1/22/23 Jonah 3:1-10 “Awesome God!”

20 Jan 1/22/23 Jonah 3:1-10 “Awesome God!”

1/22/23   Jonah 3:1-10           “Awesome God!”

I used to be a serious sports fan.  I would go places to watch baseball, football and basketball.  I even watched our kids when they were in track.  I still like to go to some games in the area.  I enjoy watching our local teams.  But I used to like all the teams from local to college to professional.  Then, several years ago, one of my best friends was dying.  He was one of the most avid sports fans I have ever known.  He might have even been called a ‘sports junky.’  Anyway, the last time I got to see him was just after the NCAA basketball tournament.  I knew that he had been watching it so we talked about it a bit.  Then he said to me, “You know, John, none of that stuff is important.  These tournaments mean nothing.”  We talked some more and it was then that I found his deep love for the Lord.  He died a couple of months later and I was assured that he was in the right place.  Gary was a lucky man in some ways.  He had chased and pursued sports his whole life only to find the emptiness of chasing a false dream.  I praise the Lord that he found the real deal before he died.  Today, we are going to look at part of the story of Jonah.  In Jonah we have a man who was running away from God.  Let’s see if we can be assured that following God is always the best way to do things.

I would like to start out today by talking about failures.  We have all failed.  Some of us have failed to the point of giving up on things.  Michael Jordan once said, “I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost more than 300 games. Twenty-six times I have been trusted to take the game-winning shot…and missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”  Failing at something is not a bad thing.  We can learn from failure.  So, teach your children how to fail.  Abraham learned to trust God after he didn’t listen to God and had a son with Hagar.  David, the greatest king ever to have lived, failed God when he committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered her husband.  And after his repentance he was said to have a heart like God’s.  We all know how Peter failed.  The Apostle Paul was actually in the business of persecuting and killing Christians.  After his repentance we became the most prolific evangelist this world has ever known.  All these people and more failed but they didn’t end up failures.

This is exactly what is going on in our reading on Jonah.  I would just like to refresh your memory of the story a little before we get to our passage.  If you remember Jonah was a prophet who God told to go to Nineveh and preach against the people there because of all the bad things they were doing.  Well, Jonah didn’t like Nineveh so he decided to run away in the opposite direction.  I don’t know if anyone can imagine this or not but Jonah disobeyed God.  I doubt that anyone here has ever done this, right?  Anyway, he gets on this boat going the opposite direction and God sent a great storm upon this boat.

All the guys on the boat were from different religions and they all prayed to their god for the storm to stop but nothing happened.  Imagine that.  You pray to false gods and nothing happens.  Go figure!  Finally, they decided to throw Jonah overboard as they figured it was all his fault.  So, over the side he went and the storm stopped.  I don’t know if you have ever noticed this before but when you decide to sin against God, all the people around you are affected.

Then God sent a great fish to swallow Jonah and he survived in the belly of a fish for three days.  Jonah prayed and God had the fish vomit him up on dry land.  Again, we have how well prayer works, honest prayer.  Now I don’t know about you folks, but if something like this happened to me, it sure would get my attention.

God now had Jonah’s full attention.  I think that there are three distinct parts of today’s passage.  We will not be talking about it today but the 4^th chapter is also very important and you should read it on your own just to keep the story fresh.

The first thing I would like us to notice here is how God is giving Jonah a second chance to go to Nineveh and do what he is supposed to do.  One of the reasons that Jonah is such an important book in the Bible is that it tells us so much in so little space.  Prior to this we pretty much found out that there are consequences if we don’t follow God.  These consequences are not only for the person not following but for everyone around them also.  Now we learn that we also have a God of second chances.

I praise the Lord every time I think about this.  I know that I’m probably the only person here who has ever needed a second chance.  My history is so bad that I’ve needed second, third, fourth, etc., etc., chances because I’ve been so disobedient.  You all know what I mean.  One would think that after one starts to follow God that this wouldn’t happen anymore but this is wrong.  Jonah was a prophet, a man of God and he stumbled because he disliked Nineveh so much.  Personally, I think we were far more likely not to follow God after we have come to know Jesus than before we knew Him.  The reason for this is that before we know Jesus, just about everything we do is against God so we really can’t get much worse.  It is after coming to God that Satan gets super busy trying to get us to sin in every way possible.  But God has outflanked old Satan again because He is a God of second chances.

This really has some great implications for us.  Most of us can see the obvious reason this is so great.  However, there are many people who can’t see this in their own lives.  There are many who feel that the sins they have committed are too great for God to forgive.  There are those who think they are so bad that they don’t deserve a second chance.  And if you are thinking this way and that this is for others but not for you, you are mistaken.  This is stinkin thinkin!

You have to understand that God doesn’t have rules that make sense to us.  It really doesn’t matter what sins you have committed, and we have all committed them, as long as you take them to Jesus and confess.  Jesus wants you to confess and repent.  It doesn’t matter how bad you have sinned; Jesus wants you back.  Repent and return to Jesus.

I read an interesting definition of repentance a while back.  Suppose you are driving with your spouse or someone else in your car.  They tell you that you have to take the next right so you can get where you are going.  When you get to the intersection, you take a left instead of a right.  Now you are going in the total opposite direction, kind of like Jonah when he got on the boat.  Anyway, you tell the person who is with you that you are sorry you took the wrong turn.  You can be as sorry as you want for as long as you want but if you keep going the wrong way you will never get to where you are going.  To get there you have to actually turn around and go the right way.  Repenting is this turning around.  To get back to God we have repent or turn around and come back.  Being sorry isn’t repentance.

The second thing I want us to notice here is that the whole city of Nineveh repents.  They not only repent, they repent massively.  The King declared that everyone was to get on their knees and pray.  He declared that even the beasts and the flocks wouldn’t eat until they gave up all their evil ways.  Wow!  They even made the animals repent.

These were a people who had strayed from God and according to the text, they had become very evil.  However, they weren’t so evil that they didn’t recognize God when He came to them.  These people heard Jonah when he proclaimed that they only had 40 days left before they would be eliminated, destroyed.  They listened and then they made a response.  They had forgotten God and now they remembered.  It seems that in the centuries before Jesus, the Jews were always on a roller coaster ride.  They were either being very evil or they were repenting and getting back with God.  It was a cycle and here we go again.

I always like to think that God set us up in this country and He made this country for us.  We have been blessed in many, many ways.  Are we human?  Do we make mistakes?  Of course, we do.  But God has been blessing us from the beginning when the pilgrims landed here and they found a Native America who spoke English.

We have been blessed in this country by our size and our resources.  Isn’t it a little strange that a state like North Dakota suddenly has more oil than just about any place else on earth?  God blesses.  Isn’t it a little odd that this is one of the few places in the country where our children can praise God on the athletic field and the local newspaper celebrates this?  God blesses.  This is a land of plenty in just about all areas.  God blesses.

However, in the last 70 years we as a country have decided to fall away from God.  We have decided in our infinite human wisdom or stupidity that we are far better and smarter than God.  We have banned Him from just about every place except in church on Sunday morning and they would like to restrict this also.  I don’t even have to tell you of the sin and debauchery as I will only tell you to look at the 56 different sexes.

The question becomes, “How long will God put up with this?”  I think that He has already withdrawn from many parts of the country.  I firmly believe that God punishes us by removing Himself from our lives.  Then we punish ourselves.  Anyway, I think that we are a modern-day Nineveh.

I also think that it is not too late because with Jesus we can always come back.  I think that as a country if we come to repentance just like they did in Nineveh, we will be saved and the blessings will return.  When I go to things like the school in Kansas City, I can almost feel the swell as we are beginning to turn to a revival.  I feel the same wonderful feelings when I’m working with the Global Methodist Church.  I think that the people of this country or at least this area are so sick and tired of all the garbage that is happening around us that they have a real hunger for Jesus.  You have a real hunger for Jesus.  You might not always know what this hunger is but I think that you long for Jesus.  This is why I keep telling you to invite people.  Invite, invite, invite.  Let’s not worry about the size of the church or this broadcast.  Let’s worry about the people as we go about as Jonah did, proclaiming our Lord Jesus Christ as our King.

So, we have this great God of ours who is a God of second chances and a God for all the people.  The last thing I would like to point out in this short reading is that we have a God of forgiveness.  God forgave Jonah, his prophet, for running away from Nineveh.  Then God forgave the people of Nineveh who had been out of control with sin.  God forgave them all when they decided to come back to Him.

I don’t know how many times I have run across people who tell me that they are too bad to come to God, that God would never accept them.  Some of these people are your neighbors.  Sometimes this is just an excuse to keep on sinning and sometimes people sincerely believe this.  As I said earlier whatever the reason, it is very false.  Jesus will forgive and forget whatever sins you have.  I don’t care how bad you think you are; Jesus will take you for his own.

This is the message that we need to get out to everyone.  God forgives.  God forgives.  I think that even in the worst areas of this country the people still have a vague memory of God.  We need to remind them just how good God is all the time.  I would like you not to be practical for a minute.  I would like you to forget that you have a small church or a large church or this small broadcast.  I would like you to forget that we don’t reach many people.  Forget all the practical things and go out and invite.  If you have to have more services, then God will provide.  I have a dream that someday I will preach all day on Sunday.  Let’s try to make this come true and then stand back and be in absolute awe as God provides a way for you to do this.

The reason I can say all of this with confidence is that we not only have a God who loves us very much but He is also the same today as He was yesterday as He as 2000 years ago, as He was 4000 years ago.  And He will be the same tomorrow on into the future.

Mike Leiter tells the story of two little boys who were best friends and got into a terrible fight.  The next morning Johnny put on his cap and headed back to Bobby’s house.  Someone from his family remarked, “What!  Are you going to play with him again?  I thought you had a big fight with him last night and were never going to play with him again.  You have a very strange memory.”  Johnny kind of hung his head a little and looked a little sheepish as he said, “Oh, Bobby and me is good forgetters!”

Well, Jesus is even a better forgetter.  Once you confess to him, He will forget whatever sin you have, forever.  There is no one who you know who is so bad that Jesus will not forgive them.  Take this message from this very unusual story of Jonah and spread it to your family, friends and neighbors.  Remember how much Jesus loves you and tell others that our God is an awesome God.  (Sing ‘Our God’) Our God is an awesome God, He reigns from heaven above, With wisdom power and love, Our God is an awesome God.  Praise the Lord!  And thank you, Jesus, for first loving us. Let’s pray.