Good morning. So, today we’re going to be painting in some broad strokes again. On Friday we looked at the first two chapters in the book of Jonah. To recap, God called Jonah to bring a message to the people of the city of Nineveh. Jonah didn’t want to do what God wanted him to do, so Jonah ran away from God. But God didn’t run away from Jonah. God pursued Jonah. Eventually Jonah repented, and surrendered himself to God. But his deliverance came in the form of a stinking great fish and being vomited out of the fish onto dry land.
So, the three things we learned, or maybe relearned or refreshed, are:
1. Even when we run from God, He doesn’t stop pursuing us.
2. God is not surprised by our rebellion.
3. Deliverance isn’t always glamorous, in fact, it can be downright messy and disgusting.
Those were 3 broad-stroke lessons from Jonah 1 and 2, but we did not learn everything that we can from those chapters. Alas, those other lessons are for another time. This morning we are going to look at Jonah 3 and 4. Again, we aren’t going to be able to exhaust the amount of what we can learn, but I think we can pull out some valuable things.
Read Jonah 3 and 4
The first thing that sticks out in Jonah 3 is that our rebellion against God doesn’t mess up God’s plans, or God’s plans for us.
Right there, chapter 3 verse 1, “The world of the LORD came to Jonah the second time.” God wasn’t done with Jonah yet, in fact, He still had the same job for Jonah to do as He did before Jonah’s rebellion.
Have you ever felt like you’ve messed up so bad, done so much wrong, run away from God for so long, that He can’t use you anymore? Maybe you see yourself as being so broken that, although God may love you, and he may save you, but there’s no way he has a plan for my life, and definitely not anything resembling his call on me when I was younger.
Well, the message of Jonah is, you’re wrong. Your rebellion, no matter how bad it was, no matter how long it lasted, did not mess up God’s plan for you. You are not that powerful.
Throughout the Bible we can read example after example of people who were disobedient in one way or another. People like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. People like Moses, David, Solomon, the whole nation of Israel. People like Peter, Paul, and the other Apostles. But their rebellion did not mess up God’s plan. They weren’t that powerful, and neither are you.
The next thing I want you to understand from the story of Jonah, that I mentioned on Friday night, is that God cares about all people, and he calls them to Himself. You see, Israel had gotten a big head. When God established His covenant with Abraham, and then Isaac, then Jacob, and then with all of Israel, He set them apart as a chosen people. But this being the chosen people, the elect, had gotten to their heads.
The nation of Israel and its leaders, both political and spiritual, began to believe and teach that because they were the chosen elect that they were the only people God cared about. They believed that God liked them and that because they were the “elect” they were guaranteed “salvation” and everyone else was condemned.
But that was never what God intended when he chose Israel out of all the other nations of the world. His intention was that Israel would be the conduit of God’s blessing to the World. Israel was supposed to be God’s emissary of love to all nations, calling them into right relationship with God.
When God first called Abraham, in Genesis 12, he said that in him, that is through the family and descendants of Abraham, all of the families, or nations, of the earth would be blessed. And God says the same thing again in Genesis 22.
But the thing is, Israel failed miserably at this purpose for their existence. Over and over Israel rebelled against, and disobeyed, God. Over and over Israel hated and cursed the peoples and nations to whom they were called to be a blessing. Over and over, they failed. But Israel’s failure didn’t surprise God, and it didn’t change God’s plans.
Time and time again God reminded Israel that they were not the only ones He cared about. And here, in the book of Jonah is a prime example. God calls Jonah to go and preach to the city of Nineveh. Now, as I said on Friday, Nineveh was not a nice place to visit. It was about as opposite of a vacation hot spot as you can get. But most importantly, they were not Israel.
God was calling Jonah to preach a message to a group of people who were not the chosen ones, who were not the elect. Again, I believe that this was meant to serve as a reminder to Israel that they were not the only people that God cared about. If God only cared about, only offered redemption to the elect, then Jonah’s message was pointless. I think this serves as a reminder to Christians that God doesn’t only care about people who go to Church every Sunday.
You see, many Christians, once they have been a Christian for a period of time, begin to develop an elitist attitude. They begin to feel, and think, as though they, and other Christians they identify with, are “in” with God, and everyone else is “out.”
But God’s message isn’t just for a select few. God’s message isn’t just for one nation, or one group of people. When Jesus gave the Great Commission to his followers before he ascended, He told them to carry the message to the ends of the Earth. That means to all people, that means to everyone. We don’t get to pick and choose. We don’t get to decide who’s in and who’s out. We don’t get to decide who is worthy or who isn’t worthy to receive the good news of Jesus Christ and the call to repentance. There is not a single person who is not worthy to hear about Jesus. And that includes you. You can’t be too messed up to be unworthy to receive the Gospel.
Jonah lost sight of all of this. He finally obeys God to deliver the message to Nineveh, but he doesn’t seem to be too sincere in his delivery. Jonah doesn’t seem to believe that the Ninevites, the non-elect, were worthy of forgiveness. In fact, he got upset when God didn’t destroy the city.
Jonah actually got angry with God because he was too nice! Jonah said that the whole reason he ran away to Tarshish in the first place was because he knew God was gracious, merciful, loving, and compassionate. He didn’t want to see the Ninevites saved. He didn’t want to see them repent and he didn’t want to God give them mercy.
Jonah forgot all to quickly that he too was not worthy of God’s love and compassion. He knew on that boat that he deserved to die for sinning against God in his disobedience. Yet God had compassion on him and saved him from drowning in a raging sea.
Guys, don’t loose sight of where you came from and begin to make judgements on whether or not someone, including yourself, is worthy of love and compassion. I’ve seen it too many times when a person commits to follow Christ, leaving behind their life of sin, only to forget that they too were once lost, and they begin to look down on people who don’t “measure up” to their new standards. They look down on people who are in the same place, the same conditions and circumstances, that they used to be in, and they place judgment and condemnation on them and declare them unworthy.
But God doesn’t see us that way. God looks on us, and them, as lost people who don’t know our right from our left, as sheep without a shepherd, and He has compassion on us. And if God has compassion on us, who are we to not extend compassion on anyone.
Brothers and Sisters if you have ever been told that God will not show love and compassion to you then you have been lied to. God love you so much that he demonstrated that love for you in the person of Jesus Christ dying in you place, taking upon himself what you deserve. John 3:16 says that God so love the world, and you are part of the world, that he sent his only son that whoever, and whoever literally means whoever, not just a select few, not just a particular nation or lineage, but whoever, and you are part of whoever, believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.
And so, the last point we are going to look at from Jonah today, is that no one is too far gone for God, through Christ, to redeem.
Now this third point may sound like the first two points combined, and maybe it is to an extent, but I also think it’s important to emphasize.
Because some people believe that God cares about them, and he can even still have a purpose for their lives, but he can’t save them. They feel that they’ve done such bad things and been so disobedient so many times that they are beyond redemption. But I want to tell you this morning that nothing can be further from the truth.
There is not a single human being alive who is beyond the realm of possibility of God’s saving grace.
There’s an old hymn entitled “To God be the Glory.” And there’s a verse in this hymn that conveys this truth beautifully. This verse says, “the vilest offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus a pardon receives.” I can guarantee you that you are not the vilest offender. I don’t care what you’ve done, I can find someone who’s done worse.
In 1 Timothy Paul identifies himself as the chief of sinners. In the ESV it is translated as “the foremost”, meaning that Paul saw himself as the worst sinner that there ever was. Yet Christ came into the world to save sinners, even the chief and foremost.
But you may say to me, “Pastor Austin, Paul may have been bad, but I was worse. Paul may have been foremost in his time, but I’ve surpassed him.” I would reply to you, read Paul’s words, which are really God’s words, spoken and written down through Paul. “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Paul didn’t put a qualifier on that, meaning God didn’t put a qualifier on that. He didn’t say just the sinners who didn’t do really bad stuff, or who only did so much bad stuff. No, Paul goes on to say that he was shown mercy as an example that anyone who believes in Christ will receive eternal life.
I want to encourage you this morning. You didn’t screw up God’s plan or purpose for your life. It’s just taking a detour through Rehrersburg, Pennsylvania. God’s taking you on the scenic route. God loves you, even if you’ve never been part of the “in” crowd, even if you’ve never been told that God loves you before, even if you’ve been told that God hates you. And if your heart is beating this morning, you are not beyond God’s offer of forgiveness and life and salvation. So don’t be afraid to come to God.
