St. Simons Community Church

Is there anyone that you think is beyond God’s reach?  Perhaps you think their heart is too hard, or they are too far away from God.  And yet the Bible is full of stories about God changing the heart of men and women who were opposed to him.  The Ninevites were certainly that type of people.  They were cruel, wicked and rebellious.  And yet, there response to Jonah’s message is clear: “The Ninevites believed God.”  (Jonah 3:5)  One of the most wicked people in history turned to the Lord in faith.  They didn’t just believe Jonah.  They believed God.  They believed that Jonah’s words were from the Lord.

You think that Jonah being swallowed by a great fish and spit back on dry land is the miracle of the Bible.  The real miracle is that Nineveh turned to the living God.  In our day, this would be like hearing that Howard Stern is now a Christian talk show host talking about sexual purity. This would be like the hardest person you know turning their life to Jesus.

The Ninevites put on sackcloth and they fasted.  These were postures of repentance and humility.  It was a physical way of saying, “God we are sorry.  We have been going in the wrong direction and we need you.”  Sackcloth was a really itchy, uncomfortable material made out of goat’s hair. It must have been made of goat’s hair as a symbol to represent how “baaaaad” they had been.  Okay, that was a bad joke.  The horrible material was a picture though of how uncomfortable they were in their sin.  They couldn’t bear it any longer.

The king of Nineveh lead the way:  “When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes and covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust.”  He stepped off his place of royalty and removed his royal robes because he understood his absolute spiritual poverty.  He realized his royal robes could not cover up his true spiritual poverty. So he rose from his throne.  The throne represents the seat of the one who is in charge.  This was a highly symbolic move.  It was a way of saying, “I am no longer in charge.  I surrender to you.”  The King was surrendering his right to rule and acknowledging God’s right to rule instead.

The King called a complete fast – no eating or drinking.  Not only did the people fast, but the animals fasted as well.  Do you know how loud a heard of cattle would get if they had not been fed or given drink all day?  The King wanted his people to feel the hunger and pain of their condition before God.  He knew they were spiritually depraved, and he was starved for God’s grace and intervention.  He knew they needed to get in touch with their true spiritual poverty before God.

I get this king.  He was taking responsibility as a leader and aching for his own personal condition and that of his people.  There are times I feel it in my own heart.  I look at my own life and the lives of other Christians at times and see how far we can really be from God.  We go to church, sing the songs, and listen to the sermons, but do our lives really bear the fruit of  Christ.  I see that many Christians party like the world, compromise their views on sex and morality, live materialistic lives, and indulge in all kinds of inappropriate entertainment.  At times I become pained in my heart.  Are we really becoming true followers of Jesus?  Do we care about others?  Do we love Jesus more than ourselves?  Or are we way too comfortable in our sin?  Maybe it is time to get up off the throne and let God have his way.  And that’s the Word.

Imagine you had to walk into a very violent and rebellious group of people and call them to repentance.  What if God told you to go into an Al Queda terrorist cell group and call them to turn from their violence and evil and seek the mercy of the Living God?  I am all up for a great adventure, but I am not exactly sure I would sign up for that mission trip.  Would you?

Well, that is pretty much what God was asking Jonah to do by calling him to go to Nineveh. They were a violent people who were greatly feared.  I am sure if I were Jonah, I would have been thinking, “What can I preach to these guys and not lose my life in the process?”  How about “3 Keys to a better life?”  Or “Don’t be naughty, be nice” or something like that.  You know the old sermon routine – start off with a joke, give ‘em three points, and end with a poem and a prayer.  Wow!  Don’t you just love a good sermon?

Jonah didn’t preach a message like that.  He may have been nervous and fearful, but God gave him a message and he delivered it.  Jonah proclaimed, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned” (Jonah 3:4).  Jonah’s words were few, but they were very direct.  His message was even offensive.  He confronted the people of Nineveh and their disobedience head on: “Forty more days and you will be overturned.  The word overturned is a unique word in the Hebrew language of the Old Testament.  It can mean “overturned” as in destroyed, or “overturned” as in changed.  It has a double meaning.

The Ninevites would have understood his meaning.  Jonah was telling them that God would judge them and destroy them if they did not turn from their sin.  They were headed for judgment.  And yet, God in his grace offered a chance for them to turn.  There was an opportunity to change

Jonah was basically saying, “God is giving you people 40 more days. If you keep running from God and resisting his voice, you will be overturned and judged.  But if you decide to repent and turn, God will forgive you and overturn your lives with change.”

Forty more days!  Did you notice that God gave them a limited time offer? They were not promised forever.  God was giving them a limited time offer.  They had to make a decision to respond to God’s grace.

We don’t have forever either.  You don’t have the promise of tomorrow.  There is no promise you will make it to next week.  You are not guaranteed another year.  We often assume that we have plenty of more time.  So we put God off, and we put God off.  And all the while our time is ticking away.  We could run out of time before we ever turn our lives over to God.

It is not a very wise thing to keep putting God off.  Don’t assume that you have plenty of time.  God is a God of great mercy and grace.  He is a God of second chances, but one day your time will run out.  When your time is out, the only question that will matter at that point is “have you surrendered your life to Jesus Christ?”

Most of us are nowhere near as wicked as the Ninevites, and yet our sin is real nonetheless.  We need forgiveness, and God has provided it through his son Jesus.  We have a window of time to respond.  While we are living, God has given us a limited time offer to say yes to Him, and to His Son Jesus.  So what is it going to be?  And that’s the Word.

When Jonah needed a second chance, God gave it to him.  Jonah ran away from God’s call to go to Nineveh.  Eventually, after a detour in the belly of a great fish, the word of the Lord came to Jonah “a second time.”  God gave Jonah another chance to obey and get it right commanding him, “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you” (Jonah 3:2).

The word “Go” literally means “arise and go” or “get up and go.”  It implies an imperative need to quickly obey.  God is telling Jonah, “Don’t delay.  Get up and do it now.  Don’t wait another minute.”

Have you ever heard a command from God that you intended to obey, but you waited?  Perhaps you delayed a little bit and reasoned you would get around to it later.  So you waited and waited and waited.  In the end you never obeyed God.  If Jonah had waited too long, he might have eventually backed out again.  He might have let the urgency to obey slowly fade away.

How many times have you let this happen in your life?  God spoke to you clearly about an issue and you didn’t follow through.  You were going to obey, but you waited.  Perhaps God spoke to you in church on Sunday morning, or listening to Christian radio, talking to a friend, or reading your Bible.  Wherever it was, God convicted you and laid something on your heart.  You were committed to following through and obeying God.  You told yourself that you were going to end an unhealthy, ungodly relationship.  You told yourself and God that you were going to share your faith with a friend.  Maybe you promised God that you going to begin to tithe, or give some money to meet a need.  Maybe you told yourself you were finally going to forgive someone who had hurt you, or find some help to overcome your addiction.

There are numerous things that God might have laid on our heart.  You knew it was him.  Your heart was beating.  Your mind was clear.  You knew what you need to do.  You just just needed to “get up and go,” but instead you waited.  You stared making excuses, and putting it off.  Maybe you rationalized that it wasn’t that big of a deal.  And so you never followed through.  You know what God calls that -  disobedience.

Perhaps, God is calling you to “Get up and go” today.  Go and obey. Do it.  Walk in obedience to God.  Don’t put it off anymore.  If it is within your power and ability, don’t the let the sun go down another day without obeying the Lord.

I remember several years ago when I was in seminary, I felt I had been dishonest on an assignment I had turned in for one of my classes.  It wasn’t a real big thing, but it was a compromise in my integrity.  I made a bunch of excuses in my head, but I knew when I turned it in that I had not fully been honest.  I went home for Christmas break, but guess what I couldn’t quit thinking about it?  It was really hard for me to fully enjoy my self. I kept trying to blow it off, but I couldn’t.  I knew what I had to do.  When I got back to campus, I had to “get up and go” to my professor and make it right. He was very gracious and understanding.  Even though in his mind, my indiscretion was fairly minute, he was glad I came to clear my conscience.  I left his office that day feeling as though a load of bricks was off of my shoulder.  I was free.  I was right with God.

Is it time for you to get up and go?  God gives second chances, but we must respond in obedience.  So just do it.  Now.  Don’t wait any more.  Get up and go obey.  And that’s the word.

Who you gonna call?  If you were alive in the 80’s, you probably think of one response to that question.  Who you gonna call?  Ghostbusters!  That may be a fun response to the question, but I am not sure the Ghostbusters can offer a lot of help to a man or woman in real need.  Over the last few weeks, we have looked at the story of Jonah.  Jonah was a man on the run from God, boarding a ship headed in the wrong direction.  During a great storm, Jonah realized that God was chasing him.  In his desperation, he had the sailors throw him overboard into the depths of the ocean.  Jonah literally felt he was in hell, lost at the bottom of the ocean.  He must have cried out to God all the way down as he was sinking before the Lord sent a great fish to swallow him.

The Bible records: “From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God.  He said, ‘In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me.  From the depths of the grave I called for help and you listened to my cry’” (Jonah 2:1,2).  Who you gonna call?  According to Jonah, there is only one person to call upon – the Lord.  One of the themes of the book of Jonah is that God answers the cries of our distress, and he is truly faithful to those who call upon Him.  This is a focal point of the book of Jonah.  The captain urged Jonah to “get up and call on your God” (Jonah 1:6).  The sailors “cried (called) to the Lord” (Jonah 1:14).  Later on in Nineveh, the king called the people to “urgently call upon God” (Jonah 3:8).

So, who you gonna call?  This word for call means to “call out, cry out, or cry for help.”  It is not a word used to talk about casual conversation.  It is not a nice little bed time prayer, and it is not the kind of prayer where you just give your shopping list to God.  This kind of prayer is a cry out to God because one sees how deeply he or she needs God’s help and intervention in his or her life.

When the storm hit the ship, the sailors were afraid and they each “cried out to his own god” (Jonah 1:5).  That was the only thing they knew to do.  They cried out to their idols and false gods, who could offer no help at all.  That was all they knew to do though.  They looked to idols for some sense of hope, some sense of comfort.  We too look to our idols in times of trouble.  The idols we serve however are not false gods per say.   Our idols are the things we run to for comfort other than God when we are fearful.  Some run to alcohol to comfort them, some to food, some to the shops.  Others seek to control and manipulate.

After their gods provided no relief, the sailors threw the cargo overboard and tried to row back to shore.  They could not overcome the sea, however, because it was so wild.  They did their best, but their best wasn’t enough.  What do you do when your best is not enough?  What do you do when you have lost hope?  What do you do when you feel like you are dying on the inside?  You call out.  You cry out to the Lord.  The sailors called out to the Lord.  In his distress, Jonah called to the Lord – and the Lord answered him.

Are you in need?  Are you in over your head?  Call upon the Lord.  Cry out to the Lord, and he will answer you.  And that’s the Word.

You can run, but you can’t hide. That might be one of the themes of the book of Jonah. Jonah tried to run away from God, but God wouldn’t let him go. The Lord had a mission for Jonah to go Nineveh and preach. Jonah, however, boarded a ship going in the opposite direction.

The scripture says, “Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up” (Jonah 1:4). It was a divine storm that God sent to get Jonah’s attention. After Jonah asked the sailors to throw him overboard into the sea (because he knew he was the problem), he felt he had hit them bottom when “…the Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah” (Jonah 1:17).

Can you see God’s activity? He was in hot pursuit of Jonah. The Lord was reaching out to Jonah wanting to get his attention. Do you know that God will send a storm into your life if he needs to get your attention? Do you know that the Lord will let you hit the bottom if that is what it takes to get your attention? Jonah literally found himself at the bottom of the ocean. Jonah had to hit the bottom of the ocean, before he would look up again and call on the name of His God. Jonah was running, but God was chasing after him.

Perhaps Jonah thought God was just after him to punish him. When Jonah realized that he was the one who put all of the sailors on board the ship in danger, he asked them to throw him overboard. He had given up hope and thought he deserved only death and judgment. The main reason that Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh was that he did not feel they deserved an opportunity to discover God’s mercy and forgiveness. Now, Jonah himself feels that he doesn’t deserve a second chance either. He believed that God could never forgive him for running away. Jonah didn’t think grace was a possibility.

Maybe some of you have felt that way. Or maybe you feel that way now. Maybe you have run so far and so hard for so long that you feel you are drowning in a sea of guilt and regret.

God didn’t send the storm so that Jonah would sink. God didn’t allow Jonah to hit bottom so he could drown. God sent the storm so Jonah would turn around. God was trying to get Jonah’s attention.

The writer of Hebrews wrote, “… the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son” (Hebrews 12:6) and “God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness” (Hebrews 12:10).

These verses tell us that God allows some storms into our lives as an act of love. God must allow some discipline to get our attention. That is what God was doing with Jonah. And there are most likely times in our lives where God has had to do the same as well. I am not saying that every “storm” and trying circumstance is always God’s discipline, but some are. When things are out of control, sometimes the best thing to do is to check your heart and attitude. Ask the Lord, “Is this discipline? Are you seeking to get my attention?”

If so, know that it is because God absolutely loves you. He is not chasing you to “get you” – at least not to harm you. He chases you to get your attention, so ultimately he can get your heart. So you can run from God, but you can’t hide. And that’s the Word.

God said, “Go.” Jonah said, “No.” That’s what we said last week. The word of the Lord came to Jonah and told him, “Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it” (Jonah 1:1,2). Instead of going to Nineveh, Jonah ran away from the Lord and went in the opposite direction towards Tarshish. Jonah was a man on the run. Have you ever run from God? Are you running from God now? I must warn you. There are consequences for disobedience to God. God is loving and gracious, but when we run from Him in the opposite direction, it will not go well for us in the end. Let’s look at what happened with Jonah.

Jonah went down to Joppa and found a ship to board for Tarshish. The text says, “After paying the fare, he went aboard…” Jonah paid a price to board the ship, and he paid the price for his disobedience to God. There is always a price for our sin. The enemy doesn’t advertise that part when he tempts you to take one more drink, or to take that first step towards an affair, or to buy that luxury item you really can’t afford. No, his sales pitch never shares the fall out from disobedience to God and His Word. He never shows you how hard the recovery process can be for an addict. He never shows you what it looks like to find yourself separated from your children because of an affair. He never shows you what bankruptcy looks like.

Disobedience has a price. God certainly wants your best. Scripture assures us of that. The Lord is out to save you, not to get you. He is a loving father, but there are consequences when we do life our own way instead of his way. In the first chapter, we see God call Jonah to “Get up and go.” Later on, we see the captain of the ship urge Jonah to “Get up and call on your God” (v. 6). God is trying to call Jonah up. Jonah doesn’t go up though. He continually heads down.

Throughout the first chapter of Jonah, we keep seeing Jonah headed down. It is a visible picture of the effect disobedience has on our lives. First we see Jonah go down to Joppa (v. 3). Then he went down into the ship (v. 3). The Jonah went below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep (1:5). Eventually, the crew of the ship took Jonah and threw him down into water (1:15). Finally, Jonah cried out to God from the depths of the grave (Jonah 2:2).

God called Jonah east to Nineveh, but Jonah went west. God called Jonah up, and yet Jonah kept heading down. He eventually got so low that he found himself hopeless at the bottom of the ocean. He felt as if he were in the depths of the grave. The idea is that he felt completely separated from God, and he was sinking in his sin. That is what rebellion to God will do for you.

Jonah’s disobedience not only affected him, but also everyone else on the ship. God sent a storm that threatened the ship because of Jonah’s disobedience. The storm threatened everyone on the ship. They were all threatened because of Jonah’s sin. You never sin in isolation. Don’t kid yourself. You private rebellion will almost always end up affecting those you love the most. Just ask the man who is trapped in pornography and lost the trust of his wife. Just ask the husband who has discovered his wife’s unfaithfulness. Just ask the family who is dealing with an addictive member. Life has too many lessons of how someone’s sin not only took that person to the bottom, but also drug down the ones he loved the most. So don’t run from God. Run to Him. And that’s the Word.