4 Powerful Lessons From Jonah for Today
1. We learn that God's mercy is wider and
God’s grace is greater than all of our sins.
The book of Jonah begins with these words:
"Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son
of Ammittai, saying, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city and call out against
it, for their evil has come up before me."
God comes to us while we are still sinners, and still,
the Lord does not wait for us to “clean up our act” before He comes into our
lives. If that were so we would never be saved. God begins to have mercy upon
us while we are still in willful disobedience; and, like Nineveh, characterized
by infamous sin and evil. The Bible says that God so loved the world He sent
His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have
everlasting life (John 3:16). This is an essential characteristic of God. The
lesson that God loves us while we are living in rebellion is of great hope to
our nation today.
2. We learned that God's love is greater than
our self-interest.
Jonah was quite content with God's grace and God's love
over Israel and over his own life. But when God called him to go to Nineveh, we
read that Jonah went in the opposite direction. He ran from God not merely
because he was afraid of God, but because he really did not want to bring the
good news of God's grace to his enemies. The issue in the book of Jonah causes
each of us to reflect on this truth: those who curse Christ today could be
those who preach Christ tomorrow. Don't just take the Ninevites words for it;
listen to the Apostle Paul:
"And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who
hathenabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry;
Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained
mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was
exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 1:12-14).
3. We learn that God uses all means to extend
his grace to all kinds of people.
In the book of Jonah God uses a roaring sea, wayward pagan
sailors — who, by the way, were saved by God during their experience with the
renegade prophet — as well as, a pagan king, a weed, a worm, and even a
hardheaded preacher. The mission of God is a guaranteed success because of the
sovereignty of God. Jonah demonstrates how God uses all of His creation to
bring about the salvation of one very wicked nation. How much more will God use
all things to reach you? How much more will God hear your prayers as you cry
out for a wayward child? Or a friend? Or trouble within your church? There are
no limits to God's grace and love, and there are no limits to his ways and
means of attaining His goals for salvation.
4. We learn that God's mercy is motivated by
God's love for his own creation.
The book of Jonah concludes with a rather enigmatic
ending. Jonah sits in the heat of Northern Iraq and is so outdone with God’s
grace to his enemy, seething that he has lost a gourd with its leaves to shade
him, that he despairs unto death. Yes, that means precisely what it says: Jonah
was preferring death over the advance of God‘s grace to Nineveh. The petulant
prophet is perturbed that God's grace to pagans is of greater priority to God
than Jonah’s comfort. Then, God asks a question to Jonah, which echoes through
the ages down to our own lives:
Jonah 4:10-11 (ESV): And the Lord said, “You
pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which
came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should not I pity
Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do
not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”
This is both an indictment of Jonah and all who treat
God’s grace as proprietary, and a challenge to begin to see the world through
the eyes of God who created it. The 120,000 persons who do not know their right
hand from their left, are likely infants. but how about the Lord’s mention of
His concern about the cattle? The truth is that man’s sin has a devastating
effect upon creation. Conversely, when there is authentic revival from on high,
when people repent and when we receive God‘s grace and mercy through Jesus
Christ His Son, balance and harmony return to the community.
The force of this final question cannot be overstated. We
learned here that both Socratic teaching and rabbinical teaching (by asking
questions) was used by God long before educators ever thought about such
things. For in placing the question as He does, the Lord God requires each and
every one of us to give a response. And that response is nestled within the
greater framework of God‘s plan for the ages: from Paradise Lost (Milton,
1667) to Paradise Regained (Milton, 1671).
Whenever we come to think that someone is beyond God’s
love, or they have committed acts so vile as to be forever separated from God,
then it is time for us to return to the book of Jonah. When we begin to reduce
God’s response to human sin as judgment without mercy, then it is time for us
to open up the book of Jonah, and invite the Spirit of the Lord to cleanse us
of self-interests, smugness, and uncaring attitudes and return to the Lord of
love.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
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