“Jonah: The Rebel Who God Used”

KEY PASSAGE: Jonah 1:1-12 (NASB)| Supporting Text: Matthew 12:39-41 (NLT)

IT IS NOT TOO LATE: God Uses Broken People Sermon Series

Tithe and Offering

it is time for us to collect our tithe and offering, and I want to share a very familiar verse from the Bible with you. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” That is why giving is a big part of our Sunday worship experience. What should mark us as a church is that we don’t just come to church every Sunday for God to give us something to receive. (For God to bless us). But as a church, we also want to be a channel of blessing. Your giving helps us in many ways to do ministry and share the gospel of Jesus Christ. That happens because we have many faithful givers. And so, I want to “thank you” for your faithfulness to God through your giving to the church. May God bless you. Please follow the instructions on the screen on how to give. Our ushers will pass the offering plates as we continue with worship.

Welcome

Please stand up, greet some folks around you, and welcome them to worship. We welcome you to our Sunday Worship Service. We also welcome all who join us online. Let's clap for our online viewers.

Announcement

Every Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. is our weekly WEDNESDAY NIGHT BIBLE STUDY. So, please join us as we connect with God through STUDYING THE WORD OF GOD. Our weekly corporate prayer meeting at the church is on Saturday at 8:00 a.m. So, please join us again on Saturday for corporate prayer. And to all the men, our next Men’s Breakfast is this Saturday, June 29th, at 10:00 a.m. at the church. I want to encourage all the men to come to the Men’s Breakfast because it is a great place to fellowship. And we meet on the last Saturday of every month.

PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION

Father God, I pray that the Holy Spirit teaches and guides us as we prepare to receive Your faithful word, which is full of power and truth. We rejoice in the midst of our uncertainty while we meditate and then celebrate in the midst of what You are about to do in our lives and this church. I pray that we faithfully obey God’s Word and apply it to daily life. I also pray that You bless the tithe and the offering as we honor You with our giving, and may our giving advance the Kingdom of God here on earth. We pray all this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Declaration of Faith in God

Let us stand and say the Declaration of Faith in God together.

SERMON INTRODUCTION

Our sermon series is called “IT IS NOT TOO LATE: GOD USES BROKEN PEOPLE.” We are looking at some of the folks in the Bible who were torn up from the floor and whom God used to accomplish His work here on earth. When things weren’t going in the right direction, God was able to turn them around and then used them for His glory. .

Today, I want to turn your attention to Jonah, a rebel God chose to use. Jonah is one of the interesting minor prophets of the Old Testament. The story of Jonah reminds us about God’s grace and mercy. His story is captured (encapsulated) in four short chapters, sandwiched between the books of Obadiah and Micah, which might not have been the most helpful information for you. If you are still lost, go to the Table of Contents of your Bible, and it will tell you the page number so that I don’t finish my sermon and you are still looking for the Book of Jonah.

SERMON EXPOSITION

But let’s get started with our message for today. I want to start by saying that the Book of Jonah is not simply about a great fish (mentioned four times in the Book of Jonah), or a great city (named nine times), or even a disobedient prophet named Jonah (mentioned 18 times – 7 times in chapter 1, 2 times in chapter 2, 3 times in chapter 3 and 6 times in chapter 4).

Let me tell you what the Book of Jonah is about—it is about God! God is mentioned thirty-eight (38) times in these four (4) chapters, and if you eliminated God from the book, the story wouldn’t make sense. The Book of Jonah is about God’s will and how we respond to it. It is about God’s love and how we share it with others.

We are told in chapter one that Jonah is a prophet of God, and the word came to him, in verse 2 of chapter 1: “Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city; cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me. But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.. (Please take notice of the phrase “the presence of the Lord”). He went to Joppa, found a ship, was going to Tarshish, paid the fare, and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.”

We are looking at a rebel here, alright. A man who didn’t like what God told him to do. Has God ever said something to you to do, and you don’t like it? Has God ever given a word to somebody about you, and you didn’t like what God told that person about you? You weren’t into His request, demand, or expectation. In fact, it looked like God is making a request to you that made God look like He had lost His mind.

God asked Jonah to do something incredible. To do something extraordinary to advance God’s work on earth so that God will the glory. Now, you must understand why Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh. When you get a chance, read another minor prophet called Nahum because the Book of Nahum is God’s judgment against Nineveh.

BACKGROUND ABOUT NINEVEH

The Ninevites were very violent people who showed no mercy to their enemies. In fact, let me tell you how evil and wicked these folks were. They would kill you and then put your dead body on display to show their might and their bloodthirstiness. From a human wisdom and perspective, I can see why Jonah refuses to go down to Nineveh.

If truth be told, Jonah is being honest and practical here. Jonah said to himself – God, do you really want me to go down to Nineveh? They kill people in Nineveh if you are not a Ninevite. You do not want me to go there to talk to them. Don’t send me there to judge them—judge them Yourself, God. You don’t need me to tell them. You don’t have to tell them anything.

Here is the second reason Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh and do an open-air revival.

The second reason is that Jonah was afraid that the people of Nineveh might be saved. And when they were saved, God would not judge them because they were now God’s children. Is there anyone in your life you hope that they don’t get saved because you don’t like them and you don’t have to deal with them when you get to heaven?

You don’t even want them to go to heaven. You don’t want to see them in heaven because they messed you up here on earth so bad, and you want them to be predetermined not to go to heaven. Jonah found himself in a catch-22 situation because if God saved the people of Nineveh, God would not judge them. They are the enemy of my people, Israel, so I don’t want you to save and deliver them.

SERMON EXPLANATION

So, Jonah disobeyed God and went in the opposite direction from his assignment. Watch this now. Every time people disobey God, they move away from God’s presence and go into opposite direction. They stopped coming to church. They stopped reading the Bible. They stop coming to Bible Study. They stopped communicating with other believers. If you are a Christian and you are rebelling against God, God is coming after you. One of the ways God does so is through circumstances. The negative circumstances in your life may be a storm with your name on it.

In verse three of Jonah Chapter One, we are told twice that Jonah “……. fled to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.” Jonah is a prophet, and he knows that God is everywhere. The Bible says that God is omnipresent, which means God is capable of being everywhere at the same time. Jonah forgot that God’s gifts and calling are irrevocable, according to Romans 11:29. Jonah is running from God’s expectations. Jonah is running away from God’s demands. Jonah is running from God’s requirements. He does not want to do what God asked him to do, so he goes the opposite of what God expects.

Let me show you how committed Jonah is to his disobedience. Watch this. The city of Nineveh, where he was told to go and cry out against because of their wickedness, is 550 miles by land. He has to travel 550 miles by land to get to Nineveh, where he was told to go. We are told Jonah is not going to Nineveh; he is going to Tarshish. Tarshish is about 2,500 miles in the other direction by sea. Alright. Jonah is going by sea. He would instead be watching this 2,500 miles out of God’s will and plan than 550 miles in God’s will and plan.

Jonah went in the opposite direction, which was the long way, and he said (watch this) that when God finds me, it will be too late to help deliver and save the people of Nineveh. Jonah had the wrong attitude toward the Word of God. Jonah forgot it was a great privilege to be a prophet of God, to hear God’s Word, and to know God’s will. So, Jonah resigned his prophetic office and fled in the opposite direction from Nineveh.

This reminds me of Moses, Elijah, and Jeremiah. At one time or another, Moses, Elijah, and Jeremiah felt like giving up, but God wouldn’t let them quit on Him. Are you running away from God because of a bad situation? Are you running away from God because of rejection? Are you running away from God because of how badly and poorly folks treat you? Are you running away from God because of one bad experience at a church? What is causing you this morning to run away from God’s presence?

If you are here today and feel like giving up because of the series of negative life events you are experiencing, I want to remind you that it is in doing God's will that we grow in grace and become like Christ Jesus.

There are some people here this morning who are running from the presence of God. In other words, God has given you a word. God has given a word through somebody for you, maybe through a sermon. Maybe directly from the Bible. Perhaps it came from some spiritual influencer in your life, and God has told you this is what I want you to do, but you don’t like it. It is not your preferred course of action. You have logical reasons why God does not know what He is talking about, and there is too much risk in doing it God’s way. Therefore, you run from the presence of the Lord. You run from the will of God. You run from God’s expectations.

Far too many Christians today get angry, upset (ticked off) at God or what God demands or expects. They run from the presence of the Lord, and they stop going to church. Perhaps, you know, people in your sphere of influence who say, “I don’t go to church anymore because they don’t want what God demands or expects.”

And so, not to even put themselves in a position to hear it, to be reminded of it, or to be in the environment that reinforces it, they stop going to church altogether because they don’t want to be in God’s presence. They don’t want to be reminded of God’s divine expectation for their lives. And so, they run away from God’s presence.

Please notice in the middle of verse 3, “He went down to Joppa, found a ship that was going to Tarshish, paid the fare, went down with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.” Watch this: Jonah went down to Joppa because whenever you run from God, you have to go down. Let me say that one more time. Whenever you run from God, you are going down. Down is the only direction you can go. If you are going away from God, you need to know why you think you are going up; you are going down.

You see, when you are in the will of God (Watch this), God picks up the tab (In other words, God pays the bill, alright). But when you are on your own (alone, by yourself), you have to pay for it yourself. So, Jonah goes down, and he pays the fare to run from God. Running from God is costly and it is not cheap. It costs you time. It can cost you money. It can cost your health. It can cost your peace. It can cost you joy. It can cost you a sense of well-being. It can cost you progress. It can cost you unity. It can cost you harmony. It can cost you mental stability. Running from God causes you a tab (a bill) that you must pay yourself. Jonah pays the fare to run from God’s presence.

Let’s look at verse 4. Verse 4 says, “The Lord sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a great storm on the sea so that the ship was about to break up.” All right. Jonah made his decision; then God made His. Jonah said, “God, I am running.” God said, “Jonah, I am sending a great wind.” Jonah said, “God, I am going in the other direction.” God says, okay, but, “I am going to find you.” God throws a great wind targeted toward Jonah. The Bible says in Hebrews 12 verse 6 “Whom the Lord loveth He disciplines.”

Whom the Lord loveth He corrects. Listen, if you claim to be a Christian and are in rebellion and God isn’t coming after you, you must be somebody else’s child because whom the Lord loves, He comes after. One of God’s great proofs is that when you rebel, He will not leave you alone. Watch this now; He will create a storm with your name on it. This was Jonah’s storm because the storm only came when Jonah rebelled against God.

If you are in rebellion, that is, refusing to do the will of God, going 2500 miles out of God’s will, then going 550 miles in it because you don’t like it, expect bad and stormy weather. There is a storm with your name on it. If you are a son or daughter of God and rebel against God, you are a spiritual rebel, and your heavenly Father loves you too much not to come after you. But when He comes after you, things get stormy. The weather is going to get windy. Circumstances get shaky because you are outside the direction God wants you to go. It says, “The ship is about to break up. The sailors become afraid.”

Let’s look at Jonah at the end of verse 5. “But Jonah had gone down into the lowest parts of the ship, laid down, and was fast asleep.” Jonah falls asleep in a storm when the ship is breaking up. That means you are so far out of the will of God. See, you can get so far out of the will of God when you can sleep through a storm designed to discipline you. Jonah is so far out of the will of God; everybody else is panicking, throwing things overboard, scared, crying, and afraid. Jonah goes down because he is already going down to Joppa, so he goes down to the bottom of the ship. He gets as far away as possible because he doesn’t want to deal with God.

And there are people here today who don’t want to deal with God. You are in church but don’t want to deal with God because you don’t like how He runs things. You don’t like what God says. You don’t like what God expects. And you will see this all the time in counseling. People come and want help but don’t want to hear from God. They want the kind of help they want, not the kind of help God demands and expects. And so, they run from the presence of God.

Watch this: In verse 6, the captain finds Jonah and says, “Get up, call on your God. Perhaps your God will be concerned about us so that we will not perish.” The captain finds Jonah sleeping in the midst of a bad storm that is breaking up the boat. And he says to Jonah, “Get up. Pray.” Jonah is the preacher. The captain is a sinner. He is not a saint because it says all of them called on their own gods. So, the sinner tells the preacher, “Pray, would you mind praying? Don’t you think prayer would be a good idea right now?”

You can get so far out of God’s will that it will take sinners to make you a Christian again. A sinner tells a Christian to pray.

I am going to pick on the men. We, as men, can get so far out of the will of God that our wives have to ask us to pray. Alright. Our wives have to ask us to pray. At the end of verse 7, they cast lots to find out the cause of this. These are wise men, and they understand that maybe we are in a storm because of a spiritual problem, not just weather-related changes in the atmosphere. A lot of times, as believers, we are sleeping through what God is doing, so we don’t connect it with God.

Jonah tells the men in verse 9, “I am a Hebrew …” “I fear the Lord God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land.” Interpretation: He told them I am running from the presence of the Lord. The reason you are in this storm is because God is tracking you down. And so, Jonah the Jew becomes a curse instead of a blessing. God called the Jews to be a blessing to all nations of the earth, according to Genesis 12:1-3. And whenever the Jews were out of the will of God, they brought trouble instead of a blessing. Twice, we are told that Abraham brought trouble to people because he lied. Jonah brought trouble to a boatload of pagan sailors because he fled from the presence of God. So, before you escape from God's presence, I want you to think about this because it will bring consequences to other folks around you and not just you. Maybe close members of your family members, your friends or folks who you don’t know.

Illustration

Jonah lost God’s voice, and God no longer spoke to Jonah through His Word. God was speaking to Jonah through His works—the sea, the wind, the rain, the thunder, and the great fish. This is true for us today when we disobey God and run away from His presence. God will speak to us through a storm. God will speak to us through folks who are unbelievers. God may even speak to us through bad weather.

Conclusion

I want to close with Matthew Chapter 12, which I believe is the end of Jonah’s story because Jesus had to say something about Jonah to the Scribes and Pharisees of His day. In chapter 12 of Matthew, in closing, we see these words: Matthew 12, verse 38 says this, “Then some of the Scribes and Pharisees said to Him (that is Jesus), “Teacher we want to see a sign from You.” But He said to them, “And even an adulteress generation carves for a sign, and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, someone greater than Jonah is here.”

First, this proves that Jonah is a real story in the Bible because Jesus said it was. Alright. So, if Jonah’s story is not a real, Jesus is a liar. If Jesus is a liar, He is not the Son of God. And if He is not the Son of God, we don’t have a Savior. If we don’t have a Savior, we are going to die in our sins. So, the reason that the story of Jonah is true is because Jesus said it is true. So, we have established the Old Testament teaching of the prophet Jonah, where we find the story of Jonah being verified by Jesus Christ as part of the Word of God. But then Jesus makes another closing point I want to bring to your attention. Here is what Jesus had to say.

He said, “You all want a sign. You want a sign, and I just did a miracle; Jesus opened a blind man's eyes and a man who couldn’t talk in Matthew chapter 9, verses 27 to 34.” But the Scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus, do something else. Jesus responded, and I am paraphrasing here – “You are just evil, and you all are not looking for a sign. You want another reason to reject me as the Son of God.”

But I will give you one more sign: Just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish, I am going to be in the belly of the earth, and when Jonah came out, he brought about repentance in Nineveh.” In other words, things changed when Jonah came out of the great fish’s belly. When I, Jesus, the Son of God, come out of the earth, a greater than Jonah is here.”

Faith Appeal, Call to Action, and Altar Call

Now, here is the good news for you and me as we close our message for today: The good news is that if a rebel preacher named Jonah could change the whole city of Nineveh by preaching the Word of God, how much change can Jesus Christ bring about when there is no rebel?

Jesus is the perfect Son of God, the perfect Savior who has risen from the dead. Jonah didn’t even die. He was just in the belly of the great fish. We are told in Scripture that Jesus Christ died, was buried, and arose from the grave on the third day. If a rebel preacher can turn Nineveh around, then Jesus Christ can turn you around. Sure enough, Jesus can turn your circumstances around. Jesus can turn your situation around. Sure thing, Jesus can turn that thing around.

If a rebel preacher can take evil Nineveh and make it better, sure enough, the One who died and rose from the dead can take the evil you and me and make us better. If Jonah could do that as messed up psychologically as he was, how much can Jesus Christ do as spiritually balanced and normal as He is? If that Old Testament madman and unstable man could do all that, then this New Testament Son of God can do much more for you and me. Jesus Christ can change you because Jonah could say, “Change Nineveh,” and guess what, a greater than Jonah is here. Jesus Christ is here to reverse the circumstances in your life. A greater than the prophet Jonah is here to undo what you are dealing with.

Jonah's story encourages us to believe God is the God of second chances. Jonah’s situation should remind us that no location is too far out of the reach of God’s call on your life. Jonah got a second chance to obey God after his stormy experience in the sea, and he chose to obey God. If you are here today, like Jonah, have strayed (wandered away from God due to life circumstances) from the direction and path God once revealed to you, I want to encourage you today to cry out to God. Don’t wait until God maneuvers your circumstances to get you where He wants you to go. Instead, I want you to call God wherever you are because God can hear you. God can reach you where you are right now and longs to bring you back in line with His purpose and plan for you. Reach out to God right now and tell Him I am coming back to Your presence. I am coming back to You.

Let’s stand on our feet. Let’s bow our heads. Let’s look to heaven and give Jesus some praise and worship Him. Jesus is greater than Jonah. And if you are here today, and you are rebellious, you have been running from the presence of God; you don’t like God’s will, you don’t like what God is telling you about you, you don’t like what He is saying, and you have been running. All you have been doing is facing a storm; come home so that God can bring you back to the place of obedience, restore you, and show you the good plan He has for your life. It is not too late because God is waiting for you to come home.

And if you are here today and would like to give your life to Jesus, please come forward so we can pray with you and usher you into the family of God.

Let’s us pray.

Benediction

Heavenly Father, my prayer for us today is that we will consistently abide in Your presence so we can experience the power of the Holy Spirit. This week, may we seek You, and may Your Holy Spirit fill every empty space in our hearts, minds, and souls. I pray that you will give a second chance to all those who disobeyed You and ran away from Your presence because no location is out of Your reach. I pray that everyone here today will come boldly to Your throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. We thank You for all this and give You all the glory and honor in the name of Jesus. Amen.

God bless you. We will see you next week at 10:30 a.m.