Father in Heaven, we give You praise for all that You've
delivered to us this day. As we open Your word, we trust
that the Holy Spirit is going to illuminate Your very word God
breathed to teach us and correct us and train us in
righteousness, to rebuke us where we need to be rebuked, and
to encourage us, reminding us of who we are in Christ Father.
Indeed, we pray that You would draw us near and that we would
be overwhelmed by the promise that the Holy Spirit lives in
us. So give us eyes to see and ears
to hear, hearts to fill rightly, and a mind to think correctly,
that we might leave this place today knowing that You are at
work making us more and more like our Savior Jesus and whose
name we pray. Amen.
We're going to be looking at the book of Jonah, chapter 3, the
1st 4 verses today, and next week we'll finish this chapter
of Jonah before we come to the missions conference, and then
we'll continue in the book of Jonah up to Advent.
Last Sunday I preached essentially about the first
verse of chapter 3, about the word of the Lord coming to Jonah
a second time. Today I'm going to unpack a few
more verses and then we'll look to anticipate what the response
was from the people of Nineveh as Jonah now faithfully went to
preach the word again, Jonah three beginning at verse one,
going through verse 4. Then the word of the Lord came
to Jonah the second time, saying, arise, go to Nineveh,
that great city, and call out against it the message that I
tell you. So Jonah arose and went to
Nineveh according to the word the Lord.
Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city.
Three days journey in breath. Jonah began to go into the city,
going a day's journey, and he called out yet 40 days and
Nineveh shall be overthrown. This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God you may be seated if this is your first
Sunday with us. Are you relatively new to our
church? We are in this wonderful little
minor prophet called Jonah. Let me set the stage for what
has happened so far as a way of reminding you or introducing you
to this wonderful little book. Jonah is a prophet of the living
God, the word of the Lord, we're told, and chapter one, verse one
came to Jonah. The word of the Lord that came
to Jonah was that God wanted Jonah to go into that great and
evil city, Nineveh. And it was a wicked, wicked
city. The ways in which they treated
people, their enemies was vile. It was horrendous.
And so the Israelites hated the people of Nineveh.
Jonah hated the people of Nineveh.
And as a prophet of the Lord, he had no category for God calling
him to now not just be a prophet to the people of Israel, but to
go into an enemy land and to proclaim whatever it was that
the Lord called him to say. So Jonah rebelled.
He was reluctant. He was more than reluctant
though. He flat out denied and rejected
God's word and what he told him to do, just like us.
So Jonah flees as far away as he can get from the Lord, but the
Lord has a will to save, and he's going to save who He will
save, how He wills to save them. Let me say that again.
The Lord has a will to save who He will save and how He wills to
save them. And it was His will to use this
rebellious prophet who rejected his word, who was running as far
away from him as he could get, to be the one as a failed
prophet, now restored to bring his very word to the people of
Nineveh. So Jonah gets on the ship, He
goes to sleep. He is awakened, The storm is
mighty, the ship is falling apart.
Jonah then is thrown overboard, but God, because He wills to use
whoever he wills to use to save the people He wills to save,
created a fish. We believe this is true, a very
real fish, a fish that when it was created, God knew would be
the fish that would be part of the history of redemption
forever. And this fish, at that right
time, at that right place, the storm is unfolding all around
him, swallowed Jonah up as he was descending to the roots of
the mountains as far down as you can go.
There in the belly of that fish, Jonah repents as he prays to the
Lord. The Lord then commands that fish
to spit Jonah up on dry land. This really happened somewhere
in a patch of shoreline. Jonah is ejected out of the
mouth of this fish, covered with seaweed, wrapped with the
fragrance of whatever the inside of a fish that large smells
like. Jonah's there standing on that
land. And then at some point the word
of the Lord came to Jonah the second time.
Let me say that again. The word of the Lord came to
Jonah a second time. Last Sunday I preached about
that verse. The word of the Lord must come a
second time, 1/3 time, 1/5 time, a 70 times 70th time.
The word of the Lord coming to him again shows His grace, His
power, His affection, His zeal to accomplish what he has
purposed. Jonah, then we're told in this
text in verse 2, arises. Instead of fleeing away from the
Lord, he now moves towards Nineveh, the great city, and he
calls out against it the message that the Lord told him to tell
what happened. He's transformed.
He's transformed by the grace, the might, the mercy of God,
this holy God. And he goes, he goes into the
city which has 120,000 people. It's a great city, but it's an
evil city. And he goes in obedience to what
God called him to do the first time, and now what he is calling
him to do a second time. This is the sovereign hand of
God at work, the sovereign grace of God.
This morning what I want to do is I want to look at 2
significant things that give us hope as the Lord calls us as His
children to take His message to the world.
Jesus was very clear at the end of Matthew.
He says therefore go and make disciples of all nations.
You can't be a disciple if you have not become a follower of
Jesus. Evangelism, proclaiming Christ
as part of discipleship. He says therefore go and make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to
obey all these things. I've commanded you, and surely I
will be with you to the end of days.
Then before he ascends to heaven, he tells the disciples,
You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and
you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria to
the ends of the earth. Jesus Christ was sent to save
his people, and until the last of his people are saved, He's
not going to return. And there will be a day we don't
know when it is. There's no reason to even try to
guess when it is. There will be a day when the
last of his chosen, the last whom he has willed to be saved,
will be saved. And then when Jesus returns,
when the Father sends him, when he descends back to earth, every
knee will bow and tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
But here's what I want to give us today.
We are called, all of us who in Christ to take the message that
we have been, that we have received, and to give it to
others who do not know the good news God seeks.
This is from the beginning of Genesis to the end of
Revelation. God seeks those he's intends to
save. He sends those who have been
saved that others he intends to be saved will be saved.
He sins, He seeks, He saves. Repeat.
And here's what gives us hope. It's the power of His Word,
which is what we're called to give and the purposes of His
will. So under those two headings,
let's look at this text. If you're paying attention, even
close a little bit closely, you realize this is probably about
to be a sermon on evangelism. Evangelism really means just
sharing the good news. Yet for so many Christians, that
privilege, that task, that responsibility frightens us,
causes us to be reluctant ourselves.
And so often there's so much shame attached to it.
Shame is not helpful in this regard.
We don't need to be motivated by shame.
We have the message and the only message that can save a soul for
all eternity. If you're in Christ, you have
received that word and you are called to now go and give that
word away. It's just the beauty of God's
sovereign timing that this text is what we're preaching just
before the missions conference. The missions conference isn't
about us just celebrating those who have responded to the Word
they've received and have gone to the outermost parts of the
world. It is for all of us to remember
that right now, if you're in Christ, you are missionaries to
places I can never go. You are missionaries in your
home, on your block, in your places of work or places of
school, places of recreation, boards.
You serve on, places where you eat, you get your haircut, you
shop. You are an ambassador for
Christ. All of us, not just some who
have a special call. All of us.
And that calling is glorious. It's a calling that enables us
in the power of the Spirit and the power of His Word to take
the good news, the life giving word that saves people from the
eternal wrath of God. And that can only happen in
Christ. So I'm going to begin by talking
about the power of His Word. Did you see it in the text?
Go back with me to Jonah 3. Then the word of the Lord came
to Jonah a second time. This is important.
It's not some other word. It's not something that's
generated by Jonah's cultural context and understanding of the
people of Nineveh. It is God's very word.
This is God's very word. And if you are in Christ Jesus,
he used someone to reveal his word to you, another preacher,
an author, a relative, a youth pastor, a camp counsellor, a
Sunday school teacher. He used someone because he
willed that you would be saved. And he who wills those who are
going to be saved also wills the way in which they're going to be
saved. And his primary way of doing
that is using people like us who also have rebelled, like Jonah,
who've also been reluctant, who have also had wrong ideas about
God. And God restores us and we go
forth preaching, teaching, pointing people to Jesus.
The word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time.
What was that word? The same word he received the
first time. Arise.
You got to get up. You got to go and I'm telling
you where to go to that great city of Nineveh, 120,000 people
wicked, their wickedness has risen up to me and God says go
call out against it. The message that I tell you what
is that? His Word.
As Christians who have received the good news, we are only
called to give others His Word. We do not have to make something
up. Whatever you make up is not
living. It's not active, it's not God
breathed. But when we give other people
the Word of God, the Word tells us it's breathed.
All scriptures God breathed and is useful for teaching and
rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.
Hebrews 4 The Word of God is living and active.
It does what nothing else can do.
As the Holy Spirit moves, Jonah receives the word of the Lord.
The word of the Lord is arise, go and there's a location for
Jonah. It's the wicked city, the great
city of Nineveh. Where is it for you?
Let's not make this complicated. And sometimes that's what
happens is we shy away from the simple responsibility.
Where do you live? What's the name of the street?
The people live next to you, in front of you, behind you.
Where do you work? Where do you go to school?
Where do you play? All around you are people.
They're crowds. The crowds Jesus would describe
with great compassion are those who are harassed and helpless.
Is that how you see those who aren't in Christ?
Do you see their blindness? Do you see their confusion?
The Lord calls us to live in Him wherever He has placed us.
That's your primary mission field, right where you live
living Christ and be prepared to give the message that he calls
you to give his message, his Word, the power of God's Word.
We celebrate next week what's Reformation Sunday Sola
scriptura, this idea that it's Scripture alone, the final and
supreme authority containing all truth necessary for salvation
and sanctification, growth in Christ.
Our own confession says that by their light, that's the Word in
the Spirit illuminating the Word.
By their light and power, they're able to convince and
convert sinners to comfort and build up believers.
The Word of God is not equally clear in every part because it's
not seeking to answer every question we might have, but
regarding the plan of salvation, regarding what it means to know
that I'm a Sinner and I need a Savior.
The Word of God from Genesis to Revelation has supreme clarity
as the Holy Spirit illuminates. The confession says what is
necessary to be known, believed and observed for salvation is
made clear and open for the learned and the unlearned, for
the scholar as well as a child who is the Lord moves could even
profess faith as a toddler. This is amazing.
It's because of God's powerful word.
God tells Jonah speak the message that I tell you He tells
us. Speak my word, friends.
This is why we need to know His word.
We need to know it deeply, so deeply that with the Holy
Spirit's illumination we can anchor into the things that are
most clear, most direct, most concise for non believers to
hear. So often we get distracted by so
many other things. Jonah is told to speak the
message I give him. What was it?
Look, we'll be at verse 4. Jonah began to go into the city
going a day's journey, and he called out, yet 40 days and
Nineveh shall be overthrown. Why did he say that?
That doesn't seem like the the
good news message. It doesn't seem like the right
way to proclaim the glory of God.
He said it because that's what God told him to say in
obedience. He said those words.
It's possible that he said more as he walked through the city,
but he said the very thing that God told him to say.
And what was it? That they needed to be saved
from the wrath of God, The wrath of God that they deserve to have
poured out on him, that I deserve to have poured out on
me. That's the message that Jonah
brought, and that message was powerful because it was the Word
of God. That's what people need us to
give them. It is the word of God.
You might think right now, Mark, I just don't know enough.
Thank you for admitting that. If you've been in Christ for
even a little while, you probably do know enough to
simply share the core of the gospel, and you need to learn
more. But here's my question to you.
Are you going to Start learning today or next time you hear a
sermon on evangelism? Will it be the same thing?
Don't use it as an excuse. You can learn quickly all you
need to know. Not knowing enough most likely
is not your primary problem. You might blame it on that, but
let me help you. If you don't know what to say to
a question someone asked, just tell them.
I don't know what to say, but I know someone who might know an
answer, and you do. Somebody who's more mature in
the faith than you are, a Deacon or elder in our church, somebody
leading your women's Bible study, a teacher, a pastor.
There's people who know you can come back with them, to them
with the answer. My guess is knowledge is not
your primary issue. Those who are in Christ, those
who are in Christ, at some point in your life God sent a person
to bring to you His Word, and it was powerful, It was living and
it still is. And it did the work that needed
to be done. And you, whether you were 3 or
13 or 25 or 35 or 55 or 75 or 90, you heard it.
It was given to you. And the one who gave you the
word, now I was telling you like he's telling me to go and give
the word away. The word of the Lord is given.
The word of the Lord is go. The word of the Lord is Go give
my word, because the word is powerful.
But there's a second thing that can give us great hope, and that
is the purpose of His will. I said it already, but He will
save who He will save how He wills to save them.
He will save who we will save, how He wills to save them.
And it was His will to use this rebellious prophet to take this
word, the power of His word, to a large, great, evil nation.
He had to hear the message a second time as a transformed man
who from the belly of the fish finally came to repentance and
prayed. The Lord commanded that fish,
literally spoke His word to that fish, and the fish spit him up.
He then goes and faithfully says what the Lord told him to say.
It was the purpose of the Lord, the purpose of His will to use
Jonah. There was no one else.
He was going to sin. It was the purpose of His will
to bring into your life and into my life the people that told us
about the living Word of God, about Jesus, the only way of
salvation. And now the Lord who will save,
who He will save, how He wills to save them, wills to use us,
placing you in specific areas of recreation, on specific plans to
travel. We're all around our people who
don't know the Lord, who are helpless, harassed, who don't
know their right hand from their left.
And this is where sometimes we feel the burden.
Friends, if you think about the good news that you have been
given, that you deserve the wrath of a holy God be poured
out on you, and the Lord sent his only son to die the death
you deserve. To die after living the life
that you and I could never live, to be put in the tomb for three
days, to be raised from the dead, to ascend into heaven, to
intercede for us now until the Lord tells him to descend again,
to return again. He sent his son.
That's great news. You and I have the profound
privilege to tell other people that news.
But let me encourage you, Jesus said.
Pray to the Lord of the harvest. You are not the Lord of the
harvest. Jonah had no idea how the people
of Nineveh would respond. He might have had some idea
about the character of God which will come up later.
Befriend the Lord of the harvest is going to provide whoever He
wills to save those He wills to save, however He wills to save
them. Here's what that means.
If you today hear this message that I have received the Word of
God, and having received that word from the one who gives it,
He's calling me to go, to go in my home, to go in my
neighborhood, to go in my places of work or school or recreation.
And there's a part of you that's just saying, I don't think I
have to do that. I don't think I want to do that.
Then you are not going to keep anyone from coming to saving
faith. You're not that powerful.
You can reject what God tells you and never be used by Him to
bring the living Word to others. And if it's His will to save
that person that you're reluctant to go towards, they're
still going to be saved. But you and I, and our
reluctance and our disobedience and in our rebellion will miss
the incredible privilege of being used by God to save His
people with His power and His living Word.
It's scary. There's risk and there's
suffering that's always going to be present.
But the power of His Word and the purpose of His will to save
those he is going to save should give us such confidence to go
wherever He's called us to go, even if that's to go right where
He's placed us. And that's as far Jonah did not
lack courage, it doesn't seem, certainly didn't lack knowledge
in terms of the clarity of the Word, but what he lacked was
compassion. I already mentioned Matthew 935
to 38 in the passage where Jesus says the harvest is plentiful
but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray earnestly.
That means beg to the Lord of the harvest to send out
laborers. Before Jesus gave them that
prayer, that command, He said this.
Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in
their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the Kingdom and
healing every disease and every affliction.
And I hear this verse 36. And when he, Jesus, saw the
crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed
and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
Is that how you see the world? Do you look at the world with
the eyes of Christ? Do you see people doing really
evil things, doing what makes sense to them though?
And instead of just being angry about that, and there's a time
to be angry, do you have compassion?
Do you see that they're harassed and helpless?
This idea of compassion is not just a New Testament reality.
In the very last verse of the book of Jonah, here's what we
hear. Verse 11.
God speaks to Jonah and says, and should I not pity Nineveh,
that great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons
who do not know their right hand from their left?
The Lord showed Jonah compassion.
He showed Jonah pity. If you're in Christ, He showed
you pity and compassion. He showed me pity and
compassion. Most of the time it's not a lack
of confidence or lack of knowledge.
Those things can come from the Lord, but it's a lack of
compassion that keeps us from seeing the world the way the
Lord sees. And when the Lord has compassion
on us to see it the way He wants us to see it.
When He comes to us a second time, 1/3 time, with the power
of His living word, and we hear it, why would we ever say why?
I don't understand. Why would we ever say not me?
Send someone else if that's you. There's something about the
first part of this that you're missing.
Ask Christ to meet you there. There's something about the good
news and that you didn't deserve it and neither did I that you're
missing. And when the Lord faithfully
reveals to you through His word and Spirit whatever He wants to
reveal to you, I promise He's not going to say, just keep this
to yourself. He's going to say through His
word and Spirit, I've given it to you.
Now go to Jonah. My Word came to you by the
sovereign hand of my grace with my might and mercy, and now I'm
sending you to the people of Nineveh, that my word that came
to you will go through you to them.
Well, we'll see what happens next week as we pick up at verse
5 of Jonah 3. Lord Jesus, you were sent and
you came. You did everything that was
necessary, including dying up on the cross after living a perfect
life. That the wrath that we all
deserve will be poured out on you.
Lord, today as we hear this message ignite in US, burn
within us, 'cause us to be eager to go wherever you have will for
us to go, to be faithful to speak to whoever You've called
us to speak. Equip us, give us the right
words, give us the right knowledge, but let us believe
deeply and the power that is in us because of the Holy Spirit.
Make us faithful. Give us eyes to anticipate the
day that you return, even as we now sing about that second
Advent and fix our eyes upon the good news of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. We love you, Lord, and pray this
in your holy name, Amen. Please stand.