Selfish or Selfless

Jonah The Reluctant Prophet

Selfish versus Selfless

Intro: What do we do with the Book of Jonah? It’s often used as a children’s Sunday school story, and many stories can be used to teach children. But the book deals with lessons and theology that are more suitable for adults. I titled the series the Reluctant Prophet. Part of his reluctance was driven by what he knew to be true about God and the other part of his running away was because he did not want to give the Ninevites the chance to hear about God and His grace.he wanted to selfishly keep God away from another people

A doctor, a lawyer, a little boy and a priest were out for a Sunday afternoon flight on a small private plane. Suddenly, the plane developed engine trouble. In spite of the best efforts of the pilot, the plane started to go down. Finally, the pilot grabbed a parachute and yelled to the passengers that they better jump, and he himself bailed out.

Unfortunately, there were only three parachutes remaining.

The doctor grabbed one and said “I’m a doctor, I save lives, so I must live,” and jumped out.

The lawyer then said, “I’m a lawyer and lawyers are the smartest people in the world. I deserve to live.” He also grabbed a parachute and jumped.

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Main Point: God shows us his selfless covenantal love and grace

I. God Knows We are going to act Selfishly

We saw that Jonah was given an instruction and instead of following it, Jonah thought he knew better than God. In chapter 4 Jonah gives God his reasoning. He has “I knew you would act like yourself. You would be gracious and patient” and this grace was being offered to the Ninevites and Jonah was not happy, n fact he was angry about it.

Something good happened to a whole city of people and Jonah was angry even though Jonah was the one carrying the message to the people. Jonah is asked to play a part to help the Ninevites out of their trouble with God.

He should have rejoiced that God had tasked his with an important job to be a messenger. Instead, he ran the other way because God told him to go somewhere and do something he did not want to do.

The story of Jonah is not only a religious manifesto but also an illustration of the human condition. Jonah is not just a Jew from Palestine called out of anonymity by a commissioning voice from without. He is a human being, every person... He is also a paradigm of our resistance to election by God, for nothing is more repulsive to us than to be so designated (elected, chosen) by the Outer Voice for a self-transcending task, when we would rather follow our inner voice and our biological dictates (“what feels good”) for our self-satisfaction and our self-aggrandizement. (Lacocque and Lacocque 1981:

We want to be our own god and we don't want anyone telling us what to do.

We naturally act selfishly. Young children have to be taught how to share. Adults fight over parking spots or Black Friday deals.

The story of Cain and Abel is one of selfishness. Cain was jealous and while Abel gave some of the firstborn of his flock, Cain gave lesser offerings his grain. God accepted Abel’s offerings but did not accept Cain’s. God told Cain that he can still change, even though sin seemed to be growing in his heart. Cain killed Abel because he was selfish and did not want to change to God’s ways.

Jonah was selfish because he wanted to listen to himself a go in the opposite direction from God’s command. On the ship, he acted selfishly because he had to be dragged out of the lower portion of the boat and be confronted by the sailors.

Jonah as selfish about sharing or Delivering the news of God’s grace.

Application: When we are blinded or consumed by our Selfishness, we miss out on God’s blessings

“Being selfish instead of denying sin when we are tempted, makes us extremely unhappy: “For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.” . When we choose to be selfish in any way (e.g. being greedy, being jealous instead of rejoicing for others, doing those things we know to be wrong), we will continue to be stuck in the cycle of being frustrated, lost, unable to make spiritual progress, and unhappy.

Making selfish choices will result in a lost connection and life with God; we cannot have it both ways. We cannot keep a little bit of our life (living to serve our own will) – even some of the time – and also live for God.”

Jonah seems miserable when he gets the order from God to go to Niniveh.

He seems depressed because he sleeps on the boat so deeply,

He goes away from the city to be by himself

He is angry when everyone else seems relieved and happy

He is angry because the situation with the Ninevites did not turn out the way Jonah wanted it to.

TS: From his standpoint it is all about Jonah. But God wants us to take the focus off ourselves and put it on God

II. God Wants us to act Selflessly

God, on the other hand, is acting like himself like we saw last week, that he would be gracious and demonstrate loving-kindness sending a messenger, Jonah,to “Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because their evil has come up before me.” again in 3:2 a similar command is given to Jonah.

God uses everything he has at his disposal, the wind, the rain, a fish, a plant, to save Jonah to save the Ninevites. For God, controlling his world is nothing. And he can make more if he runs out.

And that might be some of our motivation. You might think, well, I only have so much in the way of resources, so i should protect them. I only have so much time, money, energy, to do things I don’t have enough any of those to do what I want. Let alone share or give those away to someone else.

But God demonstrates throughout the Bible how to be selfless.he comes to earth, he humbled himself to the point of death

Paul says in

2 If then there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, 2 make my joy complete by thinking the same way, having the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. 4 Everyone should look out not only for his own interests but also for the interests of others.

: “Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.”

In that simple verse, Jesus gives us the keys to heaven and to divine nature

God’s nature, or divine nature, is perfectly pure and it cannot be tempted by evil. We are promised that we can be partakers of the divine nature by fleeing the corruption in the world that comes through our lusts.

As Jesus says here that if we long to follow Him, we need to take up our own cross (death to our own will with its sinful inclinations in all situations) daily. Not once or twice, not sometimes, not when I feel it is “my turn,” but all of the time. This is the way He lived His life each day, and this is also how we are meant to live our lives. When we give up our life for God – our own opinions, desires, the sinful tendencies in our flesh – we get the most rewarding, happy, and fulfilling life possible here on earth, while we partake of divine nature. “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.” .

Back in

Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus,

6 who, existing in the form of God,

did not consider equality with God

as something to be exploited.[a]

7 Instead he emptied himself

by assuming the form of a servant,

taking on the likeness of humanity.

And when he had come as a man,

8 he humbled himself by becoming obedient

to the point of death—

even to death on a cross.

The night of his arrest, at the last supper, Jesus and his apostles ate the last Passover meal.

Pray over the elements and have them pass them out

details the Eucharist

14 When the hour came, he reclined at the table and the apostles with him. 15 Then he said to them, “I have fervently desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you, I will not eat it again[b] until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” 17 Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks, he said, “Take this and share it among yourselves. 18 For I tell you, from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”

19 And he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, gave it to them, and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

20 In the same way he also took the cup after supper and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. 21 But look, the hand of the one betraying me is at the table with me. 22 For the Son of Man will go away as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!”

23 So they began to argue among themselves which of them it could be who was going to do it.

Conclusion:

The apostles act a little bit like Jonah. Even though Jesus has been laying out the things to come very soon with Jesus death and resurrection, they let their selfishness get in the way of them seeing God’s plan.

Back to the story, we started in the introduction, the doctor and lawyer decided they were too important and too smart to go down with the plane

The priest looked at the little boy and said, “My son, I’ve lived a long and full life. You are young and have your whole life ahead of you. Take the last parachute and live in peace.”

The little boy handed the parachute back to the priest and said, “Not to worry Father. The smartest man in the world just took off with my backpack.”

The lawyer was in such a hurry he did not look to see if he was grabbing a parachute or a backpack.

We do the same thing sometimes. We are so worried about ourselves, we don't look around at what we are grabbing and we grab the thing that will kill us instead of looking toward and grabbing a hold of the one person that can save you. God.

The less we look out for ourselves, and the more we look out for others, the more we become like Christ. He came to find the lost, to call His people to Him. And we are apart of that, like Jonah, God has called us to make disciples.