The Jonah Files #1 - The "GO" mentality
Let me take you back 2800 years ago to a strip of land in the middle east. This was the Promised Land. This was the land given to God’s people to do God’s work.
A very peculiar, once in the Bible kind of incident took place that speaks to us and where we are at today. The mans name was Jonah. This begins a 3 week study on this man and the mission he avoided. Let’s get right into it…
Jonah 1:1-3
Jonah was the handpicked messenger of God for a very special mission. It was a mission way out of his comfort zone. He has been used to the “church” people. They were normal, nice, did the right things, shook his hand on the way out the door and said, “nice job preacher.” The Ninahvites just weren’t “his” people.
Jonah owned and experienced life changing, transforming truth. He had in his possession truth that would set people free, change their life, make them a child of God. He was a weapon in God’s hand, just like you.
Now he is running. This isn’t how the great people of God act is it? Running away, avoiding responsibility, burying gifts, refusing to be used? Is this typical? God has something great on the horizon and we run from it?
3 points to this morning service…
God was working…
God was about to do something great. He was working on the Ninivahites.He was making them ready..
Let me tell you a little about these people
Nineveh was at this time the metropolis of the Assyrian monarchy, an eminent city (Gen. 10:11), a great city, that great city, forty-eight miles in compass (some make it much more), great in the number of the inhabitants, as appears by the multitude of infants in it (ch. 4:11), great in wealth (there was no end of its store, Nah. 2:9), great in power and dominion; it was the city that for some time ruled over the kings of the earth.
But great cities, as well as great men, are under God’s government and judgment. Nineveh was a great city, and yet a heathen city, without the knowledge and worship of the true God. This great city was a wicked city: Their wickedness has come up before me (their malice, so some read it); their wickedness was presumptuous, and they sinned with a high hand.
Assyria was one of the most brutal nations of the ancient world. They were feared and dreaded by all the peoples of that day. They used very cruel methods of torture and could extract information from their captives very easily. One of the procedures was to take a man out onto the sands of the desert and bury him up to his neck -- nothing but his head would stick out. Then they would put a thong through his tongue and leave him there to die as the hot, penetrating sun would beat down upon his head. It is said that a man would go mad before he died. That was one of the "nice little things" the Assyrians hatched up.
As an army, They moved as a mob across the countryside. However, when they moved down like a plague of locusts upon a town or village, it is said that they were so feared and dreaded that on some occasions an entire town would commit suicide rather than fall into the hands of the brutal Assyrians. You can see that they were not loved by the peoples round about.
We also know that at this time the Assyrians were making forays into the northern kingdom of Israel. For a long time, it was Syria and the northern kingdom that fought against each other, but they finally came to an alliance because of the threat of Assyria to the north and east of them. However, Assyria eventually took both Syria and Israel into captivity. When the Assyrians were beginning to penetrate into a nation they hoped to conquer, they would make a surprise attack upon a city, take captive the women, and then brutally slay the men and the children.
…why did He choose to talk to them? A self absorbed, brutal, selfish people. What did he see in them that was so great? Same thing he saw in you, nothing, he just loved them.
God is working in all kinds of places we don’t even know about. Bars, pool halls, police stations, parties, car accidents, city park,
But God, those aren’t my people, I don’t want you working over there! Can’t I just stay here? Can’t I serve you in a classroom, nursery or at an altar?
That is not where God only works…
Where was God working in the NT? Where did Jesus hang out? Not the nice people. It was the dopers, the gangs, the prostitutes, the fringes, the hated and despised, the problematic people. He said as plainly as possible, “the sick need a doctor, not the well.”
Jonah wasn’t there…he wasn’t about to touch a sick person, he might get something!
Who gave Jesus the hardest time? The religious crowd, the church people, the club.
The club said that everyone needed to adopt their culture, wear their clothes, believe like us, vote like us, use our language, sing our songs, listen to our radio stations, put a bumper sticker on your donkey, go to our schools, and shut out the world.
The club was looked on as judgmental, uncaring, and focused on changing us, our behavior. Everything that people hated about the club in Jesus’ day is true of the church today.
Lord, release us from this mentality!
It’s a funny thing, in the gospels people are running to Jesus. Were talking about people with a lot of baggage and sins! They want to be near him. They want His touch even though He was perfect, sinless, sanctified. His preeminence didn’t keep them away, it wasn’t a barrier. Something about Him was warm and inviting and safe. People felt loved in his presence. His presence set on fire or grew what God was already up to in people’s lives.
And yet just about the opposite can be said of His body today. They stay away. They don’t feel safe, warm and loved. The more baggage the further away they stay. This has got to change.
Jonah had little inclination or motivation to take on the Ninahvites. Do we?
There seems to be a barricade between us and them even though God is working out there. He said the fields were ripe unto harvest, God’s fields, the stuff He is doing, the stuff he is growing, its ripe…its ready and he is not talking about the church!
But there is this barricade. What do we lack? What do we need to do to cross the barricade? We just need to kick it over and go. We just need people with a real experience with God, who are living credible lives, to go, to cross the barricade.
Jonah wouldn’t do it.
Listen to this:
In 2002 Barna wrote, “It is quite astounding that although Protestant and Catholic churches have raised - and spent – close to one trillion dollars on domestic ministry during the past two decades, there has been no measurable increase in one of the expressed purposes of the church: to lead people to Christ and have them commit their lives to Him.”
In 2005, the Chef states, “Nothing is more numbing to the Church than the fact that it is mired in a rut of unfathomable depths. The various creative approaches attempted over the course of this decade have drawn much attention but produced little, if any, transformational impact.”
The bottom line is that the spirituality served up in the name of Christ in the U.S. is distinctly unproductive and unprofitable. Some churches have remained largely unchanged while others have changed the ambiance, the music, the lighting, added video screens, pastors, elders, and websites. Others have embraced bigger buildings with different architectural features. Some have turned to new delivery systems, serving up their products via seminars, books cd’s, DVD’s, live television and training by subscription satellite broadcasts. According to Barna, no matter what the Christian retail outlets have done to attract customers and change them by virtue of how or what they consume, there appears to be no measurable transformational effect on their behavior, after dining in these establishments over a period of time.
It’s expensive to run a business like this, particularly when what one is serving up has eternal consequences. If the “church” in the U.S. was a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ or NYSE, there would be a shareholder revolt, SEC and Congressional investigations the likes of which would dwarf the outrage we witnessed over Enron. We would be toast.
Diners don’t revolt over the appearance of the menu. They simply stop coming in because of existing management, the fare, the help, the other diners or the atmosphere. Word of mouth kills restaurants. They tell their contacts about their last supper. The friends, co-workers and acquaintances of diners avoid these places without ever having set foot there. Are you getting steamed yet?
McDonalds vs the Church
In 2002, Barna suggested that there are greater than 300,000 Protestant and 20,000 Catholic churches in the U.S. He contrasts this with the 50,000 post offices and 15,000 McDonald’s that serve our nation. He writes, “The church has less impact on our culture than any of those less prolific entities, despite missions that are much less significant or compelling.”
Hmmm…I guess the old “location, location, location” mantra has fallen to the wayside here. Imagine having a business with 320,000 locations in the U.S. amidst a population of over 100 million customers who have never sampled the fare, and you can’t seem to break the cycle of those folks consciously avoiding your locations. In fact, their numbers are increasing.
theologians, academicians and laypeople who now agree that: “Christianity cannot survive in anything like its present form.”
In 2002, Chef Barna wrote, “We witness a born-again population that is indistinguishable from the rest of the nation – and has very little credibility when it comes to promoting genuine Christianity…At some point, poor products come back to haunt the producer. Welcome to the haunting time.” In 2005, the sentiments of the chef remain unchanged. He suggests that, “people sleepwalk through their religious paces, oblivious to the fact that many of their beliefs and practices dishonor God.”
In 2002, Barna spices things up a bit with statistics on our dining habits regarding the staples of the Christian diet. In regard to prayer, he says that “most people who pray do so at least once a day; the total amount of time spent in prayer per day is less than five minutes,” most commonly a quick grace uttered before a meal and then requests for stuff we want for ourselves. Regarding church attendance, the vast majority of Christians do not attend church every week. Less than half of us graze on God’s Word outside of a church service each week ( However, In N Out Burgers print Scripture on the bottom of their cups in California and some people might believe this is actual Bible reading outside of a church service. Thus, the figures for actual, authentic Bible reading may be inflated here.). Volunteering at church has remained relatively constant over time at around 24%. Less than one in five Christians are involved in a small group, one quarter attend Sunday school and as a group, we have “no heart or stomach” for evangelism.
All the evidence suggests that the vast majority of U.S. Christians are more interested in being served than serving. As Barna wrote in 2001: “We serve others when we must, but few believers have a love of serving people; our culture has seduced us into loving to be served instead of committing ourselves to meeting the needs of others.”
That is tough talk that deserves a lot of consideration.
I heard a guy say that what we want to do is hunker down and wait for the storm to blow over and everything become normal again.
There isn’t going to be any more normal. The storm is not going to blow over.
THE JONAH MENTALITY…the “NO” mentality
What was Jonah up to? Why did he run so fast? Why do we? Most of us can count on one hand how many we have significantly influenced for Christ.
These may be some of the very things that we struggle with…
1. THE BARRICADE MENTALITY – we have already talked about this, but maybe Jonah just had grown up with a thinking that said, “I can’t go out there or over there.” “They are sinners, and I might get polluted.” In all honesty we all (who have grown up in church) have developed barriers or barricades to some people and we think, “if they want it, the church doors are open, that’s our part!”
2. FEAR – Jonah may have just been scared. They are too different, too mean, too big, they wear leather, they look different, their music is devil music, they wear pony tail’s in their hair, their tattoos are weird, they pierce their noses, etc. Maybe he thot the job was too big, too difficult, too time consuming. It might take us away from golf, TV, bible study or video games. Maybe that is what we feel about the job ahead of us so we get busy into other things.
3. HATE OR DISINTEREST – I do believe that Jonah hated these people. He had developed a hatred that didn’t come out until God told him to go. He hated what they stood for, what they did, how they treated others and believed that God should not love them, but judge them.
Maybe some of us have lost our love. Not for God, but for people. We don’t hate exactly, but we don’t love. When we don’t love we are willing to be expended. We aren’t willing to be expanded. We aren’t willing to go out of our way. Jonah wanted these people to go to hell, they deserved it.
Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan. The 2 preachers that passed the beaten man by didn’t hate the man, they just couldn’t be bothered to have their life interrupted. The Samaritan stopped and gave what was needed. He didn’t have all that was needed, he didn’t force on him what he didn’t need (a lecture), he just gave him what he needed at that moment the best that he could. WE CAN DO THAT!
4. RUNNING – The Bible says that he was running from the presence of God.
- maybe he was tired of giving out all the time and this was the last straw
- maybe he was wrapped up in his own stuff and couldn’t take this on
- maybe, “I just don’t want to…find somebody else.”
- Maybe he was hurting inside and wanted some attention
It’s a funny thing, the “presence of God.” You can’t run away from it. God just dogs you. He stays on you. His words keep echoing in our soul. Everywhere we turn he is there.
We can stop going to church, we can stop reading the Bible, we can stop praying, we can dogmatically choose our own way, but we can’t escape the constant calling of God.
The funny thing is, why run from His presence? His presence is sweet, powerful; it “fills our cup.” His presence puts a glow on our character and on our face.
His running was evidence of something happening inside of him that he didn’t want to give up, didn’t want to face, didn’t want to deal with, and he didn’t want God messing with. SO he blamed God and the Ninahvites…
They are “my feelings” and I don’t want them touched. It is a problem that I don’t want to go away. It is a hurt that I want to hold onto. As long as I hurt it legitimizes my actions…whatever those actions may be (quitting, hitting, and spitting).
And so we run, we run from the clear word of God and hope that we can find a place where we can hold onto our feelings without God disturbing us.
Does any of this Jonah mentality have you in its grip? Is your “go” mentality crippled or hindered by something? Does it need to be laid down at this altar or talked out with someone today?
THE “GO” MENTALITY
When I think about Jonah I think, “he was a prophet…wasn’t he supposed to one of God’s tough guys? Wasn’t his job to go to dangerous places and go on risky missions?” Isn’t that our job?
He lost his “GO” mentality. His “GO” mentality turned into a “play it safe” mentality.
Do you have a “GO” mentality? Is “GOING” part of your mindset?
I was thinking about all the things the Bible says about going, about who we are and what we are supposed to be to this world, here is a partial list:
1. Doctors – Mt.9:12 – The well don’t need a doctor, but the sick do. Can you imagine doctors who only saw their well patients to congratulate them? We are frustrated with how long it takes to see a doctor, but some in this community have been waiting a lifetime! We are doctors, let’s GO and practice our brand of medicine.
2. “Little Christ’s” – Christians – Acts 11:26 – Can you imagine people actually identifying you as a Christian which means little Christ. When was the last time someone mistook you for Jesus. That is what we are to this world, little Christ’s, so GO and be one!
3. Good Smelling Stuff – 2 Cor. 2:15 we are the aroma of Christ…a fragrance of life and death. – We smell. This was an obvious reference to Roman war parades where people would light censors and oils to celebrate victory. The smell would remind people of victory or defeat. We are that smelly stuff that causes God to come to people’s conscience. So GO and smell…
4. Letters – 2 Cor. 3:3 – Paul says that we are letters written from God to this world. They read us and see what God is saying. So let’s deliver God’s mail!
5. Fishers of men –
6. Salt – making people thirsty, bringing out the best
7. Light – lighting a dark world.
8. Ambassadors – 2 Cor. 5:20 God’s reps on the planet.
Shall I go on? When you lose your GO mentality none of this matter anymore. We don’t stop being these things, we just be them in a bad way.
The alternative to going is running, and we will find out with Jonah that running isn’t a good option.
If you accept the GO factor, watch this…1:36:46 – 1:39:14
