Jonah Part 1

Intro:

In this series I want to ruin the story of Jonah for you

Ok that might not be my real goal

But, there is a chance it’s an outcome

Since this is the Bible belt and we are in the south there’s a good chance you’ve heard at least parts of Jonah’s story before

Whether it be through a tomato, cucumber, and angry peas (veggie tales)

a kids story of giant whale swallowing a man

Or maybe you just remember an angry God dealing with a disobedient man trying to reach an evil people

You see, there’s been this western cultural movement because of Christian media and packaging that has taught us to believe that stories of the Bible like this, and specifically OT stories are more for children than it is the real stuff.

Right, so Jewish tradition we would go to the Torah

And the more Christian traditions would be found in the gospels and letters of Paul

And so because of this, a few things often happen

#1 we skim over them seeing little relevance to the rest of the Bible

#2 we see them only as children’s stories and lower them in importance

#3 we approach them with predetermined ideas and miss the point over and over

So, I have a children’s book here that I want to read their interpretation of the story of Jonah for kids

read kids book

So, this is how we often remember and what we think of when we think of this story

But, there’s so much more here

In fact, some have said this is the most dense and sophisticated page and a half in all of the OT

Some have compared it to a Beethoven symphony that anyone can enjoy it but for anyone who wants to learn how music is composed there are infinite layers that only make the other layers that much more beautiful and impressive

In the same way, anyone who wants to know and love the Lord well, there are layers here that only make Him more beautiful and good than we would have ever imagined.

So let’s dive in:

At it’s basic form, Jonah serves to us as a storied presentation of the gospel

And if it did nothing else, that would be greatly beneficial for us

And that’s important for us to remember

aside from that, it shows us insight to the heart of God

It shows us the evilness of man

It shows us the rebellion of even God’s chosen people

and those are all things we will hit on

But, with a book series/study like this we just can’t focus on all of that

We have 4 weeks, this book has 4 chapters and so we just can’t do all of it in that amount of time

I will say, More class this series will be more classroom and teaching than it might be discussion like it has been

And so, if that’s something that interest you I would highly encourage you to join us for that

Ok, but here’s the big idea not only for today but for this series

So, this will be the thing we continually come back to and focus on

GOD PURSUES REBELS

What we ought to see most clearly through the story of Jonah is that God pursues rebels

He is in constant pursuit of even those who live in rebellion against Him

So, let’s read some of this story and then we will get started

Jonah 1:1–3 NIV

1 The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” 3 But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.

pray

Ok, here’s what we see and know

The Word of the Lord comes to a man named Jonah

And we know Jonah from 2 kings 14:25 that he is a prophet from Gath Hepher

and God asks this prophet to go to a great city

And think great not as in good but great in significance or even size

And we know this great city is wicked, in fact so wicked that it has gotten to the point where the Lord must do something about it

So, think noah and the ark wicked

Wickedness God send Noah

sodom and gomorrah

God sends Abraham

Egypt

God sends Moses

Babylon

God sends Daniel and others

So, there’s this pattern that we should begin to recall as we see once again, an evil wicked city or people and God sending someone to offer salvation or freedom before wrath and judgement

But, as we follow the story of the OT, as we should, we get to Jonah and the Lord again must be Just, He can’t just turn His head to sin, but He offers an opportunity for another outcome

So, Word of the Lord to Jonah, go to Nineveh

Then verse 3, but Jonah ran away and went to Tarshish to flee from the Lord

Show map

So, Jonah is called to Nineveh and not only does he say no not only does he flee he goes in the furthest most opposite direction he possibly could

And just for some context and understanding for why he might have chosen this is because not only was Nineveh a wicked people but Jonah was of the chosen people the righteous people of Israel

And not only was Nineveh wicked and jonah righteous but Nineveh was wicked toward Jonah’s righteous people

They were enemies and Nineveh had taken some of Israelites land and were living in complete opposition against them

There are other reason that we will get to later but you can somewhat understand why Jonah doesn’t want to do this and so instead he flees

Have you ever wished at certain times in your life that God would just speak to you?

Well this happens for Jonah

Jonah is called by the Lord

But Jonah doesn’t like his calling

And Jonah did not think that the implications (people) of God’s call were worth it or were worthy of it

How many of us have been there before?

God really? You want me to pray for her?

You really want me to befriend him?

You chose to use them?

And what is happening in that moment for both us and this moment for Jonah is the same sin that happened in the garden

God doesn’t know what He’s talking about, He doesn’t know what’s best, and so I’m gonna play God and decide for Him and for me

And look at the options that Jonah has here

Because it’s ultimately the same choice we have

He either pursues the will of God, whether he agrees with it or likes it or not

Or he gets on a boat and heads out to sea

Now in historic culture the sea is known as the collection of chaos

There was no modern navigation tools

There was also no studies of tides or even creatures

There was no modern predictions of storms and surf and chop

None of that stuff existed so they were completely blind when they went out to sea

So, it’s just a place of chaos for them

So see what happens then

Jonah could either choose the will of God or choose chaos

And Jonah decides chaos

He decides that chaos is better than to do what God is asking me to do

You know, there’s a lot of crossover here for us as well

You and I have some similarities with Jonah right?

We don’t always like our calling

We dont always like what God asks us to do

We don’t always like what His Word tells us

We don’t always like to be obedient

And so we flee

We have that same choice of chaos or God’s will

We can either choose the will of God for us or we choose chaos

and it may not always seem like those are our choices but that’s it

A lot of times we think we can choose God’s will or what I want

The problem is, when you choose anything other than God you are choosing chaos

Because you are choosing to live outside of the will of the only One who is truly sovereign

And so, like Jonah, we choose to flee, we choose chaos

A lot of time we think that if we just ignore the call of God that all of our christian-esque problems will go away that God will just go away, that He will just leave us alone

And like Jonah we often decide that God’s grace isn’t deserved on some and that certain people aren’t worth it

And so we have all of these similarities to Jonah and you can see so many different crossovers between what Jonah is going through and what we often go through

And that’s what we do right?

Here’s a main character in the Bible and so how am I like that main character?

But can I tell you something...

You’re more Nineveh than you are Jonah

You see, you were at one point or maybe right now, in complete rebellion against God

And even if it wasn’t to the wickedness of a Nineveh Romans tells us that even our most righteous deeds are like filthy rags to the Lord

So, before our salvation, we had nothing to offer and we were in rebellion against the Holy One.

But thank God for this truth

GRACE IS ALWAYS UNEXPECTED

Thank the Lord that He pursues us and He grants us grace even when we least expect it and are least deserving

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