I. Power Belongs to God 00:01
As we begin this morning, I was struck by the psalm that we just read. I don’t know if you were paying attention, but I just want to read a couple of verses. I think it speaks to our time really eloquently. So, to him who has ears, let him hear:
9 Surely men of low degree are a vapor, men of high degree are a lie; if they are weighed on the scales, they are altogether lighter than vapor. 10 Do not trust in oppression, nor vainly hope in robbery; if riches increase, do not set your heart on them. 11 God has spoken once, twice I have heard this: that power belongs to God. Ps 62.9–11
If any of you are afraid as you look out onto the world, or angry as you look out onto the world, because things seem to be going the way that you don’t think they should, remember this: power belongs to God. And what did he say? Men of low degree (I can think of a few men that I consider of low degree) are a vapor. And I can think of some men of high degree that are a lie. It applies pretty perfectly to some of the situations you might be seeing in the world. But God reminds us that they are like a vapor. They don’t weigh anything on the scales compared to the power of God. So let’s make sure that we put our trust where it belongs. He even says, if riches increase, if you are blessed, don’t put your hope in that. Remember that power belongs to our God.
II. A Subversive Story 01:10
Today we’re going to talk about a story, a really subversive story. Subversive is a really cool word, like in literature class: “That narrative is so subversive. It’s so cool.” Well, the people who did it first and best, in my opinion, were the Hebrews in the Old Testament. They wrote some of the best, most subversive stories around. What that means is it takes your expectations and it flips them. It subtly challenges you to think differently. And the story of Jonah and the whale does that.
I want you to listen as we read through this. We’re going to read through the entire story of Jonah today. You guys are going to read an entire book of the Bible in church today. It’s going to be fun. You can go home and tell your friends, “Hey, we read a whole book of the Bible.”
But the point of the story of Jonah is to make you think differently about the world. We often like to put ourselves in a position, when we read Scripture, where we would have done better than the person on the page, where we think of ourselves as so much better than that: “Oh, that dumb disciple, he didn’t even believe that Jesus could save him,” or “that dumb person in this story who didn’t listen to God.” But the challenge I want to give you today is, as we read the story, imagine that you are Jonah.
And the cool thing about it is, when they wrote this story, the prophets in the Old Testament were sacrosanct. They were considered the top of the tier in the culture of Israel. And yet throughout the story of Jonah, again and again, the enemy, the villain of the story, is Jonah. So when we start thinking of ourselves, us good Christians who go to church on Sundays and who love the right politics and who are so smart about how Jesus has taught us, and we’re going to heaven, let’s just remember that there’s a point to the fact that throughout the Bible those people are often criticized. Those people are often set up to fail in the stories. Let’s look at this not as a story about some random guy in the past, but as a story of our own heart and how we respond to the purposes of God.
III. Jonah's Call 03:21
All right, let’s read through this. Jonah’s call is where we’re going to start. The first thing you want to know about Jonah is he’s a prophet. Like I said, he’s a celebrity in his day. He would have high ranking in the power of the religion at the time. He would be the person who’s paying his tithe, who’s going to church, who leads a home group, who is reading his Bible every day. He’s the guy that you look up to and that you look to for direction. He follows the law of God. But then God pushes him outside of where he wants to go.
1 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.” 3 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 1.1–3
Now, I love this, because how many times did you have to say the word Tarshish? “Away from the presence of the Lord.” The guy’s trying to communicate something here. If you’re looking at a map of the area, Nineveh’s here, Israel’s here, and Tarshish is like Timbuktu. I mean, it’s not even on the map. He’s looking for a way to escape the call of God on his life.
Now, why is he doing this? It’s a good question, especially if you don’t know the area, you don’t know the story. I know you guys have heard it, probably from VeggieTales, Jonah and the whale. It’s a great movie. Or you’ve heard it in Sunday school. So you kind of get the idea: Jonah doesn’t want to go to Nineveh because those people are evil. There’s a culture there that’s powerful. They have all the money, they have the military might, and they are evil. In our day they might be the people who get abortions. They might be the people who sleep around. They might be the people who are drug addicted. They might be the people who are using their power to extort the lowly and the oppressed. They might be the political party you don’t like. Think of the worst people that you think of on a daily basis. That’s what Nineveh was. It was a symbol of evil.
And God says, “I want you to go talk to them, and I want you to tell them…” Not only does he want him to talk to them; he doesn’t want him to stand on the street corner with a sign that says “Jesus loves you.” He wants him to tell them, “Hey, you’re going to be destroyed. God’s going to kill you because you’re wicked.” That’s a hard challenge.
IV. Scared, Comfortable, and Unwilling 06:23
I argue that there are three reasons why Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh.
Number one, because he was scared. Could you imagine going to a place and telling them, “Hey, you’re going to be destroyed”? Imagine, back when Saddam Hussein was in power, God told you, “Go to Baghdad and tell all the people in Baghdad that I’m going to kill them if they don’t turn from their wickedness.” How many of us would sign up for that trip? It wouldn’t happen. That’s scary. Every one of us would be thinking about the many ways that we could be killed if we decided to go to Baghdad. So he’s scared to follow the prophecy of God.
Number two. For this one I want you to think of The Hobbit. I don’t know if you guys have seen the movie or read the story, but the best part of the whole story comes in the very beginning, when Gandalf’s trying to convince Bilbo to go on this adventure of a lifetime, and Bilbo doesn’t want to do it. He’s like, “I’m comfortable. I have my tea three times a day. I get two breakfasts. I have my lunch, my supper, my dinner. You’re disrupting my normal routine, my life that I’ve built for myself of comfort.” Jonah was comfortable in Jerusalem. He had respect, he had esteem, he had his routine. He knew what to expect day in and day out. He had built a life for himself that was comfortable. In our day and age we might talk about the person who has the great job, and they get to go home and have their dinner and watch their favorite movie, get up again and drive their nice car. They found ways to be comfortable with their life.
There’s only one problem for Jonah: God has a better plan for him than he has for himself. There’s a call, a world that needs him, a city that needs his particular prophetic gifting, the thing that God has called him to do. And God is this amazing… I can’t describe how amazing it is, but he wants to use you and me to accomplish his purposes. He could write it on the wall; we’ve seen him do that before. He could have a big fiery message in the sky for Nineveh: “Turn back.” But instead he wants to use a person. And not only does he want to use a person, he wants to use a coward who, we’re going to find out, doesn’t even like the Ninevites.
That’s the third reason why Jonah doesn’t want to move: because he hates the Ninevites. We’ll find that out later. So not only is he scared to go there because he doesn’t want to die, and he doesn’t want to move because he’s comfortable in his life, but God’s giving him a command that he doesn’t want to follow.
Like I said, he sounds like a lot of us. Let’s not get distanced by the difference of this story, the drama of the story. Let’s remember that God asks us to do things every day. God asks us to walk with him every day. And maybe we don’t because we’re scared. Maybe we don’t because we’re comfortable. And maybe we don’t because we just don’t wanna, because we don’t like what he’s asking us to do.
In our culture, are you afraid to speak the truth that God has taught you? Are you afraid to talk with your coworker about the truth of how God has taught you to live your life, of who Jesus is? Are you afraid to post on social media about who God is and how he’s impacted your life? Are you afraid to share your story? I don’t think we’re that different from Jonah, like we like to think. But you know what? God is actually kinder than Jonah’s failures, than Jonah’s weaknesses. The kindness of God is stronger than the weakness of this man.
V. Asleep in the Storm 09:34
So when Jonah takes this ticket to the farthest place he can get from the will of God, God does some wonderful things:
4 But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. 5 Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his god. And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep. Jonah 1.4–5
Could you imagine? These are skilled sailors. This is their job. And they’re literally throwing their livelihood, their money, the cargo that they’re meant to carry, overboard, because they’re afraid they’re all gonna die. That’s a storm to fear. And yet Jonah’s in the bottom of the ship sleeping.
How many of us wake up in the midst of a storm that we never saw coming? How many of us, when we’re running from the purposes of God, or when we stop listening to the guidance of God and we do it our own way, become blind to the things that God would have given us warning of? We don’t even notice that our whole house is collapsing around us. You hear that story again and again in divorce stories, where the man comes home and his wife has divorce papers, and he says, “I never knew there was a problem,” or “I never knew it was that bad.” He fell asleep when he was called to remain awake and alert.
When you follow your own will, when you follow your own way, you dull your senses to the ways that God wants to lead you. God is the shepherd who leads us beside the still waters. God is the one who, even when we’re in the valley of the shadow of death, we don’t have to be afraid (Ps 23.2–4). And yet if you turn off the will of God in your life, if you turn off the voice of the Holy Spirit, if you refuse to seek him and look for his guidance, then you might wake up in the valley of the shadow of death. And that’s a scary place to be.
So the captain comes to him and he goes, “What do you mean, you sleeper? What are you doing? Who are you? Arise, call to your God! Perhaps the God will give a thought to us, that we may not perish” (Jonah 1.6). Still, in that moment, Jonah wakes up in the midst of the storm and the humility of this captain, who’s saying, “Just call on your God. I just don’t want to die.” Still Jonah doesn’t speak up. He’s called out in the midst of running from the God of Israel, who we know he believes in. Everybody’s going to die on this ship, and Jonah doesn’t say a word.
There are two things here. Pay attention: it matters that you’re listening to where God wants to lead you in your life, because in the midst of the storm you don’t want to be asleep. And the second thing: when you realize that your life’s falling apart, speak up. Speak up. Own the places that you’ve led yourself. Own your responsibility and ask for help.
VI. The Humility of the Pagan Sailors 12:46
The next thing they do: the mariners are losing their minds, because they’re all going to die.
7 And they said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. 8 Then they said to him, “Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?” Jonah 1.7–8
And finally Jonah stands up and he owns it. He says, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land” (Jonah 1.9). This is kind of funny, because you can imagine the wake-up call. He says, “I fear the Lord,” but he’s also running from God. And he says the Lord made the dry land and the seas, but he’s on the sea running from God. Obviously the fear came when the storm came. He didn’t have fear when he booked the ticket to Tarshish to run from God. But the fear of the Lord came upon him in this moment, when the lots finally say, “Hey, Jonah, this is about you. Wake up.” He goes, “Oh yeah, I’m afraid of this God.”
“What is this that you have done?” the sailors ask him, for the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them so (Jonah 1.10). He owns his responsibility, and this is the turning point in the story of Jonah. This is the point where we see, “Oh, he is a prophet. He does have some wisdom. He’s going to turn, and he’s going to forsake his wickedness,” because he admits, “This is my fault.”
11 Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?” For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. 12 He said to them, “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.” Jonah 1.11–12
Okay, good job, Jonah. Yay, you got it. Not only did he get it, he was willing to make the sacrifice for the sake of this ship. He says, “Throw me into the sea, that you might be saved.”
Now, this is where you see the genius subversiveness of this narrative, the way that the author is helping us to see this dichotomy. The holy man Jonah, the stubborn one who fell asleep and ran from the presence of God, is now confronted with the humility and the compassion of these pagan sailors. Because even when Jonah says, “It’s my fault, throw me into the sea,” they don’t want to throw him into the sea. They try and save his life. In Jewish culture it would be similar to the story that Jesus told of the Samaritan, the Good Samaritan. It’s confronting the idea these Jewish people have that because we serve God, we’re so much better than everybody else. Instead God says, “Look at the compassion of these sailors,” who, even when they know that Jonah, by disobeying God, has endangered their life, seek to save him.
But God has a better plan than even these compassionate sailors. Instead he lets the storm keep coming, and finally they’re like, “Okay, fine,” and they throw Jonah into the sea. And they ask God, “God, do not let us perish for this man’s life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O Lord, have done as it has pleased you” (Jonah 1.14). The people in this story who know what God is saying are not the prophet. They’re the sailors. They throw Jonah into the sea, as it pleased God, and they humbly ask that God doesn’t lay innocent blood on them. And then the sea ceased from its raging, and the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord, and they made vows (Jonah 1.15–16).
Now that’s a God I want to serve: a God who can start a storm and stop a storm. They all give up their pagan gods and they say, “Man, this is the God that we serve.” There are so many contradictions in this story. The writer is trying to challenge us in our own prejudices. How humble are we when we’re faced with the power of God in our life? Do we make our proper sacrifices, make our vows to the Most High? Do we notice the power of God in our life?
And I want to say one more thing about this. Jonah’s hidden sin affected everyone on that boat. Don’t pretend that your hidden sin isn’t going to affect the people around you. That’s not a guilt thing. That’s not “Hey, you are terrible because you have this hidden sin.” It’s an encouragement to deal with it. Come to God. He is faithful and just to deliver us, and he will cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1.9). Confess your sin. Don’t let a hidden sin take out you or your family or your friends or the people you’re with.
And when you operate outside of the will of God, you’re going to run into the discipline of God. Make sure that when tragedy befalls you, you don’t write it off as basic misfortune or bad luck. Be willing to ask the tough question: “God, is there something you’re trying to speak to me through this situation?” Now, of course, tragedy happens, and I’m not saying that if something terrible happens it’s God trying to punish you. I’m saying that God will use even your worst situations to make you into who he wants you to be. So look for the discipline of God within the difficulty. It says in Proverbs 3:
11 My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, 12 for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights. Prov 3.11–12
I get it. I hate disciplining my son. It’s hard. I mean, occasionally it’s a little easy, because he’s really annoying. I’m joking a little bit. But there’s this place where you don’t want to bring discipline into your son’s life, pain and difficulty. But you do it because you love him. If you really love him, you will discipline him. And yet we think that God should be this happy-go-lucky guy who only deals out good things, the way that we see them. We need to be willing to listen for the discipline of God, because he’s way more concerned with your ultimate character, your lifetime of character, than he is with your immediate circumstance. Be willing to ask God what he wants to speak to you in your difficulty.
VII. The Sign of Jonah 19:12
17 And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Jonah 1.17
Now, this is the most fascinating imagery in this story, and people have made movies and images of it. I love the idea that Jonah gets swallowed by a whale. I mean, it’s unfathomable (that’s like too many puns), but unfathomable that he was swallowed by a whale and lived for three days and three nights in a watery grave.
But Jesus takes that imagery out, and he says, “You shall be given the sign of Jonah,” prophesying that he would die, be in the grave for three days, and rise again (Matt 12.39–41). Why is that important? Because what he was telling the Jews was, “My story is similar to the story of Jonah. And when I rise from the dead, do you know who’s going to repent? Those evil Ninevites, the evil Gentiles.” And you know who resisted the Christian faith? The Jews, God’s chosen people. What a tragedy. He was trying to wake them up: “Look for the sign of Jonah, and be with the Gentiles, and repent.” He who has ears, let him hear. The sign of Jonah is that God is calling you to repentance. And even though you’re the chosen ones of God, you’re the Jews, who repents in this story? The Gentiles.
Now, there’s a lot of theology that gets worked out of that. Paul takes that and runs with it, and he writes some really amazing things. But the reason you and I are here today is because of the repentance of the Ninevites, symbolically the repentance of the Gentiles who accepted Jesus Christ. I’m not Jewish. And yet because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and the people in the first century AD who believed in Jesus, they started a faith that now has been passed down for generations. People have died that you might know that Jesus loves you, that you might know that there is hope and that God has a plan for us in this world.
God’s got this remarkable unity, if you look at the Bible as a whole, where all these stories are playing into every other story. And you know what? Although we don’t have a written record the same way we do in the Bible, your story is woven in with each of the stories that we read. You’re a part of this story that we read.
VIII. In the Belly of the Fish 21:17
So Jonah has his good moment. He tells the sailors, “Throw me overboard, that you might be saved.” And then he continues his repentance as he’s caught up in the belly of the whale. You’ve got to imagine that this guy’s thinking, “Okay, God’s doing something weird. God’s doing something, and I need to respond.” And he actually responds correctly. So let’s read this response. He’s in the belly of the whale, and he calls this out. He says:
2 “I called out to the Lord, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. 3 For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me. 4 Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.’” Jonah 2.2–4
Throughout this, I want you to notice that he is praying as though his prayer is already answered. There’s a prophetic moment here where he says, “I shall again look upon your temple.” This is a guy in the belly of the fish at the bottom of the ocean, and yet he still has faith that he will see again the temple of the Lord.
5 “The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped about my head 6 at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever; yet you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God. 7 When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple. 8 Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. 9 But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord!” Jonah 2.5–9
There’s so much in there that we can unpack. I’m just going to say one thing: when you’re in the belly of the fish, don’t cling to your idols. When you’re in difficulty, don’t cry out for money to save you. Don’t cry out for your job to save you. Don’t try and do it on your own strength. Don’t idolize yourself and your own abilities. Humble yourself, come before God, and believe that he will answer you.
That’s why we sing this song: “Your love never fails… The wind is strong, the water’s deep, I’m not alone here in the open seas, because your love never fails.” That song’s inspired by stories like this in the Bible. In the midst of the difficulty of a storm, we can still count on God to save us.
Have hope, because you know what happens next. The Lord speaks to the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto dry land (Jonah 2.10). God’s salvation may be different than what you’re looking for. You might be vomited out of your difficult situation. It might be messy. But you know what? We can trust that God’s purposes are still better, that he’s using even that moment of excruciating difficulty to bring us to the place he wants us to go.
How you respond in the belly of the fish will determine the rest of your life. When you’re in those moments, that’s what determines the rest of your life: how you respond there. And you’ll see God’s able to use that experience to transform Jonah into a person who can accomplish the purposes that God has set before him.
IX. Nineveh Is Overthrown 25:31
All of a sudden this arrogant, cowardly man who was running from the purposes of God, when God calls to him again, gets the point: “Oh, I should go do this.”
1 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” Jonah 3.1–4
What happens next? Does he get murdered? Does he get locked up? No. Miracle of miracles:
5 And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them. Jonah 3.5
Now, that sermon, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown,” in Hebrew is five words. Jonah speaks five words, and a city is brought to their knees. Do you know why? Because it was the word of the Lord that he spoke. And do you know where that power came from? He was transformed in the belly of the whale. Because he now knew the fear of the Lord, when he spoke to a city about what God was going to do, they knew the fear of the Lord. You can’t give what you don’t have. God grew the fear of the Lord in him.
In fact, I think God chose Jonah over another prophet because he knew Jonah would run the other way. And he knew that in the midst of his journey he would experience a storm, and the belly of the whale, and he would be transformed into someone who, above anyone on the earth, could preach the fear of the Lord. He had a story to tell. And because of that story, because of the ways that God used the trials in his life, he was able to transform a nation, a city, a people.
6 The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, 8 but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. 9 Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.” Jonah 3.6–9
And man, do you know that that was the sweetest incense to God? That repentance had an amazing effect.
10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it. Jonah 3.10
What I think about when I think about that is that God loves you so much that he will keep testing you until you turn and repent. If there’s a place in your life that you haven’t submitted to God, then he will keep bringing the word of the Lord into your life, and you will have opportunity after opportunity to turn that over to him.
These people were given up for dead. It’s an evil city. We have so much cynicism about our nation and our culture, so much cynicism. If somebody said, “Yeah, God told me to go preach to L.A. that they would repent,” we would be like, “Don’t go there. That’s not a good place. Why don’t you go preach somewhere holy? Why don’t you go preach in the synagogues or the temples or the churches? Why would you go preach on the streets of L.A.? That’s a terrible idea.” Or what if somebody said, “I’m supposed to go preach to Gavin Newsom. Let’s have him repent”? We would not believe it possible that someone like that could turn from their wickedness. We’re so sure we know who the good guys and the bad guys are.
But you know what? This whole story is showing us again and again: God transforms hearts, and you never know who will turn to God in that moment. The pagan sailors, the evil Ninevites, even the king of Assyria. And let me just tell you, that guy’s done some really terrible things, if you look at history. Even the king turned to God. That should challenge us to our very core, because I know we write off people every day: “My neighbor’s never going to be a Christian.” “My coworker is never going to turn to God.” “Our government’s always going to be corrupt.” Or “The Democratic Party is awful,” “The Republican Party’s awful,” “The independents, they’re just awful.” We have all of our opinions about who is good and who is bad. Don’t close yourself up to what God wants to do through you and in your life.
And then the question: did Jonah’s prophecy go unfulfilled? He said in forty days Nineveh would be destroyed, but God didn’t destroy Nineveh. But what did he actually say? And this is just a little extra bonus: if you look at the wording, he says, “Nineveh will be overthrown.” And what that means in Hebrew has two completely different meanings, and we see them all throughout the Old Testament. One of them is destroyed, obliterated. The other one is changed, transformed. So Nineveh was overthrown. It was transformed from a city of evil to a city of repentance. God fulfilled the prophecy that he gave to Jonah, just not the way Jonah wanted or believed it would.
X. The Tragedy of Us Versus Them 30:54
And this is where the tragedy of the story comes in. You would think that this guy, who just saw God calm a storm, save him from the belly of the whale, and then change an entire city, would be praising God at this moment. But that seed of bitterness and resentment that he fostered in his heart towards the Ninevites… Who knows what it was? Maybe it was, “Look at us, Israel. We’re so holy, we make all these sacrifices, and yet Nineveh prospers.” Maybe he was jealous, because Nineveh was such a mighty city, and in Israel Jerusalem was so small compared to that. Maybe he let jealousy and resentment grow in his heart. But somewhere along the line he had a seed of bitterness and unforgiveness towards these people, to the point where, even when God moved mightily in ways that we couldn’t even think… I mean, the only person I know of who might be able to imagine this is Billy Graham. He saw tens of thousands of people come to God in repentance. [Jonah] saw that type of move, and yet he hated what God had done. He challenged God, and he said, “This is why I didn’t want to go to Nineveh. I knew that you were compassionate and merciful” (Jonah 4.2).
And we shudder. We think, “Oh God, this evil Jonah. I could never.” And yet the whole point of this story is to put yourself in Jonah’s shoes. Have you ever had a person that you just couldn’t stand, someone maybe who did great evil to you? How would you respond if all of a sudden God poured out his love and his blessings and his forgiveness on that person? My question is: who are we to withhold forgiveness when God has given it freely? We’re told again and again, “Forgive others as I have forgiven you.” It’s just a challenge. I’m not saying that any of you would be like Jonah. But I am saying that when you have ears to hear the story, you can let the Holy Spirit work in your heart and isolate those instances. Man, it might be something as little as somebody said a bad word to you, and so you stop talking to them. Where is God highlighting a moment in your heart where you decided that person was the bad guy, and God wants to give them forgiveness through you?
The whole story of Jonah is that no matter who you are, God has a call on your life, a call to adventure, and there are people who can be saved through your willingness to follow God. If we’re a church of people who are willing to follow and preach the word of God, then people will be saved from sin and death, among us and outside of those doors. This God is still the God who can transform an entire city of evil people and bring them to repentance.
Don’t give up hope in San Clemente, in California, in the United States. We have a responsibility to pray for our enemies, [our] president, those who persecute us. But you can’t just pray for them like we often do, where we’re like, “Oh God, make the president better than he is.” No. We need hope and faith that God is the God of transformation and repentance. And of course there will be people who turn God down. But we don’t get to make that decision. We only get to offer the plan of redemption and forgiveness that Jesus bought on the cross for every person, and then God can sort it out. God knows the heart. And like we read in the psalm, he deals with each one, each individual, according to their work (Ps 62.12). Have faith. Have hope. God wants to use you mightily to save.
Let’s pray.
Jesus, I just thank you for the opportunity to open up your word, to learn from your Scriptures. I pray that even as we’re convicted of the places where we aren’t following your purposes in our life, we would also be emboldened and given courage and hope to face the evils and difficulties in our world, knowing that God has the power, that we don’t have to be afraid. And God, I pray that we would be so shaped by love that there wouldn’t be a person that we encounter, a person that we think of, that we count as unsavable or irredeemable; that we would not be the people declaring who’s good and who’s bad, but we would be the people declaring the truth of God and inviting people to repentance. In Jesus’ name, amen.