Sermon Notes:
He relentlessly loves us, and has a plan for our lives, that serve a greater Mission that He is Sovereign over.
Even when we run from God, He runs to us.
Themes:
The Love & Grace Of God
How we relate to the Will of God
The word of the LORD:
TIMELY-> came at a specific time
URGENT-> Get up! Go!
SPECIFIC-> Great city of Nineveh Enemies of Israel.
GREATER-> -To preach against Nineveh was more than Jonah could handle on his own.
It was also because Jonah didn’t want the Assyrians in Nineveh to escape God’s judgment.
We can either use that as an opportunity to lean further into our Father and rely on Him as our source of peace and power, or we can operate out of FEAR & SELFISHNESS. Jonah chose the latter…(v.3)
- It may have been because he was given a difficult job to do. Nahum 3:1-4 gives us a good idea of how wicked the people of Nineveh were. Jonah had every reason to expect that at the very best, he would be mocked and treated as a fool. He might be attacked and killed if he did what the LORD told him to do.
-He paid the fare cost of disobedience.
-Nevertheless, when you run away from the LORD, you never get to where you are going and you always pay your own fare. When you go the LORD’s way, you not only get to where you are going, but He provides the fare.
-We overestimate our ability to run (we cannot run from God, Psalm 139)
-We overestimate the rewards of doing what WE WANT.
-We underestimate the consequences of our disobedience.
Examples of people bringing trouble upon others because of their disobedience:
Abraham: Gen 12&20
Achan (Josh 7)
Here’s a spiritual lie we believe: My sin is my sin. It only affects me.
IRONY: The first prayer that occurs in the book of Jonah is not from God’s prophet, but from the pagans. They cry out to their different gods, and Hope/Peace, who comes from Faithful/True, is asleep. Finding his own self-peace in the wrong place.
Sleepy prophets that’s the condition of the church at large. Let’s be part of the movement of prophets and preachers who are waking up with a soul revival to engage lifelong in God’s Will for us.
The nature of Jonah’s sleep is also instructive, and too much like the sleep of the careless Christian:
· “Sleeping Christians” like to “hide out” among the Church.
· “Sleeping Christians” stay away from the work of the Lord.
· “Sleeping Christians” don’t like prayer meetings!
· “Sleeping Christians” don’t know what is really going on.
· “Sleeping Christians” are in danger, but don’t know it.
· “Sleeping Christians” snooze on while the world needs their message and testimony.
(Verse 6)
Irony: GET UP!! Wow…the very instruction God first gave to him, now the LORD speaks through this man. The rebuke is coming from the idolater, God is using this pagan captain as literally a “wake up call” to his prophet. GOD IS NOT GIVING UP ON JONAH. GOD IS NOT GIVING UP ON NINEVEH.
(Verses 7-9)
Jonah’s response provoked a terror within them. They knew the second he said he was a prophet that there was spiritual activity related to Jonah causing this massive storm to come.
(Verses 10-11)
He experienced the consequences of his rebellion. (12-17)
Irony: The men on the boat did more for Jonah than we did for them. They reject Jonah’s offer and work harder to NOT put him in danger, even though Jonah’s sin had jeopardized everyone’s safety aboard.
(Verses 14-17)
Jonah, as a disobedient prophet who rejected God’s Will, would have rather died than gone to Nineveh.
Jesus, as a perfect prophet, who was perfectly obedient to God’s will, gave His life sacrificially to save those far from God.
The more control we think we have, the more deceived we actually are.
God appointed
HE IS SOVEREIGN.
HE GETS US WHERE HE WANTS US, AND WHERE WE NEED TO BE.
