Stay Outside
Jonah 2:1-8 John 12:1-8 9/20/2020
One of the treasured memories I have as a kid was walking home with my cousins or friends, and then getting caught in the rain. We would take off running as fast as we could heading to the house. When we reached the porch, we would be laughing and watching the rain come down. The harder it came down the more the excitement of having escaped the large raindrops.
But it seems like often times, there would be one of us that would stay outside in the rain pretending as though it was the greatest place to be in the world.
The only problem with staying in the rain too long, is that it causes your clothes to get drenched. It’s not good to stay in cold wet clothes for too long because if you do, you might get sick. Some might get a cold, but a few might get pneumonia, and if you don’t realize you have it, you could end up dying. It’s
amazing how something so innocent looking and even fun at first can lead to some very bad consequences.
If only little things with bad consequences came to us in neon lights maybe we would think about them a little longer.
The God who created this universe has looked at all of us, and came to the same conclusion about each of us. Each of us looks like a mess that needs to come in from the rain.
Plain and simple, we are in need of God’s grace to make some needed adjustments and changes in our lives. The strange thing is, even though we are a mess, God wants to be in a relationship with us. That’s even more amazing when God knows the absolute truth about us.
In Matthew 23:37 Jesus says to a group of people who wanted nothing to do with him, “so many times I have wanted to gather you together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.” Jesus wants to offer us care and protection, but we would rather stay outside of what he’s offering. We’re like the person who insists on staying outside in the rain.
In the Old Testament, there was a guy by the name of Jonah that God called to do a mission. God wanted Jonah to go to the city of Ninevah and tell the people to change their ways or God would destroy their city.
Jonah didn’t like the people of Ninevah, and he wanted God to destroy them, so he took off in another direction to make sure they did not get the word. Jonah wanted God to wipe them out, and he was not about to tell them that God would give them another chance if they changed. He did not want them to experience the love of God through him.
Can you imagine saying to God, I don’t want others to experience your love through me?
Jonah bought a ticket on a ship to make sure he couldn’t get back to Ninevah even if he wanted to. He knew nobody would turn the ship around for one passenger, especially a ship in the middle of the Mediterranean sea that was headed west for Spain. He wanted to stay outside of God’s will for as long as it took for Ninevah to be destroyed.
How many of us realize there is a part of Jonah living inside of us? We know what God has told us to do, but we don’t want to do it because we don’t like those people right now. We want to stay outside of God’s will so that we can get back at those people.
Who are those people? It could be our spouse who hurt our feelings by saying something or doing something we didn’t like. It could be our children, who have gotten on our nerves. It could be our parents who are getting into our business, or it could be our neighbors who are loud and obnoxious, leaving trash on the street.
God has the audacity to tell us, I want you to be my representative to them right now. Go and show them my love through you. I don’t know about you, but sometimes when God does this, I want to be like Moses, and say “oh God, couldn’t you choose somebody else to do it.”
Your pride rises up inside and you say, but God, they don’t deserve it after what they did. God smiles and says, are you talking about the same way you don’t deserve my love and grace. Did you know that our pride can become an idol?
Anything that keeps us outside of God’s will is an idol. There is a verse in Jonah 2:8 that says, “they that cling to idols, turn away from God’s love for them.” So when my pride keeps me from being willing to be used by God, then I am deliberately turning away from God’s love. If I’m turning away from God’s love, what am I turning toward?
Jonah knew he was running from God. Do we know that we are running from God when we say, “No God, I am not going to forgive them right now. I am not going to stop what I am doing. I am not going to even try to believe there is another side to the story.” Jonah actually believed he could have peace and hide from God at the same time. It didn’t work for him and it won’t work for us.
Jonah thought he had the perfect plan to escape. But then God did something Jonah could not have foreseen. While Jonah was sleep in the ship, God sent a ferocious storm out on the Mediterranean Sea. The waves and wind were so strong the ship seemed it would sink for sure.
The captain ordered everybody on the ship to get up and pray to whatever God they knew. He tried to cover all the bases. Jonah stood out because he was sleeping while others were praying. They woke him up. They discovered, God sent this storm because Jonah was being disobedient. Jonah told them what he had done, and the only solution to the problem was to throw him into the sea.
The longer we stay outside, the greater the price we have to pay to come inside.
Jonah had not thought his hatred for others at a distance could lead to his own possible death. It wasn’t like he did something intentionally to hurt the people of Ninevah. He just wasn’t going to have anything to do with them.
He certainly had other things to do than to go and warn them about God’s judgment. It’s amazing how we do not believe that the small choices we make will lead to major negative consequences for our lives and cost us far more than we think.
Can you imagine what it must have been like to be on that ship in the midst of the storm and to hear, “Look we tried to row back to shore to save you but its not working. We’re going to have to throw you out of this ship.”
What would be going through your mind? How many of us are thinking, “If only I had of”, how many are thinking, “God if you just give me another chance. I’ll go to Ninevah and anywhere else.” We are only going to pass through this life once. The fewer “if only’s we rack up the better. People are not always going to give us another chance. That’s why, now is the best time to try to make things right. How long will you allow your anger from yesterday, blind you to the lost time you are losing today. The Holy Spirit can help you let go of anything if you allow Him to do it.
When the men took a hold of Jonah and threw him into the sea, the sea became calm. I wonder how far down in the water did Jonah go. Was he a swimmer so that he came back up and started treading water as he watched the boat move further away from him?
Did this happen at night when it was too dark to see anything? One thing Jonah did know was that he was not going to be able to swim to land. All of a sudden his hatred for the Ninevites gets put into perspective. His hatred of them was not worth dying over.
He realizes he is pretty far outside of the will of God for his life. But the good news about Jesus is that no matter how far outside you are, He’s still close enough to save you. The scriptures tell us the Lord prepared a huge fish to swallow Jonah. Now some of you may be thinking, that’s why I can’t believe the bible, because of stories like that. Nobody can live inside of a fish.
I think the key is to understand, the Scripture states, the Lord provided. If the Lord could provide a planet at just the right distance from the sun so that we won’t freeze or burn up, and tilt it at 23.5 so that we can have seasons, and rotate the planet at a speed of 1000 miles an hour to keep the oceans in place,
and built an atmosphere that not only protects but in that atmosphere He put in the right kind of gases to breath, and gave us earth and rock to stand upon, and gravity to keep us from floating out into space and He’s kept everything working for 1000’s of years. Why should we have a problem believing God could create a fish large enough to swallow a man and keep him alive for three days? A few weeks ago CNN had an article on a megalodon shark that was 59 feet long. It could have easily swallowed a man whole.
We don’t know how the Lord might provide, but the Lord does provide. I don’t know if Jonah saw this huge fish coming at him so that he tried to get away from it, or if the Lord was merciful and had the fish come up and get up from underneath. I do know he was inside the fish for three days and three nights because Jesus tells us he was and Jesus links the event to his own death and resurrection.
There Jonah was in total darkness probably scared out of his wits, but the one thing he did manage to do was to pray. The scriptures tell us, not only did he pray inside the fish, the Lord heard his prayer.
I don’t think any of us would want to trade places with Jonah, but as hard as it may seem to believe, Jonah is now back inside the will of God. He has come from the outside. It’s amazing what we sometimes force God to do to us or force God to allow to happen to us in order to get us back on the right track.
Jesus actually had an easier way in mind for us to get to him. He simply said in Matthew 11:28 (NIV2011) 28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Our problem is that our pride lets us know that Jesus is talking about somebody else. We already got it together. We really don’t need that. Just like in the parable we read today in which an invitation went out to come to the banquet the invitation can be ignored. In the parable, everything was prepared for the banquet, all the people had to do was simply show up.
Yet those invited had other plans for their lives and for their time. Sure it might be nice for some, but not for me. The people came up with great excuses for why they should be excused. The first person said he had bought a field and had to go and see it. The second had just purchased some oxen and wanted to try them out. The third had just gotten married and couldn’t make it. There will always be reasons to reject God’s invitation to come in from the outside.
In the parable, the owner didn’t go after the ones who made it clear they would not be coming. He simply extended his invitation to others who were not aware that a banquet was going to take place. The owner wanted as many people as possible to be a part of what he had prepared. God wants us to be a part of what He’s prepared.
But God wants us to come out of a joy to get to know him, and not simply to sit down and enjoy all the benefits God has surrounding us.
When Jonah was inside the fish, he came to the realization, life is not simply about Jonah and what Jonah wants, and what Jonah thinks is the right thing to do. He discovered that everyday he stayed outside, he was putting somebody else at risk. At first he put people in the city of Ninevah at risk, then he put the sailors at risk, and then he discovered he had put his own life at risk. If God had not have shown him mercy through the gift of the fish, he would have certainly drowned.
It was in the fish that he recognized, that God can make contact with us anywhere and that God can change our situation at any time. After 3 days of darkness, Jonah saw light for the first time when the Lord caused the fish to vomit Joseph up on dry land. Jonah had a lot of territory to make up since Ninevah was far from the coast. The amount of time we spend outside the will of God can make it more strenuous in doing the tasks that God calls us to do.
Jesus Christ entered into this world to let us know that even though we think we are on the inside with God, we’re actually on the outside in the rain. We’ve gotten sick because of our staying in the rain, and only He can cure us. Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners.
But he’s not curing us just for us to rejoice at being cured. He’s curing us to change us to release us back as his representative or ambassador into the lives of others.
Paul put it this way in Ephesians: Ephesians 2:8-10 (NIV2011)
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
We are created in Christ Jesus with a purpose and a meaning. Have you been allowing God to make it known in your attitude and actions toward others, especially toward those you do not like or toward those who have given you reason to be angry or upset with them. Have you let go of your pride or is it still an idol in your heart. The only way to come to Christ is to come in humility realizing you have nothing to offer to be accepted but a heart willing to say, Yes Lord to your will.
