Stop Running Pt.2

Jonah

(Start off by recapping last weeks teaching)So we know that Jonah is fleeing form the Lord after the Lord gave him instruction to do something. But why? For a Ping Pong ball, does anyone know?(give time for a response) So at this time, the city of Nineveh was mainly occupied by native Assyrians. The reason why that is a problem is because the Israelites hated the Assyrians, which in turn means Jonah hated the Assyrians. Now you may be like “woah, why you hatin bro?”… well thats because in 722 BC, the Assyrians took over northern Israel and destroyed Samaria, which was the capital at that time.

(Jonah 1:17-2:2) Ping Pong ball opportunity*-Raise your hand if you know what Sheol is…(wait for hands, give time for a couple responses) Sheol- Sheol was profoundly bleak. It lacked love, hate, envy, work, thought, knowledge, and wisdom. Descriptions emphasize its darkness, absence of remembrance, no praise of God, and complete silence. Its inhabitants existed as weak, trembling shades who could never escape from its gates. Rather than a place of moral judgment, Sheol in the Old Testament was where all the dead gathered indiscriminately—both good and bad, saints and sinners.

I know that all of last week and today up till now we’ve kinda been “looking down” on Jonah and questioning why he would do the things he did but that ALL flips right here. What does verse 1 of chapter 2 say?(have a kid tell you) So Jonah, in his time of trouble finally decides to pray to the Lord as opposed to fleeing from Him. We know that in the ship when Jonah woke up, there was no mention of him praying instead it was the mariners around him, but now Jonah takes the time to intentionally pray to the Lord. INTENTIONALLY, not just going “hey Lord, I could really use your help right now, Amen” no, he sets aside some time specifically dedicated to the Lord just like we should be doing on a daily basis not just whenever we want. And I know you might be saying “well sure it was easy for him to do it, he was in a fish, there was nothing else to do.” to which I would say, you are so right, it prolly wasn’t nothing at all for him to set time aside to pray and we are out here with all these distractions. But, should our love and dedication to the Lord trump over all distractions? Shouldn’t we be able to set time aside for God instead of using that time to be on our phones or play video games or whatever you wanna fill in the blank with? There should be absolutely NOTHING in our lives that gets in the way of us growing our relationship with God. If there is, we need to remove it from our lives. Let me ask you this question… if you know whats hindering you and you know its hindered you for a while now, why have you not already taken the steps to remove it from your life? Don’t tell me its to hard, I know a man who wore a crown of thorns, got beaten half to death, and hung on a cross because he was being obedient to God. If our savior can go through all that, we should be able to stop running from Him, and submit our whole lives to Him, ready to do whatever it takes to show our gratitude.

(Read through the rest of chapter 2) Lets re-read verse 7 real quick it says “When my life was fainting away, I remembered the LORD, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple.” Often times when someone starts to run from God, they get to a point where they feel they’ve gone off to far so that God wont forgive them. I’m here today to tell you that is simply not true. I at one point in life was very unchristian… I had a mouth on me, I would do the things I wanted to do without worrying about the fact that what I was doing was displeasing to God, I was just doing a lot of not so great things… A LOT. I would say I was off in the deep end…get it, because we’re talking about Jonah… but seriously I was not great. I say all that to say, there is not a person in this room that God would turn his back to. He desires a relationship with all of us.

(Read verse 8) Does anyone know what “steadfast love” is? Steadfast love is love that is characterized by faithfulness and reliability—a love that never fails, marked by loyalty and tenderness. When we run from God and have all these other things in life that we put our focus on more than Him, we turn our backs on this steadfast love and essentially just go “nah, I don’t need that love, I can find the same thing over here.” Sorry to rain on your parade but thats not quite right. The love that comes from God is one of a kind, you wont find it in anything else. Not your phone, not the beach, not your boyfriend or girlfriend, and not even your parents.