Message
Jonah 3:1-10
Recommissioned By A Merciful God.
Do you remember the first time you tried to ride a bike? It’s such a tranquil and joyful occasion isn’t it. But that is only after a lot of other things have happened. Eventually your bike riding efforts look like this. But usually learning to ride a bike looks like this
… or this
… or this
… or even this
It is not any easy thing to learn to ride a bike. You will make a lot of mistakes … and you will fall down heaps … and you may even do yourself great harm. But eventually, with the help of people around you who pick you up when you fall and keep encouraging you when you fail,
you do get the hang of it
That’s what happens when you are learning to ride a bike. But it is also what happens when you are learning to serve God. Let’s see this truth in action by turning to Jonah 3:1-10
On Jonah’s first attempt at following God’s instructions, his bike veered off the path, down to the dock, onto a boat, through a ferocious storm, over the side, and into the mouth of a big fish. But now Jonah is standing on the beach having been vomited up on dry land. And notice what doesn’t happen.
God doesn’t say, “Jonah, try and follow direction, your track record is not very good.”
And God doesn’t say, “Jonah you are now on probation. If you don’t get it right this time you’re sacked”.
And God certainly doesn’t say, “Jonah you’re a failure, I’m going to find someone else”.
Without mentioning the mistake. Without giving him a lecture. Without any sarcastic remarks.
The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”
Jonah 3:1-2
We have heard something like this before.
The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”
Jonah 1:1-2
This is déjà vu – with Jonah, and by association Nineveh, getting a second chance.
Jonah has failed. He knows it … and God knows it even more.
The word of the Lord came a second time. The same description is used in Jeremiah and Haggai. But there it is talking about an addition, a clarification, or an extension to a prior revelation.
Only in Jonah does the phrase mean a second chance. This is the Lord in his mercy recommissioning Jonah. And Jonah picks himself up, washes the fish vomit off himself
… and “Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh.”
With the encouragement and support of the Lord Jonah is now successfully peddling in the right direction. That is the unanticipated mercy of God isn’t it.
The unanticipated mercy of God means that failure does not lead to dismissal.
The manager of an IBM project that lost $10 million before it was scrapped was called into a meeting at the corporate office. “I suppose you want my resignation?” he asked. “Resignation nothing!” replied his boss. “We’ve just spent $10 million educating you!”
In the Bible we have people running from God, attempting suicide, committing adultery, murdering, making false idols, disobeying God, lying, stealing, hiding, disconnecting and generally doing all manner of evil. It isn’t the most pleasant set of people you could gather in one room.
Yet God still used them to accomplish his kingdom plans.
Abraham
In spite of the fact that God promised him he would have a child with his wife Sarah, he still took bad advice and fathered a child through his wife’s servant. But God didn’t give up on him. After Abraham came back to God, he still became the “Father of many nations.”
David
In spite of the fact that David committed murder and adultery, after coming back to God, He still became known as “a man after God’s own heart.”
Peter
In spite of the fact that Peter denied that he even knew Jesus in the presence of many people, when he came back to God, he was used to be one of the Early Church’s greatest leaders. Indeed he gave his life for Jesus.
All of these Biblical saints, and so many more, failed … miserably failed. Yet they all still are used by God for his kingdom purposes.
And here is Jonah … the most epic failure success in the Bible.
Think about it this way.
When Peter preached the first Pentecost Day sermon, “3,000 people repented”.
We look at this and are amazed.
Jonah’s preaching saw more than 120 000 people in Nineveh … from the greatest to the least … believe in God.
It is the largest recorded revival in the Scriptures.
Jonah, because of the mercy of God, continues to be used for God’s kingdom purposes.
And it is not like Nineveh is a field ripe for the harvest. Where there has been an indication of revival, or of an openness to the Word, or anything.
One historian says that ‘Nineveh was the capital of one of the cruellest, vilest, most powerful, and most idolatrous empires in the world’.
When describing the way that he treated the kings of defeated nations one of the Ninevite kings writes … ‘I pierced his chin with my keen hand dagger. Through his jaw…I passed a rope, put a dog chain upon him and made him occupy … a kennel.’
Even their own king in Jonah 3:8 calls them to “give up their evil ways and their violence”.
They are all failures. Evil… Broken … standing against God. But God brings about an amazing transformation.
It starts with Jonah sharing God’s Word.
Even though he had many reservations Jonah didn't stand at the edge of the city and preach at them. Rather, he travelled a day's journey into the city proclaiming the message God had given him. He went right into the city, in the midst of their living and their lives and their activity. He identified with them.
And as he did so he brought them a very simple message. “Forty more days and Nineveh shall be overturned”. In Hebrew the message consists of only five words! Five words were all that was needed in this daunting and overwhelming task to preach in the city of Nineveh.
Jonah didn’t have all the answers.
If we are honest Jonah really didn’t even want to give all the answers.
But he came with a simple message … and as he did so people stopped and listened. The business of the city subsided. It got quiet. And the message of God was heard. And from the least to the greatest they realized the message was true. And something happens.
They repent and put their trust in God.
Jonah 3:5 is the turning point. The Ninevites believed God.
They didn’t believe Jonah.
They believed God.
It was the most incredible and unexpected response imaginable. A group of people who have never even known who the Lord was, repenting because of the message they had heard.
It was overwhelming.
It was unanimous.
Everyone repents—from the highest to the lowest. A revival breaks out instantaneously. They know they are in trouble. They know they need help. And they all take off their clothes to put on sackcloth and sit in ashes … just to show how sorry they were.
They knew they were bad.
They admitted their wicked, violent, unrighteous, atheistic, and proud ways.
When God saw what they did, he had compassion.
God is a merciful God who doesn’t define us by our failures and sin. Jonah had experienced this reality … and now the Ninevites were experiencing the same.
Since that is the case we should always speak and share the Word of God with great expectations.
In God’s economy failure is never a defining outcome because God never gives up on anybody – therefore we should always expect the miracle of transformation to take place.
We can so quickly look at a person and, before we even speak to them, we decide that they will not be interested in the Gospel.
They’re too educated … they’re not educated enough.
They’re too rich … they are too poor.
They are too committed to an alternative world view … they don’t commit to anything.
They live a life which is very immoral and won’t want to change … they are nice people who live a nice life, why would they want to change?
That is what we think sometimes, but God sees it so differently. God’s mercy overrules our scepticism in all sorts of unanticipated ways.
As we see the mercy of God in action we are being confronted with the consequences of God’s unanticipated mercy.
Lesson 1:
At all times we must have compassion for all those in our community who have failed.
Think with me for a minute about the life of the lost Ninevites. Every night Mr and Mrs Ninevite come home from work to all the possibilities of evil and violence. Domestic violence, spousal abuse, run-a-way children, pornography, kidnappings, robberies, rape, scam artists, neglect, business scandal after business scandal, corrupt government officials ripping off everyone they can, etc., etc. Life in Nineveh is everything terrible!
They didn’t know it but they were relying on Jonah to tell them it could be different.
Our city today struggles with the same issues … and God is relying on us to live in obedience and bring the Word that can change lives. God’s mercy to us drives us to this consequence.
Lesson 2:
We don’t need to be living a perfect life in order to have a significant impact for God.
Telling the Gospel is really very much like one beggar, telling another beggar where to find food.
We come into this world as sinners.
We hear the Gospel while we are still sinners.
We repent and believe, but still act like sinners.
If the criteria for speaking the word is purity, then Christianity would die within a generation. But that is not the criteria. The criteria is understanding the incredible hope we have been given through Jesus. Not deserving yet still receiving anyway.
Which means you don’t need to be perfect to be a witness … you just need to be a person who has understood the unanticipated mercy of God in your life. A mercy that enables us to keep being effective even after we have failed.
Lesson 3:
If we want to see transformation we have to believe that God is able to make a real difference in people’s lives.
If Jonah, as reluctant as he was, can see God do amazing things through a simply preached message – then there is no reason why we cannot expect God be just as mercifully today. Nineveh was brought to their knees in repentance.
Not because Jonah had a fierce and burning desire to see them change.
Not because he had amassed a huge group of prayer warriors.
Not because he had prepared an eloquent sermon.
They repented … 120 000 people … because Jonah had obeyed God.
Only God can bring about a change like that. A change which comes as we patiently stick to the Word of God and explain the facts.
We have a Creator, but we rebelled against Him.
That Creator has every right to punish us, but He wants to show grace.
In order to show grace He sent His Son to die in our place.
If we want to avoid eternal separation we need to put our trust in Jesus.
If we don’t trust then we will face God’s judgment.
That is the message of the Gospel.
That is the message. There is no reason why the impact that Jonah’s message had on the Ninevites cannot still be seen today.
We just need to believe that God is willing to use people like us, with all our faults, to bring the message.
We also need to believe that God is able to change the hardest of hearts.
After all who of us really anticipated just how much mercy God was willing to show to each one of us. And if we are able to be objects of God’s mercy, then surely that mercy can be shown to anyone.
Prayer
