Maybe you'd like to go. Anybody else ready to go to
Greece? Yeah.
Anybody ready to go to Vietnam next year?
Yeah. Oh, Peter, to start taking
names. There are some ministry and
vision trips planned coming up in the next year.
And so if you're keen to go with us to Greece this next year.
And then as well to go to Vietnam and Korea.
It's in the work. So now is the time to start
praying about that. I want to invite you to open
your Bibles to Jonah Chapter 3. Is it possible to have a second
chance? Is it possible that Jesus might
actually affectionately look at us and know we're a lot like
Jonah and need second chances? Are you worthy of a second
chance? Do you know?
The right answer to that is no, I'm not worthy of a second
chance. But God is so merciful and He
loves us so much and He also loves others so much.
That he is the God of second chances.
As Tim Keller would say, we we don't fully realize the depths
of our depravity, nor do we realize the incredible heights
and depths of God's love for us all in the same moment.
Jonah struggled with this, maybe not for himself, but definitely
for others. But God brought him to a point
of reconciliation because he reckoned and rumbled with the
mercy of God for himself. You may remember at the end of
chapter 2 it says the great fish vomited.
Jonah on to the beach. And Jonah chapter 3 begins with
Jonah on the beach. Are you ready?
Jonah? Chapter 3.
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 obeyed the word of the
Lord and went. To Nineva now Nineva, was a very
large city. It took three days to go through
it. Jonah began by going a day's
journey into the city, proclaiming 40 more days and
Nineva will be overthrown. 40 more days and Nineva will be
overthrown. The Ninovites believed God.
A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to
the least, put on sackcloth. 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. 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, 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. Who knows?
God may yet relent and with compassion turn from His fierce
anger. So that we will not perish 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. Heavenly Father, we set our
lives before you almost as if we're like Jonah standing on the
beach. Having received mercy, we've
celebrated your mercy and your grace, your truth.
In our lives this morning we've celebrated our the movement from
being under judgment and brought into grace.
We've sung of that. And now, like Jonah, we stand at
a crossroads at the beach to see what will be our next step.
Will we really go to Nineveh where we really make the
adjustment we promised? And we pray, Father, that you
would show us again the depths of your grace towards us as your
people, who have received a great commandment and a Great
Commission, would you help us to align our lives with the values
and ways of Jesus, our King and his Kingdom.
And we ask this in His name. Amen.
So God gave Jonah a second chance.
It says the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.
It's a repeat of Jonah chapter one.
In Jonah chapter one it says the word of the Lord came to Jonah.
And here it says and adds it came a second time.
And so with this arrival of the word of the Lord.
God was waiting to see Was Jonah really going to do it?
Was Jonah really going to move? In fact, the word here is up.
We translated as Go arise, but it's really up.
Jonah, get up. Let's go, go to Nineveh and
proclaim to it the message I give you.
Do you know God is always inviting us to be a part of what
he's doing with the people that he has in his heart?
And it was astonishing to Jonah that Mineva might be in God's
heart for good and not for evil, but it was the evil part or the
destruction part. That was so in the mind of Jonah
that even when he proclaimed his message, he couldn't bring
himself to give the full prophetic message before.
A full prophetic message would include who is bringing you
under judgment, and it would also declare what you have done
wrong. But when Jonah announces the
message of the Lord, I think he gives the specific words that
God gave him to say. It just seems that he left out
God. And why?
Notice what he says. Notice Jonah's message 40 more
days and Nineveh will be overthrown.
Jonah's almost announcing it with Glee.
You've got 40 days. And then you're going to be
overthrown. I wonder what it was like as he
made his way into that city on the first day.
From the edges to the middle. It appears, by the messaging
that the narrator gives us, that Jonah didn't make it to the
middle of the city. He spent a day doing his
preaching ministry and then decided to go up on the hill and
watch. That's in Chapter 4, So in
Chapter 4. Jonah is on the hill watching to
see how Nineveh is going to be overthrown.
One day of ministry, 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown.
He doesn't tell them which God. He doesn't speak of Yahweh, nor
does he say why. And so the surprising thing that
begins to happen in the city. Is that people begin to respond
to Jonah. People actually begin to respond
to God. The narrator here tells us that
the Menovites believed God in spite of Jonah's shorthand
message. Now shorthand messages are very
common when you were summarizing the the ministry and message of
Jesus. The riders of the gospel say of
Jesus his message was this. Repent.
For the Kingdom of God is at hand.
Jesus went about preaching repent and the Kingdom of God is
at hand. It's just that we have more than
one day of the ministry of Jesus with us and so we have a lot
more of its teaching. But Jonah's message didn't even
seem to provide the message of repent. 40 more days and none of
a. Will be overthrown.
His message is ambiguous. Ambiguous.
But there's still grace in it for this word.
Overthrown. Do you know what?
It also can mean? Transformed.
And I think this may have been the message that Jonah didn't
really want to pay attention to you. 40 more days and none of a
will be. Transformed, he wanted to hear
40 more days and Nineveh will be no more.
Wiped off the surface of the earth, for the Assyrians were a
terrible enemy. Can you imagine that If you were
Korean and God sent you to Japan?
Can you imagine if you? You can make a list of enemies,
can't we? We have long list of traditional
enemies. And what if God chose to send
you to your enemy with a message?
40 more days and you'll be transformed.
Or is it in your heart? 40 more days and he will be
wiped off the planet. Can you imagine God calling up
people from Ukraine to go to Russia?
What's the messaging? What's the messaging?
What's in our hearts? But what's in the heart of God?
For God is just, and God does judge.
But when he sent his prophets and when he sent Jesus his son,
it says of Jesus's arrival that Jesus came in love.
Because we were already condemned for God, so loved the
world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in him shall have eternal life.
And then the next verses says that he came to preach, not to
condemn the world, but because the world was already condemned.
And it seems that God sent Jonah to that generation because God
was wanting to do something in that generation in Nineveh.
And in spite of Jonah, God did it.
It was not Jonah's eloquence. It wasn't even Jonah's good
looking outfit. Can you imagine how it looked
after three days? In the belly of a whale, and
then a long journey across from the beach to Nineveh, I think
Jonah stank. So it wasn't his eloquence, it
wasn't his good looks. It was simply his participation
in what God wanted to do. And God was going to do it.
The surprising turnover of Mineva reads its pinnacle when
it says word arrived to the King of Mineva.
And did you see the pattern of what the king did?
Did you see how God is bringing about a social transformation
right there in Mineva? Jonah started on the outside.
Edges of the city not at the center.
Jonah started with the people who were at the margins with the
edges, and they responded 1st. And the word of their response
to this message of a strange prophet reached the king, and
God moved the King's heart as well.
It says he rose from his throne in that moment he was.
Getting up and giving up his royal authority, it says he took
off his robes. At that moment he set aside his
wealth and prestige and then he put on sackcloth.
At that moment he gave evidence of his concern and his grief.
Sackcloth was the common clothing that just said I'm in
mourning, I'm in grief. And then it says he sat in the
dust. That was the act of humility
where he joined in the life of the common people before God.
God has overturned Nineveh. And then the king gives a
decree. Cover yourselves with sock
cloth. Didn't you find it odd that he
wanted the animals to wear sackcloth too?
Yeah, that's weird. But let me tell you.
Having a big fish in chapter 2 Swallow Jonah, That's weird too.
But the animals. But we've got a backup.
The animals have a part in this story.
All creation is meant to be a part of God's work.
And so I can't imagine the kids putting the sackcloth on the
animals, but I guess it happened.
And then he says in his decree, give up your evil ways and the
violence in your hands. And when he says this, give up
the violence, which is sort of shorthand in the in the English,
the Hebrew conveys a sense of the violence in your hands, that
personal violence that you want to enact against someone.
This wasn't just a blanket word from the king.
This was an acknowledgement from the king about what he knew
about his people is that they were walking around with grudges
against others, that they were walking around with an
opportunity to do violence against another.
And he says we must give it up and then notice how he
surrenders to God. Who knows?
God might yet relent with compassion.
That is the word of surrender. What comes We're in the hands of
God now. And this is how Nineveh was
overturned, strangely, in the history of Assyria.
What happens in the next reign of kings is that Assyria
actually became a great place, apparently, and they launched a
whole new set of renovations and changes in the way they did
business and the way they conducted the architecture of
their cities. There was some kind of change in
Nineveh and Assyria. This is what happens when God
overturns a society. Is the message of Jesus for
everyone? Yes.
Are we all to have a part in it? Yes.
Are you aware on occasions where you've said no to God?
And then asked him, Oh God, give me a second chance.
He will give it. Do you know why he will give it?
It's because there's another king who got off his throne.
Jesus, the High King of heaven, rose from the throne.
He took off his robes. He clothed himself not in
sackcloth but in flesh. And he was born in dust, laid in
a Manger. Oh, this is our king.
This is our king who suffered the hands of the violence of
others, of empire, and was buried but was raised again.
This is the king who calls reluctant disciples back.
Did you did you notice this morning we read of the second
occasion where Jesus mentions Jonah?
The first mention of Jonah is in Matthew 16, where Jesus says of
a corrupt generation. I'm only going to give you the
sign of Jonah, which we would understand to be 3 days in a
tomb swallowed up by death. And then alive again, But in his
conversation with the disciples, Jesus asked who did the people
say I am? And they said, well, some of
them say you're Elijah, others say you're Jeremiah come back
from the dead. And then Peter speaks up, but
you are the Messiah, the Son of God.
And then Jesus says the strangest thing.
He says Peter, son of Jonah. This was revealed to you not by
humans but by God. Now, according to the scripture,
Peter's dad is John, our first introduction to Peter in.
The book of John is that Peter is called Peter, son of John.
So what was Jesus doing when he calls Peter son of Jonah?
I mean, would you like that if someone called you son of Jonah?
Try it out. Turn to your neighbor and say
you daughter of Jonah, you son of Jonah.
I mean, this sounds strange. None of us have.
Jonah was your dad. Jonah.
Anybody here? So no, no, none of us have.
A father named Jonah. So Jesus is being affectionate
and yet prophetic with Peter because Peter needed a second
chance, didn't he? Peter denied Jesus and Peter was
restored into fellowship and ministry.
Where? On a beach?
Peter, do you love me?
You son of Jonah and Peter would later find himself in Jopa.
Do you remember Jopa? Jopa is where Jonah ran when he
was running from God and wanted to get on a boat.
He didn't want to go to Nana, but he wanted to go to Tarsus.
But God had called Jonah to be a first prophet to the Gentiles.
And what happened to Peter in Jopa?
He was called to be the first apostle to the Gentiles.
Do you think Jesus knew what he was doing when he says with
affection to Peter, Peter, your son of Jonah?
He knows something about our hearts that we're not quick to
obey. We're not quick to respond
always, especially when it means crossing a boundary, especially
when it means breaking social norms.
Especially it means that someone's going to look at us
and say you're not being true to your people.
Especially when it means we're going to forgive our enemies.
We're sons and daughters of Jonah at that moment, and we
need a second chance. Let's pray together.
Heavenly Father, you know what resides in our lives?
That we're not just like Jonah. We're also like Menova.
That on occasion, what has been in our heart has been hateful
and hurtful. That we have let the powers and
methods of empire take root in our lives such that we make
greed and stuff of Earth and idle.
Such that we catalog people according to their ethnicities,
their backgrounds and their family names and where we've
seen them as less than and wished that they would be wiped
off from the planet. And yet you want to populate
heaven with them and us. And so we come to Jesus on the
level ground at the foot of the cross, and we stand in the dust,
and we adore him as king. The king who took off his robes
after he got up from his throne, who put on flesh and was born in
dust, so that we might be lifted up before you.
Oh Lord Jesus, inside of what met that love, maybe be quick to
say yes, may we be quick to move and get up when you make a way
for us to speak, to share our lives in the gospel, to share
kindness and help and hope so that you might overthrow once
again. The impact of powers and
principalities in this place and that your Kingdom would come,
Come, Lord Jesus, come.