Good morning! Yesterday I preached out of the book of Jonah, chapters three and four. Below you will find the YouTube clip of the sermon (starts at 32:12) as well as the notes I worked off of if you prefer to read. I pray this blesses you as it did me. As always, I would love to hear your feedback.
For those who prefer to read:
Good morning! My name is Heath Cummings, I’m an elder here and my wife and I are the youth pastors here at Hammock Street Church.
This morning we’re finishing our sermon series White Flag.
I’ll tell you right at the start, this series on the book of Jonah has been one of my favorite series of the year. I think it’s because I can relate so well to that reality of running away from God, and having God bring me back. All last week I heard about people who were moved by last Sunday’s call to stop running from God.
If you missed the last couple of weeks, I strongly encourage you to go watch them on YouTube or listen to the podcasts. We’ve been following the story of Jonah, a man who ran from God, and how that story intersects with our own lives.
All of us, in one way or another, have run from God. For some of us it may have been more blatant than others, running from the church and Christianity, for others it may have been more of a running from your conscience. That too is running from God, because it’s God who put that concept of right and wrong in our hearts. All of us at some level know what it means to resist God.
Of course, the way Jonah ran from God was more literal. He said no to God when God told him to go to Nineveh and ran the opposite direction. God wanted to use Jonah to call Nineveh to repentance, Jonah wanted no part of that. He didn’t deny God, he just refused to do what God was calling him to do.
In Week 1 we talked about the truth that you can run from God, I have, but you can’t outrun God. And thank God for that.
I am so thankful for something else we’ve heard over the past two weeks, God doesn’t discipline us to pay us back, He disciplines us to bring us back. He is generous with His grace, but He is thorough in His discipline. And He disciplines those whom he loves. God loves you so much that even when you’re disobeying, even when you’ve turned your back on Him, He is looking for ways to bring you back into the fold.
Isn’t that Good News?
Another reason this series may have resonated with you is how familiar it is to many of us. If you grew up in the church or in Sunday School you heard the story of Jonah at least once a year. Hearing about the storm, the big fish, God saving Jonah, many of us have probably heard that story a hundred times.
But did you know that’s only half the story? Jonah 2:10, which we read last week, says this:
“Then the Lord commanded the fish and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land” Jonah 2:10
That would have been a good place to end the story. Jonah rebels, runs from God, Jonah is disciplined, Jonah repents, God saves him. The end.
But there are still two more chapters to the book of Jonah. I’m guessing most of you knew about the storm, the big fish, and God saving Jonah. But do you know what happened next? That’s what we’re going to talk about today. Let’s pray and then we’ll dig in.
PRAYER
Today we get to the point of the story of Jonah and it speaks directly into our lives, and directly into our times. It speaks directly into our walk with Jesus and our walk in this world. Speaking of walks, Jonah was about to go on one.
The point of this story is not just about people in rebellion against God morally or in their lifestyle. It’s not just about lawbreakers or people running from God because they’re bad people. That’s part of it, but the bigger part, the part we’re going to talk about today, is geared towards the “good people.” Today is a message to the church, to the “good people”, those trying to follow God’s rules and laws, even if they slip up every once in a while. Those of you who are faithful to your spouse, who turn to God for forgiveness when they do give into temptations, pay your taxes, go to church, even read your Bible regularly.
The point is that even though we have surrendered to God’s moral will, what He wants for and from us, many of us have not surrendered to His global purpose. We have not surrendered to His purposes outside of us.
I don’t know if you know this or not, but there are some people, outside of the church, who think the people in the church are hypocrites. They think we do not really believe what we say we believe because we do not behave like we actually care about the world and the people outside of the church. If there are any of those people here today or watching on YouTube, well, you’re going to enjoy this. Let’s pick up where we left off last week. Jonah chapter 3, verse 1:
1 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” Jonah 3:1-2
That sound familiar? Two weeks ago we read Jonah 1:1:
1 The word of the Lord came to Jonah… 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”
Jonah is back at this decision point. God is sending him to Nineveh again. Last time, Jonah ran the other way, ended up getting thrown overboard and swallowed by a fish. This time he chose more wisely. Verse 3:
3 Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it.
This was a long walk, probably about 500 miles, from wherever the fish spit Jonah up to Nineveh, which was located in what is now modern day Iraq. It would be like me walking to Atlanta. And he wasn’t done walking when he got there. Like Atlanta, this was an enormous city, it took three days to go through it.
I don’t know how you guys feel about being in large cities, a long way from home. Some people love it. I do not. And this is a much bigger culture shock than some city in the United States. These people don’t speak his language, they aren’t bound by the same laws, they don’t believe in his God. That’s why he was sent there. And Jonah couldn’t just walk to the city limits. If I walked to the city limits of Atlanta and started declaring a message, not many of them are going to hear me. Jonah had to walk into the city.
This was a city that had been an enemy of Israel in the past, and Jonah is walking into the city declaring they must repent. And the strangest thing happened. They listened. Verse 4:
4 Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” 5 The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.
This is pretty remarkable, right? We just read, from chapter one, that these people had a wickedness about them that had come up before God. Jonah walks into their city, starts proclaiming imminent disaster, and they believed him. Well, not quite.
“The Ninevites believed God”
This isn’t the main point of today’s sermon, but I don’t want you to miss it. If God has given you a word to speak, you don’t have to worry about being convincing, or being good. If God has given you something to do, and you do it in faith, you can be confident He will accomplish His purpose. It may not look like what we expect it to, but it will look like what He intended.
Jesus made a similar promise to the disciples if you remember. It’s recorded in three of the four gospels. Here’s Luke’s account:
11 “When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, 12 for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say.”
We can have confidence in Him when we are doing His will. Let’s get back to the story. Verse 6
6 When Jonah’s warning 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. 7 This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh:
“By the decree of the king and his nobles:
Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. 8 But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. 9 Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”
10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.
Amen! Right? Shortest sermon ever. Now we remember how it ended. Jonah followed God’s commands, went to Nineveh, people were saved, they all lived happily ever after. The end.
Well, that would be an easier sermon if the story ended here. Jonah rebelled, repented, was saved. Then he was used to turn the Ninevites from their rebellion and they were spared as well.
This is the second point in this sermon that is a very good point, one we need to latch onto, but we’re also not at the end of the story yet. Before we get there I just want to affirm what we read here. The same God who saved you from your rebellion wants to use you to save others from their rebellion. That is a part of God’s purpose. We should celebrate it. Jonah did not.
This is one of those parts of the Bible where you just feel like it must be true, because why would they put it in there if it wasn’t? It certainly does not make Jonah look any better. But we do learn something in these next few verses. We learn that Jonah didn’t run away from God because he was scared that the Ninevites might do something terrible to him. He ran away from God because he was scared God might do something good for them.
Jonah hated these people. They were wicked sinners, enemies of his, enemies in his mind of God. And he knew God so well that he knew God might still do something good for them. We move now to Chapter 4.
1 But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. 2 He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. 3 Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
Wow.
Jonah says “I knew you were going to do this! This is why I ran away! How could you save these people?” Jonah wanted these people to pay for their sins. He thought God was making the wrong call.
We talked the first two weeks about surrendering to God, we saw Jonah raise the white flag in the belly of the fish, and then when God sends him to share a message with the Ninevites, this is how he responds. Jonah had surrendered to God’s moral will, but not to His global purpose. And that’s a problem we still have today.
Many of us who are Christians, trying to be good people…have surrendered to God’s moral will, but not to His global purpose. We’re following the 10 commandments, we come to church, maybe even twice a week. We read our Bibles, maybe even post a verse on social media now and then. We’ve never surrendered to God’s will for the rest of the world. That was Jonah’s problem. That’s our problem.
What would you say is the biggest negative stereotype of Christians today? They’re judgmental. They’re hypocrites. Right? Maybe that’s two, I think it’s kind of one. Like Jonah, we rebelled from God, we were saved by God. We declare with Jonah that “salvation is from the LORD.” We thank Him for our deliverance. We pray that our family and friends who don’t know Him will know Him. We pray for safety, for food, for the church, for us. What about the Ninevites? What about our enemies? We know what Jesus said, from the Sermon on the Mount:
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” Matthew 5:43-45
Jonah was surrendered to the law of God. Jonah had never surrendered to the purposes of God. He had not made himself fully available to accomplish God’s purpose in the world, and that made him judgmental. Because he was a good person, following God’s law. He knew God. But without surrendering to God’s purpose in the world, all he saw when he looked at the Ninevites was evil. They were not good people. They were not even trying to follow God’s law. They, in his mind, did not deserve God’s forgiveness. They weren’t even asking for it!
We become like Jonah, judgmental, by becoming a very good person and forgetting what we ultimately deserve. Somewhere on that long walk to Nineveh, Jonah seems to have forgotten what God saved him from. He was in rebellion, God brought Him out. Just like us. But we become so good we start to think we’re better than them and then we forget to care for them.
And this is where the culture can be right about the church and say “who needs church, they’re just going to make me feel bad about myself? Why would I want to feel judged?” It’s because they’ve been in contact with Christians who were really good about being good, but forgot somewhere along their walk why God sent His son into the world. They forgot what Jonah knew so well:
That He is “a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity”.
Don’t miss that. This is several hundred years before Jesus. Some people may tell you the God of the Old Testament is angry and wrathful, but Jonah knew better. God is abounding in love, He is full of grace and compassion.
And there’s the danger of being a good church person. A good moral person. You can be 100% surrendered to God’s will in your life but if you never surrender to His purpose in the world, you become judgmental, and become a part of the problem. You see the rules and the laws, but you miss the love and the grace. Like Jonah, a judgmental church, a good Christian, can become an obstacle to God’s grace in the world.
So here’s my question: Have you surrendered to God’s purpose in the world? Can you say to your heavenly Father: “God, I surrender to your purposes in the world. Just as I’m available to be good, just as I’m available to be obedient, I’m available to be an extension of your grace and your compassion and your love to anyone you put in my path.”
If the whole church had, specifically the whole church in the United States, I don’t believe we’d have the same reputation we have now. I don’t believe so many people would believe we’re so judgmental. I don’t believe so many people would believe that going to church was just going to make them feel bad about themselves.
If we can surrender like that now? If we can say those words together as a group? I believe we can change this community around us. I believe God could change the whole city of Boca Raton through this church. Because we’ve experienced the grace, and love, and forgiveness of the Creator of the universe there is no one better equipped to share that grace, and love, and forgiveness with the world.
That’s the way God does it.
Most people first experience God’s love, God’s grace, God’s forgiveness…through another person. Most people don’t hear a voice out of heaven. They hear a human voice like Jonah’s. Like yours. I’d guess most of you weren’t won over by a theological argument, I’d guess you were won over by His love, His grace, His forgiveness…in another person. That’s attractive. Almost irresistible. Judgment is not.
So back to the story, Jonah is mad, God has a question:
4 But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?”
Oof.
He might as well have said: Jonah, didn’t I just save you from drowning? Why were you on that boat anyway? Weren’t you just desperately in need of My love, My grace, My forgiveness? Didn’t you get it? Is it right for you to be angry? Is it right, for you of all people, to be upset that someone who didn’t deserve my grace received my grace? Jonah’s response?
5 Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city.
He went out and sat down. I think he knew what was going to happen. But remember, he’s in modern-day Iraq, sitting on a hill outside the city. And God acts again.
6 Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. 7 But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.”
I love how much God acts in this book. God sent Jonah, he didn’t go so God sent a storm, then God sent a fish, then God sent Jonah again. Now God provides a plant, then He provides a worm to kill that plant. Then He provides a wind. In that part of the world a stiff wind can change the temperature 15 degrees in less than an hour. It got hot. Jonah got angry.
9 But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”
“It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”
He was so mad about that dead plant. He was so mad because now he was uncomfortable. It was bad for him. HIs religion was still all about him.
10 But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. 11 And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”
God was telling Jonah that he was concerned about the wrong stuff. Jonah was a good man. He followed God’s law. He was a prophet who got a book of the Bible named after him. Jonah was concerned about a plant. God was concerned about a city full of people. Yes, people doing wicked things. Enemies of Jonah’s. People who couldn’t tell their right hand from their left. Those ignorant, wicked Ninevites. God was concerned about them. Jonah was concerned about a plant.
He was hot. He didn’t even want to be there. He certainly didn’t want God to save all those evil people. Now he had to walk all the way back home. Jonah was concerned about himself. God was concerned about a generation of people.
He still is.
What do you get angry about? Jonah got angry about a plant. What do you get angry about? You know what I get angry about? When I’m wrong. Which is weird, because it happens a lot. My job is to tell people what is going to happen today on the football field, before it happens. Ridiculous really. I’m going to be right about some things, wrong about others. I should be used to it, I’ve been doing it for more than a decade. But it’s embarrassing to say things on TV, have them proven wrong a couple of hours later, and then open up Twitter to hear how wrong you were…then do it all again the next week. I’m concerned about being wrong about a game somebody else is playing. God’s concerned about this generation of people. What are you concerned about?
The sin of Jonah is a religion that is all about yourself. Prayers that are all about your safety, your comfort, maybe your friends and family too, but not those people, not the Ninevites. Good people surrendered to the law of God, but not surrendered to His global purposes. That’s the sin of Jonah. In reading the story of Jonah, you’re invited to repent of the sin of Jonah. To surrender to the global purposes of God. To make yourself available to do His work, to show His love, grace, and compassion, to people who need it. Remember, Jesus came to call the sick, not the healthy. He came to call the sinners, not the righteous. The righteous wouldn’t need Jesus. I do. There’s a whole city, a whole country, a whole world who does.
I don’t know exactly what God is going to call you to do. But I know if you’re a Christian who has surrendered to His law and His rule in your life, but not to his purpose in this world, you may already know. You may have felt that prompting of the Spirit. That pull on your conscience. You may have said no to God, like Jonah did.
You’ve got a chance to start saying yes. To get involved here at Hammock Street Church in the stuff we’re already doing for our community. To help lead us into doing new things. To start being concerned about the things God is concerned about.
We’ve got a chance to live as an ekklesia, a community, of called out people, in such a way that the love, and grace, and compassion of God become irresistible to the community around us. The only way we’re going to do that is by surrendering to His purpose. And God may do what He did for the people of Nineveh for our community and our community will be changed because we engaged in God’s purposes in the world.
Amen?
Would you pray with me?