Jonah 1B: Teaching/Preaching!
Notes
Transcript
Jonah 1:5-16
Jonah 1:5-16
The Relentless Pursuit
EOT-Jonah Ran away from God while the Pagans ran towards God.
EOS-Truths Jonah should have taught us about God’s relentless pursuit:
DDS-How are you going to pursue God this week?
Cuba Mission trip-
Funny-Ty Cuba is beautiful
What we learned from them
Guy who was using his house as a church and building on to it with no money and Chad pulling out 500 to give to him.
Many times you go on a mission trip expecting to change the world and your world is changed.
Jonah was a missionary.
We were created to worship.
Missions actually exist because worship does not.
Jonah was supposed to be a missionary who taught us these great lessons about God.
Have you ever learned something at a time and place that you were not expecting to learn?
Today we are going to learn more about God from the people Jonah was going to reach than Jonah himself.
What I have seen many times in life is when we go through a bad experience we can either get frustrated or we can learn from it.
Today we are in the book of Jonah and we would expect to learn from Jonah. But the crazy thing is that we do learn from Jonah but it is not because he is following God like we would expect from a prophet. We learn from his disobedience and from a people who
Truths Jonah should have taught us about God’s relentless pursuit:
1. We are in need of God (5).
1. We are in need of God (5).
Then the sailors became afraid and every man cried to his god, and they threw the cargo which was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone below into the hold of the ship, lain down and fallen sound asleep.
Jonah should have known about the need for God because he should have personally known you need God.
What is interesting is Jonah’s sin affected the very boat that he was riding on. This is something very important for us to know that our sins never just affect us they affect those around us. And now these sailors were being affected by Jonah’s disobedience.
Here is what happened in the storm of life and it is what happens today. People cry out to whatever their God is and they look for help. They cried to their God.
Examples of storms people go through.
"the human heart is a perpetual idol factory" JOHN CALVIN
When the storms of life come your way who do you cry out to.
We know this storm was serious because they literally got rid of everything they had. You don’t throw everything you have away if it is a small storm.
Jonah should have been teaching the people God called him to about the love, Jonah could have been teaching these people about the love of God. But instead he was cowering at the bottom of a boat. His life was spiraling out of control.
Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible B. Jonah’s lack of compassion 1:4–6
He seems to have preferred death to facing God alive.
Application:
Do you believe you are in need of God?
It took me until I was 18 years old to really believe that I was in desperate need of the love of God.
Do you believe those around you regardless of who they are or where they come from are in need of the love of God?
Have you ever been to a funeral where there is no hope. Where there is no rescue.
They are no fun
The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.
Chris Whitikar-Cancer, gangrene. His daughter moved up the wedding date.
Truths Jonah should have taught us about God’s relentless pursuit:
2. He wants his people to proclaim His message (6).
2. He wants his people to proclaim His message (6).
There are times when I have shared the gospel and people have wanted to cuss me out and spit in my face. Guy started flicking me off and doing inappropriate gestures.
But there have also been times when people have been very open to the message of the gospel.
The irony in this story is that those who do not worship this God who relentlessly pursues acts more Godly than the prophet of God.
So the captain approached him and said, “How is it that you are sleeping? Get up, call on your god. Perhaps your god will be concerned about us so that we will not perish.”
The captain was acting more like a God follower than the actual prophet. Think about this situation: Picture an atheist came up to me and said you need to start sharing the love of Jesus. Don’t you realize that God loves these people you need to tell them.
Jonah’s sin had brought him into a spiral and the spiral was taking him deeper and deeper down the rabit hole. Instead of being an example to follow Jonah has become an example that we learn what not to do.
Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible B. Jonah’s lack of compassion 1:4–6
“It is well known how often sin brings insensibility with it also. What a shame that the prophet of God had to be called to pray by a heathen.”
How has sin kept you from the calling God has on your life.
Can you think of some of the dreams that God has put on your heart that you have completely forgotten, when we run from God and when sin engulfs our life we miss out on the great plan that God has for our life.
Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible B. Jonah’s lack of compassion 1:4–6
Not only was Jonah fleeing from God’s presence, but he was also displaying a character that was antithetical to God’s. Such is often the case when God’s people turn their backs on Him and run from His assignments.
Application:
Are you proclaiming God’s message?
Have you gotten so entangled with sin that sharing God’s message is the furthest thing on your mind?
Truths Jonah should have taught us about God’s relentless pursuit:
3. Our confession is a privilege (7-9).
3. Our confession is a privilege (7-9).
Each man said to his mate, “Come, let us cast lots so we may learn on whose account this calamity has struck us.” So they cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah.
Then they said to him, “Tell us, now! On whose account has this calamity struck us? What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?”
He said to them, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land.”
What Jonah had not learned yet is you cannot run and hide from God.
It is miserable.
Truths Jonah should have taught us about God’s relentless pursuit:
4. Don’t assume how people will respond (10-16)
4. Don’t assume how people will respond (10-16)
Then the men became extremely frightened and they said to him, “How could you do this?” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.
So they said to him, “What should we do to you that the sea may become calm for us?”—for the sea was becoming increasingly stormy.
He said to them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea. Then the sea will become calm for you, for I know that on account of me this great storm has come upon you.”
However, the men rowed desperately to return to land but they could not, for the sea was becoming even stormier against them.
Then they called on the Lord and said, “We earnestly pray, O Lord, do not let us perish on account of this man’s life and do not put innocent blood on us; for You, O Lord, have done as You have pleased.”
So they picked up Jonah, threw him into the sea, and the sea stopped its raging.
Then the men feared the Lord greatly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.
Stories: the time I went to Homer on a deep sea fishing trip with pops and how sick I felt.
1:9
1:12
Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible D. The sailors’ compassion and fear of God 1:11–16
The only way to appease the tempest of Yahweh’s wrath is to abandon himself to it as just deserts for his sin. His willingness to die is an indication that he realizes his guilt before God.”
1:14-
These pagans sailors wanted to obey God more than Jonah even though they had less of a revelation of God.
1:15-When they saw that this God had power over the sea, the very thing they worshipped they turned to the gGod of Israel.