Jonah: Embracing God’s Mission - I Am Jonah

Turn in your Bibles to Jonah, chapter one.

That's where we're going to start this one.

We're starting a brand new sermon series called Jonah, embracing God's Mission, and the focus of this series is to consider God's sovereign mission in the earth and how he desires for us to embrace it.

Aren't you thankful that God had a sovereign mission to reach you?

How many of us found ourselves in places where we needed rescue in a spiritual way?

We needed God to find us, to embrace us, to show us who Jesus was, so that we could come out of darkness into the light.

The book of Jonah is unique in the Old Testament because it is a prophet.

It's about a prophet, but it's about his life instead of about his messages.

Most of the Old Testament books where we find prophecy, the majority of them, are actually messages that God gave to those who were prophets, and then they wrote those messages down and that's what we read.

But the little book of Jonah is different because it's a telling of his life story, a part of his life story.

We see Jonah's reluctant prophet failing to wholeheartedly embrace God's mission in many ways, and yet God's purpose was accomplished, despite his shortcomings.

Aren't you glad that God is bigger than our mistakes, amen.

We will conclude this series on Easter Sunday, which is March 31.

It's early this year, and we're going to be talking about, on that Sunday, one greater than Jonah, whose name is Jesus.

He was sent to accomplish the mission of God and he did it perfectly, without any reluctance, without any rebellion, without anything other than complete obedience and compliance, and we're thankful for that, aren't we?

So our desire is to learn from Jonah's mistakes and, as followers of Jesus, to find ourselves deeply engaged in God's mission in our day and time.

I am so glad that God chose to put the faults of people in the Bible.

It's filled with flawed individuals, and what does that do for you and I?

It gives us hope.

It gives us hope because if God could use people like that, he could certainly use people like us, amen.

And so let's go into this message this morning with that mind.

The title of the message is I Am Jonah, jonah, chapter one, verses one through 16.

Kind of try to picture this as we talk about it Now.

The word of the Lord came to Jonah and the son of Amity saying arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.

But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish.

So he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.

But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea and there was a mighty tempest on the sea so that this ship threatened to break up.

Then the mariners were afraid and each cried out to his God and they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them.

But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was passed asleep.

So the captain came and said to him what do you mean?

You sleeper, arise, call out to your God, perhaps the God will give a thought to us that we may not perish.

And they said to one another come, let us cast lots that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.

So they cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah.

And then they said to him tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us, what is your occupation and where do you come from, what is your country and of what people are you?

And he said to them I am a Hebrew and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.

Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him what is this that you have done?

For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.

Then they said to him what shall we do to you that the sea may quiet down for us?

For the sea grew more and more tempestuous.

He said to them pick me up and hurl me into the sea, then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.

Nevertheless, the men rode hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them.

Therefore, they called out to the Lord oh Lord, let us not perish for this man's life and lay not on us innocent blood For you.

Oh Lord, have done as it pleased you.

So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging.

Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.

Let's pray together.

Father, I am so thankful today to have the privilege of speaking your words, and I ask, lord God, that you would take these words of life and that you would cause them to penetrate our heart, our soul, our spirit, our mind, every part of us, and that your spirit would do the work that only he can do to bring about transformation and change in our lives, so that we might more fully embrace your mission.

We ask that you would do these things in the mighty name of Jesus, amen.

So, for those of us who have been in church for a while, stories like this one we probably learned in Sunday school or children's church, right?

Maybe some of you first learned of Jonah by watching Veggie Tales.

Remember the movie Jonah Veggie Tales.

Some of you right now are thinking of one of the songs.

Derek was doing an interpretive dance earlier to one of them.

That was interesting.

We didn't get that on film, but maybe next time, but anyway, yeah, so we have all of these things that we remember.

Maybe some of us learned about these stories through puppets, through a puppet show.

Right, that was another way that a lot of these stories were told or communicated to us and for some of us of a certain generation, maybe we learned with this beautiful thing called a felt board and flannel graph images.

Anybody here relate to that?

Yes, wasn't it amazing how colorful they made those?

I mean, they really did a good job for it being sort of a 2D experience.

But I'm telling you, back in the day when we experienced that, it seemed very high-tech to us.

It was amazing how they got those things to stick on that board.

Right, I like to volunteer in children's church and go up there and be the one that would move them around, you know, and they're walking along and all of that stuff.

So, anyway, that's just a little nostalgia for some of you to lighten the mood a little bit.

But one of the things stories like this one, daniel and the Lion's Den, david and Goliath one of the things that we need to remember, probably more than anything else, is these stories are true.

They actually happened.

Even though we may have learned about them in story form or we may have experienced something that was said to us in a way that was to express it as a tale or a story, these things actually occurred in history.

They really happened and they are absolutely true.

Now, that doesn't stop people from trying to deny that these things are true.

Some people say they're just.

You know, the Old Testament is just allegorical.

It's just filled with parables, which are stories meant to teach an important spiritual truth.

They ask questions like how could Jonah have possibly survived in the belly of a fish for three days?

I've asked that question.

It's a question to be asked, right that maybe they would say things like why, how could the whole city of Nineveh, including the animals, repent?

How is that possible?

Or maybe they said how is it possible for a plant in one day to grow up to give Jonah's shelter?

How is that even possible?

And I thought, you know, it must have been kudzu.

Yeah, sorry, the things that happen in the mind of a pastor.

Right, you and I may have similar questions, we may have thoughts that cross our minds, but it's really important for us to understand again that these things are true.

So I want to give you a couple of reasons why we should believe that the story of Jonah is true.

Number one Jonah was a real person.

Jonah was a real historical person.

Okay, he was a Hebrew prophet from Gath Hefner Heffer in Sebulent, which was near Nazareth.

Why do we know Nazareth, because that's where Jesus, his family, was from right.

So it was near Nazareth.

That's where Jonah grew up.

He ministered in the northern kingdom of Israel during the reign of Jeroboam the second.

Okay, and we know this for sure because second Kings 14, 25 talks about it.

It says he restored the border of Israel from Lebo Hamath as far as the Sea of the Arab, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke by a servant, jonah, the son of Amity, the prophet, who was from Gath Heffer.

So we have evidence here again of the historic nature of the person of Jonah, right?

So that's one reason.

The second reason is Jesus referred to Jonah not as a story or as a tale, but as an actual person, and you can find this in Matthew, chapter 12, verses 39 through 42.

Matthew 12:39–42

I'm not going to read that today because in March, at the end of March, in our Easter service, this is going to be our main passage that we're going to study, so I'll leave that for then.

But Jesus considered Jonah a historic person and he pointed to his experience as a type or a shadow of his own death, burial and resurrection, and We'll see that as we go through the rest of the story right.

So for Christians, jesus's testimony should be enough.

For us, that should be the deciding factor.

If Jesus said Jonah was a historic person and he actually did go and Live in the belly of a whale for three days, as Jesus said that he did, that should be enough for us.

Here's the deal we have to believe that with men, things may seem impossible, but with God all things are possible.

We believe in an all-powerful God.

If we don't believe that the stories of the Old Testament are true, then how in the world can we believe that Jesus rose from the dead after being dead for three days and buried in the grave?

We have to believe that these things are true.

It's interesting I was getting my tire patch the other day and I got into a conversation with the manager and as we were talking, he was talking to me about the fact that he reads the Bible and I appreciated that, was so glad that you read the Bible.

And then he started in on the Old Testament.

He said I don't know how anybody in their right mind could read the Old Testament and just believe, just believe what it says.

And I'm sitting there saying, god, could we have just landed on the New Testament.

You know I'm not, but anyway, I had a really great conversation with this guy and I'm gonna go back Hopefully not this time because I have a large screw in my tire.

I'd like to go back and just have a conversation with them, right?

But it's really important for us to believe that these things are true because they are right.

So let's move on talking about this book.

First of all, jonah is not the hero of this book.

Even though that's the name of the book.

He's not the hero, right.

In fact, to be honest, he's kind of the anti-hero.

He's the opposite of hero in a lot of ways in this story.

So who's the hero of Jonah's?

Not God is the hero of the book of Jonah.

We can see it clearly this way the fish is mentioned only four times, jonah's mentioned 18 times and the book is called Jonah.

Right, god is mentioned 38 times and In literature, when something is repeated over and over and over again, there's a reason for that, because there's an intent for an emphasis to be there.

So Jonah is really a story about God and the way that he deals with people, and that's a good thing that, as we read through it, let's be thinking like that.

If we eliminated God from this book, it wouldn't make sense at all.

It would be completely confusing.

But with God at the helm of it and as the focus of it, it makes complete sense.

You see, this book is actually about God's missionary heart and his desire to reach those who are far from him.

It highlights the fact that in his goodness, he wants to partner with his children on mission.

Not only does he want to save us, but then he wants to partner with us on his mission as he continues the work that he's doing here on this earth.

It also shows and I hope that this is hopeful for each and every one of us.

It shows how great God's mercy is towards protocols, prodigal son and daughters who run away from him.

God never, never gives up on Jonah, even when he had every right to walk away.

That should be hopeful and helpful to us as we continue to stand and pray and ask God for the protocols to return to him.

Next, the call of God for Jonah was personal, pointed and passionate.

Why was it personal?

Because God called him by name.

Not only did he call him by name, but he said the son of, to make sure that it was this Jonah.

Everybody knew it's this Jonah.

This guy is the one who I'm calling.

God is a personal God.

He desires to have an ongoing personal relationship with each of his children.

That's the purpose of him.

Bringing about salvation is so that we can be restored into right Relationship with God.

Each and every one of you who are followers of Jesus.

God knows you by name and he calls you by name, and he has a specific purpose For each of you to accomplish.

That is unique to you Doesn't mean that you won't do it in conjunction with other people, but it's unique to you because it's what God is calling you to participate with them in doing so.

Not only was it personal, but it was also pointed.

How was it pointed?

Because God called Jonah to go to a place, to go to Nineveh specifically.

Nineveh, the ancient capital of the Assyrian Empire, was about 500 miles east of Israel.

It was a massive place.

It was very much ahead of its time.

It had a huge walled city.

It was just, in a lot of ways was a step above Anything else from a development standpoint in that time, in that era.

It was located on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, which is near modern day Mosul, iraq.

So if you can think of Iraq and think of where Mosul might be, that's about where Nineveh would have been back in the day.

So it was also passionate.

It was passionate because God told Jonah to confront the Ninevites' sin.

He wasn't just going there on a trip like to observe Nineveh.

He was being sent there to preach a strong word, a strong message.

In fact, it says "'And call out against it, "'for their evil has come up before me'".

Note what Jonah was to do Go to Nineveh and preach against it.

This is way different than God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.

This is not your best life now.

This is God's hatred of sin and his judgment of sin and his wrath towards sin.

In order for the gospel to be powerful, it has to start with the bad news.

How could it be good news unless we understand first the bad news that we are all sinners and that we all, because of our sin, deserve to die and to be separated from God forever?

And yet the good news begins because Jesus stepped in our place and took our sins upon himself.

And we know the rest of the story right.

When God said Nineveh was evil and wicked, he wasn't kidding.

There's artwork and all kinds of things that have been found from this era where they would draw of the different things that they did when they conquered lands.

They were violent people, were wicked people.

They did things like skin people alive.

They decapitated, decapitated, they mutilated people.

They ripped out their tongues.

They made pyramids of human heads, just to begin, and I can't even talk about the rest of the graphic things that they did.

This is where God was calling Jonah to go and preach the Ninevites.

Evil had come up before God like a dirty stench in his nostrils and the time for judgment had come.

Here's the problem.

When God said go, jonah said no.

God said go and Jonah said no.

Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

Interesting thought, jonah's been called the reluctant prophet.

I wanna call him the runaway prophet today, because that's exactly what he did.

He ran away.

He ran away as far as he could run away.

He did not want to go to I don't wanna go to Nineveh.

He didn't want to go to Nineveh.

He didn't care about Nineveh.

He didn't think God should care about Nineveh.

He didn't want them to repent.

He didn't want to follow a God who loved people like that.

We're not told here in this chapter exactly why he ran, but spoiler alert in a future sermon you're gonna hear the reason, because it's spelled out clearly later, the reason why he actually didn't wanna go to Nineveh.

I don't wanna give it away today, but you gotta understand the relationship between the Jews and the Assyrians at that time.

They literally hated each other.

The Assyrians had no use for the Jews and the Jews hated the Assyrians.

They hated them for their blood thirsty cruelty.

They hated them for their idolatry.

They hated them for their arrogance.

For a Jewish man to be told by God to go to that place and preach to those people was repugnant.

As far as Jonah was concerned, nineveh could go straight to hell and he would have been fine with that.

That's how Jonah felt about Nineveh.

But you see, jonah's problem was never really about it.

Nineveh was it.

Jonah's problem was with God.

Jonah had a problem with God, the God that would call him to go to a place like Nineveh.

Let's not mistake it.

Many times we count our enemies in different places, in different ways, and yet we're really resisting God.

We're really fighting against God.

Hc Woodring said this "'God wanted him to go to Nineveh, "'500 miles northeast of Palestine.

"'instead of going east, jonah went 2,000 miles to the west'".

Wow, that's extreme.

God wished Jonah to take an overland trip via the vertical crescent.

Instead he took a distasteful sea voyage.

God sent him to the greatest metropolis of the day.

Instead, jonah headed for a remote trading post on the fringes of civilization.

Because they need God too.

The Lord wished to go with his prophet, but instead Jonah tried to flee from the presence and power of God.

Jonah's life began a downward spiral from that point because he rebelled against God.

You can see it even in the way that things are written down in this chapter.

The text says that Jonah went down to Joppa.

Now, he had to go down to Joppa because it was south of where he was geographically.

But it also talks about four times within the chapter that he went down.

He went down to Joppa, he went down into the inner parts of the ship in verse four.

He went down into the sea in verse 15 and he went down into the belly of the great fish in verse 17.

That's not written like that as a coincidence.

It's a statement about what happens when we disobey God's call.

He was not just going downward from a location standpoint, he was spiraling downward spiritually because he was rebelling and being disobedient to the call of God upon his life.

Any time that you and I run from God, we never go up, we always go downward.

That's the trajectory of our journey when we rebelled against God.

But here's something that this passage really this jumped out at me and I wanted to share it with you.

Satan can work through circumstances, just like God can.

What do I mean by that?

Jonah had enough money to buy a ticket on a ship that just happened to be available at the time that he needed a ticket and just happened to be going as far away from Nineveh as humanly possible in the known world.

Satan has his ships and he always has room on his ships.

Just as much as God can maneuver and manipulate circumstances, satan does the very same thing, and he uses circumstances to his favor to try to dissuade us, to discourage us, to move us away from God's perfect purpose or his plan for our lives.

He makes disobedience look really good by things seeming to go in our favor.

Here's a test for you, and I guarantee you you've never heard a pastor say this to you.

But take two months out of church and in those two months your life will get better.

It will seem like it gets better.

Let me put it that way Take two months and don't tithe or give anything to the Lord.

You will feel like you have more money than you've ever had in your life.

But how many of you know the end of that thing is not where you want to go right?

He can make disobedience look really good.

Jonah is so much at peace and he follows the sleep in the bottom of the boat in the middle of a storm, thinking things are going my way.

God must have changed his mind about Nineveh.

You see, my friends, peace alone isn't a proper indicator of God's will.

I'm so tired of people saying I felt peace.

God can provide peace, but how many of you know peace is not dependent upon circumstances?

Peace is the fact that the Prince of Peace walks with us through the darkest nights of our soul, through the most difficult experiences that we ever go through.

Yay, though I walk through the valley of shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.

I'd rather have the person of peace than the principal of peace in my life, cause I can be moved in the wrong direction by a false peace.

Sin looks good.

For a while, jonah experienced the pleasures of sin for a season.

If sin brought immediate misery, if we all got felt like we were getting cut or harmed or hurt by the sin that we committed, immediately we would run from it.

We wouldn't run to it as often as we do, but the repercussion is usually delayed by some time.

It becomes attractive to us until stolen water, which seemed sweet at a season, leads you to the gates of hell.

Sadness will come, bitterness will come, on the heels of living a chosen sinful life.

And Jonah learned the hard way that running from God is useless.

It's interesting.

This is a prophet of God.

He had to have been well versed in Old Testament scripture that had been written up to this point, and the book of Psalms, and especially King David's writings in Psalm 139, verses seven through 12.

Where shall I go from your spirit or where shall I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you are there.

If I make my bed in shield, you are there.

If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me If I say surely the darkness shall cover me and the light about me be night, even the darkness is not dark to you.

The night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.

Where are we gonna hide from God?

Where can we run?

That's far enough where he can't find us?

Now it's true that Jonah was no longer hearing clearly the voice of God like he had heard him before, but that does not mean that God stopped speaking.

In fact, he continued to speak very loudly and clearly.

The first way that he spoke is he used the stormy sea.

He used this.

Yes, god used a stormy sea to prove a point to Jonah.

It says the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea and there was a mighty tempest on the sea so that the ship threatened to break up.

This hurling we're talking about it's not like he.

He hurled the storm upon the sea, and when God does something, he does it right.

He does it all the way.

It's interesting to me that everything in nature obeyed God except Jonah.

The sea obeyed him, the wind obeyed him, even the great fish obeyed God, and yet Jonah was disobedient.

There's a lot of hurling going on in this whole passage.

The Lord hurled a great wind on the sea.

The sailors hurled the cargo overboard.

Jonah told them to hurl him into the sea to save themselves.

The sailors finally hurled him overboard and I promise you that if I was there, there would have been a whole, nother level of hurling that we cannot even talk about here this morning.

I did not appreciate a stormy sea.

It either does my stomach.

Here's a real question that I had to ask myself how many times in our lives do we resist and rebuke the storm in our lives that was sent by God to bring about a course correction?

How many times do we cry out against the storm and command it to cease and to leave when God's in the storm?

Now, I'm not trying to say that there are times that we don't need to resist the storm.

Obviously, there are times when we need to resist the storm because it is Satan that is moving in the storm.

But we have to be able to discern the difference Whom the Lord loves, he corrects, he disciplines.

It's interesting because this storm was not meant for Jonah's demise or destruction.

This storm was meant for his correction.

What is God gonna do with the storm?

This storm had a great purpose.

He's going to save a whole city with this storm.

He's going to turn around a prophet who's been going the wrong way and start him going in the right direction.

God used the storm to speak to Jonah.

God also used the superstitious sailors to call Jonah to account for his sin.

I don't you hate that when God uses either our children or sinners to?

I remember one time I was a, I had witnessed my whole junior year to this one girl in my high school and she was like she was really into some dark things.

And then I lost 50 pounds.

Between my junior and senior year my parents bought me a red Chevy Camaro.

I don't know why they did that brand new Chevy Camaro.

I show up at school.

Everybody's like who's the new guy?

And it was like I'm still Tyler right.

And so all of a sudden, I became cool, and what cool meant was that I had.

I chose to maintain a certain image, which that image caused me to begin to say things that I wouldn't have normally said last year, because last year I was carrying my Bible around and I was talking to people about who Jesus was.

This year I love to make everybody laugh.

I was telling those jokes that if my parents found out about them.

That car would have been sitting in the garage for a couple of weeks, and this I'll never forget.

I was in computer class and I was just laughing at myself and telling these jokes and this girl looks at me and she says Tyler, you almost convinced me to be a Christian and now I can tell you're no different than anybody else.

Whew, I didn't speak for the rest of the day, but she was right.

She was right.

I had run so far away from God, even to where my demeanor, my conversation, didn't even carry any kind of remembrance of Him barely, of course, when I went to youth group and church on Sunday and Sunday night and Wednesday night, and all of those days I was yeah.

So God used the superstitious sailors.

The good news is we moved back to Florida about 14 years ago and on Facebook I saw I got a message from this girl and she said I just wanted to tell you that 20 years ago, whatever it was, the Lord Jesus got ahold of me and I'm a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ and I rejoiced because, in spite of me, god still reached her right.

That's the good news.

That's the good news, amen, amen.

So it says that every man, all of these sailors, cried out to their gods and they were like what do you expect?

I mean, they had never seen.

This is a storm like they had never seen before.

They're all crying out to whatever their God is, because when we're in trouble we try to fix the problem.

Why we want to do it our way.

We want us to figure out what it is that we can do.

So they threw the cargo overboard and when it wasn't enough, like I said, they called out to their gods.

They did everything that they knew within their power, but nothing was happening.

Nothing was changing anything.

It's interesting because there was one man on board who had a relationship with the real God, the true God, who knew his word and who worshiped him.

But what was he doing?

It was asleep.

Spurgeon says it like this Jonah was asleep amid all that confusion and noise.

And oh, christian man, for you to be indifferent to all that is going on in such a world as this, for you to be negligent of God's work in such a time as this, is just as strange.

The devil alone is making noise enough to wake all that Jonah's, if they only want to wake.

All around us.

There is tumult and storm, yet some professing Christians are able, like Jonah, to go to sleep in the sides of the ship.

My friends, it's time for the body of Christ, including me, to wake up, to throw off our slumber and to be about the Father's business in our day and time.

So the next thing that happens is the captain woke Jonah from his slumber.

The captain knew that his crew cried to their gods and nothing happened.

And so he wakes Jonah up.

Perhaps his God could do something in the crisis.

It must have seemed ironic to Jonah in some way that the sailors demanded that he call on his God.

Didn't they know?

In fact, they did know, because he told them that he was running from God.

Why would he want to call on the God that he's trying to escape?

In fact, in this story there's no indication that Jonah said a prayer at all, and later he will pray in another sermon coming soon to a church near you, but in this account there's no account of him praying.

He remained, it seems he remained silent.

So the sailors discover on their own that Jonah is the source of the trouble.

It's interesting the same Hebrew word that was used for the evil of the Ninevites is also used for the evil that's caused this storm.

It's interesting how we can always observe and comment on the evil of others, but we have a very hard time seeing the evil in ourselves.

We want to pull the little speck of somebody's eye when we have a tree growing out of ours.

Oh man, it's hard to prepare for a message like this, because then I have to deal with it all week and then I get to share it with you.

So you're welcome.

The sailors believe that a storm of this magnitude could only be done, could be caused, only by something being done wrong.

They didn't know to call it sin, but that's what it was.

And so what do they do?

All that they know to do is they cast lots, rolling dice, trying to figure out who it was that this dice would fall upon.

And somehow God got in the dice and it fell on Jonah.

The lot fell on Jonah, but these men had such character, even though they weren't followers of the true God, that they didn't blame him.

Initially they said explain to us why there's this storm, help us to understand.

And somehow, in the midst of all of this, the rebellious prophet becomes a part of God's mission.

He introduces the sailors to the God of heaven and earth.

He says the God whom I fear, the maker of heaven and earth, kind of interesting.

It was like he was reading his business card.

There's not a lot of proof in this story that he's fearing God much at all at this point, but he's representing, he's presenting this God to them in this way.

So all of a sudden, their hearts began to fear the God of Jonah, knowing they'd never heard that there was a God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in it.

And so now they're being drawn towards this God that Jonah just is answering their questions.

Even a believer who's in a state of rebellion can give glory to God if he will only tell the truth about God.

It's tragic, though, that Jonah's life contradicted his knowledge of God.

It's hypocrisy at one of the greatest forms of it, but God uses the unbelieving crude to rebuke Jonah for resisting God.

They cry out to him why have you done this?

That's a legitimate question.

Why in the world would you do this and why would you bring that stuff on this ship, and why would you cause harm to us and our livelihood and our families?

And so, finally, the sailors reluctantly agreed to throw Jonah overboard.

Jonah's solution was for them to throw him overboard.

Can you imagine Again, I wonder, what would have happened if Jonah would have just knelt down on the surface of that ship and if he had turned his heart and his eyes toward God and said God, forgive me, for I have sinned against you?

I wonder how this story might have changed.

But it doesn't seem like he was ready to do that yet.

And so what does he do?

He says throw me overboard, just make the end of it.

If you throw me over, everything will be fine Seems sacrificial in a way, but really I think Jonah just didn't want to obey God, and so he was willing to end his life if that meant that he could get out of the call to go to Nineveh.

Sailors didn't want to throw Jonah into the sea.

As bad as things were, they feared God now to a certain extent, and so they were concerned about doing this.

So they all got their oars and they rode as hard as they could, trying to get closer to shore.

And yet the tempestuous storm just kept growing and growing and growing.

Remember there was one time my dad and I were fishing and we were having a really good fishing day.

And so we didn't notice the cloud the size of a man's hand in the sky that began to grow and it overtook us.

And when it overtook us and this is in Florida if you've ever been to Florida or lived in Florida, you know that a storm can, just like that, turn from something that seems manageable to torment.

And so we found ourselves ducking into this cove and crying out to God that this storm would not kill us, because the lightning was striking all around us, and even as a teenager, I was soaked to the bone, not just with rain, but with fear and torment.

I can't imagine what these guys must have been feeling and experiencing, except for just a small experience like I had.

Thankfully, it cleared up and we sailed home.

We didn't say much on the voyage home.

We got back in the car and then we sighed a sigh of relief and from that point on we were much more cautious.

I think my dad spent about three hours watching Weather Channel before we ever left the house.

After that Anybody have a dad like that, hi those of you watching the internet there was a rebellious young man that raised his hand Happened to be one of my sons.

You can never be too careful.

You got to be prepared, right, okay?

Well, listen to what the sailors did.

They prayed to the God of Jonah.

Oh Lord, the missionary himself is struggling with the word.

The message had power, and the men who had experienced the goodness of God were now speaking to God and saying oh Lord, let us not perish for this man's life and lay not on us innocent blood for you.

Oh Lord, have done as it pleased you.

And they threw Jonah into the sea.

And what happened to the sea?

It became calm.

You see, the sailors went in a second from fearing the storm to fearing the Lord.

This is what God wants to do in people's lives.

This is the mission that God's called us to be a part of the transfer, the great transfer of fear of what man can do to me and what Satan can do to me to fearing God.

They started with fearing what the storm would do to them, and then they moved to fearing what the God of Jonah could do to them and finally they landed to fearing the Lord from a place of having experienced him and his goodness.

And what did they do?

They made vows and they performed a sacrifice and they said the God of Jonah is now our God.

I want to give you, just to finish up, a few conclusive thoughts, starting back where we began, which is I am Jonah, and I'm not saying this about you.

I'm saying it about me, so this may or may not apply to you.

I am Jonah when I despise those that God has chosen to love.

What is your Nineveh today?

What is the people group that you don't really want to be called to reach out to Democrats?

Is it transgender, illegal aliens?

Who are the Ninevites among us that we refuse, at this point in time, to yield to God when he's asking us not to embrace something but to shine the light of Jesus and to be a witness for him?

For some of us, it's our family.

Ill witness to anybody else God, but not my family.

They've hurt me too much.

Nineveh is the place where God calls.

Where you don't want to go, it's danger, it's discomfort, it's whatever you hate that God loves deeply.

I am also.

I am Jonah when I try to run away from God's presence and purpose.

I remember when I was a teenager.

I thought I was in love with the girl, but she didn't love Jesus, and so I thought what did?

I think I'll be an example to her.

I'll shine the light of Jesus.

I'll bring her to church with me.

She'll be around me, she'll be around my family.

She's going to become a Christian and then all of this will be great and I'll tell you, what happened was a downward spiral in my life where I was saying one thing and doing something else.

I am Jonah when I count peaceful circumstances as proof that I'm in the will of God.

Peace alone, that is.

I'm Jonah when I would rather sleep than proclaim the truth.

The church is a lot like Jonah today in some ways, not just Trinity, I'm saying the church in general.

We are asleep while the storms of spiritual and moral ruin are raging across our nation and we cannot expect America to get right until we get right.

We need to get right with God.

Revival has to come from God, but are we willing for him to send revival?

Because what does revival begin with?

Repentance.

My people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves, humble themselves, humble themselves, pray and turn from their wicked ways.

Then will I hear from heaven, I will forgive their sins and I will heal their land.

I am Jonah when I say the right things, but my heart is far from God.

I am Jonah when I would rather die than follow God's plan.

And finally, I am Jonah and Jesus came to save me from myself.

Aren't you thankful for Jesus?

If Jonah teaches us anything and we see ourselves in the story of Jonah at all, we cannot end with his failings.

We have to end by understanding that one greater than Jonah came and did it all right.

He obeyed the Father completely, perfectly, in every way, and because of that and because of faith in him, he can give us the grace that we need to walk out his commands and his will in a way that brings glory and honor and power and praise to him and him alone.

Amen.

Let's pray Father.

We're so thankful again for your mighty word, what it means to us.

Lord, we do confess that there are areas of our lives where we are rebellious, that we are running from you, trying to escape your call upon our lives, because we've been heard in the past or we don't see any way that those things could come to pass, or we're just afraid, or whatever it is.

Lord, would you forgive us, cleanse us, lord, god, and give us the courage to acknowledge our need and to recognize the storm.

This storm may be caused by you bringing correction into our lives, not to harm us, but to help us.

Would you lead us and guide us into all truth.

Would you help us, father, to have your heart, especially for the lost Lord, that we would not count others as enemies just because they wear a label or they look a certain way or they talk a certain way?

Lord, would you help us to really understand how great a cost it took for us to walk in freedom and redemption, so that when we look at others, we have nothing but Godly sorrow and a desire to reach out in any way that we can.

We also pray for the prodigals right now, lord God, and we ask, in your great mercy, that you would reach out to them, lord, that you would call them by name, that you would be personal in the way that you address them and to be pointed in showing them the way, father, that they would be restored to right relationship with you.

And help us, each of us, lord, that have these people in our lives and in our families to have words to speak in season at the right time and the right way, and also, lord, when it's not our place or time, would you send others into their paths, lord, to share the gospel, to share the light of Jesus, to remind them of how good it is in the Father's house, and bring about restoration and reconciliation.

Father, I thank you and I praise you for these things.

Help us, lord, god, as we move forward, to live our lives not thinking of ourselves first, but looking to you, the author and the finisher of our faith.

Looking to Jesus, help us to finish this life well in the mighty name of Jesus, and I pray for a blessing on this church, lord, that you would bless each one with peace and love and joy, grace and mercy, and that this week would be a tremendous week of fellowship and relationship with you and with each other.

And help us, lord, god, to understand that we're on mission for you, everywhere that we go, everything that we do.

Help us to shine the light of Jesus.

We thank you for this in Jesus' name, amen.