer makes it clear to the reader this is not an innocent mistake. The purpose and reason for Jonah’s flight was to escape from God’s presence.
7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea (Psalm 139:7-9)
For the Hebrew reader, the significance of Jonah fleeing on a ship would be understood. The people of Israel were not sailors, they were people of the land. So, for Jonah to board a ship underscored his desperate and foolish attempt to flee from God. There is a stark contrast between God’s command and Jonah’s actions. God calls for Jonah to arise and go up; Jonah goes down to the port of Joppa and down into the ship. God commissions Jonah to preach yet Jonah commissions a ship to hide.
In 1981, a Minnesota radio station reported a story about a stolen car in California. Police were staging an intense search for the vehicle and the driver, even to the point of placing announcements on local radio stations to contact the thief. On the front seat of the stolen car sat a box of crackers that, unknown to the thief, were laced with poison. The car owner had intended to use the crackers as rat bait. Now the police and the owner of the VW Bug were more interested in apprehending the thief to save his life than to recover the car. So often when we run from God, we feel it is to escape his punishment. But what we are actually doing is eluding his rescue.
Jonah’s flight from God was so extremely sinful and rebellious that the crew of the ship does not even recognize him as a Hebrew (1:8-9). When we attempt to flee from God, we look like the rest of the world. Our godly distinction vanishes just as Jonah's distinction as a Prophet of God vanishes.
When we run from God, we only damage our relationship with God and distance ourselves from His peace and holiness. This is not only sinful but poisonous to our lives and our relationships. When we are disobedient with God everything else, we do is built on the foundation.
“You can’t build a life of integrity on a foundation of sin” Craig Groeschel
This is where we will begin to see God's mercy moving. Jonah is not only a book about how God shows mercy to Nineveh, but also how God shows mercy to Jonah. As we will see next week, Jonah boards a ship and it is God who sends a storm to buffet the ship. In order to escape the storm, Jonah throws himself into the sea, and it is God who sends a whale to swallow up Jonah. At first glance, we might think this is God punishing or getting back at Jonah for his disobedience. Have you ever thought of a storm or an "in the belly of a fish" moment as God's mercy? We'll consider these things as we pick it up next week.
Take it to the Cross
