10.06.2013 A Lesson from Jonah - Share your Greatest Blessing

10-06-2013 from Grace Summit on Vimeo.

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Jonah 3: 6 When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. 7 This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh:
“By the decree of the king and his nobles:
Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. 8 But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. 9 Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”
10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.
Jonah 4:1 But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. 2 He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. 3 Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
4 But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?”
5 Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. 6 Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant[a] and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. 7 But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.”
9 But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”
“It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”
10 But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. 11 And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”
Lord, You’ve given us these stories for us to learn from – they are us – we are more like Jonah than we can imagine. If we look deeply, we can see that. We want to learn to be more like You – to have Your perspective – and what You are really like. May our hearts melt as we look upon Your grace and compassion – it is not about our work and what we believe is good. What we view is often off. We are human – help us to understand what is important to You.
If Jonah Ruled the World instead of God…
The world would be a very different place.
Jonah 4:1 But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. 2 He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.
I knew this would happen! I knew it I knew it I knew it! How often have we found ourselves in the same place? Jonah is offended by God. It is God behaving badly, at least to Jonah. Have you been offended by God? If you are honest, you have.
This is Jonah’s world – what they held to and believed – a core value about God – The Retribution Principle
1) Good behavior (Faithfulness to Yahweh) promotes good result (prosperity and blessing)
2) Bad behavior (unfaithfulness to God) results in curses and bad circumstances
3) If you are blessed and prosperous, you are good
4) If you suffer adversity, you are bad.
Now, in those 4 principles is a lot of truth! But what we also see? The biggest lies of faith. The biggest lies of people of faith. There is something true about that, but something deeply wrong in the way that religious people tend to hold them.
The second thing wrong with Jonah’s world – it is a world of insiders and outsiders. You put the concept of retribution with insiders and outsiders – and it is a bad combination. For Jonah – it is national pride, Nationalism.
And it is religious superiority and elitism.
He believed that his people were the best ones, the only right ones. He believed that he was above everyone else and that his people were above all the other peoples of the earth.
Why that world is not good – and why we enter into that world.
Jonah is displeased. Jonah was not afraid to fail; he was afraid to succeed! “I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God – one who relents.”
That is God’s world.
Jonah’s world – “they should have been punished!”
God’s world: Gracious, compassionate and forgiving.
Interestingly, God submits Jonah to Jonah’s world. Jonah runs – he gets thrown into the sea!
4th – when something bad happens – you must be bad! The sailors say – who did something wrong? Let’s do something about it! The lot falls to Jonah, so he is thrown overboard.
Jonah’s prayer from the belly of the fish expresses thankfulness for God’s world! He expresses thanksgiving for God’s grace and compassion and relenting from sending calamity. Jonah wanted God to express His loving character only to his people, not to the Ninevites.
What would the world be like if you ruled the world? I think we would respond like Jonah.
Have you ever asked, why did God allow Adam and Eve to sin? Or, why does God allow certain types of suffering? In effect, you are saying, if I ruled the world, I would do it differently!
Why does God allow the evil to succeed?
Why doesn’t God allow Cleveland to ever win a championship?
Job is the best example of this – There are a lot of similarities – but they are on opposite sides of the coin, though. Job is suffering terrible evil but is a good guy – he doesn’t fit the principle at all. No one could find fault in him – but his friends thought he must have done stuff wrong. We do that. God, what did I do for this to come upon me? We don’t think right of God – we think wrongly of God. And the story of Jonah is to teach us to think like God.
Job goes through tremendous suffering – and his friends are like, come on, confess – tell us what you did!
I didn’t do anything!
What does God do? He gives him the first National Geographic tour of creation – and asks, Job, did you do any of this? No.
God is saying – we need to learn to trust in God’s wisdom.
“Suffering should be faced with trust in God’s wisdom. This is difficult to achieve, especially when so much suffering makes so little sense to us.”
Rick Warren was on the news a month or so ago – his son had committed suicide. “Did it ever cause you to lose faith in God?” No, God is all we had. But it caused us to lose faith and to not trust His wisdom – that He really understood – that He really ruled the world.
Jonah doesn’t get God’s wisdom.
John Polkinghorne – “The terminology like ‘allow’ should not be used so as to suggest blame. The suffering and evil in the world are not due to weakness, oversight, or callousness on God’s part, but they are the inescapable cost of a creation allowed to be ‘other than God’, released from tight divine control, and permitted to be itself.”
God desired, from the beginning to make a creature who could experience His love, peace and glory.
There is this trinity thing – Father, Son, Spirit – and love, peace and glory fill this glory – and the Trinity says, let’s let someone else into this – to experience this – to have what we have in some way. There was only one way God could do that – to create a creature who was free – God is completely free – bound by nothing. He is not bound by gravity – He is bound by nothing. The laws of Physics don’t apply. No economic law applies. For a creature to experience God, it must have freedom, to some extent. We aren’t utterly free, are we? We have freedom of choice – to accept or reject this God.
What has happened, because we aren’t God, we have been created to experience His joy, but we also can hurt and be hurt. We are created in God’s image - but we are ‘other than God’. We must have the ability to reject it to have the intimacy that is offered.
God, who is this 3 in 1 spirit – in harmony and relationship – sends Jesus – to become this creature – that has rejected Him – in order that He might give himself on the cross to bring us into relationship through His suffering and trial – His death and pain.
Philippians 2 – being in the form of God – God is Spirit – the Son of God did not have a body –
He became – he did not regard equality with God something to grasp. He became this person.
What happened when He ascended to heaven? What did they see? A body – with holes in his hands. And now for eternity – this different immortal body will go on – so that we can experience this relationship with Him. Let’s go back to Jonah
Jonah 4:3
Jonah gets angry
Eugene Peterson: “Anger is most useful as a diagnostic tool. When anger erupts in us – it is a signal that something is wrong – and needs to be addressed.”
And there is something wrong with Jonah.
“Do you have good reason to be angry?” God asks Jonah. It was God’s job to judge and God failed, Jonah believes. He goes out of the city and he sits. Jonah decided he would sit in judgment of Nineveh.
Who do you sit in judgment over?
I went to the park to get some solitude – and there are gates and signs – due to the government shutdown… - I was sitting in judgment over the people in Washington!
How about church people? It is funny to talk about sitting in judgment over Washington or Hollywood – but oftentimes, we judge the church – we judge one another – we sit in judgment of their opinions/lifestyle, how they read the Bible – what they believe about certain things, what they don’t believe about other things.
God provides a vine – a worm – a wind – everything/one does what God says, except Jonah. Jonah is overjoyed at this plant. Jonah is insensitive to the possibility of great suffering of others, but leaps for joy when a minor annoyance is removed from him.
We’ve heard the rest of the story – God says – what right do you have? You have no compassion at all. Jonah missed the heart of God. He had a wrong view of God. No one deserved God’s punishment more than Jonah. No one receives more grace than Jonah – he doesn’t see it, of course. Jonah failed to receive grace, therefore, he failed to give it. He missed how much God was pouring grace out.
From the beginning – God says to Abraham, I will bless you to become a blessing.
John Ortberg was talking about blessing – they need to count, to recognize how God has blessed and been gracious to them – so that they can become a blessing to others in that area. Ask yourself – How has God blessed me? Financially? I am to be a financial blessing. Education? Bless others with it! Skills and talents – bless others with them.
Whatever the blessing God gave it to you so that you can turn around and bless others with that blessing that He has given you. The reality – we all have an enormous amount of blessing from God. Jonah didn’t recognize it. He focused on his problem. His problem: his tree wilted! When you compare it to all that God has done – it is just a tree wilting.
Firs t- recognize God’s blessing and grace – and be thankful.
Cindy has, at work, a no-snark zone! It just happens – so Cindy and another teacher covenanted to not do that! She admits she needs to apologize two-3 times a week.
He who waters will himself be watered – learn to bless others – think of how you can bless others. Everyone has different talents and blessings – use them to bless others.
Remember your greatest blessing! What is it? Your salvation! The gift of God to you – you have been blessed with that! You are blessed to bless others. We need to give others the opportunity to have a relationship with God. God has worked this story in all of our lives and we need to learn to share it.