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Jonah | Jonah 1:1-6 · Bayside Davis Podcast

0:09
SPEAKER_00: What do most people think when they think about the book, the story of Jonah?
0:17
SPEAKER_00: Most people, when they think of the story of Jonah, they picture a runaway prophet who gets swallowed by a big fish.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: Like it's some great epic children's story.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: And if you study the book of Jonah, you realize that's not quite the essence of the book of Jonah.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: Jonah is not the main character of the story.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: Neither is the big fish.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: God is the main character of the story of Jonah.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: In fact, God is mentioned 38 times in 58 verses.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: The name God, the work of God, the nature of God is the forefront storyline of the book of Jonah.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: In this book of Jonah, we see God's heart for the lost, God's heart for deeply imperfect people, like me, like you.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: We see his heart for cities, for people who live in cities.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: And we see God's redemptive purpose toward all people.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: And some people they they read the book of Jonah and they wonder, is this book real?
1:33
SPEAKER_00: They think this book is a little fishy.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: Is it allegorical?
1:38
SPEAKER_00: Is it literal?
1:39
SPEAKER_00: What do we do with the book of Jonah?
1:43
SPEAKER_00: Well, listen to the great Savior of the world, Jesus, what he thought of the book of Jonah.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: Jesus affirms the person of Jonah, the historicity of Jonah, and the great miracles of Jonah three times in the Gospels.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: Matthew chapter 12, verses 38 through 41.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: He answered, a wicked and adulterous generation ask for a sign, but none will be given except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: In other words, he connects the questionable event in Jonah to the most important event in human history, his death and resurrection.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: He says later in the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew 16, verse 4, a wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign, but none will be given except the sign of Jonah.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: He says the same thing in Luke chapter 11, verses 29 through 32.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: He talks about uh it asks for a sign, but none will be given except for the sign of Jonah.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: For Jonah was a sign to the Ninevehites.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: Then he affirms the Nineveh, so also will the Son of Man be to this generation.
3:09
SPEAKER_00: Then he says later on, for the men of Nineveh, Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with the generation and condemn it.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: For they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now someone greater than Jonah is here.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus answers the great question about the historicity and the storyline of Jonah, and this story is so important for the people of God.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: It's connected to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and it teaches us so much about the heart of God, but it also teaches us so much about ourselves.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: So I want this to be a window into us learning more about the heart of God and also our own nature as human beings trying to follow God.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: Now we were supposed to get through six verses today, but as I was studying and preparing this message, this teaching, I only got through three.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: And it's jam-packed.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: So let's jump in right now.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: There's really two movements in the first three verses that sets up the entirety of the book.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: In verses one and two, we see Jonah's call.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: Jonah's call.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: And this is really pertinent to the story, germane to the story of Jonah.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: Notice verse one.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: The word of the Lord came to Jonah, son of Amitai.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: The word of the Lord came to Jonah.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: What is this picture?
4:46
SPEAKER_00: That Jonah was a prophet.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: In fact, in 2 Kings 14, 23 through 25, the book of Kings mentions what was taking place historically in the time of Jonah, and then also mentions Jonah as a prophet in Israel during this time, which is really phenomenal that the people of God in multiple places talk about this prophet.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: It says at the end of 2 Kings 14, 23 through 25 the Lord spoke through his servant, Jonah, son of Amitai, the prophet of Gath Hephers.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: That's where he was from.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: The Galilee area.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: So he's a prophet.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: And I thought it would be really important to make a distinction in the Old Testament between spiritual leaders and their roles.
5:43
SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, you had two main spiritual leaders.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: You had priests and you had prophets.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: The difference between a priest and a prophet is important to understand.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, a priest spoke to God on behalf of the people.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: Lord, the people are struggling.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: Lord, the people are suffering.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: Lord, the people are sinning.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: Please help them.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: Please intervene in this moment of history, intervene in people's lives.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: But a prophet spoke to the people on behalf of God.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: So a prophet received words from God, which was called in this context, the word of the Lord came to Jonah, and then he would then convey that word or those words or that message to the people of God.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: Now, Jonah.
6:33
SPEAKER_00: His name means dove.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: And dove in the ancient world, particularly this time, was a symbol of peace.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: And so his calling was to bring peace to the people of God in the nation of Israel.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: And he did that by preaching the words of God to the people.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: The peace really was a spiritual peace that Jonah was to bring to the people.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: And if you know anything about the backdrop of this story that's also important is that Jonah was a part of the big three prophets.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: The last 10 years in NBA basketball, they decided that if you were gonna have a great team that had a potential to win a championship, you needed a big three.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: Three superstars, three great players, and if you had three great players on your team and they developed chemistry, then you had the potential of win.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: Now, in Jonah's day, they weren't basketball players, they were prophets.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: The big three in his cultural moment, which was Jonah, Hosea, and Amos, all preaching the word of the Lord at the same time in Israel.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: Notice what he says next, verse 2.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: Go to the great city of Nineveh.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: Go, Jonah.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: This Hebrew term means to walk.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: God is literally telling him he's got a calling to travel somewhere.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: Now, Nineveh was a great city in the ancient world.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: It was a part of the Assyrian Empire.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: At this time, the most powerful empire in the world was the Assyrian Empire.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: It was a large city, it was a powerful city, it was an important city.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: Think of Nineveh like New York City, London, Tokyo, Paris, Bangkok.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: It was a major world influential, powerful city.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: And God says, Nineveh.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: Jonah, I want you to halak, I want you to walk to Nineveh.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: Now, Nineveh was 550 miles northeast of where Jonah was located.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: If Jonah walked 15 to 20 miles per day, which is amazing, that is 10,000 steps plus, plus, plus, plus.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: Really good for your health, Jonah.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: If he walked between 15 and 20 miles per day, it would take him more than a month to arrive in Nineveh.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: But God was calling him to take on this journey.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: But not just to travel 550 miles, more than a month, 15 to 20 miles a day, to actually walk there.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: But notice what God says when you get there.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: Here's the reason: because its wickedness has come up before me.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: You're a prophet, and I'm calling you to take a message to the city of Nineveh.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about Nineveh because you're gonna understand why Jonah does what he does.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: This is a really important backdrop to the story here that we're gonna get to in a minute.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: But God is saying, I want you to preach, I want you to announce as a prophet, to proclaim a message to the city of Nineveh.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: Here's something to know about preaching.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: We are not the people that come up with the message, we are just messengers of God.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: So if there's somebody that's preaching God's word and they come across the biblical text that you don't like, don't get mad at them.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: They're just being faithful to preach the message of God.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: And also, sometimes God spoke a message to a prophet to share with a people that was a hard message to share.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: Not every message is an easy message, not every message is an exciting message to give in any cultural moment.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: So God calls Jonah to go to the great city of Nineveh and to preach against it.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: God had a message for the city of Nineveh, specifically for the people who lived in it, and that message was a difficult message.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: There are some unique things that are happening in the story of Jonah that don't happen with any other prophet in Old Testament history.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: One of which is that Jonah was the only prophet in Israel sent to a foreign nation to preach against it.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: If you read the entirety of the Old Testament, you never find a prophet of God from Israel sent to a foreign nation to preach.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: This was a unique calling of Jonah.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: And think about it, he's a part of the big three.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: And he might be thinking, why didn't you ask Amos to do that?
11:58
SPEAKER_00: Why didn't you ask Hosea to do that?
12:01
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to use me to do that, God.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: Why don't you choose one of your other prophets?
12:06
SPEAKER_00: And God's like, no, Jonah, you're called to preach against the great city of Nineveh because of its wickedness.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: Now, a lot of people read this story, and I think they give unfair treatment to Jonah as a prophet.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: They read this story and they're like, he's a rebellious prophet, he doesn't trust God, he doesn't have confidence in God, he doesn't do what God says, but you've got to understand the historical, cultural, storyline behind what God was calling him to do.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: Understanding the city of Nineveh and the Assyrian Empire will help you to better understand Jonah's response to this unique and challenging moment of calling in his life.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: And also will help you to understand God's heart for people, even the worst of people.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: So let me give you eight fast facts about Nineveh.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: Are you ready for this?
13:13
SPEAKER_00: They're all on the screen.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: Eight fast facts about Nineveh.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: Number one, Nineveh was a wicked city known for its great atrocities, which I'm gonna share in a minute.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: This wasn't like a spiritual, moral city.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: This was the worst, most wicked city on earth.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: Second, Nineveh was an important city in the Assyrian Empire that became the capital city.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: So not only is this the greatest empire in the world, but this is the capital city of the greatest empire in the world, and it's deeply evil and wicked.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: Third, Nineveh, if you're trying to locate where this was, it is modern day Iraq.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: It's in northern Iraq.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: It was on the east bank of the Tigris River, uh, in that area of the world that we now call Iraq.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: Number four, Nineveh was a center of idol worship.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: They worshiped all kinds of idols, statues and gods and plural gods, and all these different idols in the city that they worshiped.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: So there was wickedness, but there was also spirituality in the city.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: Fifth, Nineveh was an enemy and threat to Israel.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: They, it wasn't Israel that was like, we're an enemy of Nineveh or the Assyrian Empire, it was the Assyrian Empire that did not like God's people.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: They were enemies of God's people.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: Sixth, Nineveh was a major military center of the Assyrian Empire.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: This was a military city.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: And this military was known for the most cruel and wicked atrocities in human history at that time and even in world history, even at present time.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: Seventh, the Assyrian army was among the most feared and cruel militaries in the world at this time and in history as we know it.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: Listen to some of their war atrocities.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: Ready for this?
15:29
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna begin to understand why Jonah does what he does.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: Here's some Assyrian war atrocities, and they have been found through archaeological findings by their own writings and inscriptions and art.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: Number one, they cut off victims' heads that they were against and piled them into pillars, and they would leave them in the cities that they did this in.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: Number two, they burned victims alive.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: So if the enemies, uh whatever enemy they had, or whoever they wanted to conquer, they would go into the city, they would cut off people's heads, they would build pyramids out of them, and then they would burn people alive.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: Third, they filleted victims and draped their skins on city walls.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: This is awful.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: This is gonna help you to understand why Jonah does what he does.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: Fourth, they mutilated living captives to death.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: Fifth, they st they stacked severed heads.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: They not only put them into pillars, but they stacked them into pyramids.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: They just cut off your head.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: This isn't great.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: You're like, wow, what is happening in church this morning?
16:47
SPEAKER_00: No, this is the Bible.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: This is human history.
16:49
SPEAKER_00: There are wicked, evil things in human history.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: Sixth, they led living captives by rings or hooks through the lip or nose like animals on a rope once they conquered them.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: Seventh, they took heads, sometimes they built pyramids, but sometimes they took a pole, stuck it in the ground, and they would they would put head by head by head by head by head on that pole, and they would display them for everyone to see.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: Eighth, they tore out the tongues of living victims in brutal cruelty.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: Ninth, they would go into a city and they would burn all the children alive.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: Here's Jonah, a prophet of God, the greatest enemy of God's people, the most wicked and cruel people of the ancient world at his time, who would eighth later, after this story, come in to Israel, conquer the northern kingdom, seize the people out of uh Samaria, the central part and Galilee, and carry them into exile and rip them out of their homeland, away from their friends, their family, their jobs, their community, their culture, and rip them out and place them in their foreign empire.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: And God, God comes to Jonah with that backdrop and says, Jonah, I want you to go to Nineveh 550 miles away and preach against it.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: Because the wickedness of Nineveh has come up before me, picturing an extreme situation of Israel that had the special attention of God, like this was the moment of justice, or was this the moment of unbelievable grace and mercy?
18:59
SPEAKER_00: God was sending his prophet there, not just to expose the evil, that was part of the message, but also give them the opportunity to repent and turn to God.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: Now, notice what Jonah does next, verse 3, Jonah's response.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: But Jonah ran away from the Lord.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: Most people they they don't understand the backdrop, they don't understand the difficulty of what God was calling Jonah to do.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: Jonah hears this calling from God.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: Every time God has called Jonah to preach a message before this as a prophet, he was like, sign me up, God.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: I want you to preach this to your people.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: Sign me up, God.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: I want you to say this to your people.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: I got it, God.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: But now Jonah says, There's no way I'm going to Nineveh to preach against the evil of Nineveh, and that God was going to give them a chance to repent.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: This was the great enemy of God's people.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: They were brutal, they were wicked, they were evil in the most extreme sense.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: And Jonah is called to go to them, and now Jonah is running away.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: I want you to hear this.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, as followers of Jesus, God calls us to do difficult things.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: There are messages that are hard to preach.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: There are callings that are difficult.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: You might have a hundred things prior to that God has called you to do that you said yes, Lord, and then finally something that God is calling you to do that is not easy, and you think about it.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: And maybe you decide you're not gonna do it and you run the other way.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: I just want us to know that God's call is not always easy.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: Abraham was called to go to a place that God would show him to leave everything that he knew.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: That was not easy.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: Moses was called to go speak to the most powerful leader in the world at that time, the Pharaoh of Egypt.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: That calling was not easy.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah was called to preach for 40 years to a people that were rebellious and never see an ounce of spiritual fruit.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: That calling was not easy.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: Jonah was called to go to the city of Nineveh, the Assyrian Empire, the great enemy of God's people, and preach judgment or repentance.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: That calling was not easy.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was called to enter human history, our story, and die on the cross for the sins of the world as the Son of God.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: That calling was not easy.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: God's call is not always easy.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: And Jonah, like many of us, he had a heart for God, but it had a limitation.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: Jonah had a heart for God, but not for the Ninevites.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: But God had a heart for Jonah and the Ninevites.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: There is a distinction between God's heart and Jonah's heart.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: Jonah was like, I love God, I want to serve God, but I don't love the Ninevehes, and I'm not going there.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: God's heart was, I love you, Jonah, I have called you, and I care about the Ninevehes.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: Jonah wanted truth without grace for the Ninevites.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: God wanted truth and grace for the Ninevehes.
22:45
SPEAKER_00: All of this is on the screen as well, so you can write this down.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: Jonah was like, they deserve truth and justice and judgment, and God says, they need both truth and grace.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: Jonah had a self-isolationist mentality of God's word.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: God only worked in Israel, but not beyond to Israel's enemies, but God had a heart for all people, wanting all people to repent and be saved.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, as followers of Jesus, there is a difference between God's heart and my heart.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes when we run away from a call, it shows us that we need a refresher in the heart of God for all people.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: There are people in our world that we judge and we criticize and we think are evil, and sure, some of them are evil, but we forget that God can save and redeem the most evil people in the world and transform their hearts.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: We live in a culture that is full of labeling people enemies based on so many differences and distinctions.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: But what if those people, what if those people God is calling us to preach Jesus to?
24:22
SPEAKER_00: What if those people God loves too, just as he loved us at our worst?
24:29
SPEAKER_00: It's so easy for a church to be self-isolationist.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: They get to a point, a church grows, there's a movement of God, and all of a sudden the church is like, we're gonna insulate what we're gonna do.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be an exclusive community.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: We don't want other people, we don't want those people.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: No, the heart of God for the church is we want all people to be welcomed and to come to Jesus.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: There is not a person in this city that is not welcomed at Bayside Davis.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: There is not a sin in this city lived out in a person's life currently that God cannot forgive and redeem their life.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: There is not a sin or a story in this room in our lives that God cannot redeem, forgive, remove your shame, and change your life.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: Every person is welcome in the Church of Jesus Christ.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we need to reflect and evaluate our own hearts when we are looking at people as enemies instead of looking at people as possible recipients of the grace and redemptive work of Jesus Christ.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: We can't follow cultural trends.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: We can't label all these people that think different than us as enemies.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: They are people that God cares about.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: Jonah needed a refresher in the heart of God for all people, and Jonah needed to construct a more complete theology of God's nature because he's missing part of a proper understanding of God's nature.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: It's so important that we don't just celebrate certain attributes of God when they align with whatever we feel at that time, then discard other attributes of God that make us nervous with our limited wisdom.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: We should celebrate every part of the nature of God, even when he calls Jonah to go to Nineveh and to give them a chance to turn to Him.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: At times, God's people run away from God's call.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: But you need to know what we're gonna learn in this story of that you cannot truly run away from the Lord because he is an all-present, all-pursuing God.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
27:16
SPEAKER_00: Are you with me, church?
27:19
SPEAKER_00: I love what James Buckner, Bruckner, pardon me, wrote about the story of Jonah, and particularly Jonah, that I think frames this in such a healthy way.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: He says, Jonah was a faithful prophet because God was deeply involved in his life at every stage.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: Jonah's frailty in running from God is not hidden from view, but Jesus neither vilifies nor blames him for it.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: His reputation as a true prophet is not tarnished.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: Few biblical figures are ironclad in their faithfulness.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps Joseph or Daniel come the closest.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: Most of them confirm God's call in their lives first by resisting.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: This pattern of call, resistance, and then call, confirmed with a sign, is repeated in the lives of many people whom God called to difficult tasks, including Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Jeremiah, Jonah, and even the Apostle Peter.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: All that to say, you're normal sometimes when you're struggling with a hard call of God.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: But God's going to call you again.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: Even if there's a little resistance inside of you, God's going to call you again.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: He's going to give you another opportunity because God is a God of second chances.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, Jesus didn't say, torture enemies, get at your enemies.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, pray for your enemies.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: Pray for your enemies.
29:03
SPEAKER_00: And notice, finally, notice what he does.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish.
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SPEAKER_00: Tarshish was a city on the western portion of the Mediterranean Sea.
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SPEAKER_00: It was 2,500 miles from Joppa.
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SPEAKER_00: Nineveh was east and Tarshish was west.
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SPEAKER_00: In other words, Jonah went the opposite direction.
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SPEAKER_00: As far away as possible.
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SPEAKER_00: If you read through the story of the Bible, there's so many people that tried to run and hide from God.
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SPEAKER_00: But it never works.
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SPEAKER_00: And I just want to ask you a few questions in reflection today.
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SPEAKER_00: My first question is: are you running from God?
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SPEAKER_00: Have you been running from God?
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SPEAKER_00: And if you've been running from God, I want you to know He's running after you.
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SPEAKER_00: In love, in grace, in mercy, in redemption, with the opportunity for your life to be in relationship with Him, for your sins to be forgiven, for your story to be transformed by the God of heaven and earth himself.
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SPEAKER_00: Number two, are you running from God's difficult calling?
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SPEAKER_00: Is there something that God has called you to do, something definitive that's been affirmed by God, been affirmed by people, been affirmed by his gifting in your life that you're running from?
30:38
SPEAKER_00: I just want you to know, and I'm gonna say this in a minute, but I want to say it here.
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SPEAKER_00: This could be a second call for God for you.
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SPEAKER_00: Because you've resisted the first time, but he's gonna call you again.
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SPEAKER_00: Number three, you cannot run from God.
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SPEAKER_00: He pursues us with a heart of love and redemption.
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SPEAKER_00: He is all-present.
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SPEAKER_00: It's impossible to run from God.
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SPEAKER_00: What you and I think we're doing in running from God is not true reality because God sees and knows and is always all present in your life.
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SPEAKER_00: Fourth, you cannot run away from God's calling.
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SPEAKER_00: You might have run from a season, it might be difficult what He's calling you to do, it might not make sense in the moment.
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SPEAKER_00: I never dreamed, imagined, or desired to be a preacher and a Bible teacher.
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SPEAKER_00: I wanted to be a doctor, I wanted to be a lawyer, I wanted to be anything else in human history, possible vocation, than what I'm doing now.
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SPEAKER_00: Because I didn't think I was worthy, and it was never even a conceptual thought in my mind.
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SPEAKER_00: And when I felt the call of God my senior year in high school, preaching at a Bible study for high schoolers that went to my high school, whom I used to party with, and then I felt like God told me, and a bunch of people told me, I think you're supposed to do this the rest of your life.
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SPEAKER_00: I was like, no way.
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SPEAKER_00: Pick the Christian kids, pick the kids that have been in church, Sunday school, know all the stories.
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SPEAKER_00: Me, my story is not this story.
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SPEAKER_00: I could never do this.
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SPEAKER_00: God, I'm not worthy.
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SPEAKER_00: There's no way.
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SPEAKER_00: This is not in my plan.
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SPEAKER_00: I want to be rich and successful like some of my family members, and know God was calling me to lay down my life and do this.
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SPEAKER_00: What is it that you have run from that God is calling you to?
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SPEAKER_00: Fifth, a few questions and thoughts for reflection.
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SPEAKER_00: Fifth, today is the day you can turn to God.
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SPEAKER_00: Today is the day you can turn to God.
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SPEAKER_00: You might be running from God, but God is running after you in love and redemption.
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SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ died for you on the cross and rose from the grave, defeating death and darkness and sin, so that you could be forgiven of all sin and all shame be removed, all condemnation be removed, so that you can live in relationship with God forever and ever through faith in Jesus Christ.
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SPEAKER_00: Today you can turn to God.
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SPEAKER_00: And then finally, number six today you can return to God's call on your life.
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SPEAKER_00: Today you can return to God's call on your life.