Have you ever heard a sermon on how to run from God? Most of the sermons we hear are why you shouldn’t run from God, or how to get close to God. But I believe this is a topic that most of us can relate to. How many of you as children ever wanted to run away from home? I remember when I was about 6 years old and I decided I had all the parenting I needed I was ready for the world, and I went out and jumped on my orange huffy bicycle with the big banana set and struck out for a place were I could play all the time and wouldn’t have to bother with eating. That was my biggest problem with my six-year-old life – my family ate too much! Three meals a day…well it just interfered with my play time to have to stop and eat so much. In my attempt at freedom I didn’t get very far before I ran into a problem…I was lost and the longer I road my bicycle the more lost I got until I finally just pulled off the road laid my bike in the ditch and started rethinking my strategy and after setting and thinking for what seemed to be an eternity my dad found me loaded up my bike and took me home.
This morning I’m going to talk about the most famous runaway in the Bible. Even if you didn’t grow up in church and you have very little background in the church most people have heard of Jonah and the great fish that swallowed him. This is the place that critics of the Bible point to and say “ah ha, that proves the Bible isn’t true, a great fish swallows a man and he lives to tell about it – no way”.
Illustration: Makes me think about the little girl in elementary school who was in class one day studying about the ocean when the teacher told the class, “I don’t want any of you to ever be afraid of going into the sea because there is not sea creatures that can swallow you whole”. So this little girl raised her hand and said, “I learned in church that a great fish swallowed Jonah whole”. And the teacher scoffed at that and said, “that’s impossible that could never happen”. And the little girl said, “When I get to heaven I’ll ask Jonah myself and find out if it was true”. To which the teacher replied, “what if Jonah didn’t go to heaven?” The little girl said, “then you can ask him”.
The story of Jonah is the story of God’s love for all people along with the story of Jonah running from God. So we will learn what he did right, what he did wrong and what you need to do if you chose to run from God.
1. TO SUCCESFULLY RUN FROM GOD YOU MUST ACCEPT YOUR SEPERATION FROM GOD.
If you’re going to run from God you’re creating distance between yourself and God. Chapter one verse three says, “…he went down to Joppa”. This not only indicates the geographic direction of Jonah’s life but the spiritual direction as well. If you’re going to run from God then you have to accept the overall decline and downward spiral of your life and soul. If you’re running from God it might seem like things are going well for a while, you might even enjoy your freedom from God but the truth of it is sooner or later you’re going down. When I struck out from my parent’s house I was totally enjoying my new found freedom – I didn’t have to eat those three meals a day and I could play as long as I wanted to. As I road away from my house the sun was shining the wind in my face – I was feeling good. But when I hit unfamiliar territory and couldn’t find familiar territory the fun all came to an end.
Jonah had to pay for his ticket to get on the boat. It always cost us when we’re separated from God. When you run from God the devil is always going to take you farther than you want to go, make you stay longer than you want to stay and make you pay more than you want to pay.
Verse 4
Jonah goes down to the sea port alone buys his ticket alone, boards the ship alone, and now he has to face this storm all alone. So let me ask you; how comfortable are you facing all of your life and all of your storms alone? As believers when we face storms and turn to God that’s the times that we truly sense how close God is to us, because we’re constantly turning to God and leaning on God for help and strength. I never want to face a storm in this life without God.
Now you might say; “Jonah wasn’t all alone because the boat was occupied by many other sailor”. And rightly so, but could it have been possible that maybe Jonah was trying to hid among the crowd?
Illustration: There was this very rigged college professor who was administering final exams to his class. He instructed his class that he would place the test upside down on their desk and they were to sit straight up with pencils on their desk and there hands palm up until he had passed out all the papers and said begin. Then they could begin with only one hour and exactly one hour later he would say stop and they were to stop right then put down their pencils and turn their papers in. At the one-hour mark he yelled stop and everyone stopped handed in their papers and quietly filed out of the room except for this one student about halfway back who was still writing and working away. The professor said, “hey it’s time for you to stop” to which the student just kept on going. Finally about 30 minutes later the student finished so he gathered up his stuff and brought his paper to the front to the professor. The professor said, “didn’t you hear me say if you didn’t stop when I said to stop you would get a zero on the test? The student said yeah I heard you but I wasn’t finished I needed more time. The teacher was outraged at the student’s casual attitude about the matter. The professor asked, “Young man what’s your name?” The student replied, “You mean you don’t know my name?” The professor said, “no, of course I don’t know your name, there are over 400 students in this class.” The student said good, lifted up the test papers put his in the middle and ran out the door.
Now there is a spiritual point to that story. God is not an angry professor, God knows who I am and God knows where I am. You see Jonah thought he could run from God and he thought he could hide from God. And I don’t think he was concerned at all about the consequences at all about separation from God. When Jonah headed for Joppa he was headed in the exact opposite direction from where God asked him to go. God wanted him to go 500 miles to the northeast so Jonah heads a couple thousand miles to the southwest.
ANYTIME YOU RUN FROM GOD YOU IT MAKES FOR A LONG HARD ROAD HOME. But you can go home!
To successfully run from God you must be apathetic to those close to you. These seasoned salty veterans of the ocean where afraid of this storm. You know this must have been some kind of storm. And the interesting thing is they knew that God or some god sent this storm. The reason they were going through a storm is simply because they were on the ship with Jonah. In close proximity to the person in rebellion against God. They had no emotional attachment whatsoever to Jonah. People running from God usually don’t think about it. It’s my life I can do what I want, it doesn’t hurt anybody but me. WRONG - it affects everyone who is near to you.
ILLUSTRATION: It’s like holding a live grenade close to your chest and saying it’s my life it will only hurt me. Then they pull the pin and the grenade goes off. You can’t control where the shrapnel goes, you can’t affect whom it does and whom it doesn’t hurt. If your going to run from God you can’t care about the people close to you.
IF YOUR GOING TO SUCESSFULLY RUN FROM GOD YOU CANNOT TURN TO GOD WHEN TIMES GET ROUGH
Jonah caved in on this point and he cried out to God (v.17 –2:1-10). If you run from God you can’t pray – you see the moment you stop and pray your declaring your dependence on God. The moment you run from God you’re declaring your independence from God, you can’t be independent of God and dependent on Him all at the same time. When you do the opposite of what God has asked you to do – then your telling God I don’t need you, I’m strong enough to make it on my own. And if you pray then your saying that you truly need God.
The Bible is full of promises that if we humble ourselves and repent and pray to God that he will in no way turn away from us. It’s against His nature – He will provide and protect he will give comfort, help and strength. What’s it going to take to get you to turn to God? Is it going to take another storm – is it going to take three days in the digestive track of a large fish? Do you have to get in a place of total and complete hopelessness? I’ve got good news for you today; he won’t force you to turn to Him. He will just let you run if you want to. He will let you face all your troubles, struggles and burdens all alone if you want to. Isn’t that good news?
YOU CANNOT YEILD TO GOD’S CHASE OF GRACE IF YOU’RE GOING TO RUN FROM GOD
God pursued Jonah all through the life of Jonah. God sent the storm, the sailors on the ship, the great fish (Jonah would’ve drown if it weren’t for the great fist). Now granted it’s not the most pleasant way to protect Jonah by putting him in the belly of a great fish. But I think God was very merciful in how he delivered Jonah – because there is only two ways out of a fish. Now here is something I want you to understand right before we go to lunch. When you run from God your trampling under your feet all the moments of God’s mercy and grace in your life. God was always trying to get Jonah’s attention and all of your life has been pursuing you as well. All the people He has put in your life the circumstances that lead you to this church or to some people that helped you to understand salvation. God loves you and that is why he pursues you even today.
It takes one thing to keep your hard heart and that’s PRIDE. It’s pride that keeps you on the run away from God. This also is the place that Jonah began to brake he caved in at this point as well.
IF YOUR GOING TO SUCESSFULLY RUN FROM GOD YOU MUST ABANDON GOD’S PLAN FOR YOUR LIFE
You must trade God’s purpose for chaos. You must live the chaos of a self-directed life. A life of un-fulfillment constantly searching for that one more thing to make you happy. One of the most wonderful statement in the Bible is found right here in chapter three verse one, “then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time”. God gave Jonah a second chance, but to successfully run from God you can’t believe that God gives second chances. To believe that - you would jump at the chance to start a new with God. You need to believe that second chances don’t exist.
There is something in the human nature that loves revenge and we think God is the same way.
Illustration: A soldier fighting over in Iraq received a letter from his girl friend that said she was breaking up with him. She also asked him to send the picture she had given him when he left because she needed it for her bridal announcement. The soldier was heart broken and told his friends of his terrible situation. So his whole platoon got together and brought all their pictures of their girlfriends, and put them in a box and gave them to him. So he put her picture in the box with the rest along with a note that said, “I’m sending back your picture to you please remove it and send back the rest. For the life of me I can’t remember which one you are.” We love revenge don’t we?
And because we like revenge we think God is that way as well. We have this picture of God hovering over us with these lightning bolts aimed at us ready to unleash His wrath on our life at the first little mess up. If we have this kind of a picture of God then we have totally missed our understanding of God completely. Most people don’t believe God cares, but He does. If God didn’t care about Jonah He would’ve just let Jonah go and He would’ve sent someone different. The proof that God cares about Jonah is the found in the fact that God did pursue Jonah. God pursued Jonah because He wanted to bless Him and use Him and allow Jonah to learn about the grace of God. Most people believe that God will give up on us easily, but He won’t. Most people believe it’s hard to be saved but it’s not.
I’ve known the Lord now for 23 years and I do know that God hates sin. But one thing I know about God is that His desire to forgive is greater than His hatred for sin. Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham is standing in the gap praying and asking God to spare the city. Abraham brings it down to 10 people pleading for God to spare the cities.
You think God can’t use someone like you. Jonah was the first missionary in the Bible and he was the worst one of the Bible and a whole city turned to God as a result of his ministry. Abraham we spoke of just now he was a lire, but God used him. God doesn’t need us but He wants us. He wants to have a relationship with you.
Maybe today your contemplating a decision that you know is contrary to God’s word I would encourage you to stop and think about were this road ends up.
