Jonah 3 Sunday School Lesson

Romeo was skinny, he was matted, he was a year and a half old and not potty trained, he lived outside in a cage, he would literally potty through the bottom of the cage where he slept, that was the only way he could. He was neglected and pushed aside simply because he had became an inconvenience to his old owners.

We could have easily looked at Romeo and moved onto the next dog, thinking he is beyond repair, but that’s not who we are, we saw great potential in Romeo and his future, we were not weighed down by who he was, but excited about who he was going to become.

God feels the same way about you right now, it doesn’t matter who you were or who you are right now even. God could have easily looked at your past and moved onto the next person, but that’s not who our God is. He sees great potential in you and your future and wants a relationship with you.

God isn’t weighed down by who you were, but excited about who you can become through him.

That’s the idea today I want each of you to see in Jonah

God offers his salvation to all people regardless of their circumstances and identity.

What happened in the chapters leading up to 3?

I want you to go into chapter 3 knowing the background, but I also want you to notice very specific things in the response of the people to God in chapter 3.

Jonah 3 CSB

1 The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach the message that I tell you.” 3 Jonah got up and went to Nineveh according to the Lord’s command. Now Nineveh was an extremely great city, a three-day walk. 4 Jonah set out on the first day of his walk in the city and proclaimed, “In forty days Nineveh will be demolished!” 5 Then the people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast and dressed in sackcloth—from the greatest of them to the least. 6 When word reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 Then he issued a decree in Nineveh: By order of the king and his nobles: No person or animal, herd or flock, is to taste anything at all. They must not eat or drink water. 8 Furthermore, both people and animals must be covered with sackcloth, and everyone must call out earnestly to God. Each must turn from his evil ways and from his wrongdoing. 9 Who knows? God may turn and relent; he may turn from his burning anger so that we will not perish. 10 God saw their actions—that they had turned from their evil ways—so God relented from the disaster he had threatened them with. And he did not do it.

#1 Jonah Responded Obediently to the Lord’s Command to go

-Jonah was not likely ecstatic to be in Nineveh preaching, context clues from chapter 4

How often is that our attitude toward people who have done us wrong or are different than us?

Christians all over the world, likely you too at one point or another have had someone you could reach with the gospel, that God put in your path and you avoided the conversation.

Whether that’s because you were scared of what they would say, scared of who they were, or whatever it was, the reality is we do that and it’s a problem.

God set that person in your path, if we want to be gospel proclaiming and great commission living Christians, we must respond obediently to the Lord’s call to reach people with the gospel, regardless of how we may feel about those people.

Would you push someone out of the way of traffic or let them die?

#2 Assyrians of Nineveh responded obediently to the Call of Repentance

-Believed translates to trusted

-They were very religious and could have turned to any of the thousands of their gods, but they trusted in the God of the bible

-we often do that, we want our way in our terms, we put trust in visible things that affirm what we are feeling rather than having faith in the all powerful God and his way.

#3 God saw their repentance and relented (Jesus does the same for us)

- Jesus died on the cross so that we could have a relationship with him and thus God would relent of the hell that we all deserve.

- God doesn't hold a grudge on us for being born into sin, just like God saw a purpose for these people and their lives, he sees one for us, the question is will we respond in obedience and repentance like the Assyrians and see God relent from the punishment we deserve?

- Hell is a very real place, that all of humanity deserves for its rebellion.