Running from God(2011Oct02)
Series: Jonah’s Journey M1 11 10 02
Title: Running from God
Speaker: Ken Shigematsu
Text: Jonah 1:1-17
BIG IDEA: Running from the call to be a light to the world is hard and God, in his love, sends us a storm to bring us back.
At our home when someone rings the doorbell there is a small TV monitor in the hallway between our kitchen and our dining room that lights up and we can see who is at the door (when I was traveling more—I wanted to create a greater of sense of security for Sakiko).
From time to time usually around dinner time the doorbell rings, I look at the monitor and there is someone there with a clipboard. (Use prop) My first thought is, “This person is part of some political campaign, or someone wanting us to change our gas plan from Fortis to some other energy broker, or with Green peace and wants a donation.” They tend to come right around dinner time (or maybe it just seems that way because I try to be home for dinner.) So as soon as I see someone with a clipboard, there is a part of me that says “I don’t want to answer the door.” So I typically talk to them through the monitor, and think, “Whatever their pitch, I will say ‘actually now is not a good time.’”
Have you ever had that experience? Or if you do not have a monitor in your house or apartment maybe you have caller ID on your phone. You know who is calling and you just don’t want to answer the call from this particular person.
Well, this is how the prophet Jonah felt back in about the year 600 BC when he saw that God was at his door with a clipboard, asking him to go to Nineveh and to call those people to repent; that is, to turn from their violent ways and follow the Living God. Instead of going to the front door and opening it, Jonah, in effect, says to himself, “Now is not a good time,” runs out the back door, through the back yard, into the garage, gets into his car, squeals down the back alley, or goes down to the docks east of Canada Place, and catches a cruise ship.
Now our story may not be as dramatic, but have you ever sensed that God was calling you to be something, or to do something, or to become something, or take a new direction, and you also felt like fleeing from God? When Father Moe who spoke last week felt called to remain a single man and to serve as medical doctor in the jungles of Peru, I wonder if he resisted at all. If you know Jesus Christ, but sense calling you to be more open about your faith in your workplace or school is there are part of you that feels like running the opposite direction? Or perhaps you are considering the possibility of committing your life to Christ, you wonder if you'll be rejected by your family or friends… There's a part of you that wants to have a life of God, but there's also a part of you that wants to run.
At some point we all face the temptation to run from God.
We are beginning a new series today in the book of Jonah. If you have your Bibles, please turn to the book of Jonah, Chapter 1:1-17. Listen to the word of the LORD.
1 The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 “Go to the great city Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”
3 But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD.
4 Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. 5 All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship.
But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. 6 The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish.”
7 Then the sailors said to each other, “Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.” They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. 8 So they asked him, “Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What kind of work do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?”
9 He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”
10 This terrified them and they asked, “What have you done?” (They knew he was running away from the LORD, because he had already told them so.)
11 The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?”
12 “Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied, “and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.”
13 Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. 14 Then they cried out to the LORD, “Please, LORD, do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, LORD, have done as you pleased.” 15 Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. 16 At this the men greatly feared the LORD, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows to him.
17 Now the LORD provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
We read in vs. 2 that the word of the LORD came to the prophet Jonah, “Go to the great city Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”
Jonah flees from the LORD and heads for Tarshish. He goes down to Joppa where he finds a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he boards the ship and sails for Tarshish to run away from the LORD. God tells Jonah to preach to the great city of Nineveh and Jonah bolts the other way. Jonah is in Israel, Nineveh is east of Israel in the area of modern day Iraq, but Jonah catches a ship west, going to Tarshish which is modern day Spain.
Tarshish was a place, according to 1 Kings 10, full of gold, silver, ivory, monkeys and peacocks. It was a distant, exotic paradise… think of Hawaii.
Jonah bolts to this exotic paradise in Spain, to lie out in the sun, to drink cocktails, and forget God’s call for him to preach to Ninevites. Why? Well, two reasons likely: 1) Because he was afraid of failure. It was unlikely that his preaching mission to Nineveh would be successful. They were a violent, hardened people and it was almost certain in his mind that his preaching would not only be rejected, but that he might be killed. It would be like you're being asked to go on a preaching mission to the Hells Angels. What do you think your chances of success would be?
So one reason that Jonah did not want to go and preach to the Ninevites is because he was afraid of failure. 2) He didn't want to go on to preach to the Ninevites because he was afraid of succeeding – unlikely though this was. If his preaching was successful and he got through to the Ninevites and they turned from their violent ways, he knew that God, being merciful, would spare them from his intended judgment.
So why didn't Jonah want the Ninevites to turn to God and experience God’s grace?
Because he hated the Ninevites. Because the Ninevites were a cruel and savage people, and Israel’s arch enemies. Did you ever see the movie, The Apocalypse Now? The movie is an adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s famous book, Heart of Darkness. In the story, Captain Willard played by Martin Sheen is sent up a river by the army to kill one of its own men, Colonel Kurtz, played by Marlon Brando, who has become a savage. As Captain Willard journeys along the river toward Colonel Kurtz’s outpost, he sees literally hundreds of skulls piled along the riverbank. The people of Nineveh would decapitate their enemies and pile them up like basketballs to show off their prowess.
Asking Jonah to preach to the Ninevites was be like asking a Jewish rabbi to go to Berlin during World War II and call Hitler to repent from his sins.
We recently remembered the ten-year anniversary of 9/11. Asking Jonah to preach to the Ninevities. would have been like asking George W. Bush on September 12, 2001 to go unarmed and call Osama Bin Laden to turn from his ways.
Or asking a mouse to preach to a cat.
So Jonah bolts the other way. As we see he rather die, commit suicide than preach to the Ninevities
As was true for Jonah, God calls to us to serve as his light in the world and sometimes we don’t want to serve as his light and we resist. We don’t want to become a light in the world.
Some years ago I visited what’s considered the largest church in the world in Korea. Paul Yonggi Cho has been pastor there. Some years ago, as his ministry was becoming international, he told God, "I will go anywhere to preach the gospel, except Japan." He hated the Japanese with gut-deep loathing because of what Japanese troops had done to the Korean people and to members of Yonggi Cho's own family during WW II. The Japanese were his Ninevites.
Through a combination of a prolonged inner struggle, several direct challenges from others, and finally an urgent and starkly worded invitation, Cho felt called by God to preach in Japan. He went, but he went with bitterness. The first speaking engagement was to a pastor's conference of 1,000 Japanese pastors. Cho stood up to speak, and what came out of his mouth was this: "I hate you. I hate you. I hate you." And then he broke and wept. He was both brimming and desolate with hatred.
At first one, then two, then all 1,000 pastors stood up. One by one they walked up to Yonggi Cho, knelt at his feet and asked forgiveness for what they and their people had done to him and his people. As this went on, God changed Yonggi Cho. The Lord put a single message in his heart and mouth: "I love you. I love you. I love you."
When God calls us to do something we don’t want to do, when he calls us to serve as light in his world, as was true of Jonah and Paul, there will always be a ship ready to take us to take us in a different direction; there will always be a boat ready to take us to Spain. There are times when we want to take that ship and go our own way because we think it will make life easier for us.
For a time, Jonah’s decision to run from God’s plan seemed to make his life easier. He got into a boat, slipped into his cabin and fell sound asleep, dreaming about spending time sun-tanning on the beaches of Spain and drinking cocktails and doing the Macarena. But all would not be well. A storm breaks out at sea and threatens his life and the lives of those around him.
Sometimes on the surface, following God’s will appear difficult, but long-term following God’s will is actually easier than not following God’s will. The Bible tells us that the way of the transgressor is hard (Proverbs 13:15). The way of the sinner is difficult. When we run from God’s plan for our life, at first we may think things are great…that we are free at last. Free from the shackles of God and his ways, but as was true of Jonah in that boat, we may, in fact, be slowly drifting into a storm.
In some cases, this is obvious. I remember seeing Johnny Cash, the country singer, being interviewed by Larry King. Johnny Cash said, “When I was young, I thought illegal drugs were God’s gift to me. They could bring me up when I wanted to go up and down when I wanted to go down. I discovered that drugs were really the devil in disguise.”
And people think drugs will make them feel better, and of course for a while they do. But our brain adjusts to the high the drug brings, so the next time we need just a little bit more of the drug to get the same high. Our brain achieves a certain level of tolerance, and we need more of the drug to get the same high until and find ourselves trapped in an addiction cycle.
I have heard people say, “I have been working really hard and doing a lot of good things. I feel like I deserve a break now and I want to enjoy some internet pornography.” At first it may seem like such a great escape, but people find themselves trapped in a porn addiction and swamped in shame.
There is a cost to walking outside of God’s will…outside of his call to us to be a light to the world. Sometimes it is not necessarily a choice between an obvious sin like drug use or pornography, sometimes a choice somewhere between something good and God’s best for us.
Ignatius of Loyola was convalescing from a cannon ball wound to his leg in the early part of the sixteenth century. While lying in bed bored, he wanted to read romance novels and fantasized about a life of gallantly pursuing a certain woman of the court. He also read biographies of Jesus and the saints and envisioned walking in the footsteps of Christ. In both scenarios he experienced an immediate sense of excitement, but as he envisioned chasing a noble woman of the court, though he had an initial sense of pleasure, he was left feeling restless and unsatisfied. But as he pondered pursuing a pilgrimage with Christ, he felt a sense of enduring joy and peace.
Sometimes choosing something good, but is out God’s will for us, is harder because we simply forfeit the deeper and more enduring joy and peace that comes by responding to God’s call on our lives.
A mentor of mine says, “Obedience is difficult, but disobedience is impossible.” Obedience can be difficult at first, but disobedience over time will prove impossible. If we are a son or daughter of God, running from God’s call to be his light in the world will prove difficult because it runs against the grain of who we are. It is not easy to go against the grain of who we are and we will find ourselves going down.
We read in verse 3 that Jonah went down to Joppa where he found a ship that was bound for the port in Spain. Ajith Fernando, the respected Bible expositor from Sri Lanka, points out that the word “down” is used four times in the King James version. Verse 3 states he went “down to Joppa.” Then he went “down” into the ship. In verse 5 we are told that Jonah had gone “down” into the sides of the ship. Then in 2: 6 Jonah says, “I went ‘down’ to the bottom of the mountains.”
Down, down, down, down.
Fernando believes that the repetition of the word “down” is very significant. The person who wrote Jonah was a literary artist, and in Hebrew when a word is repeated, we do well to pay attention because it likely means that the author is seeking to emphasize something.
To move away from the will of God, to not become a light in the world is to go down. I am not sure that the author of Jonah was using the term “down” as a metaphor, but I do believe that Fernando is right when he says when we go away from his plan to be a light in the world, we are going down.
Going away from God’s plan may look like we are going on a cruise to Spain, to somewhere attractive and exotic. But even if it looks like we are going up, up, up, if we are moving away from the person that God wants us to be, the light he wants you to become, we are really going down, down, down. It’s possible to be going up, up, up as far as the world is concerned but you to be going down, down, down as far as God is concerned.
Conversely, as we see in verse 8, when we follow God’s will for our life, even when it seems like we are going down, down, down, we are going up, up, up.
It is not uncommon to hear a testimony where someone basically says, “My life was really messed up in all kinds of ways. I met God and I became a better person. I had been struggling financially and now my business is prospering or I had been unhealthy and now I am really healthy. I have been healed.” I don’t want to discount those testimonies, but sometimes when we are on the path of God’s will for us, from a worldly perspective it may look like our life is going down, down, down. But in God’s economy our life is going up, up, up.
If you were here two weeks ago, you would have heard David Bentall talk about how as a younger man he aspired to become the president of his family’s construction company, a company which now has some 17 billion dollars in assets. But through a painful experience of betrayal he found himself on the outside of his family’s company looking in. He also talked about how he had aspired to be the CEO of the Vancouver/Whistler bid corporation and how out of 100 executives who applied for the job, he came in second for that position. He then shared how he is involved in the vocation of teaching families about running a family business effectively but also with integrity and honor, and how he feels like he is in the will of God, how through his work he is able to shine as a light for Christ. In a worldly sense he has taken some steps down in his career, but in the economy of God he has actually gone up.
When my wife Sakiko was in her mid twenties, she committed her life to Christ. At the time she was an editor at Newsweek Magazine. But she felt called to start a not-for-profit publishing company creating Christian books in Japan. From a worldly perspective her career was going down. She took a huge salary cut, but in following God’s will she was really going up, up, up.
I want to offer some “advanced content” to those of you who are longer time followers of Christ.
Ignatius of Loyola the founder of the Jesuits wrote about the 3 degrees of humility.
He says the first-degree of humility, if you are a follower of Christ, is absolute obedience in the time God speaks to you.
And by the way, if you're wanting to be directed by God, the most important foundation is to obey God in the things that are clear. Follow the light that you have in the small things and the big things tend to take care of themselves.
This would be a different message, but finding the will of God is not like trying to hit a 97-mile-an-hour fastball from Mariano Rivera… Something it just whizzes by you as you are rubbing your nose. If you are open to God in the small areas of your life, he will be guiding you even when you don't know.
Loyola says the second degree of humility comes into play when you have a choice between poverty and riches, honor and dishonor, a long life and short life: he says in the face of such possibilities we should not be leaning strongly towards one or the other, but be differentiated, indifferent, and open-handed.
He says the third degree of humility, which I'm nowhere close to, says that if you are faced with poverty and riches, honor and dishonor, a long life and short life we ought to lean toward poverty, dishonor and a short life – because that was the way of Christ.
In Jesus we saw as he hung on a cross it looked like he was going down, down, down, but he was redeeming the world… and in God’s eyes going up, up, up.
The way of God, the way of Kingdom is often upside down if we compare it to ways of the world.
When we run away from God, it is hard because we are going down, and it is hard because God will eventually come after us. God eventually came after Jonah through the storm and he will come after us if we depart from him.
How does he come back after Jonah?
He comes to him through a storm.
He comes to him through the sailors who wake him up.
He comes to him as the sailors identify him through the casting of lots.
He comes to him through the waves.
He comes to him through the whale.
He comes through 5 different ways.
There is a man I’ll call Steve. Steve loved fishing and fishing is wonderful, a gift from God. Jesus helped his students fish. But for Steve, though he believed in God, his fishing was coming between him and God. There were times when he was out fishing he thought, “As long as I'm fishing I don't need God.” Then we sense God moving toward him.
“It started five years ago with my annual (fly) fishing trip….
This yearly pilgrimage has always been for me a time of consummate pleasure, a banquet of beauty with deep friendship and adventure. Then it all began to unravel. I had scheduled a few days on the Frying Pan River in Colorado in late May. The fishing there is legendary, and recent reports had been phenomenal. But as a friend and I drove up to the river, it began to rain. Not to worry, I thought. Late spring often brings rain. It’ll blow over in an hour or two. As we climbed into the mountains, the rain turned into a snowstorm (this is in May) that lasted the entire trip.
I began to play chess with God. The following year, I planned our trip for July to eliminate all possibility of snow. I booked several days at a private ranch that caters to fly fisherman, with a guide to take us out to the upper Rio Grande. The night before we were to leave, I received a call telling me that no, it had not snowed, but thunderstorms had created mudslides and the fishing was impossible.
I sensed that God had made a countermove, and that my king was in danger. Grabbing my phone book, I found the number of another guide on a different river and called him. Yes, the fishing was fabulous and yes he could take us out tomorrow. I hung up the phone with a smile. Your move, God. When we arrived early the next morning, the fellow told us sadly, ‘It’s the strangest thing, but they opened the dam last night and the river’s flooded.’
The next year after that it was the drought; the year after that we still didn’t know what happened. High in the meadows of the Eastern Sierra, the fish seemed to vanish from the San Joaquin. I was losing the game. But I hadn’t been cornered; not yet.
Last year I was invited to a place near Bend, Oregon. It is a place very dear to me, full of memories from childhood. The Deschutes River flows from there, and I was looking forward to some great time on the water with my new fly rod. I made what I felt would be my winning move. A friend had arranged access for me to a private stretch of the Deschutes, a ranch visited each year by only a handful of people. The caretaker was an old master fly fisherman. When the owner of the shop in town learned where I was headed, he looked around furtively, leaned across the counter and whispered, ‘Mister, that may be the best one hundred yards of fishing in the North America.’ Something smiled in my heart and said “check.”
Old Bill was a marvelous fisherman, and as we walked down to the water, he realized, “I’m thinking…. let’s see…. You’re the first guy to fish here since October, 6 months ago…’ I thought, this is going to be incredible…’ You know what’s coming next. Nothing. We caught nothing. Bill had a funny look on his face. ‘John’ he said, people come from all over the world to fish this ranch. I’ve never had a day like this… ever. Feeling for all the world like Jonah, I said, ‘Bill, this is not about you. This fishing will be great after I’m gone. Check mate.’”
Fishing for John had become his god and God in his love came after him.
When God sends a storm there is love beneath the waves. The storm may feel violent as did for Jonah and John… It may seem that God is angry, but there is love beneath the waves. He sends a storm to draw us to him because he knows if we don’t come to him in our lifetime, not only will we miss the chance of lifetime to be his light in the world, but we miss the joy of an eternity with him.
Sometimes, as he did for Jonah, God sends storms into our lives so that he will fulfill his purpose for us to be a light in the world.
Has God ever allowed a storm in your life to draw you to him and to make you a light in the world? Can you see love beneath the waves?
It is hard to run from God because it goes against the very grain of our being. Even when running away may seem like it is up, up, up, but we are going down, down, down. The great irony is that when we run from God to be free, we are never free without him. When we are finally willing to give ourselves up to God like Jonah, to experience checkmate, when we are willing to cast ourselves in the sea for God in that moment of abandon, when all is lost, we are free.
The reason we can cast our self in utter abandon before God is because God in Jesus Christ allowed himself to be thrown into the sea for us so that we might be saved, so that our sins might be forgiven. 2000 years ago he allowed himself to enter into the storm of the cross so we could be free from our sins and forgiven.
When we know that, we can cast ourselves in utter abandon into the ocean of God’s purposes for us and become his light in the world.
Pray:
(God can use our disobedience. God is a redeemer, as he did with Jonah to draw the sailors to him, but in a much fuller way if we are fully on board with him.)
Title: Running from God
Speaker: Ken Shigematsu
Text: Jonah 1:1-17
BIG IDEA: Running from the call to be a light to the world is hard and God, in his love, sends us a storm to bring us back.
At our home when someone rings the doorbell there is a small TV monitor in the hallway between our kitchen and our dining room that lights up and we can see who is at the door (when I was traveling more—I wanted to create a greater of sense of security for Sakiko).
From time to time usually around dinner time the doorbell rings, I look at the monitor and there is someone there with a clipboard. (Use prop) My first thought is, “This person is part of some political campaign, or someone wanting us to change our gas plan from Fortis to some other energy broker, or with Green peace and wants a donation.” They tend to come right around dinner time (or maybe it just seems that way because I try to be home for dinner.) So as soon as I see someone with a clipboard, there is a part of me that says “I don’t want to answer the door.” So I typically talk to them through the monitor, and think, “Whatever their pitch, I will say ‘actually now is not a good time.’”
Have you ever had that experience? Or if you do not have a monitor in your house or apartment maybe you have caller ID on your phone. You know who is calling and you just don’t want to answer the call from this particular person.
Well, this is how the prophet Jonah felt back in about the year 600 BC when he saw that God was at his door with a clipboard, asking him to go to Nineveh and to call those people to repent; that is, to turn from their violent ways and follow the Living God. Instead of going to the front door and opening it, Jonah, in effect, says to himself, “Now is not a good time,” runs out the back door, through the back yard, into the garage, gets into his car, squeals down the back alley, or goes down to the docks east of Canada Place, and catches a cruise ship.
Now our story may not be as dramatic, but have you ever sensed that God was calling you to be something, or to do something, or to become something, or take a new direction, and you also felt like fleeing from God? When Father Moe who spoke last week felt called to remain a single man and to serve as medical doctor in the jungles of Peru, I wonder if he resisted at all. If you know Jesus Christ, but sense calling you to be more open about your faith in your workplace or school is there are part of you that feels like running the opposite direction? Or perhaps you are considering the possibility of committing your life to Christ, you wonder if you'll be rejected by your family or friends… There's a part of you that wants to have a life of God, but there's also a part of you that wants to run.
At some point we all face the temptation to run from God.
We are beginning a new series today in the book of Jonah. If you have your Bibles, please turn to the book of Jonah, Chapter 1:1-17. Listen to the word of the LORD.
1 The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 “Go to the great city Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”
3 But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD.
4 Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. 5 All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship.
But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. 6 The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish.”
7 Then the sailors said to each other, “Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.” They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. 8 So they asked him, “Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What kind of work do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?”
9 He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”
10 This terrified them and they asked, “What have you done?” (They knew he was running away from the LORD, because he had already told them so.)
11 The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?”
12 “Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied, “and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.”
13 Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. 14 Then they cried out to the LORD, “Please, LORD, do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, LORD, have done as you pleased.” 15 Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. 16 At this the men greatly feared the LORD, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows to him.
17 Now the LORD provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
We read in vs. 2 that the word of the LORD came to the prophet Jonah, “Go to the great city Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”
Jonah flees from the LORD and heads for Tarshish. He goes down to Joppa where he finds a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he boards the ship and sails for Tarshish to run away from the LORD. God tells Jonah to preach to the great city of Nineveh and Jonah bolts the other way. Jonah is in Israel, Nineveh is east of Israel in the area of modern day Iraq, but Jonah catches a ship west, going to Tarshish which is modern day Spain.
Tarshish was a place, according to 1 Kings 10, full of gold, silver, ivory, monkeys and peacocks. It was a distant, exotic paradise… think of Hawaii.
Jonah bolts to this exotic paradise in Spain, to lie out in the sun, to drink cocktails, and forget God’s call for him to preach to Ninevites. Why? Well, two reasons likely: 1) Because he was afraid of failure. It was unlikely that his preaching mission to Nineveh would be successful. They were a violent, hardened people and it was almost certain in his mind that his preaching would not only be rejected, but that he might be killed. It would be like you're being asked to go on a preaching mission to the Hells Angels. What do you think your chances of success would be?
So one reason that Jonah did not want to go and preach to the Ninevites is because he was afraid of failure. 2) He didn't want to go on to preach to the Ninevites because he was afraid of succeeding – unlikely though this was. If his preaching was successful and he got through to the Ninevites and they turned from their violent ways, he knew that God, being merciful, would spare them from his intended judgment.
So why didn't Jonah want the Ninevites to turn to God and experience God’s grace?
Because he hated the Ninevites. Because the Ninevites were a cruel and savage people, and Israel’s arch enemies. Did you ever see the movie, The Apocalypse Now? The movie is an adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s famous book, Heart of Darkness. In the story, Captain Willard played by Martin Sheen is sent up a river by the army to kill one of its own men, Colonel Kurtz, played by Marlon Brando, who has become a savage. As Captain Willard journeys along the river toward Colonel Kurtz’s outpost, he sees literally hundreds of skulls piled along the riverbank. The people of Nineveh would decapitate their enemies and pile them up like basketballs to show off their prowess.
Asking Jonah to preach to the Ninevites was be like asking a Jewish rabbi to go to Berlin during World War II and call Hitler to repent from his sins.
We recently remembered the ten-year anniversary of 9/11. Asking Jonah to preach to the Ninevities. would have been like asking George W. Bush on September 12, 2001 to go unarmed and call Osama Bin Laden to turn from his ways.
Or asking a mouse to preach to a cat.
So Jonah bolts the other way. As we see he rather die, commit suicide than preach to the Ninevities
As was true for Jonah, God calls to us to serve as his light in the world and sometimes we don’t want to serve as his light and we resist. We don’t want to become a light in the world.
Some years ago I visited what’s considered the largest church in the world in Korea. Paul Yonggi Cho has been pastor there. Some years ago, as his ministry was becoming international, he told God, "I will go anywhere to preach the gospel, except Japan." He hated the Japanese with gut-deep loathing because of what Japanese troops had done to the Korean people and to members of Yonggi Cho's own family during WW II. The Japanese were his Ninevites.
Through a combination of a prolonged inner struggle, several direct challenges from others, and finally an urgent and starkly worded invitation, Cho felt called by God to preach in Japan. He went, but he went with bitterness. The first speaking engagement was to a pastor's conference of 1,000 Japanese pastors. Cho stood up to speak, and what came out of his mouth was this: "I hate you. I hate you. I hate you." And then he broke and wept. He was both brimming and desolate with hatred.
At first one, then two, then all 1,000 pastors stood up. One by one they walked up to Yonggi Cho, knelt at his feet and asked forgiveness for what they and their people had done to him and his people. As this went on, God changed Yonggi Cho. The Lord put a single message in his heart and mouth: "I love you. I love you. I love you."
When God calls us to do something we don’t want to do, when he calls us to serve as light in his world, as was true of Jonah and Paul, there will always be a ship ready to take us to take us in a different direction; there will always be a boat ready to take us to Spain. There are times when we want to take that ship and go our own way because we think it will make life easier for us.
For a time, Jonah’s decision to run from God’s plan seemed to make his life easier. He got into a boat, slipped into his cabin and fell sound asleep, dreaming about spending time sun-tanning on the beaches of Spain and drinking cocktails and doing the Macarena. But all would not be well. A storm breaks out at sea and threatens his life and the lives of those around him.
Sometimes on the surface, following God’s will appear difficult, but long-term following God’s will is actually easier than not following God’s will. The Bible tells us that the way of the transgressor is hard (Proverbs 13:15). The way of the sinner is difficult. When we run from God’s plan for our life, at first we may think things are great…that we are free at last. Free from the shackles of God and his ways, but as was true of Jonah in that boat, we may, in fact, be slowly drifting into a storm.
In some cases, this is obvious. I remember seeing Johnny Cash, the country singer, being interviewed by Larry King. Johnny Cash said, “When I was young, I thought illegal drugs were God’s gift to me. They could bring me up when I wanted to go up and down when I wanted to go down. I discovered that drugs were really the devil in disguise.”
And people think drugs will make them feel better, and of course for a while they do. But our brain adjusts to the high the drug brings, so the next time we need just a little bit more of the drug to get the same high. Our brain achieves a certain level of tolerance, and we need more of the drug to get the same high until and find ourselves trapped in an addiction cycle.
I have heard people say, “I have been working really hard and doing a lot of good things. I feel like I deserve a break now and I want to enjoy some internet pornography.” At first it may seem like such a great escape, but people find themselves trapped in a porn addiction and swamped in shame.
There is a cost to walking outside of God’s will…outside of his call to us to be a light to the world. Sometimes it is not necessarily a choice between an obvious sin like drug use or pornography, sometimes a choice somewhere between something good and God’s best for us.
Ignatius of Loyola was convalescing from a cannon ball wound to his leg in the early part of the sixteenth century. While lying in bed bored, he wanted to read romance novels and fantasized about a life of gallantly pursuing a certain woman of the court. He also read biographies of Jesus and the saints and envisioned walking in the footsteps of Christ. In both scenarios he experienced an immediate sense of excitement, but as he envisioned chasing a noble woman of the court, though he had an initial sense of pleasure, he was left feeling restless and unsatisfied. But as he pondered pursuing a pilgrimage with Christ, he felt a sense of enduring joy and peace.
Sometimes choosing something good, but is out God’s will for us, is harder because we simply forfeit the deeper and more enduring joy and peace that comes by responding to God’s call on our lives.
A mentor of mine says, “Obedience is difficult, but disobedience is impossible.” Obedience can be difficult at first, but disobedience over time will prove impossible. If we are a son or daughter of God, running from God’s call to be his light in the world will prove difficult because it runs against the grain of who we are. It is not easy to go against the grain of who we are and we will find ourselves going down.
We read in verse 3 that Jonah went down to Joppa where he found a ship that was bound for the port in Spain. Ajith Fernando, the respected Bible expositor from Sri Lanka, points out that the word “down” is used four times in the King James version. Verse 3 states he went “down to Joppa.” Then he went “down” into the ship. In verse 5 we are told that Jonah had gone “down” into the sides of the ship. Then in 2: 6 Jonah says, “I went ‘down’ to the bottom of the mountains.”
Down, down, down, down.
Fernando believes that the repetition of the word “down” is very significant. The person who wrote Jonah was a literary artist, and in Hebrew when a word is repeated, we do well to pay attention because it likely means that the author is seeking to emphasize something.
To move away from the will of God, to not become a light in the world is to go down. I am not sure that the author of Jonah was using the term “down” as a metaphor, but I do believe that Fernando is right when he says when we go away from his plan to be a light in the world, we are going down.
Going away from God’s plan may look like we are going on a cruise to Spain, to somewhere attractive and exotic. But even if it looks like we are going up, up, up, if we are moving away from the person that God wants us to be, the light he wants you to become, we are really going down, down, down. It’s possible to be going up, up, up as far as the world is concerned but you to be going down, down, down as far as God is concerned.
Conversely, as we see in verse 8, when we follow God’s will for our life, even when it seems like we are going down, down, down, we are going up, up, up.
It is not uncommon to hear a testimony where someone basically says, “My life was really messed up in all kinds of ways. I met God and I became a better person. I had been struggling financially and now my business is prospering or I had been unhealthy and now I am really healthy. I have been healed.” I don’t want to discount those testimonies, but sometimes when we are on the path of God’s will for us, from a worldly perspective it may look like our life is going down, down, down. But in God’s economy our life is going up, up, up.
If you were here two weeks ago, you would have heard David Bentall talk about how as a younger man he aspired to become the president of his family’s construction company, a company which now has some 17 billion dollars in assets. But through a painful experience of betrayal he found himself on the outside of his family’s company looking in. He also talked about how he had aspired to be the CEO of the Vancouver/Whistler bid corporation and how out of 100 executives who applied for the job, he came in second for that position. He then shared how he is involved in the vocation of teaching families about running a family business effectively but also with integrity and honor, and how he feels like he is in the will of God, how through his work he is able to shine as a light for Christ. In a worldly sense he has taken some steps down in his career, but in the economy of God he has actually gone up.
When my wife Sakiko was in her mid twenties, she committed her life to Christ. At the time she was an editor at Newsweek Magazine. But she felt called to start a not-for-profit publishing company creating Christian books in Japan. From a worldly perspective her career was going down. She took a huge salary cut, but in following God’s will she was really going up, up, up.
I want to offer some “advanced content” to those of you who are longer time followers of Christ.
Ignatius of Loyola the founder of the Jesuits wrote about the 3 degrees of humility.
He says the first-degree of humility, if you are a follower of Christ, is absolute obedience in the time God speaks to you.
And by the way, if you're wanting to be directed by God, the most important foundation is to obey God in the things that are clear. Follow the light that you have in the small things and the big things tend to take care of themselves.
This would be a different message, but finding the will of God is not like trying to hit a 97-mile-an-hour fastball from Mariano Rivera… Something it just whizzes by you as you are rubbing your nose. If you are open to God in the small areas of your life, he will be guiding you even when you don't know.
Loyola says the second degree of humility comes into play when you have a choice between poverty and riches, honor and dishonor, a long life and short life: he says in the face of such possibilities we should not be leaning strongly towards one or the other, but be differentiated, indifferent, and open-handed.
He says the third degree of humility, which I'm nowhere close to, says that if you are faced with poverty and riches, honor and dishonor, a long life and short life we ought to lean toward poverty, dishonor and a short life – because that was the way of Christ.
In Jesus we saw as he hung on a cross it looked like he was going down, down, down, but he was redeeming the world… and in God’s eyes going up, up, up.
The way of God, the way of Kingdom is often upside down if we compare it to ways of the world.
When we run away from God, it is hard because we are going down, and it is hard because God will eventually come after us. God eventually came after Jonah through the storm and he will come after us if we depart from him.
How does he come back after Jonah?
He comes to him through a storm.
He comes to him through the sailors who wake him up.
He comes to him as the sailors identify him through the casting of lots.
He comes to him through the waves.
He comes to him through the whale.
He comes through 5 different ways.
There is a man I’ll call Steve. Steve loved fishing and fishing is wonderful, a gift from God. Jesus helped his students fish. But for Steve, though he believed in God, his fishing was coming between him and God. There were times when he was out fishing he thought, “As long as I'm fishing I don't need God.” Then we sense God moving toward him.
“It started five years ago with my annual (fly) fishing trip….
This yearly pilgrimage has always been for me a time of consummate pleasure, a banquet of beauty with deep friendship and adventure. Then it all began to unravel. I had scheduled a few days on the Frying Pan River in Colorado in late May. The fishing there is legendary, and recent reports had been phenomenal. But as a friend and I drove up to the river, it began to rain. Not to worry, I thought. Late spring often brings rain. It’ll blow over in an hour or two. As we climbed into the mountains, the rain turned into a snowstorm (this is in May) that lasted the entire trip.
I began to play chess with God. The following year, I planned our trip for July to eliminate all possibility of snow. I booked several days at a private ranch that caters to fly fisherman, with a guide to take us out to the upper Rio Grande. The night before we were to leave, I received a call telling me that no, it had not snowed, but thunderstorms had created mudslides and the fishing was impossible.
I sensed that God had made a countermove, and that my king was in danger. Grabbing my phone book, I found the number of another guide on a different river and called him. Yes, the fishing was fabulous and yes he could take us out tomorrow. I hung up the phone with a smile. Your move, God. When we arrived early the next morning, the fellow told us sadly, ‘It’s the strangest thing, but they opened the dam last night and the river’s flooded.’
The next year after that it was the drought; the year after that we still didn’t know what happened. High in the meadows of the Eastern Sierra, the fish seemed to vanish from the San Joaquin. I was losing the game. But I hadn’t been cornered; not yet.
Last year I was invited to a place near Bend, Oregon. It is a place very dear to me, full of memories from childhood. The Deschutes River flows from there, and I was looking forward to some great time on the water with my new fly rod. I made what I felt would be my winning move. A friend had arranged access for me to a private stretch of the Deschutes, a ranch visited each year by only a handful of people. The caretaker was an old master fly fisherman. When the owner of the shop in town learned where I was headed, he looked around furtively, leaned across the counter and whispered, ‘Mister, that may be the best one hundred yards of fishing in the North America.’ Something smiled in my heart and said “check.”
Old Bill was a marvelous fisherman, and as we walked down to the water, he realized, “I’m thinking…. let’s see…. You’re the first guy to fish here since October, 6 months ago…’ I thought, this is going to be incredible…’ You know what’s coming next. Nothing. We caught nothing. Bill had a funny look on his face. ‘John’ he said, people come from all over the world to fish this ranch. I’ve never had a day like this… ever. Feeling for all the world like Jonah, I said, ‘Bill, this is not about you. This fishing will be great after I’m gone. Check mate.’”
Fishing for John had become his god and God in his love came after him.
When God sends a storm there is love beneath the waves. The storm may feel violent as did for Jonah and John… It may seem that God is angry, but there is love beneath the waves. He sends a storm to draw us to him because he knows if we don’t come to him in our lifetime, not only will we miss the chance of lifetime to be his light in the world, but we miss the joy of an eternity with him.
Sometimes, as he did for Jonah, God sends storms into our lives so that he will fulfill his purpose for us to be a light in the world.
Has God ever allowed a storm in your life to draw you to him and to make you a light in the world? Can you see love beneath the waves?
It is hard to run from God because it goes against the very grain of our being. Even when running away may seem like it is up, up, up, but we are going down, down, down. The great irony is that when we run from God to be free, we are never free without him. When we are finally willing to give ourselves up to God like Jonah, to experience checkmate, when we are willing to cast ourselves in the sea for God in that moment of abandon, when all is lost, we are free.
The reason we can cast our self in utter abandon before God is because God in Jesus Christ allowed himself to be thrown into the sea for us so that we might be saved, so that our sins might be forgiven. 2000 years ago he allowed himself to enter into the storm of the cross so we could be free from our sins and forgiven.
When we know that, we can cast ourselves in utter abandon into the ocean of God’s purposes for us and become his light in the world.
Pray:
(God can use our disobedience. God is a redeemer, as he did with Jonah to draw the sailors to him, but in a much fuller way if we are fully on board with him.)
posted by Shigematsu at 3:45 PM
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