God's Sustaining Love

Introduction/Seeing the Need

Can God reach people when we testify to him, no matter what our intentions are? If so, do our intentions matter? God’s love is so powerful that even our bad behavior cannot stand in its way. However, we are still accountable for our sines, even when God uses them to reach out in love to other people.

I Worship the Lord -

Jonah 1:7–9 NRSV

The sailors said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, so that we may know on whose account this calamity has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. Then they said to him, “Tell us why this calamity has come upon us. What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?” “I am a Hebrew,” he replied. “I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”

Elevator speeches are tools used to pitch essential information regarding a person or project. They generally are 20 to 30 speeches that are memorized for when the opportunity presents. Christians have developed their own versions of elevator speeches to share their faith with other people when witnessing. Like any marketing tool, elevator speeches can come in handy; and like any marketing tool, they can ring false if they become disconnected from who we actually are and what we actually believe.

Writing an elevator speech about Jesus can be a good exercise for us. It can help us think about what we believe to be most important and most compelling about the Christian life. On the other hand, what we say spontaneously might better reflect the truth of the state of our relationship with God in the moment and leaves room for the Spirit to provide the words a person most needs to hear.

Wakened in the midst of a storm at sea, fleeing from his responsibility to God, Jonah did not have much he wanted to report about his relationship with God in the moment. So when the sailors asked Jonah who he was, Jonah fell back on what sounds like a prepared answer - an elevator speech: “I’m a Hebrew. I worship the Lord, the God of Heaven - who made the sea and the dry land” (.)

Jonah’s speech expressed a great deal of important information in few words. However, this speech does not ring true. Jonah simply was not acting like someone who had taken his own words to heart. These sound more like words he had memorized than words that actually guided his life decisions.

Consider this, if Jonah’s God was “the God of heaven”, and if God “made the sea and the dry land”, then how exactly did Jonah propose to flee from this God? Jonah remained in God’s domain through every minute of his travel over the sea to the dry land.

Did Jonah think that it was possible for him to get away from God - that God was not actually the God of heaven but only God in Israel? Or did he think instead that God might not care all that much about his disobedience and would just find someone else to “go to Ninevah… and cry out against it?” Either way, his actions proved that it was no longer true that Jonah worshiped the Lord because he had chosen to stop paying attention to what God said and hoped God would just leave him alone.

Perhaps there was a time when Jonah believed the words in his speech. Perhaps he was sincere in his desire to serve the “God of heaven once upon a time. It is clear, however, that by the time we enter Jonah’s story, he no longer believed at least part of what he told the sailors about himself and God.

If you were writing an elevator speech about your faith in God, what would be most important to include?

What Have You Done? -

Jonah 1:10–12 NRSV

Then the men were even more afraid, and said to him, “What is this that you have done!” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them so. Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?” For the sea was growing more and more tempestuous. He said to them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you; for I know it is because of me that this great storm has come upon you.”

The sailors recognized right away what a foolish thing Jonah had done. As soon as Jonah described God, the sailors “were terrified and said to him, ‘What have you done?’”. They never imagined that Jonah might be running away from a God who was everywhere, a god who had power over everything. Miraculously, instead of doubting Jonah’s description of God, the sailors instead doubted Jonah’s good sense in running away.

Earlier the sailors had cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. The sailors perceived this a true sign that Jonah knew something about the terrible storm, and maybe he even knew how to make the storm go away. The storm was particularly bad. The storm likely came on quite suddenly, as well. The sea had been quiet enough for Jonah to fall asleep in the hold of the ship. However, the sailors were so shocked by the storm, they cast lots to settle their concern for the storm behaving so badly.

The sailors knew what Jonah had done; they just did not know why anyone would think to do it. Jonah had crossed the God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land. They asked Jonah “What are you doing?” They were asking Jonah what are you thinking? Why are you doing this?

Similarly, the sailors knew what Jonah had done; they just did not know why anyone would think to do it. Jonah did not want to do what God had asked, and he behaved impulsively.

Most of us have probably not done anything as dramatic as boarding a boat for the end of the known world, but perhaps we all know what it is like to have acted rebelliously and impulsively. If we stopped to pray first, we know God would ask us to do something we do not want to do, so instead we turn our backs on God; and, like Jonah, we illogically hope God will not care or will not notice.

What one event or decision would you choose to revisit if you could go back in time and ash your younger self, “What are you doing?”

Hurl Me Into the Sea! -

Jonah 1:13–17 NRSV

Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring the ship back to land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more stormy against them. Then they cried out to the Lord, “Please, O Lord, we pray, do not let us perish on account of this man’s life. Do not make us guilty of innocent blood; for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you.” So they picked Jonah up and threw him into the sea; and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord even more, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. But the Lord provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

The biblical account reminds us at this point that “the sea continued to rage”. Lest we forget, this was not a leisurely conversation about the nature of God and faith: Jonah and the sailors were talking about God in the midst of a terrifying storm. In fact, they were only talking about God because of the storm. Without the storm, Jonah would still be peacefully sleeping below the deck, and the sailors would be going about their business.

The sailors asked the next most logical question, “What will we do about you so that the sea will become calm around us?” Jonah answered dramatically, “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea!” What Jonah suggested was murder. They tried to row back to dry land instead. Even though Jonah endangered their lives, they attempted to save his life rather than throw him overboard as he had suggested.

They had no compunction about sacrificing their own pay in the form of the cargo in order to save their lives and the lives of everyone on the ship; but they would not sacrifice even one selfish foreigner for the sake of the everyone else, even with his consent, at least not until they had tried everything else.

They were basically devout people. Their first impulse when facing Jonah request was to pray. They did not yet believe in the One God, but they understood the implications of such a god far better than God’s own prophet did. One act of power attributed to this God would be enough to inspire them to worship and make vows to God. Jonah’s last act of prophecy among them on the boat ensured that the sailors would understand that God was responsible for raising the storm and for ending it.

Jonah should not have been on the boat in the first place; but as long as he was there, in the wrong place, God could still use him to do something right. God used Jonah’s elevator speech. God used Jonah’s despairing cry to be thrown to the bottom of the sea. The sailors would know that the God of the Hebrews was “the God of heaven - who made the sea and the dry land.” They would learn about life lived in obedience to this God.

Conclusion

We all make mistakes. Sometimes, we are even willfully disobedient. We might not always behave in the way that God would like us to; but thanks be to God, there is nothing we can do that God cannot use for a good end. Even if we run in the opposite direction from where God would have us go, we cannot stand in the way of God’s determination to share love with all people.

Have you ever heard God speak through an unlikely witness? Have you ever been an unlikely witness to God’s love?

Prayer

Loving God, our Creator and Friend, you made all things and see all things. We know that there is nowhere we can go that is apart from you, and yet sometimes we wish we could. We wish we could be carried away by our desires; we wish we could avoid people we do not wish to help. Have mercy on us, Lord. When we stray from you, remind us that we are still your children. Transform our misdeeds into acts of love and power, and turn us back to you. Keep us close, and fill us with the desire to serve you with gladness; in Jesus’ name. Amen.