|
Good morning New Song!
For the past two weeks we’ve been studying the story of Jonah and the _________ - big fish. I never knew there were so many big fish stories until now.
Here’s one you may have heard:
|
A redneck was stopped by a game warden in Central Mississippi recently with two ice chests full of fish.
He was leavin' a cove well known for its fishing.
The game warden asked the man, 'Do you have a license to catch those fish?'
'Naw, sir', replied the redneck. 'I ain't got none of them there licenses. You must understand, these here are my pet fish.'
'Pet fish?'
'Yeah. Every night, I take these here fish down to the lake and let 'em swim 'round for awhile. Then, when I whistle, they jump right back into these here ice chests and I take 'em home.'
'That's a bunch of hooey! Fish can't do that.'
The redneck looked at the warden for a moment and then said, 'It's the truth Mr. Government Man. I'll show ya. It really works.'
'OK', said the warden. 'I've got to see this!'
The redneck poured the fish into the lake and stood and waited.
After several minutes, the warden says, 'Well?'
'Well, what?', says the redneck.
'When are you going to call them back?'
'Call who back?'
'The FISH', replied the warden!
'What fish?', replied the redneck.
|
We’re learning these days that the One who created the universe is a great and gracious God. Jonah 1:9 tells us that He made the sea and the land. Jonah 4:2 tells us that He is a gracious God, who is slow to anger, abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Today we’re going to see Him actually relent from sending calamity. If you’ve ever longed for a picture of a God you can love and worship, today is your day.
The book of Jonah opens with this great God issuing a gracious command. The word of the Lord came to Jonah, son of Amittai: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it.” God can issue such a command because He is great – He made Jonah and He made the Ninevehites. He has the right to tell them about their fate, and a right to punish them for their wrong doings because He is their Creator. God is great.
The reason He wants to warn the Ninevehites is because, beyond being great, God is, at the core of His being, a gracious God. Rather than give anyone what they deserve, He longs to give them what they don’t deserve: grace, forgiveness, a restored relationship with their Creator.
So God commands Jonah, and Jonah refuses the command. This starts him on a progress that we’ve all experienced, even if we’ve never recognized it.
A. Jonah’s Progression begins with
1. Disobedience. (Jonah 1:3) God says, “Go east.” Jonah runs west.
This prompts God’s response of
2. Discipline. (Jonah 1:4-17) Jonah goes down to Joppa, down to a boat heading for Spain, down into the hold of the boat, and eventually, through God’s demonstration of His greatness through wind and wave motion, Jonah goes to down to the bottom of the sea. “Seaweed was wrapped around my head,” he said. “To the roots of the mountains I sank down.”
Jonah is about to die, and he knows it. This produces a response in him that every one of you has experienced:
3. Distress. (Jonah 2:1-7)
Jonah is panicking, or near panic. He’s about to pass out and die. It’s at that moment, when Jonah can go no lower, that God intervenes. He sends a fish. The Bible calls it, A Great Fish.
He really was a great fish. At the direction of God, this aquatic marvel opens his gullet to what had to be one of the least appealing meals he could imagine. Inside the fish’s stomach, Jonah moves from distress to a
4. Decision to obey. (Jonah 2:9)
“But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good.” (Jonah 2:9)
Jonah’s decision to obey elicits a response from God. We call this type of response,
5. Deliverance. (Jonah 2:10), as our friend the fish serves as the first submarine in history, rescuing and transporting Jonah from the bottom of the sea to a Mediterranean beach and depositing him there on the sand.
This morning we’re going to see how God, who is gracious, gives second chances, and how one decision to obey can result in many 6. Decisions to obey, as God graces Jonah, and through him, graces an entire city.
If you’re ready to do some learning, find a Bible and turn to Jonah 3, p. 917.
In this chapter, maybe more than any other, it becomes evident that God is the star of the book and Jonah only the best supporting actor. Jonah 3 may be the most encouraging chapter in the entire Bible. Its first encouragement comes from the final two words in verse 1.
Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. (v. 1). “A second time.” I love those words because they remind me that God is a “second time” God. He’s the God of the second chance.
B. Six Encouragements
1. God gives a second chance. (Jonah 3:1)
Here’s why this is so encouraging. Most of the time, when you and I get off the path with God, we just veer off of it, maybe 5 or 10 or 20%. (Draw a pathway across the white board, show arrows veering off slightly.) On the other hand, the man who was given a second chance by God wasn’t just veering off a few degrees, he was heading 180 degrees in the opposite direction.
Whatever you’ve done, friends, make a decision to obey, and God will give you a second chance with Him.
The second words of encouragement come from vs. 2 and 3. “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city – a visit required three days.”
In v. 2, God calls Nineveh a “great city.” In v. 3 the NIV calls it a “very important city.” In the original Hebrew it reads, “a city important to God.” What Jonah is trying to communicate is,
2. God cares about the city. (Jonah 3:2-3) – The city mattered to God.
Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire. The Assyrians were notorious for their brutality to the peoples they conquered. Most of that brutality would come from this city. Which tells me, if Nineveh matters to God, then Oceanside and Vista and Carlsbad and Bonsall and Fallbrook and Temecula and San Juan Capistrano – have I covered all the cities we come from? Our cities, your city matters to God.
A few years ago, when we were just developing the idea of being The Church Next Door, we studied how God felt about Babylon. Babylon was another city brutal to her captives. Tens of thousands of Jews were forcibly exiled there during the 7th century BC. And God said to them, “Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” Yes, that is what the Lord Almighty says. – Jeremiah 29:7
Friends, God loves cities. I think that’s one of the reasons why He’s been so gracious to us over the last few years. As we help homeless teens in Oceanside through Stand Up For Kids, and helpless mothers in Vista through Solutions for Change, and elderly seniors through our helping hands ministry, through the work Jim Britts does with the Boys and Girls Club and Roy Vallez’s ministry to the gangs of Oceanside.
If God cared about Nineveh, surely He cares about Oceanside.
Look at v. 4, On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.” – Eight words in English. Five words in Assyrian. – You want to see them?
Adi arbat ume ninua innabak – Say that with me. Okay, that’s a lot to say in a language you’ve never heard before, so let’s do this, you folks are the “adi” people, when I point to you, you say, “adi.”
You’re the “arbat” people.
You’re the “ume” people.
You get “ninua,” and you get “innabak.”
Let’s try it now: adi arbat ume ninua innabak.
Now say it like you’re preaching. Stand as we preach this city-transforming message! adi arbat ume ninua innabak. – Great, have a seat.
Adi arbat ume ninua innabak. Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.
Jonah enters the city, and if it were like other walled cities of its day, he would have walked a long way through the outlying suburbs to get there. Once he got to the city walls, he would have had to enter through the city gates. The city officials would have asked him his business and where he was from. According to their customs of hospitality, they would have had to welcome him and hear his story. After telling his story to the officials at the gate, he would have been introduced to some sort of higher government official who would have repeated the hospitality, probably sharing tea and perhaps a meal with him. We don’t know how high up the chain he went. What we do know was that on that first day, Jonah delivered his message, probably to several government officials, and his message was received. This five word sermon had a rippling effect all throughout the city.
Verse 5 says, The Ninevehites believe God. This is the third encouragement in the chapter: they responded to God’s message! 3. The Ninevehites believed and were changed. by what they heard.
What you believe is very powerful. What you believe determines what and how you see things. What you believe determines what you do and who you hang out with. What you believe helps you make good decisions or bad decisions. We are governed by what we believe.
In the OT, as well as the NT, what you believed about God made all the difference in your eternity. You all remember the founder of the Jewish nation? Father Abraham? In Genesis 15, God makes a promise to Abraham. He says, “I am going to bless you by making your offspring as numerous as the stars in the heavens.”
Genesis 15 says, Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. – Genesis 15:6
The Ninevehites believed what Jonah told them. They believed that they had 40 days to get their houses in order or their city would be overrun by their enemies. They believed, so they changed. They changed their actions and their attitudes.
The rest of the verse says, They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. This is how they changed. 4. The people responded by repenting, fasting, and spreading the word about God’s coming judgment.
The word, “repent” means “to turn around.” In ancient times, when you repented, you put on sackcloth. It was like burlap in our day: cheap and coarse, a sign of humility, a way of saying, “I’m not on top of everything, I’m humbled.”
They people were so moved by God’s warning, they humbled themselves not only in their attire, but in their cuisine. Specifically, they had none. They declared a fast. They also took the message so seriously, they spread the word about it to everyone they knew.
Within a few hours, they entire city has heard the word, not from Jonah, but from each other – which is always a more effective means to hear truth. When your friends hear me talk about how good God is, they say, “He’s paid to say those things. He’s paid to be good.” When they hear you describe how good God is, they know you’re good for nothing.
Chapter 4:11 tells says that Nineveh was a city of “…more than 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left.” – Jonah 4:11 – which either means there were 120,000 people who needed guidance, or, literally, 120,000 people in the city who were too young to be able to tell which was their right hand and which was their left. If the later is the case, scholars speculate that the metropolitan area of Nineveh would have had somewhere between 600,000 and 1,000,000 inhabitants. – Imagine how many conversations must have taken place over the space of 2-3 days in order for everyone to hear God’s message?
v. 6 tells us that not only did the people respond rightly to God’s message, but their king did too. “When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything: do not let them eat or drink. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.” (6-9).
My favorite part of that is, “Who knows?” Who knows, maybe God will relent if we do the right thing. Who knows?
My freshman year of college, during our conference championships, our team needed a first place in the 200 freestyle if we were going to have a chance to win. So the coach entered me in it, even though it was not my best event. Then he had a talk with me about my potential. I mounted the starting blocks thinking, “Who knows? Maybe this little freshman can pull off an upset.” When the gun went off, I flew into the water. I opened up a body length lead on the entire field. For ¾ of the race, I was superman. Then, with one lap to go, it was like somebody threw a piano on my back. I watched, in slow motion, as the whole field caught me. In about 28 seconds, I went from hero to goat. But, for 150 years, it was, “Who knows?”
Then, a few years later, I got this sense that God wanted us to move to North County San Diego and plant a church. And I thought, “Who knows? Maybe God will be gracious to us?” – A few times I’ve felt like someone threw a piano on my back, but for the past several years, God has been so gracious. Who knew?
The fifth encouragement is that 5. The king responded by repenting, fasting, and spreading the word (Jonah 3:6-9) about what God was up to. It’s one thing for people to humble themselves, it’s another thing for the king to dawn sackcloth and grovel in the dust. But he does. And he’s very serious about it, to the point of decreeing that animals can’t eat or drink. This is a king who believes what God says.
The final encouragement comes in the final verse of the chapter. When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.
Sixth encouragement: 6. God had compassion and changed His mind. (Jonah 3:10). Who knew? Who knew that if people would pray, God would change His plans? Who knew that God could change His mind? Who knew that God would reconsider, if people responded to Him in the right way? Who knew?
We titled this series, “Responding to God in All the Right Ways,” because every person and every thing in the story responds to God, and when they respond to God in right ways, God is there just waiting to bless them. In chapter 1, as soon as they sailors responded to God by throwing Jonah overboard, the waves ceased. In chapter 2, as soon as Jonah vowed to obey, the fish vomited him on dry land. In chapter 3, as soon as the Ninevehites repented, God relented.
See, at His core, God is a great and gracious God who loves to bless people.
When you have extra food, what do you do with it? You share it with others, don’t you. Whenever you get a little extra money, what do you do with it? You bless your children with it, or give a little extra to God’s work, or invest it in something that will do some good. Where do you suppose those impulses come from? They come from God. The Bible says you were made in His image. You love to bless because God loves to bless. – You can’t always give what you’d like, because your provision is limited.
But God’s provision is unlimited. He never lacks, He never runs out, He never exhausts His supplies. So He is always ready to bless, the only reason He doesn’t is because He knows that there are some times and some things that would not be good for us. And one of the times it would not be good for us to be blessed is when we’re responding wrongly to God.
So, when Jonah runs the other direction, God corrects Him. He withholds His blessing until Jonah can receive it. When Jonah repents, God uses him more powerfully than he’s ever dreamed – an entire city turns to God. Who knew?
In just a few verses, in Jonah 4:2, we’ll hear Jonah recite a portion of God’s name. He’ll say, I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.” – Jonah 4:2
Jonah knew this about God because way back at the beginning, at the formation of the Jewish nation, when Moses was preparing to lead them to the Promise land, God proclaimed His name to Moses. It’s recorded in Exodus 34:5 where it says, Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name… “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.” – Exodus 34:5
That’s God’s name. For 600 years, from Moses to Jonah, God was a gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.
God came to Nineveh. He came in the way He always comes, visiting them with a mouthpiece, a spokesperson, saying, “Will you repent? Will you turn to me?” They say, “Who knows? Maybe if we turn, He’ll be gracious.” And He was. To Ninevehites, no less.
He was gracious for 700 more years, from Jonah to Jesus. Who came not only as God’s mouthpiece and spokesperson, but God in the flesh and said, “Will you repent? Will you turn and follow Me?” On Good Friday, He went to the Cross in the ultimate act of graciousness. Even while on the Cross, He was great and gracious. Turning to His cousin, He said, “Take care of my mother.” Turning to a criminal He said, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Turning to Heaven, He said, “Father, forgive them.”
How do you respond to a God like that?
There are five ways people respond in Jonah 3:
1. Take Him up on His second chance. That’s Jonah’s response. He does what God asks. Is there something God has asked you to do that you’ve run from in the past? Maybe today would be a good day to take your second chance.
2. Believe what He says. For all their faults, the Ninevehites believed. Is there something about God you need to believe today? If so, act on it, that’s where faith meets the highway: acting out what you believe.
3. Repent. Do you need to wear some sackcloth today? Do you need to apologize to God for something you’ve been doing that you shouldn’t have, or for not doing something you should have?
4. Fast. How about this? I explain all about it in day 4 of this week’s reading. You may want to give it a try.
5. Spread the word. The Ninevehites did that so well it took less than 40 days to evangelize an entire city. Think we could do that? Maybe. Think you could share something about God, something appropriate, non-condemning, and non-superior with someone in your relational sphere tomorrow? That would be a great way to respond to the graciousness of God.
Who knows, friends. Who knows. We live in a universe that is ruled by a great and gracious God. Who knows what might happen if we respond rightly to Him today?
Let’s pray.
After closing prayer, consider giving a brief invitation: “If you feel God tugging on your heart today, maybe this is your time to receive Jesus. Maybe some confession needs to be made?” If you’d like to receive Christ today, would you raise your hand?
Back to top
|
