KOZ JULY 2024
Notes
Transcript
Big Fish, Bigger Stories
Big Fish, Bigger Stories
Jonah 1:17 “And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.”
How many fishing stories start off with, “It was the biggest one ever, the mother of all fish...”
“I ALMOST had it in the boat when...”
How did Jonah tell the story of why he spent 3 day/night’s in the belly of a fish?
Was that a “Fish story, or what?” And how do you every explain that smell??
What did Jonah do to get tossed in the ocean and get swallowed up to begin with? (Who knows the story?)
God gives Jonah, a Prophet of God, a mission to complete.
Jonah ran away from God’s mission, went to the city of Joppa, a small community on the Mediterranean Sea. It still exists as a part of the larger Tel Aviv urban area in Israel.
Jonah bought a ticket on a boat there bound for Tarshish, “Away from the Presence of the Lord”
Jonah thought he could outrun God, he thought there was a place, someplace where God could not find him. He was wrong.
Not only was he wrong but in disobeying God, Jonah not only brought a lot of grief on himself, but also to a lot of other folks as well.
1st POINT
Although God gave Jonah a mission to complete, He also let Jonah decide for himself.
In the same way, God will always let us make choices for ourselves, He loves us that much.
But if we make bad choices, He also loves us enough to let us suffer the consequences of making bad choices. (Why is it good for us to have to pay for our mistakes?)
But even when we make the worst possible choices, and do the worst damage to ourselves that we possibly can, ya know what....?
God still cares…He is still there waiting for us to come home…GOD NEVER GIVES UP ON US.
God gave Jonah a task to complete, and then let Jonah make a choice...
And it wasn’t the Mission Impossible choice of ‘Should you choose to accept this mission...’
Jonah’s options were:
1- Do what God asked of him
2- Dont do what God asked of him
There were no other choices.
Something we often neglect to see , is the damage done is not just to ourselves, but to those around us as well.
Jonahs choices put an entire ship’s crew of sailors in grave danger
The cargo and income from the sale of that cargo was lost
The financial loss could have ruined the business of the ships owner.
Jonah didn’t see any of this and we often fail to see the ripple effect in life as we make choices as well.
Choices made as young people can build and solidify trust or honor issues… Or destroy that same trust.
We choose to listen to and learn from our parents… Or not
We choose to look, then look again, then click on links on our phones?computers, etc, that we know are not good… Or we choose not too.
We choose who our friends are…And those that are not
We choose the kind of language we use (Course/profane, lying or deceitful)
God lets us choose all of those things. He is there for us in all of those choices- If we CHOOSE to allow Him in.
Temptations have always been there, You boys, today dont face any different temptations that your parents faced at your age.
What is different is the intensity and ease of access to those temptations.
(My phone today vs my home phone as a child- on the wall w/ a cord attached)
Most of the choices we make today are based on whether we want to something or not. Sometimes we have to do things we dont want to do, but mostly we choose to do things we prefer to do.
It’s not like Jonah had plans for the weekend that God was interrupting.
So why did Jonah run run so hard away from God? (Opinions)
To get the whole story, you really need to read the entire book of Jonah.
Its only 4 chapters long, so it’s not a tough read at all.
Nineveh was the largest city in the known world at the time. It was positioned on the banks of one of the great rivers of the Middle East, The Tigris, one of the 4 rivers mentioned in Genesis that flowed out of the Garden of Eden.
So what did Nineveh do to get God’s attention?
Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.”
God sees the things we do, all of them, the Good, the Bad, and the Evil.
God sees it all.
In short order, Jonah chooses to not follow God’s directive and decides to take a cruise.
And Tarshish is literally at the end of the known world. The West coast of Spain on the Atlantic Ocean.
Jonah was trying to run as far away from God as he new to run.
Jonah 4:1–3 (ESV)
But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
See Jonah really didnt like the Ninevites. He really didnt care that God was upset with them for doing evil.
Jonah would have preferred to sit on a hill overlooking the City and watch God pour out His rath and vengence on Nineveh. Maybe have some popcorn and a cold soda...
“That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster....”
But Jonah knew the kind of God he served.
A God that would rather rescue a people then destroy them.
A God that would prefer to offer mercy and grace than malice.
So Jonah is now asleep in the lower decks of the ship
And God stirs up a massive storm.
A storm bigger than even the seasoned sailors could handle.
They did all the could to save the ship, including tossing the cargo overboard to lighten the ship so it would sail easier.
None of this worked and the storm only got worse.
The crew did all they knew to do, including calling on all of their gods, in hopes that they would be rescued.
All the while Jonah is taking a nap. Then the Captain awakens Jonah to call on his God as well.
The sailors then did what was common in that time, they rolled dice to determine who’s fault all this calamity was.
By Divine call the dice fell to Jonah and he admitted to be running from the One True God.
This terrified the Sailors, they recognized what a screwball Jonah was.
And not so much that he was running from God but that he had brought his troubles on them.
A problem they did not ask for.
The beautiful part of the story isnt so much that God rescued Jonah, but that God didnt give up on Jonah when he ran away.
The sailors threw Jonah in the sea, in the midst of the storm…And God provided a great fish to swallow up Jonah to save him.
The sailors only saw that the storm let up as soon as Jonah was overboard, AND THE MARVELED AND WORSHIP THE GOD OF JONAH.
3 days in the belly of the great fish and Jonah finally saw the light.
He cries out to God Jonah 2.9
Jonah 2:9 (ESV)
But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you;
what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord!”
And God spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out onto dry land
2nd POINT
Even when we make the worst choices possible, God is still there waiting for us. God never gives up on us.
So what did God do next? (Answers)
He puts Jonah right back on mission. “Arise and go to Nineveh...”
Same mission in Chapter 3 as in Chapter 1, “Go to Nineveh”
Only this time God tells Jonah to proclaim a message that God, Himself will give to Jonah to deliver to the people.
Remember, you can go fishing with the best Fishing guides in the world, but if you dont listen to them, you’re not gonna catch much of anything (Story of my first fishing trip)
The best guides keep their instructions short and simple.
(Cast here, down just so deep, use this bait)
Jonah’s message from God to the Ninevites was all of 8 words long.
“Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned”
NO big multi-night tent meetings, No hour long sermons…None of that
Just 8 words.
Nineveh was a huge city that took 3 days just to walk across. Jonah proclaimed the same message everywhere he went for three days.
The Ninevites believed the message, turned from their evil ways, declared a time of fasting and repentance. From the King of the city throughout the entire population, every single citizen of Nineveh repented and believed God.
God heard their cries and saw their seriousness and withdrew His hand of judgement against the city
3rd POINT
The God of the universe is not a God just waiting to “Git ya” when you mess up, He is like the Good Father we sing about, ready and able to pick us up when we stumble, wanting that we would just take the time to check in with Him before making those choices that could either lead us down dark roads and bad places or bring us closer to Him.
So…Three things to do in your quiet time today,
1- Pray- Talk to God. Its not hard and He is there to listen to you
2- Talk, to one of your KOZ brothers or one of the KOZ leaders, we are here to help you work through the hard things of life.
3- Write it down. Something your dealing with right know that’s hard. Writing stuff down helps us keep track of things and can also helps us keep things in order.
looking at things in writing can also show us better whether or not its a good idea or kind of goofy. (That joke sounded way better in my head…)
because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.”
