Sermon Tone Analysis

Good morning, Gateway Chapel!

Read Psalm 139:1-10

Pray

Intro

Good morning everyone!

Before we jump into our sermon this morning, we have a special guest.

I want to invite up Anne Kelly from Faith Covenant Church just down the road here in Sumner.

We’ve talked a couple of times about the Compassion Clinic coming up on June 25th, and Anne is here to give us some more information.

Hi Anne!

Let us know a little about yourself and tell us what is the Compassion Clinic coming up on June 25th.

Why would someone give up their Saturday to serve?

How can people serve?

Is this only for people in the medical field?

How can people sign up?

Tab reads Jonah 1.

Good morning, Gateway.

Always a privilege to be with you.

My soul missed being here with you.

Last time I was here on a Sunday was just after Easter.

I had an impactful time at ManCamp with several of you a few weeks ago, our family got knocked down with sickness over Mother’s Day Weekend, and then we were in North Carolina for a family wedding which I had the honor of officiating so now if you need a guy for a wedding, I own one of those leather binders to hold the marriage license so I am ready.

This morning we’re continuing our 2022 Year of Biblical Exploration.

We are followers of Jesus, the goal of our life is to hear him, love him, and obey him.

And Jesus loved his Bible, including and especially those peculiar guys in the middle of it called the prophets.

But starting this morning and the next four Sundays, we’re going to be looking at one prophet in particular and that is Jonah.

When you think of Jonah, what is the first thing that comes to mind?

A whale! Veggie Tales!

I told Ben Lechnir I was having some writing block this week and he suggested I preach in a whale costume.

No bad ideas but that’s a bad idea.

This is a book I grabbed off the shelf at home and it’s called “Baby’s First Bible Stories.”

Read the story

What’s the problem with this?

In a few weeks we’ll get to Jonah chapter 4, which isn’t mentioned in this story.

Doesn’t this feel like how we often misinterpret the Bible and our lives?

I’m bad when I sin, God is angry at me, so God wants me to do better and then he won’t smite me.

Is that the story of Jonah?

The message of Jonah is not, “Don’t be like Jonah because God is angry at you when you sin” but “We are Jonah.”

How is that good news?

Pray

My sermon today and probably the next few will be much thanks to the free seminary course on Jonah via the Bible Project just Google Bible Project Classroom Jonah and you’ll find it.

And Phillip Cary’s commentary on Jonah.

Before we start...Why are we reading Jonah?

Your friends aren’t reading ancient middle eastern stories this weekend.

We’re followers of Jesus, we believe he is the way to true life.

The Bible is a library of texts - both divine and human - with a unified story that leads to knowing Jesus and growing in Jesus.

The key question as we read Jonah is this - “How does this point me to Jesus?”

Jonah Flees

The word of the LORD begins and ends Jonah.

It starts in Jonah 1:1, and Jonah chapter 4 will end with an open ended question from the LORD.

In my ESV Bible LORD is all caps because it represents God’s personal name YHWH which he revealed to Moses and his people.

The LORD all caps doesn’t just mean he’s boss, it means this is the God who created everything.

The God who still speaks today.

His word, and not Jonah, is the driving force of this story and all stories.

The word of the LORD comes to Jonah.

How does it come?

A vision? Audible sound?

A dream?

We don’t know.

The Bible often withholds details we deem important, not because it’s bad writing, but because every single word matters and it’s main point is not to give us the perfect details of the vision Jonah saw or, “What kind of fish did swallow Jonah?

How did that work?

Where’s the video evidence?”

but to teach us something about who God is and who we are.

The word of the LORD comes to Jonah son of Amittai.

Who is Jonah?

Jonah’s name means “Dove.”

It’s like a pet name!

Here’s the cool part about Jonah.

It’s a story about his perpetual failing, but God calls him, “My Beloved.”

Think about the worst moment of your week.

Something you said, something you thought, something you did…if you’re in Christ, in that moment, God calls you My Beloved.

Son of Amittai - Amittai sounds like Truth.

So Jonah’s name is “Dove Son of Truth.”

If you wanted a name for a biblical character, it’s hard to find a better one.

But what we’ll see is the irony of Jonah not living up to his name.

How do we know Jonah is a prophet?

This is the second time Jonah appears in the Bible.

The first is in 2 Kings.

So the first time we read about Jonah in the Bible, he speaks to an evil king who God chooses to bless despite how wicked he is.

That’s important.

The word of the LORD comes to My Beloved the Son of Truth and says

Where is Nineveh?

Nineveh is way to east…it’s the capital city of Assyria, the nation who wiped out 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel as we read in 2 Kings.

They’re the enemy.

They’re a brutal, violent, warring nation, that has murdered Israelite children.

It’s hard to tell for modern American readers, but Jonah is essentially a comedy.

In Jonah, whatever you expect to happen, doesn’t happen.

Usually, the opposite happens.

The only character who does remotely what you expect, is God.

They didn’t have Slack or Texting or Phone calls back then, so you had to send a messenger to communicate.

But unlike Slack or Texting or a Tweet, sometimes a messenger can have a mind of its own.

If you send a mean text to someone, you can’t say, “I told the text to go to Nineveh but it sinned and typed out those horrible things about you.”

But it is comedic how far Jonah goes from where God wants him to go.

You just asked your kid to take out the trash, and then somehow commandeered a Blimp and flew to Wenatchee.

Why does Jonah flee to Tarshish?

We don’t know right away.

If you know Jonah, you know where it goes in chapter 4. But at this point, we want to let the story lure us in.

The answer seems to be…he’s afraid to go to Nineveh.

Right?

Asking a Jew to go to Nineveh is like asking a cat to preach the gospel at the dog park.

Fun Sunday afternoon activity - go home and search “Tarshish” in your Bible.

Text me what you find.