Jonah 1

[00:00:00] Today we're in the Book of Jonah. If you guys would turn there in your Bibles, Jonah chapter 1.

[00:00:05] We're going to start this new study today and we're going to kind of go through quickly

[00:00:12] through the Book of Jonah. I'm going to take four weeks to go through these four chapters. So

[00:00:16] today we're going to look at Jonah chapter 1 if you guys would turn there.

[00:00:24] We'll also put the words on the screen. I'm going to read the first six verses and then we'll

[00:00:28] pray together. It says in verse 1, Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amitai saying,

[00:00:38] arise, go to Nineveh that great city and call out against it for their evil has come up before me.

[00:00:47] But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Japa and found a

[00:00:55] ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish away

[00:01:03] from the presence of the Lord. But the Lord, verse 4, hurled a great wind upon the sea and there

[00:01:10] was a mighty tempest on the sea so that the ship threatened to break up. Then the mariners were afraid

[00:01:18] and each cried out to his God. They hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten

[00:01:25] it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had laying down and was

[00:01:31] fast asleep. So the captain came and said to him, what do you mean you sleeper? Arise call out

[00:01:40] to your God. Perhaps the God will give a thought to us that we may not perish. Father, we come to

[00:01:48] you this morning and we want to learn who you are through the book of Jonah so we pray that by

[00:01:55] your spirit you teach us today and in the weeks that are following about who you are from this book,

[00:02:01] your nature, your character, who you are. Lord, we also pray today as we think about you as a

[00:02:07] sending God that we would be a people who appreciate the fact that you have sent your only begotten

[00:02:14] son and that you also send us who believed in him into this world as salt and light. So help us

[00:02:22] Lord, we pray we need your wisdom and discernment as to how to be your testifiers, your witnesses here

[00:02:31] in this world. But thank you Lord for being a sending God and we ask that you speak to us from

[00:02:36] this chapter in your word. We thank you in Jesus name. Amen. All right, we don't know a whole lot

[00:02:44] of background details about this man, Jonah. It says here in the first verse that he's the son

[00:02:50] of a man named Amitai but there is precious little background material in the pages of Israel's

[00:02:59] history about this prophet. The tiny bit that we do know of background material comes from the book

[00:03:07] of 2 Kings chapter 14. He was alive during a time where a king named Jeroboam was raining in

[00:03:16] Israel and during Jeroboam's reign Israel went through a long period of difficulty and darkness

[00:03:24] where they suffered many military losses to the nations around them. Jonah came onto the scene

[00:03:31] and prophesied that the borders would be restored in Israel. That's what we learned in 2 Kings

[00:03:39] chapter 14. The restoration of the borders was the prophecy that Jonah had to the people of Israel.

[00:03:47] It was a prophecy that was good news. It's the kind of prophecy that any old testament prophet

[00:03:52] would love to receive from God. So often they had to say very hard things to God's people

[00:03:58] but to be able to cruise out amongst God's people and say good days are coming. That was a

[00:04:04] real blessing. And so that was what Jonah walked in in the past. But here we learned that though Jonah

[00:04:13] in his past had been a prophet about good news in Israel. Here in this opening paragraph God

[00:04:22] tasks him with bringing bad news to the people of Nineveh, a city over 500 miles away from Israel.

[00:04:31] A Nineveh was the capital city of the Assyrian empire so this prophet who in the past had a

[00:04:38] positive message for God's people is now tasked with a negative message for people who are not yet

[00:04:46] God's people. But Jonah did an uncharacteristic thing, at least uncharacteristic for a prophet

[00:04:53] kind of characteristic for a human he ran away from God's presence. He ran away from God's will

[00:04:59] for his life and he decided it says over and over again in this opening paragraph that he went

[00:05:05] he wanted to go to a city called Tarshish. Now people debate about where Tarshish was located at

[00:05:11] that time but generally everybody agrees that it was in the opposite direction of Nineveh and very

[00:05:19] far away from Israel so God wanted Nineveh wanted Jonah to go this way and Jonah decided I'm going

[00:05:26] to go this way. He finds a boat that takes him on as a passenger and in verse 3 that ominous phrase

[00:05:33] he paid the fare and he went down into the boat to settle in for a long journey. We know the story

[00:05:40] of course God would not allow Jonah to get to Tarshish instead he it says in verse 4 hurled

[00:05:46] a great wind upon the sea that created a massive storm, a big tempest that was about to break the

[00:05:52] ship apart so much so that these experienced sailors did not dismiss this as just any other storm

[00:05:59] they began crying out to their deities, to their gods and of course as a reader of the Bible you

[00:06:07] would expect that nothing would happen as a result of that prayer to the gods of idols and

[00:06:13] sure enough nothing happens and so the captain comes and wakes Jonah so that Jonah can pray to

[00:06:19] his God maybe this storm is the result of something you have done so cry out to your God. Now some

[00:06:26] people wonder if that sense of rest that Jonah was in was caused by a false sense of peace you know

[00:06:37] that we sometimes experience this when we run from God's will for our lives everything will flow

[00:06:43] smoothly for a little while until God interrupts our plans and maybe that's what Jonah was going

[00:06:50] through maybe he was experiencing peace as he fled from God's desires for his life but I wonder if

[00:06:58] perhaps Jonah was merely a land loving seasick guilty prophet who's like man I just got to go to the

[00:07:05] bottom of the boat and sleep this off I'm so seasick I feel so guilty I'm doing the wrong thing

[00:07:10] I know I am I've never been out on the ocean like this before Hebrew people were generally terrified

[00:07:15] of the ocean thought of it as a deep mystery and so I think he was probably just down there going

[00:07:20] I just got to ride this out but the big question that we need to ask in this opening paragraph is

[00:07:28] why did Jonah run this is the major question not just of this part of his story but of the whole book if

[00:07:36] you don't answer that question correctly I don't think you'll understand the point of the book

[00:07:41] of Jonah some people think that Jonah ran because he was terrified of what might happen to him

[00:07:50] in the city of Nineveh Nineveh as I said was the capital city of Assyria and they were notorious

[00:07:57] for treating prisoners in brutal ways when they went into war they would do things it would

[00:08:04] make your skin crawl if I began to report them to you today and we even have records of kings

[00:08:09] of Assyria from Jonah's era and time who wrote down boasts of the gruesome war crimes that they had

[00:08:19] committed and so it stands to reason that perhaps what Jonah is thinking is if I go to Nineveh

[00:08:26] they might do some of the things that I've heard that they'd done to others to me and so perhaps

[00:08:33] he didn't want to go because he was afraid but this reason it overlooks I think the rest of the book

[00:08:42] of Jonah I don't mean to spoil the whole book for you but I will tell you what happens at the end

[00:08:47] eventually Jonah will get to Nineveh he will preach to Nineveh the people of Nineveh will repent

[00:08:54] of their evil and God will relent from the judgment or disaster that he said he was going to bring

[00:09:01] against them and in Jonah chapter 4 what we'll study together is that Jonah when he saw this when

[00:09:07] he saw God relent from the judgment that he said he was going to bring it displeased Jonah greatly

[00:09:14] and he actually prayed this prayer to God he said in Jonah 4 verse 2 oh Lord is this not what I said

[00:09:22] when I was yet in my country that is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish for I knew that you are

[00:09:31] a gracious God and merciful slow to anger and abounding instead fast love and relenting from

[00:09:39] disaster so what that tells us is that Jonah's reason listen to this his reason for rebelling

[00:09:47] against God had to do with what he knew about God you know other prophets they predicted

[00:09:56] judgment on the surrounding nations they'd done this before many other prophets had

[00:10:03] proclaimed that the evil and other nations would bring judgment upon them but they'd always

[00:10:08] done so from the safe confines of Israel they never had to travel to the places that they were

[00:10:14] prophesying against and what that meant is that the prophecies generally weren't even for the

[00:10:20] nations that God said he was going to judge they were for the people of Israel that even though

[00:10:26] these foreign powers with all of their military might felt like a threat God is saying I see

[00:10:32] their evil and I'm going to judge them for it but Jonah now knows that this is different God is

[00:10:38] asking him to go to Nineveh and because he knows that God is gracious and merciful and slow to

[00:10:46] anger and abounding in loving kindness he suspects that the reason that he's going is because God

[00:10:52] might allow his grace and mercy and love and patience to be unleashed upon the people of Nineveh

[00:11:01] and Jonah did not like that he was used to telling God's people that their borders would be restored

[00:11:10] he didn't want to tell people who were far from God even a word of judgment

[00:11:16] lest they repent and become God's people and this is where I want to make my first real point

[00:11:22] of this sermon today that God is a sending God because it's his nature God is a sending God

[00:11:31] because it's his nature he sends us into the world to declare the gospel he sent Jonah to the

[00:11:39] Nineveights he sent of course his only begotten son God sends because it's his merciful gracious

[00:11:47] patient loving nature to do so but though Jonah's theology about God was accurate though Jonah

[00:11:57] believed the right things about God though he knew that God was gracious he only liked it when it

[00:12:05] applied to him and his people not when it applied to those people the Nineveights so Jonah decided

[00:12:14] to live out his own nature rather than allow his actions to flow from what he knew about God that's

[00:12:22] why I'm calling our study of the book of Jonah I'm using the word unhitched to describe this book

[00:12:30] because to me like a train car that is unhitched from a locomotive Jonah was unhitched from God

[00:12:39] God's heart God's nature God's direction God was going somewhere but Jonah would not allow

[00:12:45] his destination to be dictated by where God was going though God had revealed himself way back

[00:12:52] in the law to Moses on Mount Sinai of all places as the one who is merciful and gracious and slow to

[00:13:00] anger and abounding and loving kindness though Jonah knew this about God he would not let his actions

[00:13:06] be dictated by who God was Jonah should have seen who God was and then lived in a way that

[00:13:14] represented God's nature well instead he was unhitched from who God is I almost called this study the

[00:13:23] caboose is loose because I just have that image of the caboose just not connected to the locomotive

[00:13:32] it's not going where the locomotive is going Jonah is like that he's like that last car on the train

[00:13:40] unhitching himself and refusing to go in an inner-vite territory with God

[00:13:46] and I want you to make no mistake God is the main character of this book it's not Jonah

[00:13:52] Jonah is there he's present but the book is primarily designed to teach us about who God is

[00:13:59] he's mentioned in the book twice as much as Jonah is he does twice as much as Jonah does

[00:14:06] he's active throughout the whole story in this first chapter he sends Jonah

[00:14:13] in the second chapter after causing a storm and sending a great fish God listens to Jonah

[00:14:20] in the third chapter after seeing Nineveh's repentance God responded to the Nineveh's prayers for mercy

[00:14:28] and in chapter four he tolerates a little temper tantrum from his prophet for a little while and

[00:14:34] then he turns and trains teaches his prophet he is the one working in this book his prophet is defective

[00:14:43] but God is not he's still executing his mission and the big mission of God in or with the book of

[00:14:51] Jonah was not to reach the Ninevites it was to reach his people Jonah knew the right things about God

[00:15:00] he had the right doctrine of God he was orthodox about God but he didn't understand the magnitude

[00:15:07] of God's grace so he hated the people of Nineveh and this book was originally written for an

[00:15:13] Israelite audience who had the same difficulty understanding grace that their prophet had

[00:15:21] as God's people they were called to be a light to the nations a kingdom of priests to a world

[00:15:28] in need of God but they become insular angry entitled and fearful and so they couldn't fulfill

[00:15:37] their mission they forgot how God's grace had reached them in the past and was meant to flow

[00:15:43] through them in the present God's actions throughout the book of Jonah were meant to retrain

[00:15:49] them to let their actions better represent God's nature now here's the thing we're not the people

[00:15:56] of Israel we're reading and studying this book almost three thousand years after its events occurred

[00:16:04] but we live in a time where Jesus has already come Jesus has risen from the grave he's fulfilled

[00:16:11] the old testament scriptures so the book of Jonah now belongs to us as well his church

[00:16:19] we are God's people and God's message is just the same understand who I am he would say to us

[00:16:28] I am gracious and merciful and slow to anger and a bounding and loving kindness and I sent my son

[00:16:34] as a result of that to save people from their sin and I want you to deliver this message

[00:16:41] to all nations even when it's scary so that's the first movement of the book we learned that God

[00:16:49] is ascending God let's read the second little movement in verse seven through ten it says that

[00:16:55] the crew in verse seven said to one another come let us cast lots that we may know on whose account

[00:17:01] this evil has come upon us so they cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah then they said to him tell

[00:17:09] us on whose account this evil has come upon us what is your occupation and where do you come from

[00:17:16] and what is your country and of what people are you and he said to them I'm a Hebrew and I fear the

[00:17:23] Lord the God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land then the men were exceedingly afraid and

[00:17:29] said to him in verse 10 what is this that you have done for the men knew that he was fleeing from the

[00:17:36] presence of the Lord because he had told them okay in this little section this little movement

[00:17:44] of the story the crew along with Jonah they cast lots to try to figure out who the cause of this

[00:17:50] storm is they all feel that it is obviously supernatural in nature this is no normal storm there's

[00:17:57] something divine or supernatural behind it so they cast lots this might have consisted of them taking

[00:18:03] a bag filled with black stones that had one white stone in it and whoever drew the white stone was

[00:18:10] the one or there were a number of other ways that the ancient people would cast lots or try to

[00:18:16] discern the mind or the intentions of the divine all book long God is going to flex his sovereignty he's

[00:18:23] going to tell a fish where to go he's going to tell a plant what to do he's going to tell a worm what

[00:18:28] to do in fact everybody in the book of Jonah is obedient to God except for Jonah

[00:18:36] and here God even tells the lots what to do the dice what to do flexing his sovereignty and it

[00:18:43] falls on Jonah immediately the sailors they begin interrogating Jonah with an avalanche of questions

[00:18:50] and I think all of these questions are kind of embarrassing they had embarrassing answers

[00:18:55] like one of the first things they asked what is your occupation the answer to that question I

[00:19:00] well I'm one of God's prophets what's a prophet well we we go wherever God tells us to go and we say

[00:19:08] whatever God wants us to say except for right now or where do you come from was another one of

[00:19:16] their questions well I come from Israel it's the it's the promised land it's the place that God

[00:19:23] decided in this era that he would dwell inside of his temple it's the best place on earth but I am

[00:19:32] leaving it right now and who are your people who are your people well where Hebrews were God

[00:19:40] specially called people right now that we might demonstrate the true God to the lost world

[00:19:48] but I'm really not into it right now that's not what I want to do Jonah though he hears these questions

[00:19:56] and leading with his identity as a Hebrew he begins to reveal to them that he was

[00:20:03] God lover but that he was at that moment fleeing from the presence of the Lord

[00:20:08] I've already said to you today that God is ascending God and that this action flows from his nature

[00:20:14] but I want to add that God sends his people which is his nature so that we might represent him

[00:20:23] and the assumption is so that we might represent him well of course now Jonah here we all would confess

[00:20:31] it's not doing a good job of that at this stage I mean it's tempting to call this study Jonah what

[00:20:38] not to do I mean he's the exact opposite of what you want to be in representing the Lord to the

[00:20:45] world in which you live and here we have him on the boat with these pagan unbelieving Gentile

[00:20:52] sailors interrogating him you might have even noticed in verse 10 when they say what is this

[00:20:59] that you have done the most translators don't put a question mark at the end of that but an

[00:21:04] exclamation mark and the reason that they do that is because it's not a question it's an accusation

[00:21:11] it's a charge it's a rebuke the world saying to God's prophet why are you doing this how could

[00:21:20] you behave in the way that you've behaved Jonah was not at this point a good representative for God he

[00:21:28] had a lot to learn now of course we know in our modern time polls that poll after polls shows us

[00:21:34] this people say oftentimes that they refuse to believe in God and as gospel and his gospel many people

[00:21:42] give the reason because of hypocrisy in the church it reminds me of the character in Moby Dick who sought

[00:21:49] to learn from Christian sailors but said that the practices of Whaleman soon convinced him that even

[00:21:56] Christians could be both miserable and wicked infinitely more so than all his father's heathens

[00:22:02] and I think if we're honest we can relate to that we're not perfect people

[00:22:07] we can't and don't always and at all times represent Jesus without error I mean if you've trusted

[00:22:15] in the Lord then you you've been regenerated he's given you a new nature but you still have your

[00:22:22] body of sin you still have your old appetites and sometimes if we're honest those appetites lead us

[00:22:28] down a path where we do not represent the Lord well it's inconsistent with him and his gospel at

[00:22:35] those times what should we do should we strive for perfection we know that's not going to happen

[00:22:43] we know that's a fool's errand instead I think what we need to do is be humble and contrite when

[00:22:50] we do feel we need to demonstrate the very grace that we pray and hope and expect that God will

[00:22:58] extend to the world in which we live Jonah had fallen short yet God used even his rebellion to

[00:23:07] reach people and these sailors they never would have had this encounter with God if Jonah had just

[00:23:13] obeyed God right off the bat now I'm not advising that you rebel against God so that you can

[00:23:20] reach more people but what I'm trying to say is that because Jonah began to confess what he

[00:23:27] done humbly repent of what he'd done God began to use it in the lives of others you don't have to be

[00:23:34] a perfect person but you should not act as if you're perfect you must say I need the grace of God

[00:23:41] you must apologize repent and confess we're called to represent the Lord now Jesus told us of course

[00:23:48] that we're to love God and that we're to love our neighbor as ourself this is part of us representing

[00:23:56] the Lord well this love of our neighbor we get cool and good practice for that in the church

[00:24:05] in one sense you could say that your life in the body of Christ is like training wheels for loving

[00:24:12] the people of this world because loving each other isn't always easy but it is the first step

[00:24:19] Jesus said that they will know that you are my disciples by your love for one another reminds me

[00:24:28] of a pastor friend of mine who I was talking to recently from another state not any of the guys on

[00:24:36] our staff and he told me this story about his kids that after he was done I was like you gotta let

[00:24:40] me tell that story to my church he's like somebody's gotta tell the story and I can't so go for it

[00:24:47] but he was telling me about his two young elementary aged boys and after one Sunday church service

[00:24:55] as is often the case with pastors kids they were just bored waiting for their parents to finally

[00:25:02] get done talking to people so that they could go home or go out to lunch or whatever so the church

[00:25:07] sanctuary was empty and they began rough housing they were kind of playfully just fighting against each

[00:25:13] other and wrestling and doing all this stuff and finally one of them was in search of a weapon you know

[00:25:20] some way to do damage against his brother and he found one of the pew bibles you know one of the

[00:25:27] churches hard back bound bibles and he took it and he threw it at his brother and he connected

[00:25:35] connected just below the waistline and it hurt so bad that they actually had to take a little trip

[00:25:43] to the ER the little guy is okay and when I heard the story he was already okay so I was laughing my

[00:25:50] head off when I heard this story and I immediately when he told me this story I said that reminds me

[00:25:58] of how we often treat each other using even the Bible to attack someone else but that must not be

[00:26:14] love must predominate among the church for the church because who wants to join a warring family

[00:26:22] now we might resist some of this excertation you know there might be a little feeling in you that

[00:26:29] says you know the world has no business assessing the performance of the church like these sailors

[00:26:36] assessed the performance of Jonah but Jesus said in the same way let your light shine before others

[00:26:43] so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father who is in heaven this seems

[00:26:50] to imply that people like the sailors did will assess our lives and perhaps are even expected

[00:26:58] to do so Paul said it this way of himself in his ministry team he said we are ambassadors for Christ

[00:27:07] God making his appeal through us think of that there are people in this world who will never

[00:27:13] read a Bible but what if they were to read the Bible by reading you that's what Paul is saying I'm

[00:27:22] an ambassador of Christ it's like God who is making his appeal to the world is appealing to the world

[00:27:29] through me so we should want to represent this sending God well okay but let's look at the last

[00:27:38] and final movement of the passage in verse 11 to the end of the chapter it says then they the

[00:27:47] sailors said to him what shall we do to you that the sea may quiet down for us for the sea grew more

[00:27:54] and more tempestuous he said to them pick me up and hurl me into the sea then the sea will quiet

[00:28:02] down for you for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you nevertheless

[00:28:08] the men wrote hard to get back to dry land but they could not for the sea grew more and more

[00:28:14] tempestuous against them therefore they called out to the Lord verse 14 oh Lord let us not perish

[00:28:20] for this man's life and lay not on us innocent blood for you oh Lord have done as it pleased you

[00:28:28] so they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea and the sea ceased from its raging then the

[00:28:36] men feared the Lord exceedingly and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows and the Lord

[00:28:43] verse 17 appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days

[00:28:53] and three nights okay and this final movement of the opening story the sailors who've already

[00:29:01] determined that Jonah is the cause of this worsening storm they asked Jonah they say hey what

[00:29:07] should we do with you if you're the cause of this storm then what should we do what will appease

[00:29:12] your god and Jonah tells them in verse 12 he says you need to pick me up and you need to hurl me

[00:29:18] into the sea if you do that the sea will be calm for you now Jonah had grown up his whole life

[00:29:26] thinking that if pagan unbelieving Gentile sailors had a chance to throw a Jewish prophet into the

[00:29:34] Mediterranean they would do it in a heartbeat so he was probably surprised when they began rowing

[00:29:40] to try to get back to shore they didn't want to have his blood on their hands but when it finally

[00:29:47] became obvious that they had no other choice these men started praying to god to Jonah's god

[00:29:54] and they asked for mercy and they threw Jonah overboard and I think that these men probably were

[00:30:00] converted in this moment because the sea ceased to rage and rather than forget god now that peace had

[00:30:07] come into their experience they offered a sacrifice and made vows to god even after the storm calmed

[00:30:16] their worshiping the Lord now the story was over for the sailors at that point but it was not over

[00:30:22] for Jonah god appointed this great fish it says in verse 17 to swallow up his prophet probably

[00:30:31] this was a large whale the Hebrew people as I said earlier were distant from the sea often terrified

[00:30:40] of the sea and they'd use the same word for large fish to describe a large fish or to describe

[00:30:46] a large whale and Jonah rather miraculously I think was in the belly of the fish for at least

[00:30:53] part of three days and three nights now the question that we should ask of this movement to wrap up

[00:31:00] today is why did Jonah tell the sailors to throw him into the sea why did Jonah tell them if you

[00:31:07] want the sea to calm you got to throw me into the ocean some people think that Jonah said this to

[00:31:14] them because he was still seething in anger over his assignment to Nineveh so he's resigning

[00:31:21] himself at this point to death if this is true then he's saying something like I don't want to go to

[00:31:28] Nineveh I'd rather die than have to come back to Israelite territory and tell the people of Israel

[00:31:34] that the prophet who has told them that their borders would expand just went and preached a

[00:31:40] life-saving message to the capital of Assyria I'd rather die than go through that experience so

[00:31:46] throw me overboard and this will all be over other people think that Jonah was on the exact opposite

[00:31:52] end of the spectrum emotionally that he'd had a major change of heart there on the boat

[00:32:00] but through the events of the storm and the kindness of the sailors that it brought him to a place

[00:32:06] of compassion if this is true then Jonah is saying something like you've been so kind to me I've

[00:32:13] had realizations about you that have broken the mold of what I thought Gentile sailors would be

[00:32:19] like I can clearly see that you are still made in the image of God and I want you all to live

[00:32:26] there's only one way for that to happen I have to die instead of you throw me overboard

[00:32:32] now the second view is appealing to us as Jesus people because it sounds so Jesus-y

[00:32:39] you know it's you've got the one who is laying down his life for everyone else but it does

[00:32:47] forget Jonah's attitude in the rest of the book it's not like he came out of the fish and was like

[00:32:53] yippie I can't wait to go to Nineveh and preach to them he was still angry when the Nineveh

[00:33:00] people believed and God showed his mercy to them I think the truth of Jonah's attitude was probably

[00:33:06] somewhere in the middle of those two extremes I mean this was a human moment this isn't a

[00:33:12] fable this isn't just some clean story this was a very human moment he's in the middle

[00:33:18] of this crazy storm linear tempered logical thought is ancient history at this point

[00:33:26] he's probably a mix of adrenaline and fear and regret and depression and anger along with maybe

[00:33:36] the recognition of what his actions had done to this group of sailors he probably looked at their

[00:33:42] anxious faces and realized wow they're humans too but years of nationalistic enthusiasm probably

[00:33:52] also colored or clouded his mind nevertheless he came to the right conclusion I have to go overboard

[00:33:58] I have to die instead of you I want to say this I don't know if Jonah's heart was truly loving

[00:34:05] at this point but I do know from the Bible that true love is substitutionary in nature

[00:34:12] Jonah sacrificed himself and he substituted himself or everybody else on that boat and because he

[00:34:18] did that he became a picture of Jesus the one who substituted himself for all of humanity

[00:34:26] on his cross even Jesus pointed this out they came to him and they said give us a sign show us

[00:34:32] a sign and he said no sign will be given to this generation except the sign of the prophet Jonah

[00:34:40] for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish so will the son of man be

[00:34:45] three days and three nights in the heart of the earth this is where I want to make my last point

[00:34:52] for the morning yeah God sends because it's his nature yeah God sends us to represent him but

[00:35:02] ultimately what I want to remind you of is that God sent himself like Jonah one died so that we all

[00:35:11] might live Jesus came to our storm tossed world and threw himself into the waters of God's wrath

[00:35:18] so that we might survive and though Jonah became like so many of the Old Testament figures a picture

[00:35:26] pointing forward to Jesus the differences between Jonah and Jesus are staggering Jonah was cast out

[00:35:34] of that boat for his own sins Jesus died on the cross for the sins of everyone else besides himself

[00:35:44] Jonah only came near to death when he was thrown overboard but Jesus passed under the true darkness

[00:35:53] of death for us Jonah was an unwilling participant in God's mission resistant to going being sent by God

[00:36:02] but Jesus eagerly came to earth in obedience to the Father and so in a sense reading Jonah chapter one

[00:36:12] we should say for Jesus we rejoice he's our better than Jonah Savior who spent three days

[00:36:22] and nights in death for us but I think our passage asks us to do more than just rejoice over Jesus

[00:36:33] it wants us to go to see ourselves as sent into a broken world where yes evil exists everywhere

[00:36:43] the sending God who sent himself wants to send us you know when Jonah ran from God it says in the

[00:36:51] opening verses of this chapter that he went first before he tried to go to Tarshish

[00:36:58] to a little coastal town in Israel called Japa that's where he looked for a boat to carry him

[00:37:06] in the opposite direction from God's will centuries later I don't know if you know this in the book

[00:37:13] of Acts it tells us that a small group of Christians were gathered together in that very same city the

[00:37:21] city of Japa they were gathered in a little house at the point of their meeting together the church

[00:37:28] had been in existence for ten years been ten years since Jesus ascended to the right hand of the

[00:37:34] father but even though ten years had gone by the church was still exclusively Jewish at that point

[00:37:41] as the group prepared lunch downstairs the apostle Peter it says was on the rooftop porch praying and in

[00:37:52] his time of prayer he saw a vision that came from God it repeated itself three times and the vision

[00:38:00] basically told him that he needed to leave Japa and travel north on the coast of Israel to a town called

[00:38:08] Cessaria where a Gentile Roman army officer and his whole household were ready to hear Peter

[00:38:17] preached to them God was telling Peter in Japa to preach to the non-Jewish nations about Jesus

[00:38:26] right there in Japa Peter had a decision do I run from God's mission do I pull a Jonah in the very

[00:38:35] city that Jonah pulled a Jonah or do I allow God to send me fortunately for most of us here today

[00:38:45] who are not Jewish Peter accepted God's invitation and the gospel began to go to the whole world

[00:38:54] Japa the city known for Jonah's rebellion against God's plan to reach the Ninevites became the

[00:39:04] launching pad for God's plan to reach the nations and we are the recipients as well as the conduits

[00:39:13] of that message called to preach it to our world we are called to go if we're believers in Jesus

[00:39:21] because our God is still ascending God