Running From God

Rev. Debbie Cato

Jonah 1 & Romans 14:1-12

Peace Presbyterian Church

Preaching Series on Jonah – Week 1

June 7, 2015

Running from God

A prophet is someone called by God to deliver a message to God’s people. 

 Often times -

       Although not always

                 The message is a message about disobedience and the Lord’s anger and displeasure.  A plea for the people to repent or be punished.

And so as you would expect, The prophetic books of the Bible are the Oracles or messages of the prophets to the people of their time.

      Books like Isaiah; Jeremiah; Ezekiel.

          But Jonah is different.

                 It too is a prophetic book; Jonah was a prophet of God.

But the Book of Jonah does not relate oracles as the other prophetic books do.

     The Book of Jonah is telling a story.

          If you grew up in Sunday school,

      you probably learned the story about Jonah – although,

           you may have learned it a little bit different than scripture tells it

                Jonah is a popular children's Bible story.

Take out the Bible in your pew and turn to page 752.  As you can see, Jonah is a very short book.  Four chapters.   A total of 48 verses.   Jonah is an action packed book.

It's filled with drama, and intrigue, and suspense….. and moral lessons.  I thought it would be fun for us to look at it for a few weeks.  It’s more than just a children’s Sunday school story.  It’s a story that we can all relate to as adults today and it has lessons for us to learn.

So today, we are going to look at the first chapter. Follow along with me as I read Jonah 1.

We really don’t know much about Jonah. He’s introduced to us simply as “Jonah, the son of Amittai” and one day, the word of the LORD comes to him. Perhaps he’s sitting drinking his morning coffee, or sitting in his easy chair reading the newspaper after a long day. We don’t know. We simply know that God comes to him and says,  “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it,  because its wickedness has come up before me.”

Nineveh was the capital of Assyria – an enemy of Israel. It was a city great in size and strength and status. The way of life in Nineveh was unacceptable to God – he calls it wickedness.  After all they are a great enemy of God’s people.  

     And it is to this place

        to this enemy of Israel

             that God tells Jonah to go

Well….

God doesn’t just tell him to go to Nineveh

     He tells him to go and preach against it to tell them they are being wicked  to tell them that God is going to destroy their great city

And….. well…..

Jonah does not want to go!

Who can blame him?! Jonah does not want to go to the capital of a powerful, wicked enemy and tell them to change their ways. Go figure!! So what does Jonah do?  “Jonah runs away from the LORD and heads for Tarshish.”   Jonah runs away from the LORD! Jonah disobeys God and instead of going to Nineveh, he runs away from God and heads for Tarshish.

Now we might laugh at that. I mean, that sounds pretty dumb doesn’t it?! Thinking you can run away from God.

But who of us has not run from God in our life? How many times has God asked something of you, that you decided not to do? How many times have you felt a nudge and ignored it? You see, each time we are disobedient to God – just like Jonah – we in effect, run away from God. Who of us has not done that?

God sends Jonah to Ninevah – east of where Jonah lives and Jonah heads in the opposite direction – Jonah goes west toward Tarshish. He probably figured God would never find him there! Jonah goes to Joppa which was a port city, buys a fare, gets aboard a ship and sails for Tarshish. I’ll hide there, he thinks. Jonah’s on the run!

But then…. Then...

The LORD sends a violent storm on the sea that threatens to break up the

ship. I’m thinking Jonah’s plan didn’t work! There’s no running away from God! God knows exactly where Jonah is! God strikes back against Jonah’s  disobedience.

But here's the thing that we need to pay attention to.

     Jonah's disobedience doesn’t affect only Jonah.

It affects the sailors on the boat he boarded.

                                   His disobedience puts every life on that boat at risk.

We need to remember that our disobedience; our sin, affects other people. Who do we unintentionally (or intentionally) hurt when we disobey God?

The sailors, who are surely used to storms at sea, know that something is up.

They are terrified. The sea is violent and they cry out to their own gods for help. The ship is rocking and rolling about.

The waves are banging against the sides of the ship.

The water rolls over the ship soaking everything in the way;                

threatening to pull it into the sea.

They throw cargo overboard hoping to lighten the ship so that it can ride higher on the tumultuous sea.  But nothing works. The storm gets harsher and harsher.

And where is Jonah? Their only passenger is below deck – sleeping. The captain is outraged. “Get up here and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us and we will not die!”

Jonah –

     Who has run away from God in disobedience is told by the captain of the ship

           to call on his god to calm the sea.

We are good at that aren't we? We run away from God in disobedience only to run to God when we are in trouble; crying to God to help us? We want God in our lives when we need him, but we don't want to give up the control of our lives; our ideas; our thoughts and be submissive to God' plans for our lives.

Well. Jonah is caught. The sailors throw one question after another at him until finally, Jonah identifies himself as the one who has brought on the evil. It is his God who is causing the storm. The God he fears. The God he thought he ran away from. But Jonah does more. He proclaims to them the all-encompassing power of God. He tells them, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, The God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”

Yet, Jonah still doesn't really understand the power of God, does he? After all, he thought he could run away from him. But these pagan sailors understand. They get the sovereignty of the Lord. They are terrified and they say to Jonah, “What have you done?” What have you done?

The sea continues to get rougher and rougher and rougher. God is mad at Jonah and because of his disobedience, everyone who is with Jonah on that ship is suffering. “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?” they ask him.

The sailors are not interested in punishing Jonah. They are not out to get Jonah because of the chaos he has caused. “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?” They just want to quiet the sea which continues to get more and more dangerous.

Jonah tells them to pick him up and hurl him into the sea. If he is thrown

into the wild sea, it will quiet down he says. It is my fault God has brought on

this great storm. He is mad at me.

That sounds noble of Jonah doesn’t it? It’s my fault. Throw me over and save

yourselves. Of course, Jonah doesn’t offer to jump over, does he? 

    But if he gets thrown over -

         If the sailors do the dirty work for him

            surely he will die and he STILL won’t have to go to Nineveh!

                 Jonah is STILL running from God!

                        He is still thinking about himself!

But, the sailors don’t want to throw Jonah into the turbulent sea. They do not want him to die. They row and row and row trying harder and harder to get to land. Yet their strength is no match for the sea – or for God. Seeing no other way, they pray to the LORD – to Jonah’s God. Let me say that again. The pagan sailors pray to the LORD for forgiveness and throw Jonah overboard and immediately…..

Immediately…. The raging sea becomes calm. The storm is over.  And then; this is amazing - the sailors make a sacrifice to the LORD and worship him. The sailors are converted as a result of Jonah's disobedience! God will use even our disobedience to achieve his plan. (pause)

And, Jonah. Well, Jonah doesn’t get his way again!

     He does not die.

          God saves Jonah from drowning.

God provides a great fish that swallows Jonah whole. Jonah is saved by a fish and Jonah lives inside that fish for three days and three nights.

God calls Jonah

     Jonah is disobedient

         He’s self-centered

             He’s rebellious

                 He runs away from God.  Or at least tries to!

                       Jonah never repents. 

                                  It wasn't Jonah who prayed to the Lord for forgiveness.

                                          But God saves Jonah anyway.

                                                   He sends a fish to swallow him!

Jonah intends to die so he will not have to face God.  

      God saves Jonah’s life by sending a fish to swallow him!

           God preserves Jonah for his assignment!

Now, that's a story!

The good news is: we cannot hide from God. When we are deep in the darkness, lost and afraid, God will find us. The bad news is: we cannot hide from God! When we don't like what he's calling us to do or calling us to be; we cannot run away. God will find us. God will accomplish what God wants to accomplish. Amen.