Becoming a World Class Christian
-The Story of Jonah-
Introduction
May 13-15 I attended a church conference with the theme: “The Church of Irresistible Influence.” Superintend Forest Bush and Jerry and Gale Mottwieler from Ripon also attended. Pastor Robert Lewis served as host pastor of the Fellowship bible Church in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Pastor Robert Lewis told the story about Prince Edward Island off Canada’s eastern coast. Residents of the Island enjoyed the calm and peace of the Island distanced form the chaos of the real world by nine miles of ocean. There were no bridges to the Island so to get there you had to take a boat or swim.
In 1997 following a bitter and divisive referendum the Confederation Bridge was build connecting Prince Edward Island to the mainland of Canada. The bridge was constructed on land and transported by ship and built at the cost of 1 billion dollars.
A fictional character named, Anne of Green Gables – Red-haired, pigtailed, freckled and innocent was the defining symbol of the island. When the bridge was completed people traveled from miles around to see the place Anne of Green Gables lived. Entrepreneurs took advantage of the tourism and nearly true to life fictional character and promoted Anne dolls, T-shirts, potato chips and golf courses, restaurants, a wax museum and other items using Anne’s name.
Some of the Island residents became angry at the intrusions of people from the outside while others welcomed the easy access to the mainland.
Robert Lewis equated the church to an Island. Too often we join the church and isolate ourselves from the rest of the community. Our task is to build bridges of love and compassion to our community.
The story of Jonah is about God’s love to build a bridge of love and mercy to people in the city of Nineveh. God called the prophet Jonah to go and preach to the people in Nineveh a city 500 miles away from his homeland.
God was calling Jonah to become a world class Christian. God calls each of us to become World Class Christians. A World Class Christian is a Christian with a world perspective. A world class Christian has a lifestyle that glorifies God and is living according to God’s mission to reach a lost and dying world.
The story of Jonah describes three characteristics of God. First, God’s Love.
I. God’s Love.
God looked at the city of Nineveh, a city in rebellion against their Creator. The people in Nineveh were living in spiritual darkness. Nineveh was the capitol of Assyria. Assyrians were guilty of idolatry and cruel violence. Their god was Dagon, the fish-god. The people of Assyria were the arch enemy of Israel. Nineveh was located in modern day Iraq, just down the Tigris River from modern-day Baghdad. Can you image telling a Jewish Rabbi to go to Baghdad and walk the streets preaching to the Muslims living there?
God made it clear to Jonah that he loves all people of all nationalities. Jonah believed that His God was a God of Israel and not a God for the enemies of Israel. To Jonah, God created the Jews and all other people just evolved.
We need to remember that God loves people that we believe are our enemies. God loves all non-Christians and wants them to repent. God loves every non-Christian in the Bay area…-- - --People of every language and nationality. God did not send Jesus to condemn the world but that all might be saved.
Jesus looks on the Bay area the same way he looked on people in villages and towns he preached good news to: “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” Matthew 9:35-36
When Jesus looks at people in our city he sees lonely people, empty people, people living in fear, and people searching for answers to life questions: “Who am I and Why am I here?” People turn to temporary solutions: drugs, alcohol, sex and anything to fill up the void in their lives. To take away the fear of an eternity without God, people give God a contemporary makeover. They make God into a comfortable pal, a user friendly God who makes allowances for their sin, a nonjudgmental God who sees their good and overlooks their bad.
God’s word is clear – God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, Jesus to die in your place. That whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)
God’s love was expressed in the ultimate sacrifice. Jesus died on a cross. To follow Jesus demands a sacrifice. Say ”no” to sin and selfishness and all rebellion and saying “Yes” to following Jesus and doing His Will.
Anyone can say, I’ve been born again. I’m a Christian. The true test of being an authentic Christian is found in God’s Word.
1. Do you confess Jesus Christ as Lord of your Life? Have you surrendered control of your life to Jesus? 1 John 4:15, “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” An authentic Christian is one walking in the Light of God’s Word. If you call yourself a Christian and break one of the commandments and feel no guilt or do not become miserable then you have not been born again of God. An authentic Christian lives to please Jesus and has great sorrow when he/she slips. Confession and repentance are made immediately in order to keep an open channel with the Lord.
2. Do you enjoy fellowship with other believers? 1 John 1:7 “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” Fellow believers need one another to keep on the grow for the Lord.
3. Do you obey Christ’s commands? 1 John 5:3, “This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith.”
4. Do you love and obey God’s Word? 1 John 2:5, “Whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.”
Because God loved the Assyrians, He called Jonah to go to Nineveh to declare the way of salvation. Their false God, Dagon, could not give them forgiveness of sins and salvation. Jesus made it very clear that He alone can forgive sins and provide forgiveness of sins and salvation.
The important questions is: “Am I an authentic Christian or am I a Christian in name only.”
II. The Greatness of God
The story of Jonah teaches the Love of God. It also teaches the Greatness of God.
Jonah was a reluctant missionary. Jonah 1:1-3 – God called Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach against the wickedness of the city, but Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish, the country of Spain.
What Jonah did would be like God calling a missionary to go to Mexico and the missionary headed for Canada instead. Jonah headed for Spain as a stowaway on a ship running from God and from his calling.
God got Jonah’s attention in a Perfect Storm. God is in control of the universe. God brought on the storm. God is Almighty. God is great. God created a big fish – a special fish to eat a rebellious bad man. When a man eats a bad tainted fish he may get botulism. I wonder what you call it when a fish eats a bad tainted man? Can you imagine the fish story Jonah had to tell his grandchildren? You see I had this great adventure in a God prepared fish submarine that swallowed me. I sailed the ocean for three days in the belly of a whale like fish.
God is in control of the universe, storms, sea, animals and fish. The great fish was at the command of its creator. Jesus himself gave validity to the story of Jonah referring to Jonah and the fish as a fact of history. “Just as Jonah was in the belly of a huge fish, so shall the Son of Man will be three days ands three nights in the heart of the earth.” Matthew 12:40
Jonah was not the first person to run from God. Psalm 139:7-8: “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I fell from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.”
# Many of us have been reluctant disciples of Jesus. For over a year I struggled with God’s call to full time ministry. God’s call came my 2nd year at central College during the summer harvesting wheat. “The fields are ripe unto harvest, but the laborers are few. Will you become a labor for me in my harvest?”
At the beginning of my junior year God spoke to me in jail. Surrender to me and I’ll take care of the future.
The story of Jonah affirms the Love of God, the Greatness of God and third, the Graciousness of God.
III. God is Gracious
God was first of all gracious to Jonah. God didn’t give up on Jonah – the rebellious prophet. God followed him when he was hiding and snoring in the bottom of the ship. God was with Jonah in the dark, scary, smelly, rough ride in the belly of the great fish.
Johan chapter 1, Jonah runs from God, chapter 2, Jonah prays to God, Jonah 3, Jonah obeyed God. Jonah 3:1, “Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.” God was gracious to Jonah. He gave Jonah a second chance. Our God is a God of second and third and fourth chances. As long as a person has breath God never gives up. That’s what grace is all about. God loves you even when you don’t deserve it.
God loves you. He created you. He wants what is best for you. God will use and bless you if you don’t run in the opposite direction.
God was gracious to the people in the city of Nineveh. The story of Jonah is about the grace and compassion of God. From a human standpoint the mission of God for Jonah was an impossible mission. Nineveh was a city that required a 3 days journey to preach so people could hear the message, “It’s time to repent. You have 40 days to repent.” What chance would the message of God’s good news have on the Al-Queda leaders? Forty days to repent or perish.
# What does it mean to repent? Repentance is like driving with your wife. Your wife has the map. She says turn right onto the next expressway. You know better and turn left. After an hour you realize you were wrong and turn around. That repentance, turning around... You are going your way and you turn around and go God’s way.
One Bible scholar described the city of Nineveh with a circumference of 60 miles. The inner city was surrounded by a wall 100 feet thick, wide enough for 3 chariots to drive abreast upon. The walls had 1,500 towers 100 feet in height. Colossal lions and bulls were carved out of stone guarding its 27 gates. Fields of growing crops were maintained within the city proper to save the residents from famine in case of war.
When the leaders of the city heard the message they repented and turned to God. Who would have thought that this pagan city of corruption and darkness would turn to God? The leaders proclaimed a fast, put on sackcloth, from the top government leaders to slaves in their fields.
The kings and nobles made a decree: 3:7-9: “Let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence.”
3:10 “When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion on them and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.”
Jonah needed to put concern and love for others above his own self interests. Too often we have the view of God’s love for the world, “Lord I love the world, but I can’t stand my next door neighbor.”
You would have thought that Jonah would have rejoiced in the revival at Nineveh. He could write a book on how to reach a sinful city for God. He could have gone on speaking tours telling about God’s grace in reaching a city. But for Jonah to see thousands of Israel’s enemies seeking God made him angry. He knew that God would show mercy. That’s why he didn’t want to preach to the godless people of Assyria. In his mind they were people who don’t deserve the grace of God.
Chapter 4, Jonah went up on a hill. He was hopping to see a city under siege from God with fire and brimstone falling down from heaven. Instead he saw a city turn to God. 120,000 men plus women and children heard God’s love and repented.
God wanted Jonah to become a world class Christian. To see the world as God sees it: To see God’s love, God’s greatness and God’s grace and mercy.
What is the focus of your life? “God you need to care for me and my family, use four and no more.” God bless America and forget about other countries. No – God wants us to build bridges of love to our friends, neighbors and relatives and people we work with. As a Free Methodist Church we are now in 63 countries carrying forth the Good News. Good news is for all. (Romans 10:14-15)
The Willow Vale Church is not to be an Island. Your home is not to be an Island. Our mission is to continually build bridges to our community and neighbors. Jesus calls us to be “salt” and “light” in our world. It’s not either or but both and. As “salt” you honor Jesus in your life and family. You grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. Jesus said, don’t keep your faith hidden let it shine forth. Don’t be ashamed of me as you live you life in the world. Let your light shine. (Matthew 5:13-16)
Don’t let fear be a road block to building bridges and shining forth as a light of Christ. Take all your inadequacies to the Cross of Jesus.
Do you want to shine in dark places? You don’t have to look to far. You could volunteer to touch hurting people in the community by attending some of the “Recovery Groups” that meet at out church, Monday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings. You can get involved in one of the home Alpha groups starting in September. You can get involved in Life Purpose Group starting in October. You can volunteer to help at the Harvest Food Bank, City Mission, volunteer as a tutor at our Christian school or public school, volunteer at one of our local hospitals or plan to go on a Mission trip. As you pray, Jesus will show you how and where you can let your light shine forth.
# The story is told about a little boy who saw a brightly colored poster advertising a circus that was coming to his town. He rushed home and asked his dad if he could go. His dad gave him a list of chores to do. He said if he did the chores, he could go. As the week unfolded, the boy worked hard and complete his chores. Saturday came, and his father gave him a dollar bill in payment for the chores he had done.
The little boy ran to town. Just as he turned the corner, he saw it. It was a circus parade. There was a marching band, trailers pulling caged, wild animals. There were acrobats turning somersaults and jumping into the air. There were people with all kinds of unusual costumes.
The little boy, never having seen a circus, stood there, his mouth hanging open in awe of what he saw. Finally, when the last clown passed, he rushed to the clown and gave him his dollar. He thought he had been to the circus, but he had only seen the parade.
If we think that the good news of the Gospel is just for our city and neighborhood, if we think the kingdom is simply about what God can do for us here, we may think we’ve been to the circus, but we’ve only seen the parade. God calls us to be world-class Christians.
