Propheting: Caring Deeply

Jonah 1

2010—a new year, a= new decade. This may seem like a strange time to focus on the minor prophets, but I’m convinced they h= ave an important message for our lives and our church. If we hear and heed the word of th= e Lord found in these ancient writings, we’ll be the ones “Propheting = in the New Year.”

Let me be clear. 2010 ne= eds to be a “turn around year” for First Baptist Church. I’m seeing a few encouraging= signs—some of you are too--but we’re not where we need to be.

I began talking about th= is last week as we considered the prophecy of Joel. God promised to include every foll= ower of Christ in His gift of the Holy Spirit.&= nbsp; This changes everything in our relationship with God. It means that we’re all gift= ed to do something in the life of His Church!

Today, we turn to Jonah,= the most familiar of the Minor Prophets. We ALL know about the whale—or “big fish” as the c= ase may be.

The challenge I want to = put before us today—as we ordain five new deacons and as we think about o= ur role in helping this church to grow--the challenge for us as we consider the message of Jonah is “CARING DEEPLY.”

Deacons are care givers = in the life of the church, among other things.&nb= sp; But this church cannot prosper unless we all care deeply for one ano= ther…and care just as deeply for those who have yet to find their way into this fellowship. With this in mind, let’s turn to our text—Jonah 1…Jonah Flees From the LO= RD:

¹ The word of the LORD came to Jonah = son of Amittai: ² "Go to the great city of <= st1:place w:st=3D"on">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 aboa= rd 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 a= nd each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lig= hten 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, and we will not perish."

⁷ Then the sailors said to each other, "Come, let us cast lots to find o= ut 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 do you d= o? 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 land."

¹⁰ This terrified them and they asked, "What have you done?" (They k= new 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 shou= ld 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 to the LORD, "O LORD, please do not let us die for taking this man's life. Do not hold us accountable for kill= ing an innocent man, for you, O 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 But the LORD provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside t= he fish three days and three nights.

SOLO…Teach Me, O Lord, to= Care

“…Thy messag= e may I bear…a witness always share…Teach me, O Lord, to care!” That’s it! That’s what I want to talk w= ith you about today.

Wish we had had that son= g back in my day--it could have saved me a whole lot of trouble…if I had heard = it and taken it to heart. Let me explain. My name is JonahR= 12;Jonah the prophet.

Many of you are familiar= with me already. There’s a book= in your Bible that bears my name and tells my story. Of course, some of you never get p= ast the part about the whale…or that big fish. Everybody asks me which it was, but I’m not really sure I can say. It’s hard to tell from the inside, if you know what I mean.

But I really want to get= past that part of the story today. In fact, it would suit me to never go back there again. The point is, there’s more t= o me than fish bait…and there’s more to my book than a fish tale.

I had to learn to care&#= 8230;to really care…to care deeply for other people. That may sound strange, my being a prophet and all; but between us, my heart just wasn’t in the right pl= ace.

This is no excuse, but J= eroboam II was king of Israe= l at the time. He was a strong leader. While he was king, we= were able to extend our borders and control more land. We liked that—made us feel r= eal important, you know.

This also made us quite = certain that we enjoyed God’s special favor. We knew He loved us best; and we found it easy enough to understand = why He would!

What a pitiful prophet I was! Looking back now, I unde= rstand this. I was just as caught up= in that narrow kind of patriotism, that selfish nationalism, that looks down on everybody else while failing to see any wrong in one’s own actions. This same thing can happen to an individual, a family, church, or a club.

For us, though, it was o= ur whole nation. A prophet is not supp= osed to let that kind of thing happen—but it did, even to me.

So you can imagine how s= hocked I was when the word of the Lord came to me saying, “Go to the great cit= y of Nineveh= and preach!” “No way,” I thought to myself. “This has to be a mistake.&nb= sp; God could not possibly want me to go to Nineve= h, the capital city of our staunchest enemy, Assyria, to tell those people about Him. I must be missing something!”

Well, I was missing some= thing—a little compassion. I didnR= 17;t care about the people of Ninev= eh. Worse than that—I despised them! They were our enemy, so= I just assumed God would see them the same way we did. I’ve learned since then that= this is a very common misunderstanding about God.

What can I say? I was narrow-minded, filled with l= ots of plain old spiritual pride. Be= sides, I had never even met anyone from Nineveh. Didn’t really want to. I was quite comfortable with my own people, my own family and friends. Honestly, I really didn’t care about anybody else!

That’s so wrong! It took God turning my world upsid= e down for me to realize that He was just as concerned about the people of Nineveh as He was= about me. God loved them—peop= le I didn’t know, and even felt I should hate for some reason—God sh= owed me that He loved them just as much as He loved me.

Hey, let’s just sa= y this was a “tough sell!” I have to hand it to Him, though, God came up with “a whale of a solution!” OH…I&#= 8217;m SO FUNNY! Prophets aren’= ;t known for their humor, you know; but sometimes you just gotta’ either laugh or cry, friends.

Yep, I learned my lesson= . And it makes complete sense, when = you think about it. God made the Ninevites just like He made me. There wasn’t some other God out there making all those other people, after all. One God! It just stands to reason that ever= ybody would be important to Him.

But surely you know this= already. It’s all through your New Testament: “God so loved the WORLD”—stuff like that. That obviously means that God cares deeply for all people. Sure y= ou know it, but this is what God had to get across to me—and to a lot of other folks, too--by way of my story.

So let’s get back = to that now. I wasn’t ready to = hear this about God back when He first….uhhh…SUGGESTED…that I = go to Nineveh. So I did a crazy thing—I ran= ! I took off in the very opposite direction of God’s will.

Have you ever done anyth= ing like that? Let me save you a little misery—it doesn’t work! It will never get you where you want to go—or, maybe I should = say, where you NEED to go!

God told me to go to Nineveh, but I we= nt to Tarshish instead. Tarshish wa= s located all the way across the Mediterranean Sea from Israel, and it was in the opposite direction from Nineveh--so that’s where I headed. I went to Joppa and bought a one-w= ay ticket on what was supposed to be a slow boat to T-ville.

Man, was that a mistake!= We’d hardly gotten out of po= rt—just long enough for me to settle down for a little nap—when a storm came up. That’s never a good= thing out at sea—and this was a whopper!

I must have been real tired—running from God will do that to you. I slept right through the storm= 230;until the ship’s captain came below deck to wake me up. He seemed pretty frantic.

“How can you sleep= at a time like this?” he asked. “Man, get up and pray. Maybe your God, whoever He is, will take pity on us, and we won̵= 7;t all die.”

Well, that got my attent= ion; and it didn’t take me long to realize that God must have noticed that I w= asn’t headed toward Nineveh. In my heart, I knew that’s w= hat the storm was all about.

Those sailors didn’= ;t help matters any either. They̵= 7;re such a superstitious lot. The= y just knew that we were in this fix because somebody on board that boat had offen= ded some god!

Okay, so this time, they= were right. But I couldn’t b= ring myself to tell them—not yet, anyway.= I kept hoping that what I suspected to be true, wasn’t.

Then one of the sailors = came up with an idea. We would cast lots—it’s something like picking straws or rolling dice—w= e decided to cast lots to determine who was responsible. We all did it, and sure enough—the lot fell to me.

Now my fears were confirmed. The storm was all = about me disobeying God. And now Go= d was sending me a “big ole’ message.”

There was only one thing= to do. “Throw me overboard,” I told them. They hesitated—didn’t want to do it. Just didn’t seem right to tr= eat a paying customer that way.

By that time, though, I = was not only convinced that I was the problem.&nbs= p; I was so sea sick, I didn’t care if I lived or died. Ever been there? Well, believe me, I was THERE!

The longer they waited, = the more violent the storm became. So = the next time I insisted that they had to do it, they did. Over the side of the ship I went—but not into the water. Nooo…that would have been too easy. It seems that God wasn’t thr= ough with me.

As I went over the side = of the boat, all I could see was mouth—the biggest mouth I’d ever seen= ! Yeah, I know this really is starti= ng to sound like a fish story now, but I went right into the mouth of that huge creature—and right on down…into its belly!

Everything got real calm then. The storm ended…I= knew it would!

Spend three days in a fish’s belly and you have time to do a lot of thinking—and praying. I began to realize t= hat ever since I started running away from God, my life had been going nowhere.=

I guess I should have an= ticipated that storm. Run from God long enough, and you’ll always run into a storm of some kind. And let me tell you something: tha= t’s just as true for your life as it is for mine. The longer you live, the more you realize it’s true.

But I also know now that= God used that storm for my good—to get my life back on track and to teach= me something.

It was an awful experien= ce, but I wasn’t alone in that storm. God was with me the whole time, even when I didn’t know it. In fact, I reached a point where I = was so helpless and humbled down there in that fish’s belly, that I actually= felt God’s Presence more than ever before.

I had to realize that there’s no way we can ever escape God. But I also had to reach a point wh= ere I knew that I would never want to. There’s a difference, friends.

Anyway, when that fish f= inally deposited me on dry land—and by the way, I was the one that invented = that thing about kissing the ground—but without going into details on how = the fish did it, when I was back on land, what did I hear but God’s voice tell= ing me--once again--to go to the great city of Nineveh and preach!

Well, if you know my sto= ry, you realize that I still didn’t care for those people the way I should have. God had to keep working= on my heart—but I got it…finally.&nb= sp; I learned to love those people—to truly care about them like G= od did—and to understand that they were just as important to Him as any = of us.

But You already know thi= s--don’t you? I mean, aren’t you followers of Jesus? He really showed you what it means to care—to care deeply—so deeply that = it changes people’s lives! To care so deeply, that it changes YOUR life, and your CHURCH.

Listen up! Old Jonah challenges you today to = care deeply enough for your own family—because caring always begins there—so care for them in ways that they will know that Jesus Chri= st has a hold on your life. Do the s= ame thing at church, and in your Sunday School class, your choir and mission gr= oup, too.

If someone’s missing—NOTICE! And not= just your buddies either. Whoever = it is, let them know they were missed. Find out if they are having a problem you can help with. Then, let your preacher and staff = know about it too—if it’s a situation where you should.

And then, when thereR= 17;s a Ninevite around—or anyone you don’t know—get out of your comfort zone and make a bee-line to that person. Invite them to your class.

Sit with them—even= if they don’t choose to sit in that old sanctified spot of yours. What does it matter? Bottom line: include them in your lives—include them in ways that will say that you really do care.

Wake up, First Baptist!<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Your old ship is sailing though so= me rough seas too. Either you start CA= RING DEEPLY—or you may be SUNK. Sorry if that sounds harsh—but hey, it’s true. And I’m a prophet. Prophets tell it like it is!

Care! Care deeply! And God may choose to “proph= et you” this year.