Jonah 3:1-5, 10
Jonah, had a big but. A really big but. God asked Jonah to deliver a message, but Jonah didn’t want to. And if you’re going to say no to God, you’d better have a really big but!
Well, what a great lead-in as we once again delve into our series “Are you connected?” Over the past three weeks in the series, we talked about making a priority of prayer in our lives to get connected with God; then we spoke of getting connected to our purpose in life, and to connect our purpose to God’s greater purpose of salvation for all of humanity.
Last week we acknowledged our need to be connected to both God and other people if we are to be able to carry out our purpose to serve God. Priority of prayer, purpose, people—and today we’ll explore through Jonah, how connection to God gives us the power to fulfill our purpose. And then next week, after all of this preparation with priorities, purpose, people and power, we’ll look at God’s plan for St. Paul’s in 2012, and how you and I, as people connected to God, play a part in it.
So, let’s take a look at Jonah. In your Bible, the book of Jonah is in the Old Testament sandwiched between Obadiah and Micah. The entire book is only 4 chapters long, but it’s a story which is told and retold by children and adults alike, and which contains a wealth of information about the character of God. Our reading today is in the third chapter. And remember, if you want to take notes and/or have a deeper study in Jonah, don’t forget your GPS guide. You can use it in one of the Bible study groups or on your own. If you want one, you can just raise your hand and an usher will be happy to bring one to you, or you can download one from the church web site.
Okay, to bring you up to speed on Jonah, he was a prophet who was told by God to deliver a message to a city called Nineveh. The Ninevites were Gentiles who were a rowdy bunch, and they were enemies of Israel. But Jonah, being stubborn, doesn’t want to go to Nineveh- they don’t deserve a word from God. The city of Nineveh is about 600 miles east of Jerusalem by land. So what does Jonah do? He’s so stubborn that he gets on a ship bound for Tarshish, which is modern-day Spain, which is about 800 miles west. He was literally trying to go to the ends of the known world in the opposite direction in order to avoid delivering God’s message. Wow, that’s determination!
However, you can’t pull one over on God. Jonah should have recalled the words of the Psalmist, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.” (Ps. 139:7-10) In other words, there ain’t no hiding from God!
And Jonah found this out the hard way, because not long after his ship left the port of Joppa headed for Tarshish, God whipped up a terrible storm at sea. The sailors on the ship, Gentile pagans, prayed to their gods for deliverance. But at last Jonah confessed that the ship was in peril because he was running from God, and instructed the sailors to throw him overboard in order to save themselves. Once Jonah was overboard, the wind and waves became calm. And in that instant, realizing God’s power, these pagan Gentiles became believers and worshiped the one true God.
Sometimes, if you feel like your life is hitting the rough seas and you’re being battered by the wind and the waves, it may be time to re-examine your connection with God. Perhaps God is trying to tell you something, like you’re going in the wrong direction, contrary to God’s plan for your life; or maybe you’re just flat-out running from God. Either way, seek God’s face, for God has the power to calm those stormy seas. As the disciples said regarding Jesus, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” (Mark 4:41)
So Jonah gets thrown overboard, and here’s where his story really gets interesting. Because no sooner is he in the raging sea, thinking his life is ended, that it’s all over, but then Jonah gets swallowed up by a giant fish. Hey, God has the power to create and to destroy, and however it worked out, and I don’t know what the accommodations were like, but Jonah was swallowed up and was inside the fish for three days and three nights. And while inside the belly of the fish, Jonah realized that you can run, but you can’t hide from God and God’s plan for your life, especially when that plan has to do with the salvation of others, no matter how we might feel about them.
So Jonah prays a beautiful prayer which you can read in chapter two in your Bible. He repents of his sin of disobeying God, and from within the fish, he finishes his prayer with, “But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the Lord.” (Jonah 2:9). And with that, “the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.” (Jonah 2:10) Cool! And that is how we get to our scripture reading today, where the word of the Lord comes to Jonah a second time, saying, “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” And this time, Jonah did.
In your Bible, in chapter three, underline “a second time” in verse one. This little phrase is often overlooked, but it gives all of us great hope- because our God is the God of second chances. Have you ever longed for an opportunity to undo some of the mistakes you have made in your life? We have all made mistakes—in our finances, our careers, our parenting, our marriages—mistakes which lead us to wish we could have one more chance, an opportunity to begin again.
Well, Jonah’s experiences remind us that we serve a God who will use those who repent and turn to him. God has the power, through the blood of Jesus Christ, to do this. 1 John 1:9 reminds us, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” Good news for us! God is the God of second chances.
A second point of note in our passage today is that Jonah found out that God still had a plan for his life. In verse 2, God says to Jonah, “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” Of course, I believe that the scribes, who, over the centuries had hand-copied the scriptures, left out the part about “Go take a shower first.” Three days inside a fish! Enough said.
But we serve an awesome God! God still had plans for Jonah, and he has plans for each of us as well, and we can’t fail enough to ever change those plans. Jeremiah 29:11 says, “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”
Jonah had failed when he was first called to go to Nineveh, but his failure was only temporary. It has been said that failure is not fatal and does not have to be final. There is a huge difference between “failing” at something and being a failure. And listen, those who never fail are generally those who never even try. Our God has the power to pick you up out of your failure, and set you back on the path of hope and a future, being an instrument of God’s grace and mercy to his people so that many would be saved.
Listen, God has a plan for your life, and it’s probably not a plan to have you sitting on your couch with your feet up, eating bon-bons and wearing a Snuggie while watching “The Biggest Loser.” Rather, it’s a plan for you to participate in God’s plan for the salvation of the human race; it’s a plan which will make you uncomfortable, a plan which will get you out of your comfort zone.
God will get you to stretch by talking to people you normally wouldn’t talk to, going places you normally wouldn’t go to, and doing things you normally wouldn’t do. God will stretch you by calling you out of complacency to actively serve him and be accountable for your faith by reading your Bible and working to serve in ministry here at St. Paul’s and in your community.
And it will be hard, it will be scary, it will be challenging, just as it was for Jonah. Just be happy that you don’t smell like fish. Because even though you may feel unqualified or inexperienced, overwhelmed and underequipped, no matter how large the task before you, God can give you the power to overcome. If God gives you the vision, then God gives you the ability to succeed no matter how overwhelming the odds.
Just look at what happened to Jonah. Jonah went to Nineveh and delivered God’s message to an overwhelming and unfriendly people. Yet, as we read in verse 5, “The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.” Who’d a-thunk that this small, fishy-smelling prophet from Israel could change the lives of, as the end of the book tells us, “more than a hundred and twenty thousand people” (4:11)? It seems unbelievable, but with God, nothing is impossible (Luke 1:37).
So where is God calling you to serve? How many lives is God calling for you to change? What is God calling you to do that you’ve been avoiding? Friends, on our own, we can do nothing; but with God’s help, we can do all things, for we “can do everything through him who gives [us] strength” (Philippians 4:13). And when we are connected to God, we are connected to God’s power. The power to give second chances, to equip us for his purposes, to change hearts, and to redeem the lost.
Next week we’re going to talk about the plans and purposes for St. Paul’s in 2012. In the mean time, I want each of you to search your hearts, stop running, and pray about what ministry needs you or how you can serve God today. And remember to keep your “but” out of the way.
