Making God's Heart Your Heart
Jonah: Shaping the Heart • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 37:55
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· 730 viewsGod’s heart to reach people who don’t know Him will move forward with or without you…but He wants to do it with you! // To find out more about Involve Church, please visit involvechurch.com or email info@involvechurch.com
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Introduction
Introduction
Good morning! Its so great to be in the middle of this sermon series - if you are new today, I want to welcome you - I’m glad you are here to worship with us. We are in week 3 of a 4-week sermon series in the middle of the Old Testament story regarding the prophet Jonah.
Let me ask you something: do have a someone or a group of people in your life that you have to occasionally interact with that you really wish you didn’t have to interact with? Or maybe there certain people with a type of personality that you really struggle to spend time around - they just rub you the wrong way? Or what about people of a certain background that you really struggle to relate to?
I have a confession to make - I have struggled in the past to be around people that have kind of a rough exterior. If I could make some sweeping generalizations for a second - you know the type: motorcycle gang, heavy metal rock concerts, goth…I think the list goes on. You get the idea of the person I’m talking about. I have struggled with that group of people. I can’t give you any specific reason as to why - maybe its just the stark contrast between the way they choose to outwardly present themselves and the way I choose to outwardly present myself. It could be because of a difference in values.
You know what’s weird, though? I’ve noticed that as I’ve lived life, it hasn’t magically gotten easier to connect with people that are different from me. In fact, I’ve noticed that, if I’m left to my own propensities - if I’m not challenged to go outside of my comfort zone - I will spend my entire life only ever talking to people that are very much like me - conservative, white, clean-cut, raised in Idaho, evangelical Christian. Do you struggle with that? Do you struggle to even talk to people that are radically different from you in background, values, and lifestyle, much less spend time with them?
The question is this: Is there anything wrong with that in and of itself? And the next question we should always ask ourselves, as followers of Jesus, is what does the Bible have to say about this issue?
Well, we find Jonah in a spot where He has been called to go to people that are not just different from Himself but are His enemies and preach a message of repentance. The Ninevites were not only pagans, but they were a direct threat to the Israelites. Everything about them was reprehensible to Jonah. How do I know? Because I read ahead to chapter 4 and its obvious that Jonah does not have any strong love for these people. So, in chapter 1 we find him being called by God to go to the city of Nineveh and preach a message of repentance. And, after watching the video a minute ago, you all know what happened - he turned and ran the other direction.
What happened next was a miracle, though many of us would not think of it as a miracle. Jonah hopped on a boat in his attempt to get away from God’s command to preach repentance to and God caused a great storm. Once it became obvious to everyone on board that it was Jonah’s fault, Jonah volunteered to have himself thrown overboard, after which he was swallowed by a great fish. He spent three days and three nights in the fish undergoing some serious reflection. After three days and nights, Jonah humbly cries out to God for help and the fish vomits Jonah up on dry ground and then here’s what happens next:
Slide
The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: “Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach the message that I tell you.”
So we find ourselves at a point where Jonah is, once again, called to “go” to the people he does not want to go to. And with that said, I think we need to pray before continuing.
Pray
So we find ourselves at the beginning of chapter three and we begin to realize something amazing about the God we serve. This God that Jonah serves and this God that we serve is not only powerful, and just, and able to accomplish whatever he wants. But we begin to see something about God’s heart for people in these two verses that follow chapters 1 and 2. We see this:
God’s heart to reach people who don’t know Him will move forward with or without you…but He wants to do it with you!
God’s heart to reach people who don’t know Him will move forward with or without you…but He wants to do it with you! This is an amazing truth that we see worked out over the story of Jonah and in countless other lives of people throughout biblical history - God delights in using His people to reach those who are lost. He wants to use you, he wants to use me.
And we see this in the life of Jonah. And you know - its tempting for us to think that God is somehow angry with Jonah. That could be true, but did you know that in the story of Jonah we never see God characterized as angry even once? We can’t read something into the text that isn’t there - God is not characterized as angry with Jonah’s disobedience even once. He certainly does some amazing and extreme things to put Jonah back on track, but God never once interacts with Jonah in a way that is angry.
Do you know who is angry? Jonah. More on that next week. But for now, just know that God is extremely patient with the disobedience of Jonah. And God uses what He knows will be effective in Jonah’s life to shape his heart to become more like God’s heart. And there is evidence of this in Jonah’s life - remember in chapter 1 when he was called to go to Nineveh? What did He do? That’s right - he ran. In chapter 3, we see that God is a God of second chances and He says to Jonah a 2nd time - “Go.” What does Jonah do in response to this call to go? Let’s take a look:
Jonah got up and went to Nineveh according to the Lord’s command.
Now Nineveh was an extremely great city, a three-day walk. Jonah set out on the first day of his walk in the city and proclaimed, “In forty days Nineveh will be demolished!”
Do you see what has happened? God used catastrophes in Jonah’s life to shape his heart. God has a heart to reach the people of Nineveh and He wants to use Jonah to do reach them. Jonah tries to run, hits a storm, hits a big fish, gets thrown up on the beach. Jonah is at least now getting the idea - God wants to use him to reach the Ninevites!
Let me ask you something: when God clearly lays out a path in front of you and you choose to do something the opposite of what is clearly God’s will for you and you suffer consequences, how do you respond? Jonah learned something - when God calls you to do something - you do it! So we find Jonah going to to Nineveh according to God’s command.
The thing that happens next in the story is not only a surprise to Jonah, but I would guess that it would have been a surprise to any Jew. Keep in mind that the Ninevites are pagans. They not only don’t worship the one, true God, but they worship other gods proudly and openly. They are idolators, unrighteous and enemies of Israel. They are an imminent threat to the people of God. And yet, we see God’s heart in desiring to show mercy by sending Jonah to warn them of their impending destruction.
He does, and here’s what happens next:
Then the people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast and dressed in sackcloth—from the greatest of them to the least.
When word reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, put on sackcloth, and sat in ashes. Then he issued a decree in Nineveh:
By order of the king and his nobles: No person or animal, herd or flock, is to taste anything at all. They must not eat or drink water. Furthermore, both people and animals must be covered with sackcloth, and everyone must call out earnestly to God. Each must turn from his evil ways and from his wrongdoing. Who knows? God may turn and relent; he may turn from his burning anger so that we will not perish.
Two important questions we ask ourselves when we are studying Scripture are: 1) who was it written to, and 2) why was it written to them? We call it the audience and the purpose. There is almost unanimous agreement among scholars that Jonah was written to the Jewish people for a very specific reason. Before I give you that reason, I’m going to read another passage of Scripture. In Deuteronomy, after summarizing everything God has done for the nation of Israel, that they are recipients of great blessings, and honor, wealth, and land, here’s what He says to them:
You may say to yourself, ‘My power and my own ability have gained this wealth for me,’ but remember that the Lord your God gives you the power to gain wealth, in order to confirm his covenant he swore to your fathers, as it is today.
And a little later He says,
When the Lord your God drives them out before you, do not say to yourself, ‘The Lord brought me in to take possession of this land because of my righteousness.’ Instead, the Lord will drive out these nations before you because of their wickedness. You are not going to take possession of their land because of your righteousness or your integrity. Instead, the Lord your God will drive out these nations before you because of their wickedness, in order to fulfill the promise he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Understand that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.
These passages are important because they are a reminder about God’s heart - we are going to find out that Jonah looked down on the Ninevites and was frustrated that God wanted him to preach a message of repentance. In this attitude he betrays himself - he shows that he believes that somehow God should work according to Jonah’s standards of who is worthy and who is not worthy. But he forgot one simple fact - there is no one who is worthy! The only reason God chose Israel is out of grace, not out of righteousness. Jonah thought that somehow the Ninevites were undeserving. And he would be right. But the people of Israel were also equally undeserving of God’s promises. They had zero righteousness or merit to present to God.
Let me tell you something - we are saved by the grace of God. We have absolutely zero merit or righteousness or claim by which we can come before a God who is holy, righteous, and true. And here’s the miracle: God doesn’t deal with us according to what justice demands! Instead, He deals with us according to who He is. If you don’t know this God, I’ll start with when He first revealed who He is when He was with Moses at the burning bush. Moses said to God “let me see your glory,” to which God replied with this:
He said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim the name ‘the Lord’ before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.”
And later,
The Lord passed in front of him and proclaimed:
The Lord—the Lord is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth, maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But he will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the fathers’ iniquity on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation.
This is how the people of Israel first established their relationship with God - by coming face to face with the God that was Holy, but also a God who is gracious to whom He is gracious, and compassionate to whom He is compassionate.
Why do I bring this up? Let me boil it down for us: we don’t get to choose whom we think is worthy. All are equally unworthy and undeserving. All we need to know is that we have been given a great gift of salvation in Jesus and that we are called to “go” by God and share that good news by Jesus Himself. Still have doubts? Take a look at what Jesus said:
Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
And look at what the Apostle Peter had to say:
The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.
God desires that all should come to repentance. That doesn’t mean that all will, but He desires it. God looks on Nineveh and He has not anger for them, but compassion. One commentator puts it this way:
All of God's activities in this book proceeded from this basic attitude. We might conclude that God sent Jonah to preach against Nineveh only because He was angry with it, because of its sin. Certainly it was under His judgment for its sins, but the last verse reveals the underlying motive of God: His compassion.
His heart for those that are headed for destruction is compassionate. God is not willing that any should perish, but that should come to repentance. My question for you: have you trust in Christ? We absolutely are sinners - the Bible says that all of us - you and me - are sinners and have fallen short of the glory of God. It says that the right payment for sin is death. But if you think that God is angry with you, consider this - God isn’t willing that any should perish. He brought you here today to sit in the chair you are sitting in right now to hear that He saw your need - that you are in sin and under judgment because of your sin. But He looks on you with compassion and He says, “I give you a gift - it is my son Jesus, who will take the judgment for you. Place your trust in His life, His death, and His resurrection. He will make you righteous in my eyes.” This book isn’t primarily about the message to the Ninevites, but the message still stands. Do you feel like a Ninevite? Know that God loves you and has compassion on you and wants to offer you forgiveness and life in Jesus.
You know, Jesus Himself talks about Jonah. Pastor Ryan brought it up in the last couple of weeks. Jesus is talking with those that are considered the religious leaders of the day - the ones that are considered the teachers and the ones who are holy. They ask Jesus for a sign, to which Jesus says this,
He answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation demands a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at Jonah’s preaching; and look—something greater than Jonah is here.
This is an amazing statement. I found myself asking why “the men of Nineveh” were the ones that will judge these people. Jesus is pointing out a simple fact: Jonah, sent by God, brought a message of impending judgment to the Ninevites and a call to repent. They responded by believing Him and repenting. One who is greater - Jesus - was sent by God to bring a message of judgment, but also life and hope, to His own people - the people of God - and what did they do? They rejected Jesus and they rejected His message. Where the Ninevites believed and repented and were saved, the people of Israel did not believe, they did not repent, and they stand condemned. What is so amazing about this? Jesus is, once again, making a clear statement - “believe in me and my message and you will be saved. You want a sign? I’ll be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights, then I’ll rise again.”
And so, I want to wrap back around again to two of the questions we ask when we are studying a passage of Scripture: 1) who was it written to? It was written to the Jews. The second question is, 2) Why was it written? This already apparent and will become even more obvious next week, but this purpose is widely agreed upon and here is a commentator that says it a lot better than I can:
"The purpose of the book is not the message to the Ninevites. Rather, the book is written about Jonah’s story and for the benefit of a Jewish audience. Its purpose is to illustrate God's grace to the Gentiles in face of His people's refusal to fulfill their mission to them...God's grace was extended to the most hostile and aggressive of Israel's Gentile neighbors—the Assyrians. Surprisingly, they were even more responsive to God's messenger than was Israel, all to the chagrin of Jonah.”
God calls His people to make Him known to others. You are called to make Him known to others. If you are a follower of Jesus, you have the Holy Spirit living in you, and you have everything you need to take the message of our compassionate God to a world that is dying. There are people right outside that door - right now - that are dying! Some of them don’t even know that they are dying. Some of them know something is wrong and they are without hope.
So the question is this: do you struggle with sharing hope? Are you a Jonah? Do you hear the call and yet fail to act? I know that I do at times. I would even say that more often than not I fail to act. Why is that? Why, if we have everything we need to bring hope to a dying world, do we struggle to share?
I ran across a guy who has a theory:
The church's failure in evangelism and missions is not due primarily to our failure to know God and His compassion. We know Him. We have even experienced His compassion in our own lives. Our failure is due mainly to our dislike for those under God's judgment: our Ninevites. Perhaps we need to admit that we really do not want to see the world saved. The evidence of this is that we are much happier enjoying the spiritual comforts of being God's chosen people than we are reaching out to the lost. Some Christians hate the lost, just as Jonah did. Why do we not reach out to the city in which we live? Perhaps it is because we do not like the people who live there.
I find that so convicting! But it brings us back to the idea for this passage:
God’s heart to reach people who don’t know Him will move forward with or without you…but He wants to do it with you!
God delights in using us. But He longs for our hearts to match His heart for the lost - and His heart when He looks at people that are dead in their sin, that are wallowing in drug use, people that are participating in all manner of sexual immorality, people that leave their families, that lie, that cheat, that steal, people that live their lives in selfishness and shame, people that mess up time and again and again and again…He looks on those people and He has compassion. The question is this: do you? Keep in mind that, if you are a follower of Jesus, you were once that way. Its by His grace and mercy that you aren’t any longer. Do you have compassion on those who are? Speak the truth, in love.
So we’ve had Jonah’s obedience to the call of God, we have the Ninevites response of belief and repentance, and now we see how God responds to the repentance of the Ninevites in verse 10:
God saw their actions—that they had turned from their evil ways—so God relented from the disaster he had threatened them with. And he did not do it.
The Hebrew word for “relent” there carries the connotation of being relieved and comforted. Its sort of like God sighing in relief when the Ninevites repent. That is there for our benefit - it reveals that God delights in showing mercy - He is a God that is slow to anger, compassionate, gracious, abounding in steadfast love.
So what do we do this?
Challenge to Respond
This week, think through who might be Nineveh to you. Begin praying that your heart would match God’s compassionate heart for them. Challenge yourself to take practical steps towards sharing Jesus with them.
Grab a prayer bookmark that will help us prepare to invite people who don’t know Jesus to Boise Harvest in May. Write down individuals you are praying for and start praying for them.