Church Voices

I preached on Jonah today. I love the book of Jonah, there’s so much in it that’s just totally sweet. The high points of each chapter:

1. Jonah tries to literally run away from God. This may not seem like a huge revelation to us, but in the OT people who were not Jewish believed each god (or set of gods) had a zip code they controlled, Jonah finds out the hard way that God is everywhere. So remember, not matter where you are, there God is.

2. Chapter two is pretty sweet with Jonah in the belly of the fish at the bottom of the ocean he has only the God he ran away from to turn towards. After Jonah’s prayer God commands the fish to vomit him up on shore so he can complete God’s command. The take away from this is that no matter how far you run from God there’s always the opportunity to begin obeying God’s commands. Even if that means being vomited up by a whale.

3. In Chapter 3 Jonah calls Nineveh to repentance, they respond (I suppose proving when someone looks like they’ve been swallowed by a whale for three days and vomited onto a beach and calls you to repentance, then you repent), and God is compassionate and calls off the dogs. Keep in mind no matter how long, or how extreme your sin is, God is compassionate when we repent.

4. Chapter 4 is the big reveal. Jonah’s lets us in on why he ran. He ran because he wanted Nineveh destroyed and knew God would be compassionate towards them if they repented. Moral of the story: that guy or those people you hate, well God loves them, and wants them in the kingdom of God. So quit being a jerkhole towards them and let them in on the gospel.