Arise, Call out to your God!

Jonah  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented
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Jonah 1:4-6

Jonah 1:4–6 ESV
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. 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. So the captain came and said to him, “What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your god! Perhaps the god will give a thought to us, that we may not perish.”
My family and I like to travel. And we have seen that you can really learn a lot about a city and its people by going to a baseball game and going to the zoo. These two locations are typically in the heart of a city, so as we go to them we get a good view of the entire city. The thing that seems to be the same in each city we visit, is that the big fancy homes are within a block or so of the most impoverished homes. I have always suggested that that is God’s way of reminding those who chase comfort, that real poverty is just around the corner. But in reality, those who chase comfort would rather live with blinders on, and do all they can to avoid the hardship right near them. You know what I mean. When you go to an area with homeless people, we tend to avoid making eye contact, we roll up our windows and lock our doors and keep our eyes straight ahead if we are passing through. A good deal of this is not wanting anything to disturb our comfort. Today, God gives us a reminder of just how in love with comfort we can be, oblivious to hardships surrounding us.
Last week we were reminded that The Garden is a missional church. A church plant. Called to go and make disciples of people everywhere. We were reminded that God has planted us to establish shalom communities, or communities of light, blessing, honor, justice, grace, mercy, and love in areas where darkness has a foothold. And that God loves the city, he has seen the evil and wickedness that abounds in them, but he does not turn and run away, as humans tend to do. No, he calls us to arise and go, and proclaim his good news with the promise that he will be with us always.
Such is the call Jonah received, and instead of answering the call of God, he ran away to Tarshish. Which is synonymous with somewhere far away. Somewhere comfortable. Yahweh immediately answers Jonah by putting a great storm in the sea that was carrying the boat. And just like most people who bring destruction and damage along with them everywhere they go, Jonah doesn’t even notice. He is sleeping, enjoying that comfort he desired when he avoided God’s call. Some of you might be saying, didn’t Jesus do the same thing. Didn’t he sleep during a storm while everyone around was terrified? Let’s look at the incident.
Luke 8:22–25 ESV
One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” So they set out, and as they sailed he fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water and were in danger. And they went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?”
“Where is your faith?” is how Jesus answered. He was not running away from God and trusting his desire for comfort, as Jonah was. He was trusting God, and teaching his disciples to trust in God. Jesus teaches us that it is not Jonah’s action as much as it is the heart behind the action. Such is the case with sin, it can make good things like sleep and comfort into God things that we worship. Which leads me to my next point.
Then the mariners were afraid and each cried out to his god. The mariners that were on this ship each had something they worshiped. When hardship came they turned to that thing. But in the next verse the captain hollered at Jonah showing just how much they relied on the things they worshiped.
Jonah 1:6 ESV
So the captain came and said to him, “What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your god! Perhaps the god will give a thought to us, that we may not perish.”
He said, one thing we know won’t save us is you just laying around. Wake up and call to the one you worship, maybe he’ll save us. And you can get a glimpse in this, of just how flimsy human faith can be. Of why Jesus so often admonishes his disciples for having little faith. We tend to only rely on that which makes us feel good, or comfortable, until we need someone to save us, and if it isn’t the god that I am praying to, then maybe your god will save us, and if he does, I will worship him. There is no real allegiance. There is no real faith. There is only self preservation. But as our faith leads us to Jesus, instead of our fears leading us to ourself, he tells us time and again that that faith saves us. We want God to make us feel good and safe. We want Yahweh as long as he can manage to keep our lives easy and comfortable. We want to make Yahweh our assistant. And a God that created everything, the earth, the animals, the people, and sustains it all with a word of his mouth, is not a being we make a genie in a bottle. No, he is the one that shapes us into his image, we do not get to shape him into ours. We want a personal assistant, But he wants so much more.
Jeremiah 24:7 ESV
I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.
That is what he wants from us. And that is what we see displayed by Jesus as he sleeps through a storm, knowing that the God who is behind the power displayed in this storm loves me and is for me, even when it doesn’t feel like it gives us a peace that allows us to rest in a storm. Jonah on the other hand, just like all the other mariners on board the boat is displaying the god he really worships as he sleeps, his comfort. We turn to what we worship. What are you turning to?
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