Tuesday, July 16

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The book of Jonah (which we are studying this week) is unique in that it is not primarily a record of the prophets words, but of the prophets interactions with God.  It is a story told in four parts/four chapters.  In chapter 1, Jonah runs from God because he does not want to go to Nineveh.  This chapter ends with Jonah being thrown overboard during a terrible storm at sea, and being swallowed by a great fish (sent by God).  In chapter 2, Jonah prays.  In fact, there is no plot action at all in this chapter, it is just Jonah’s prayer, but what a great prayer it is!  He cries out to God from the belly of a fish in the depths of the sea...and there in the depth, God hears Jonah.  He hears him and loves him and refuses to let him go.  So God causes the fish to spit Jonah back onto dry land, and Jonah is rescued from his own sin and death.  

God is up to some great things in the life of Jonah, so it shouldn’t be too hard to imagine what Jonah must now be thinking.  “Ah-ha! I’m alive. I’m covered in fish vomit, but I’m alive. God heard my prayer and he saved me. I should do something about this. I should write this down, I should write my spiritual memoirs, I’ll call it ‘Tuesdays with Jonah.’ But heck, why stop with just the story. I should build a church, right here where God delivered me, on the beach. Beautiful location, there’s lots of parking— wouldn’t that be a miracle. I’ll call it the Church of Whales, because that won’t be at all confusing.  And we’ll do baptisms by throwing people off boats, and we’ll have testimonies from pagan sailors,” and on and on and on...

It’s not hard to imagine that Jonah wants to get started on his new life. He wants to forget about all his past disobedience and move on to the bigger and better things, which is where we pick up our story from Jonah ...Then 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

Does that sound like God has moved on to bigger and better things?  Not at all.  God has not moved on.  God is not going to just forget it.  God calls Jonah a second time, “Jonah, I want you to go to the great city of Nineveh.”  Do you notice that the focus in the call of Jonah is not really on the message (yet), it is on the word “GO”?  

Unfortunately, all too often we focus solely on the opposite word, “Stop.” I know too many Christians who think God’s primary focus is for them to stop doing this, stop doing that, stop, stop, stop. I hear this all the time when people tell their story of coming to faith, and they say something like, “I gave my life to Jesus and then I stopped...” and then give me the list of sins they’ve tried to put off.

Don’t misunderstand this, it’s a really, really good thing to put off habits and behaviors that are sinful or harmful or not of God. But the heart of Christian discipleship is not the word stop.  If it was, we’d all be better off just staying home and hiding in the basement. The heart of Christian discipleship is the word “GO.”

When God calls Abraham, he says, I want you to leave behind your city, your family, your stuff.... and “Go.” When God calls Moses, I want you to stop being a shepherd in Midian and “Go” back to Egypt.  After his resurrection, Jesus told his followers, “Just as the Father sent me, I am sending you.”  In other words, “GO!”

At the heart of Christianity there is a movement, an outward focus, a going that we can easily forget as we face the demands of our lives, but God doesn’t forget why he has called and saved Jonah... to go...And where is Jonah called to go?  To Nineveh, which, as you know, is not a good place to be going. 

God says, “That’s where we are going.” And when you get there, God says, I have a new message for you. If you remember back to the first time God called Jonah, he told him to “Go to the great city of Nineveh” and what... “Preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”

And Nineveh, indeed, was a horrible place. This is the empire whose armies ravaged the northern tribes of Israel and left the dead bodies piled up along the roads. If any city in the world at that time deserved judgment from a holy God, it would be Nineveh.  But now God says, “Go to the great city of Nineveh” and what... “Proclaim to it the message I give you.”

Now I don’t think this means God is getting soft on sin. But God is telling Jonah, “I still want you to go to the Nineveh, but when you get there I want you to stop and listen closely to me, because I have a particular message for the people of Nineveh, one that you might not expect... one that you might not come up with on your own... one that might surprise you... because God is up to something great.  

And so Jonah goes...and so we too go where God leads and speak the message God gives us - The Gospel!

Jeff Frazier