Get Up and Go

Scripture:

Jonah 3:1–10 NLT

Then the Lord spoke to Jonah a second time: “Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh, and deliver the message I have given you.” This time Jonah obeyed the Lord’s command and went to Nineveh, a city so large that it took three days to see it all. On the day Jonah entered the city, he shouted to the crowds: “Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed!” The people of Nineveh believed God’s message, and from the greatest to the least, they declared a fast and put on burlap to show their sorrow. When the king of Nineveh heard what Jonah was saying, he stepped down from his throne and took off his royal robes. He dressed himself in burlap and sat on a heap of ashes. Then the king and his nobles sent this decree throughout the city: “No one, not even the animals from your herds and flocks, may eat or drink anything at all. People and animals alike must wear garments of mourning, and everyone must pray earnestly to God. They must turn from their evil ways and stop all their violence. Who can tell? Perhaps even yet God will change his mind and hold back his fierce anger from destroying us.” When God saw what they had done and how they had put a stop to their evil ways, he changed his mind and did not carry out the destruction he had threatened.

Hook

Second Chance Prophet (vs 1-2)

Some of us don’t get it the first time. Jonah was one of those. But you don’t get to be known as a prophet of God unless you do get it right. Samuel, for instance, became known as a prophet as God spoke to and through him over many years.

We don’t know how many times God worked with Jonah to bring people to him. Sadly, Jonah is known only for the time he messed up and making it right in the end.

What happened the first time?

Jonah heard God but said “no”

Not because he didn’t think God would fulfill God’s part of the deal

Because Jonah didn’t want those people to experience God’s favor.

They were his enemies.

He was the Prophet for the Jews, not Gentiles, and he despised the idea that God would show mercy to those who were not merciful to him and His people.

By sending the storm and the great fish to swallow up Jonah, God showed Jonah what it meant to be in need of mercy and that he was to do what God asked not because of what the result would be, but just because God asked.

Thesis: God calls us to share what He speaks in our Words and Deeds.

Jonah Goes (vs 3-5)

For many years, I believed that the biggest part of any job was showing up. Jonah would make a great story to show that to be true. For the first half of this book, Jonah refuses to go where God sends him. Finally, after realizing that God would not relent or give him a different assignment, Jonah surrendered.

If God was spiteful, he could have made Jonah walk. Instead, God gave him a lift in the belly of a great fish. God helped Jonah show up.

I’m getting older though, and I think last year may have aged us all and opened our eyes a little wider. I’m starting to believe that there is more to life than showing up and expecting God to make everything work out. The words we say and the things we do matter more than we can often see. The things we don’t say or do matter just as much.

We may claim that what we say and do really doesn’t reflect who we are, but over time that moves from ignoring a moment of weakness to denying a behavior that is becoming our character.

The Messenger IS the Message

Messages in the age of Television

Messages in the age of Social Media

Jesus, the Word of God in John 1

Jonah: Bearer of God’s Word to Ninevah

The People Hear and Repent (vs 6-10)

For Jonah, the story comes to a conclusion soon after this passage. For the people of Ninevah though, theor story has just begun.

We have witnessed the kind of disruption that city-wide shutdowns incurred. Can you imagine how the people of Ninevah felt? A city-wide fast and humbling. Not a small city either, but a large one that took three days to get through. What would convince the people to gather up and repent as a nation for the sins they had committed against a God they barely knew?

Jonah.

Probably not because he smelled like fish, or that he looked like he’d been lost at sea.

Possibly because they knew how they had treated the Jews and that Ninevah would be the last place Jonah would ever want to be, and certainly not warning them of any danger.

But these two factors together, seeing or hearing what Jonah had gone through, despite his own desires, in obedience to God, to give them a chance… amplified by God’s power working through these circumstances. That might make them stop and think twice about their situation.

Who goes first?

One of the practices of professional evangelists has been to have people ready to go to the altar rail first once the call has been given. It is a psychological tactic that helps break the ice because many people want the experience of praying at the altar, but most people don’t want to go first. It’s always easier for the second person, and by the time you get to the twentieth or thirtieth person, no one even pays attention to who is going up.

By the time you get more than 50% of the people, the balance is tipped, and it becomes more obvious who is still sitting in their seats. Crowds will flow and follow each other along that path of least resistence, as long as what you are asking them to do is not too drastic.

Jonah didn’t give an altar call or pray with any people from Ninevah. He just brought the bad news. Someone among them went first and came up with the idea to fast and wear sackcloth in humility. Someone else felt that same panicked urgency and began fasting and humbling themselves as well. Then a third.

Eventually, this got back to the king. Maybe God also worked in the heart of this king. Somewhere around the 50% mark this king coud make a decree that the whole city fast and humble themselves before the God of Jonah, and he would not have met much resistance. So a whole people go together to find salvation in turning to God.

We have a hard enough time bringing this kind of revival in communities that claim to follow Jesus. These were people wicked enough that God was ready to wipe them off the map. What did they have that we don’t have today and here?

Jonah.

The one who finally got up and went to deliver the message God gave him, even when he really didn’t want to.

CTA

Jonah was not a good prophet.

But God worked with him anyway, and when Jonah finally did as God asked, the enemies of Israel repented and turned to God.

You may be outside the faith today and need to repent yourself. It doesn’t matter if you were or are a Christian, if you’ve stepped outside of that relationship with God and are looking for something to do other than what God has asked you, you need to repent. God is probably already working through anything and everything to get your attention.

It’s not multiple choice. It is the choice to follow God or not.

But if God can work so powerfully with a barely willing person like Jonah, what could He do with a community of disciples, a church family that follows Jesus together? What could God do with us if we shared how He was working in us through our words and our deeds.