God's Heart for the Hostile
Text: Jonah 1:1-17
Title: Others
Textual Theme, Goal, Need:
Theme: God shows compassion to the Ninevites.
Goal: to encourage the Israelites that his compassion is big enough for all nations.
Need: Israelites believed that God would only be compassionate to the Israelites.
Sermon Theme, Goal, Need:
Theme: God shows his compassionate love to those we wouldn’t expect.
Goal: to motivate Christians to be God’s tools of compassion to the Other people.
Need: Christians are content not expecting to be used to bring the compassionate love to the other people.
Textual Outline:
Textual Notes:
Sermon Outline:
Sermon in Oral Style:
Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ,
The story of Jonah is pretty old news. This isn’t one of those passages that you are going to teach you something new to think about in the next. It isn’t one of those passage. We know Jonah. We know that he was thrown over board and swallowed by a whale. Or a big fish.
But the point of a sermon is only partially to inform. We preach on passages that will help us know more about the Bible. It helps us understand more about what life was like back in the days of Scripture. It informs us something about God and the actions of godly people.
Many of us already know a lot of information about what happened in the story of Jonah. The point of a message from Jonah is not so you remember the details of the way God worked with Jonah. The only reason that Jonah is even in the Bible is because being taught the story and information of Jonah, out to give us a Christian sort of RLS. Restless Leg Syndrome. The message of Jonah ought to make us restless to get out in the world, to run with the Love of Jesus Christ to those who have never heard. OR become reenergized to share with your son or daughter or close friend, or coworker that has turned their back on the body of Christ.
The message of the book of Jonah is that God uses his people to show his compassionate love to others. God uses people like you and me to show how much he loves other people.
The first thing we are told in the passage is get up. This is verse 2. It says, “2“Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” The first word is GO. Actually in the word literally translated would be GET UP. The exact same word is used a second time in our passage but its impossible to recognize it because the translators did it differently. In verse 6, the captain of the ship that Jonah is on is being tossed all over the place, and he is asleep. In terror the captain says, Get up. Wake up. Get your head off your pillow and do something about this terrible storm we are stuck in. Get up.
That’s the first and most important message to Jonah. God says, Get up. Wake UP. You need to get up. There is turmoil in the world, Jonah. I want you to get up and do something about it.
Get up. Wake up. Get up and do something. That’s where the restless leg syndrome has to start for us. First words in the passage. GET UP and GO.
The very next word in the Hebrew is “You.” Who is God talking to. You. In the days of Jonah he was calling specifically to Jonah. And God emphasizes to him. Get up and God. Yes I am talking to you, Jonah.
It makes sense why God had to do this. Its because Jonah is not ready to get up. He is not ready to go. He is not ready to have God point and him directly and say, don’t wait for someone else. I am talking to you.
Just thinking about that word, YOU, that is enough to give me shivers up and down my spine. Can you imagine what that would sound like directly from the voice of God. Get up and go. I am talking to you.
But we know that he does that to us as well. He points to us and says, you. Get up. As worshipers of God, we are members of the body of Christ. And Christ has left us with the task of fulfilling all that he called us to do. So, what does it feel like to have God call us. You tell me because he is. From the moment you decided to follow Jesus Christ, he has been saying, YOU… get up and go. I have plans for you and your life. Plans that will affect the eternity of the people you love.
Get up. You.
But why? Get up for what? What is so pressing?
The what so pressing is the very thing that Jonah decides he is going to run away from. The reason why he ends up in the belly of a whale is because he heard the Get UP. You. From God, but he absolutely dreaded what task God had set before him. Verse 2 again says, Get up you, and go to the great city of Ninevah. Jonah probably thought, okay, I get to go there and do some crazy miracles like the ten plagues or some other weapon of mass destruction from the hand of God. You see, Ninevah was the capital city of the enemy nation of Assyria. It was one of the most powerful cities in the world, and the people of Israel expected that because they were God’s people and no one else was, God would destroy Ninevah and the Assyrians and the Israelites could be powerful again.
Get up, you… jonah, and preach against it. God no…. you can’t really… you expect me to… no no no. I am not going to go to a hostile place where they might just . . . you know…. Put an end to my ministry.
To a Christian, mentioning church or what Jesus Christ death means to them in a place of unbelief can feel like hostile territory. Or if someone believes but has nothing to do with the fellowship of believers, it feels like the same sort of hostile territory.
And we tend to react the same way, but for different reasons. We might be worried about what might happen to us. We might be worried about our own image.
When it’s our own family members that end up being our mission field, there are a whole new set of worries. Nobody wants to have strained family relationships. There’s that brother of yours who really needs to get back in touch with Christ again. But this is the brother that you played ball with in the front yard when you were a kid. This is the brother that you got into trouble with in the neighborhood. This is the brother that was so close to you. It would be unimaginable to break that relationship off because he thought you were pushing him to hard.
Or, I can only imagine the pain it causes grandparents to watch their own kids stray from following Christ. And then to walk on eggshells with issues of faith. I know I would worry that at the best they would just roll their eyes, and at the worst, they would not visit with your own grandchildren anymore, because they feel nagged about what they do on Sunday. Bringing up faith with friends and family who have wandered away, or with people who have never really know Christ is hostile territory. A lot is at stake when God tells us Get up, you and go to that dangerous place.
The next several weeks we are going to spend time talking about reaching our brothers and sisters who are wandering in their faith right now. We will talk about some of the wise principles of how to encourage your loved one to return to living for Christ. But before we need principles, we need motivation. We need restless legs. Remember, God has said to you get up, you and go. He has said, Go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father Son and Holy spirit, and teaching them how to obey all that I have command.
We should know that this is a well planned out goal for us from God as well. It is all a part of the compassionate love of our God. God’s heart is full of love and compassion and forgiveness and goodness. He is a just God that doesn’t accept wrong, but he actively wants to see the people in his world come to a saving knowledge of him.
For Jonah, the call for him wasn’t to go to Ninevah to bring those plagues and reign down judgements on them. He was supposed to preach a message that showed they were doing wrong. Fastforward to the end of the book of Jonah. After spending some time in the Belly of a whale, Jonah finally makes it over to Ninevah. He proudly goes through the city saying, “God is going to wipe you out in forty days.”
But when the people repent and turn back to God, Jonah almost pouts away. And in his pouting, he saying something more wonderful than I think I can say in some of my most inspired prayers. First the complaint, then the inspiration. Chapter 4:1-2 “But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. 2 He prayed to the Lord, “O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.[1]
God is slow to anger and abounding in love. He is gracious and compassionate. He has a heart for sinners. That isn’t just the holy sinners that sit in church every single week. God has a heart of compassion turned toward our friends, neighbors, relatives who are living contently outside the love of Christ. God has a heart for them.
This whole things of get up, you, and tell the truth of Christ, is a part of the plan of God. His heart is overwhelmed with love, so then because it is the heart of God, we too need to make it a part of our deepest desires. We need to make it a part of our every day walks with Christ. Because the heart of God would have him send Jonah to save the other people out in Ninevah, we need to be about that too.
People of God, the heart of God is compassionate and loving. Lets let our legs be restless. We don’t really like sitting. We love to hear the call of God encouraging us to reach out again in love to the ones we have all but given up on. Get up, you, go to your brother, sister, friend, child or neighbor. God’s heart is for them. Show how our hears are as well.
This is God’s will from his word. And all God’s people say, AMEN.
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[1] The Holy Bible : New International Version. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984, S. Jon 4:1-2