- Introduction
A. We’ll be spending eight weeks on Jonah, between now and the end of May.
B. Jonah 1:1–2 Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.”
C. Tell the story of Jonah (read it this week – it’s only 48 verses)
1. God commands Jonah to go to Nineveh to warn them that His judgment is coming.
2. Jonah hops on a boat and flees toward Tarshish.
3. God sends a great storm, threatening the ship, When the crew find out that the storm is a result of Jonah’s disobedience, they finally throw Jonah overboard at his request.
4. God rescues Jonah from his distress in the water by sending a great fish to swallow him and then, after Jonah’s praises God from the belly of the fish for his rescue, he’s vomited onto dry ground.
5. God then reaffirms His command to go to Nineveh, and this time Jonah obeys.
6. He warns them, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”
7. Then all the people, including the leaders, repent before God, and God announces that as a result, He will withhold His judgment from them.
8. This deeply displeases and angers Jonah. “This is why I didn’t want to come in the first place!”
9. God then teaches Jonah with a vine about the importance of compassion.
II. Jonah’s audacious God
A. What does audacious mean? There is no perfect synonym, bold, courageous and daring are probably closest. But I do think we have expressions which reflect the meaning of audacious, expressions like “she’s got a lot of nerve” and “he’s got guts.”
B. But we can’t understand how audacious God’s command was till we understand Jonah’s desire not to proclaim the word of the Lord to the Assyrians.
1. It wasn’t where it was. It wasn’t who the Assyrians were. It was what he was commanded to do and what that meant.
2. You see, not only were the Assyrians Gentiles, but they were a brutal people who used cruelty to intimidate their foes. And now Jonah was being called to warn them of God’s judgment.
3. Jonah knew that God warning someone of judgment was itself an act of mercy, and that it probably meant that God was going to go further and forgive their sin if they repented.
4. So preaching this message to the Assyrians in Nineveh was the last thing in the world Jonah wanted to do. In fact, it’s pretty clear from the story that Jonah would have rather died than proclaimed God’s message in Nineveh. And God knew it. But He commanded it nonetheless.
5. God didn’t need Jonah to deliver this message. He could have used someone else.
6. He knew Jonah really, really, really didn’t want to do it. He knew that Jonah wouldn’t do it, at least at first.
7. But He audaciously commanded it anyway, and thus for Jonah it was an outrageous assignment.
III. This is not the only time in the Bible where God acted in an audacious manner.
A. I think it was audacious to allow Job to lose his children and his estate and suffer as he did.
B. I think it was audacious for God to command Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac.
C. I think it was audacious for God to burn up Aaron’s sons, Nadab & Abihu, with fire in the temple.
D. I think it was audacious to raise up Babylon to destroy Jerusalem and its temple.
E. I think Jesus said some very audacious things:
a. “Get behind me, Satan.” – Matthew 16:23
b. “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” – Matthew 15:26
IV. Our audacious God
A. In John 21:18, after the resurrection, Jesus said to His disciples, “You will be led where you don’t want to go.” Think about that. Sometimes God will lead His people to a place they don’t want to go.
B. This was certainly true in Jonah’s case, wasn’t it? God is not a respecter of comfort zones.
C. We can’t talk about specifics, but if we all told each other the audacious things God has done in our lives, all the times God has led us places we didn’t want to go, I think it’s safe to say that we would all be shocked: unspeakable things, unthinkable things.
D. It’s happened to me. It’s happened to many of you.
E. We’ve been led to funerals we didn’t want to go to, we’ve been led to divorce courts we didn’t want to go to, we’ve been led to heartbreak & disappointment & humiliation & danger & awkwardness & poverty & risk. Terrible things have happened; painful marriages have been experienced.
F. This is not the way it is everyday, of course. But it’s still happened plenty of times.
G. It’s happened to us as a church. Things have happened which no one wanted to happen. And it’s not just us. It’s true for other churches as well.
H. And even if you have had no great tragedy in your life to this point, the fact is that in His word God has asked you to believe things and hold views which are such a scandal to this world that just believing them makes you detestable in their eyes.
V. So, is God sadistic? Does He enjoy watching people suffer? Why does He make everything so hard?
A. I mean, God knew how hard this was going to be for Jonah. In fact, it’s pretty clear that he commanded him to do this because it was going to be so hard for him. Why would He act like this?
B. Think about an employer who needs to send someone on an assignment. Doesn’t he/she try to choose the person who is best suited and has the best attitude? Why would God choose Jonah?
C. Isaiah 28:21 “Strange is his deed! and...alien is his work!”
D. When we deal with the one true God, that’s who we’re dealing with. He’s an audacious God.
E. He’s not safe. But, He’s good. And He does what He does because of love & wisdom – even afflicting His people.
F. Psalm 119:75 “I know, O LORD, ...that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.”
G. You know, the Bible tells us clearly that God doesn’t enjoy afflicting people.
1. Ezekiel 18:32 “I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord GOD.”
2. Lamentations 3:33 “He does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men.”
a. He does afflict, but He doesn’t “afflict from His heart.”
b. He doesn’t afflict because He wants to see people suffer.
3. He goes right after our idols, right after the things we are most attached to. He enjoys separating us from our idols, but He doesn’t enjoy our pain.
4. God didn’t enjoy commanding Abraham to sacrifice his son, but He did enjoy the good fruit it produced in Abraham’s life.
5. It’s hard to watch our children suffer, it’s hard to take them to the doctor to get their shots. But we do so not because we want to see them suffer. We do so because we love them.
H. God knows what He’s doing: in Jonah’s life and in our lives — even though part of our affliction is that we don’t understand why things happen the way they do.
I. Romans 11:33 “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!”
VI. You see, suffering is an important tool God uses in our lives.
A. One of the sweetest things you can ever hear is a testimony of those who have gone through dark, agonizing times but have come to see the enormous benefit God brought through it.
B. You know, people who object to the idea that a good God can allow such terrible things to happen on earth are blind to two things:
1. This life is just the start, just the preparation; there is an eternity which follows.
2. Sin is such a big problem that it requires big tools to address it.
a. Rakes, hoes, shovels, hand saws
b. Cranes, back hoes, bulldozers, dump trucks, excavators
3. And sometimes we’re the same way. We feel like God is acting unloving when He doesn’t give us what we think we need. But the problem is, we just don’t realize how sick with sin we are. We underestimate our disease. And therefore we don’t realize what strong medicine is required to address it. So we don’t want the drastic treatment or the potent medicine. And we kick against it.
C. There are many stories in the Bible which show the benefits of terrible suffering.
1. Joseph: rejection, humiliation, prison, and then not only is he saved, but he saves Israel.
2. Israel in slavery in Egypt for 100s of years, but God used it to prepare them to be His holy nation.
3. Moses makes matters worse for the Israelites, then delivers them from slavery.
4. God leads the Israelites to the edge of the sea, and they are pinned between the sea & the Egyptian army, and then He allows them to tarry there in that dangerous predicament for a time, before He finally parts the water and delivers His people through the sea.
5. The psalms are filled with example of this. And the psalms also teach us how to handle it.
a. Psalm 77:2 In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord; in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying; 7 “Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favorable? 8 Has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time? 9 Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?”
b. 10 Then I said, “I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High.” 11 I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your wonders of old. 12 I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds. 14 You are the God who works wonders; you have made known your might among the peoples. 15 You with your arm redeemed your people, 16 When the waters saw you, O God, they were afraid; indeed, the deep trembled. 17 The clouds poured out water; the skies gave forth thunder; your arrows flashed on every side. 18 The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind; your lightnings lighted up the world; the earth trembled and shook. 19 Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters; yet your footprints were unseen.
(1) The unseen footprints of God: We didn’t realize that You had been there all the time!
6. The death of Lazarus in John 11
a. John 11:5–6 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
b. How audacious to wait two days!
7. But the ultimate example of this is the cross.
a. Things never looked so dark. The followers of Jesus experiencing the loss of their Master had definitely been led to a place they did not want to go.
b. But as a result, for all eternity we will be praising our Savior that He did what He did, for the benefits of it are unmeasurable.
VII. Conclusion
A. And this is the greatest place for us to go when you feel like we’re being crucified on the cross of life’s afflictions, or when we’re led to places we don’t want to go. Go to history. Go back to the first century AD, to the time when God so loved the world that He gave His Son to atone for human sin.
1. He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? – Romans 8:32-39
a. “tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword”
b. He knows these things happen to God’s children! That’s why he goes on to say...
2. 36 As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
a. That’s what the Bible says our lives are going to be like! We are being killed all day long!
b. And Paul also knows that things like tribulations, distresses, persecutions, poverty, danger, and loss make us feel defeated, and rejected by God. So, he goes on to say,
3. 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
B. God had a story to tell with Jonah’s life, and it was an important story.
1. God also has a story to tell with our lives. We don’t know what the story is ahead of time, but if we’re in Christ, we know that in the end it’s a beautiful story, a redemptive story, a glorious story.
2. You see, sometimes in life it will seem like your life is summed up by hardships, disappointments, dangers, heartbreaks, losses and agony.
3. And that’s when we need to go back to what happened 2000 years ago, when God turned hardship, disappointment, danger, heartbreak, loss and agony into glory and victory and elation and relief and wonder and awe.
4. And we need to say to ourselves, “I don’t understand everything that’s going on, but I know the Author of this story, I know it’s not happening by accident, and I know that someday I’ll see the purpose for everything. Right now His footprints may be invisible to me, but one day I will I’ll see that God was working good for me even in all the bad.