Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] You're listening to a live recording from Westside Church in Bend, Oregon. Thanks for joining us.
[00:00:06] Good morning, everybody. I'm Ben Fleming. I'm the other senior pastor. We're in part four of a sermon series that we're calling Sunday School. And so we're taking a lot of these stories that maybe you grew up with in church and expanding on them a bit and ultimately connecting them back to the importance and the necessity of Jesus in our faith and how those stories do that. And I don't know about you, but for me, many of the experiences I've. As I've grown up and I've read Scripture for myself and gone through it many, many, many times, I've learned that at no fault of anybody's, that a lot of the stories that we heard were pretty incomplete. And in Sunday school, sometimes you wouldn't understand how deeply complicated and imperfect many of the heroes were. That's one of the things that the Bible actually does really, really well is it's deeply honest about all of its heroes. And that can break your heart. In some cases, it can confuse you. Today, I think it's going to make you laugh a little bit with this story as we go through Jonah and the Whale. All right, so I'm going to read the entire first chapter. Try to keep up. It's interesting. Jonah is a really interesting guy. All right. And you're going to find out in about three sentences as the Lord gave this message to Jonah, son of Amitti, get up and go to the city of Nineveh. Announce my judgment against it, because I've seen how wicked its people are. But Jonah got up and went in the opposite direction.
[00:01:33] Jonah's great, you guys. He's really great.
[00:01:36] Nope, not a word. Just turns around and walks away from the conversation to get away from the Lord. And he went down to the port of Joppa, where he found a ship leaving for Tarshish, and he bought a ticket. He went on board, hoping to escape from the Lord by sailing to Tarshish. But the Lord hurled a powerful wind over the sea, causing a violent storm that threatened to break the ship apart. Fearing for their lives, the desperate sailors shouted to their gods for help and threw the cargo overboard to lighten the ship.
[00:02:02] But all this time, Jonah was sound asleep in the hold. So the captain went down after him. How can you sleep at a time like this? He shouted, get up and pray to your God and maybe he'll pay attention to us and spare our lives. So these sailors are trying to collect as many gods as Possible in the middle of the storm. You got a God. You got someone to pray to? All right, get up here and pray. Let's go.
[00:02:24] And then the crew cast lots to see which of them had offended the gods and caused a terrible storm. And when they did this, the lots identified Jonah as the culprit.
[00:02:33] Why is this awful storm come down on us? They demanded. Who are you? What? What's your line of work? What country are you from, and what's your nationality?
[00:02:42] And Jonah answered, I'm a Hebrew, and I worship the Lord, the God of Heaven, who made the sea and the land.
[00:02:49] There couldn't be worse news for the sailors in this story.
[00:02:52] The sailors were terrified when they heard this, for he had already told them he was running away from the Lord. Why did you do it? They groaned. And since the storm was getting worse all the time, they asked him, what should we do to you to stop this storm?
[00:03:05] Throw me into the sea, Jonah said. Jonah's got a flare for the dramatic, as you'll discover all the way through this story. Just throw me into the water, why don't you?
[00:03:16] And it will become calm again. I know that this terrible storm is all my fault. And instead, the sailors rode even harder to get the ship to the land. But the stormy sea was too violent for them, and they couldn't make it. And then they cried out to the Lord, Jonah's God. O Lord, they pleaded, don't make us die for this man's sin and don't hold us responsible for his death. We don't want any part of this entire story anymore. We want out.
[00:03:39] Lord, have you sent the storm upon him? You have sent the storm upon him for your own good reasons. And then the sailors picked Jonah up, threw him into the raging sea, and the storm stopped at once.
[00:03:49] The sailors were awestruck by the Lord's great power, and they offered him a sacrifice and vowed to serve him. And now the Lord had arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah. And. And Jonah was inside the fish for three days and three nights.
[00:04:05] Now, the story of Jonah is not ultimately about a man kind of out running or out swimming or escaping from a whale, but it's about God's unstoppable grace.
[00:04:17] And I really believe that what you'll discover through the reading of this story all the way to the finish of it, is that Jonah accomplishes so many things and is a hero in many, many ways. But like all of our heroes and all the things that we often hold on to in this world, falls desperately short of the life that Jesus offers us. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for this morning that we get to be together in community. What a beautiful time this is. Every week to revisit the scripture, visit with each other.
[00:04:47] Lord, I pray that you would speak through your word today that your holy Spirit would do a mighty work of inspiration and revelation in Jesus name, Amen. Amen.
[00:04:58] I've got two kids that I reference here all the time and we'll continue to do so because I don't have any hobbies, okay? I parent, and that's about all the time I have is just for that. So I've got an almost 11 year old boy, Joel, and I've got an eight year old daughter, Jovi.
[00:05:15] And they are different in just about every single way. The biggest one when they were little was that Joel still is kind of a rough sleeper.
[00:05:24] And he said, He's 10, you guys, he's 10. He's still bad at sleeping. And my daughter loves sleeping. You know, that's one of the examples. But both of them, in spite of all of their differences, their personality differences, their interests, all the things, they both share one attribute, and that is a certain level of stubbornness.
[00:05:43] They can both be very stubborn.
[00:05:45] And my son, last winter this manifested itself, manifested itself in one particular way, and that it was seven degrees outside and he would not wear a jacket, period.
[00:05:56] And they asked the temperature every day because they're trying to get dressed based on, you know, when it's warm out, how hot is it? Okay, it's 80. All right, well, I'm gonna wear shorts. And they're in tune with this. They're paying attention. They know what it means when I say seven degrees.
[00:06:07] And yet Joel was like, I'm not doing it. I put my foot down at snow jackets. I'm not wearing snow jackets. I'm not doing it. I look silly in them. And my wife, because she is kinder than I am, insisted that he wear the jacket.
[00:06:20] And me, being who I am, said, let him go outside.
[00:06:25] Let's give it a shot.
[00:06:28] I bet this is a lesson that will teach itself if we let it, you know. And so my will was for him to wear the jacket. But of course, he was disinterested. And sure enough, he walked to school that day. He did not die of exposure.
[00:06:46] And I'm not actually sure he learned a lesson, but that's for a different sermon.
[00:06:51] My daughter exercises her own stubbornness through her connection to her bed in the morning.
[00:06:57] Now, I share this with my daughter. I love my bed, especially in the morning and having two kids and, you know, being a professional and a grown up and all these things. I'm up early in the morning often, all the time. And you guys, I still hate it. It's still bad.
[00:07:12] I haven't fallen in love with it. You know, some of you were like, yeah, but then you get up and you got. It's kind of quiet and you have coffee. And I'm like, oh, I don't care.
[00:07:21] I just want to sleep.
[00:07:23] And so I get it. And so I'm gentle with her. In the morning, I walk in, I open the door, and I go, jovi, it's time to get up. And she goes.
[00:07:33] And I close the door and I give her a couple minutes and I open the door and I look and I say, jovi, it's time to get up. And then I flip on the light, which is evil.
[00:07:41] And she groans and moans and whatever. And eventually, sometimes it comes down to, jovi, I need you on the stool, ready to eat breakfast now.
[00:07:52] And what she has learned over the course of time is that dad doesn't just have the will or a desire for her to do something. In this case, I can use my will to then pick her up and relocate her blankets and all. I can do it all by myself. She doesn't have to eat necessarily on the other end of it, but I'm telling her, I will move you. And so then I move her. And she knows that dad has that kind of power. Well, this is something when it comes to the will of God, that is expressed in a few different ways in Jonah. And the most powerful one is this reminder that if God needs us very specifically at a certain time in a certain place, God can make that happen.
[00:08:29] So I want to relieve some of your fears today, or maybe some of the tension. If you've got big decisions to make. You're wondering where you need to live or where you should go, what job you should take and who you should marry and all these different things. I promise you that if God needs you to move to the other side of the country in order for you to accomplish the will of his will for your life, he can pick you up and put you on an airplane or a boat or in a whale.
[00:08:57] He can make this happen.
[00:08:59] Okay, so let that relieve. If God needs you there. Cause we get caught up sometimes and it's like, well, what's like, the will of God for my life. And what we really mean is, I need a fortune teller to tell me where to live and who to meet. So then I can make the appropriate amount of money and then I can live a comfortable, sacrificial less life. That's what we want often.
[00:09:18] But the will of God and really where the rubber meets the road, so to speak, is the will of God is not where we are living, but it's how we are living.
[00:09:28] And so we go to God and go, God, should I move to Raleigh, North Carolina? And he's often like, I don't know, you're gonna love your neighbor there and not here. Like what are you trying to get after really? What do you want? You know, we can get caught up in this. Oh, I just, I just don't know what to do. And what does God want? God wants you to just really care deeply about him and the people around you, wherever you exist at, that's the will of God. And then I promise you, if he needs you on the other side of the world and you're putting your foot down, I've seen it before, he'll throw you inside an aquatic animal and then you will make your way there.
[00:10:06] So let's not worry so much about those things, maybe when it comes to our faith, but let's be concerned about the condition of our heart. Because ultimately this story is not about the miracle of a human being living inside of a fish for three days.
[00:10:18] And said the story is about the changing, the transformation of someone's heart.
[00:10:23] Jonah ran the opposite direction of God's call. And his problem wasn't a fear of failure. He didn't say no to God because he felt like God couldn't accomplish what he wanted to accomplish. But instead his heart was not in this tender or listening position.
[00:10:40] He wasn't afraid of failure, but instead Jonah was actually afraid of success.
[00:10:46] He didn't want Nineveh to repent.
[00:10:51] Tim Keller notes in his book the Prodigal Prophet, Keller says Jonah shows that we resist God's call not by breaking his rules, but by clinging to our own sense of superiority.
[00:11:02] Jonah is deeply nationalistic and he's then blinded to God's mission of mercy for a people group that he would consider enemies or unfamiliar to him.
[00:11:15] Eugene Peterson says in his book under the Unpredictable Plant, he talks about how we often run like Jonah, preferring a lifestyle or task that actually feels safe instead of embracing God's very disruptive call to real people with real messes.
[00:11:33] Now this happens all the time in pastors lives. By the way, you know what pastors really, really like? We love services, we love conferences, and if you ask us to preach at your conferences, oh my Gosh, our lives are made.
[00:11:46] This is the greatest thing in the world. This is important. It's valuable, the community aspect of it. I like preaching. Why? Because I talk and no one talks back. It's awesome.
[00:11:56] I'm in staff meetings, and I've got a family. You know, everything I say, somebody's got some kind of opposition to it in this way. I just talk. And then you email me later and. And then I delete them.
[00:12:09] Just kidding. I don't do that. I forward them to Evan.
[00:12:15] We like this. It's a very safe environment. Right?
[00:12:19] We're all pretty well behaved, especially in this room, and we're not in the kids rooms.
[00:12:24] This is a good spot. It's comfortable. It's cozy. And I do, again, I believe that this thing is important, but I've noticed specifically in my job, there's more to it than this, and there's actually potentially more important things.
[00:12:36] I'm trying to pastor people that belong on both sides of the political aisle and the tension that that can create. We're trying to help create a way for people who need food in order to be. So that they can be fed. We're trying to work with members of the community in order to solve the housing crisis that we have and help get people off the street and into permanent housing and out of difficult living situations. There are all kinds of difficulties, things that are involved with this job that require actually getting your hands dirty and doing the deep work. This is the easiest piece of all that, and that is the deep and beautiful part that we're often reluctant to actually engage in because we want something that's less disruptive and that's not real people with a real mess.
[00:13:20] God calls us beyond that comfort and control.
[00:13:26] And so Jonah is swallowed by the fish.
[00:13:29] I had somebody come up to me after last service, say, a fish. A whale is not a fish. And I said, hmm, that's confusing for me.
[00:13:39] I understand the science, but I'm gonna use them interchangeably for the rest of the day. Okay?
[00:13:45] And then Jonah prayed to the Lord. It says in Jonah, chapter two, pray to the Lord, his God, from inside the fish. And he said, I cried out to the Lord in my great trouble, and he answered me. And I called to you from the land of the dead, O Lord, you heard.
[00:13:58] You threw me into the ocean depths, and I sank down to the heart of the sea, and my mighty waters engulfed me. And I was buried beneath your wild and stormy waves. And then I said, oh, Lord, you've driven me from your presence, yet I will look once more toward your holy temple.
[00:14:12] Jonah runs and God pursues him.
[00:14:16] What it can be really easy to do in this situation is look at the fish as God's judgment toward Jonah. But it turns out that it's actually God's pursuit of him and it's wrapped in mercy and grace toward Jonah.
[00:14:30] Storms can uncover our attachments, right? These places that we have a sense of control or success, where we're cultivating an image that we want the other world to see us as. It gets rid of all these things, it sheds all these things so that we can then cling to God.
[00:14:45] Jonah's storm strips away his pride until all that he had left was what it was prayer.
[00:14:51] That was all that he could do, was pray.
[00:14:55] There's this closeness that happens sometimes in these instances of crisis that draw us back to God. And so God disciplines not to punish Jonah, but to transform him. Dallas Willard says in his book the Renovation of the Heart. He says real simply, God's intention is always about the renovation of the heart.
[00:15:15] It's always about the renovation of the heart.
[00:15:18] Churches can become yucky little subcultures where we try to behavior modificate everybody into looking and sounding exactly like us. That's not what this place is designed for, and that's not the Christian faith. God's intention behind every single one of us is that we have a deep renovation of the heart, that we're transformed in our souls by the renewing of our mind so that we might know what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of God.
[00:15:47] We're called to be transformed from the very depths of who we are.
[00:15:51] And so Jonah's time, it turned out in the belly of the fish was not so much of a prison as much as it was a bit of a classroom.
[00:16:00] A return to a new lesson about the God that he so faithfully serves.
[00:16:05] And so rock bottom can really be holy ground.
[00:16:11] It doesn't always look like it or feel like it, but it is.
[00:16:16] God uses storms, and they don't destroy us, but they deliver us back into himself.
[00:16:23] And so what happens is Jonah is spit out of the mouth of the whale. He goes and he speaks to the people of Nineveh, and their hearts actually change and the city is saved.
[00:16:37] And in Jonah 3, verse 10, this is where Jonah gets really interesting. Once again, it says, when God saw what they had done and how they had put a stop to their evil ways, he changed his mind and did not carry out the destruction that he had threatened.
[00:16:55] And Jonah is so mad about it.
[00:17:03] I'll prove it to you. It says in Jonah, chapter four.
[00:17:07] The change of plans greatly upset Jonah.
[00:17:12] We had a deal.
[00:17:14] I would go speak to them and then you would annihilate them.
[00:17:18] They are our enemies.
[00:17:20] God, you're not holding up what I hoped would be your plan.
[00:17:25] It says so. We complained to the Lord about it.
[00:17:27] Didn't I say before I left home that you would do this? Lord, that's why I ran away to Tarshish. I knew that you're a merciful and compassionate God, slow to get angry, filled with unfailing love.
[00:17:41] You are the worst.
[00:17:46] You're eager to turn back from destroying people. Just kill me now, you guys. Jonah's the best.
[00:17:55] I'd rather be dead than alive if what I predicted will not happen. And the Lord replied in a very sober manner, I might add.
[00:18:02] Is it right for you to be angry about this?
[00:18:06] You see, Jonah is led to this place where he is finally doing the will of God. But again, the renovation of the heart has not taken place.
[00:18:14] He doesn't ultimately see not just what God's plans are, but. But he doesn't see the heart that God has for those people.
[00:18:23] And he really enters in on this idea that is actually like at the crux of Christianity. It's at the very center of it all. And that is that God does not give us room to hate our enemies.
[00:18:38] Now, by the way, that idea is perfectly suitable and allowable in so many different places of our life. I can see how it makes sense to hate the other side. In sports, in world relations, in politics, in all these different things. I actually see how hate can manifest itself. And I see actually the place and the purpose that many people feel like it uses. But I want you to know that that has zero place in Christianity.
[00:19:06] We don't get to hate our enemies or our opposition. We don't get to do that.
[00:19:12] It's not part of the gig. And so you can be a part of a group or you can think a certain way. But I want you to understand that if you're calling yourself someone that loves Jesus and wants to be a Christian, wants to follow after, this way, you must stop short of hating people that you do not understand or even that are in direct opposition to you.
[00:19:31] Jesus says, bless those who curse you, pray for those who persecute you.
[00:19:39] That's what's supposed to be the defining characteristic of this faith that we follow after is that we always stop short of that line. We have thoughts when it comes to world relations. We have thoughts when it comes to sports. We have Thoughts when it comes to politics, we have thoughts when it comes to all these things. Anyone that would push or encourage the Christian to hate or loathe their enemies is not in the best interest of Christianity, and they actually do themselves stand in opposition.
[00:20:09] We are not that people. And God does not allow Jonah to stay in that place either.
[00:20:17] And so it goes on. It says, when Jonah went out to the east side of the city, he made a shelter to sit under as he waited to see what would happen to the city.
[00:20:26] Jonah wants a great view of the fire and brimstone that he hopes is coming.
[00:20:34] And the Lord God arranged for a leafy plant to grow there. And as soon as it spread its broad leaves over Jonah's head, shading him from the sun. And this eased his discomfort. And Jonah was very grateful for the plant. But God also arranged for a worm.
[00:20:46] This story's so messed up, man.
[00:20:49] The next morning at dawn, the worm ate through the stem of the plant so that it withered away. The sun grew hot. God arranged for a scorching east wind to blow on Jonah, and the sun beat down on his head until he grew faint and wished to die. Death is certainly better than living like this. He exclaimed. And then God said to Jonah, is it right for you to be angry because the plant died? Yes, Jonah said, even angry enough to die.
[00:21:15] And then the Lord said, you feel sorry about the plant, though you did nothing to put it there.
[00:21:20] It came quickly and it died quickly. But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness, not to mention all of the animals. Shouldn't I feel sorry for such a great city?
[00:21:36] Jonah had knowledge of God's mercy, but not a transformed will. And his heart was not yet aligned with God's compassion.
[00:21:44] This spiritual growth that God invites us into is slow and often difficult and painful. And it revolves around the love of our enemies. And it's this long obedience in the sense same direction that Eugene Peterson talks about.
[00:21:59] God's grace is for the rebellious Ninevites and the self righteous Jonah.
[00:22:09] Now, there's so many connections between the story of Jonah and the life of Jesus. There's. There's many of them. It's actually really cool if you want to look it up sometime. But I'll highlight a few things for you.
[00:22:21] Jonah, when he's in the boat and the storm comes, he's asleep in the bottom of the boat. There's a story with Jesus on a lake where a storm comes and Jesus is asleep in the bottom of the boat. But instead of coming Out. And being the cause of the storm, Jesus comes out and then calms the storm.
[00:22:39] Jonah's in the belly of a whale for three days. And Jesus, of course, is in a tomb for three days. And Jonah comes out and he begins to preach about God. And Jesus, of course, himself defeats death and becomes the source of our salvation.
[00:22:57] You see, we need a better Jonah.
[00:23:03] Jonah, in so many ways, comes so close.
[00:23:06] He does so many cool and wonderful things. And as much as I want to make fun of him right now, he listens at moments to this will of God and he performs difficult tasks.
[00:23:16] And of course, he falls dramatically short.
[00:23:20] The hope and the expectation was never meant to be carried by Jonah. It was never meant to be carried by David. It was never meant to be carried by Moses or Noah. Every one of these heroes of scripture falls short, which is why all of these stories point to the need of Jesus Christ, our Savior, who then points out, the last thing that I'll talk about that is the connective tissue between these two stories.
[00:23:48] And it says, it's. It's found in this. In Matthew, chapter 20, verse 1, Jesus tells this parable, and he says, for the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early one morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay the normal daily wage and sent them out to work. And at 9 o' clock in the morning, he was passing through the marketplace and he saw people standing around doing nothing.
[00:24:08] He hired them, telling them that he would pay them whatever was right at the end of the day. And so they went to work in the vineyard. And at noon, and again at 3 o', clock, he did the same.
[00:24:17] At 5 o' clock that afternoon, when the work is almost done, he was in town and saw more people standing around. He asked them, why haven't you been working today? And they replied, no one hired us.
[00:24:27] Landowner told them, gonna go out and join the others in my vineyard that evening. He told the foreman to call the workers in and pay them, beginning with the last workers first. And Those hired at 5 o' clock were paid. Each received a full day's wage.
[00:24:42] And when those hired first came to get their pay, they assumed they would receive more. But they too were paid a day's wage. And when they received their pay, they protested to the owner, Those people worked only one hour and yet you paid them as much as you have paid us who worked all day in the scorching heat. And he answered, one of them, friend, I haven't been unfair. Didn't you agree to work all day for the usual wage. Take your money and go. And I wanted to pay the last worker the same as you. Is it against the law for me to do what I want with my money?
[00:25:11] Should you be jealous because I'm kind to others?
[00:25:15] So those who are last now will be first then. And those who first will be last.
[00:25:20] Jesus comes to a world like the city of Nineveh, lost in its own darkness, bitterness.
[00:25:28] And he eventually goes through this entire process of extending grace and mercy and payment to people who don't deserve it. And on the other side of his death and his resurrection is not bitterness with those who he has come to save, those that he has sacrificed for and given up so much.
[00:25:47] Instead, what is on the other side of his saving of his people is a deeper compassion and. And grace and mercy for all of us.
[00:25:58] Jonah's like the early workers, angry that others received mercy that he thought they didn't deserve. And God's answer to Jonah is the same as the vineyard masters. Don't resent my generosity. Rejoice that my grace is wider than you imagine.
[00:26:13] You guys, the grace of God is wide, far wider than you could ever possibly imagine.
[00:26:21] Boaster and Brady many years ago said something to the effect of, you will be shocked by the people that you will find that also made it to heaven.
[00:26:30] One day we'll get there and go, how did you get in?
[00:26:33] You were the worst.
[00:26:35] I couldn't stand you. And they'll look back and they'll go, I thought you were the worst. And you'll give each other a hug and it'll be weird.
[00:26:43] This whole grace and mercy thing, it goes on and on and on and on. And those of you thought it would be impossible, possible to experience the love and the grace and the compassion of God will receive an experience of it. And so we should make that way just as broad today, through our churches and through our lives and our love for the world.
[00:27:01] There is no room for hating our enemies. But instead, we should bring the same compassion Jesus brings to them.
[00:27:07] Jonah fled from the enemies, and Jesus runs toward them.
[00:27:11] Jonah was thrown into the depths because of his disobedience, and Jesus went into the grave for ours.
[00:27:16] Jonah resented God's mercy, and Jesus embodied it on the cross.
[00:27:22] We need a better Jonah.
[00:27:28] I'll let Eugene Peterson say it best as we close. He says, the story of Jonah is a story of God's love, larger than our definitions, deeper than our fears, and longer than our endurance.
[00:27:40] God will never stop pursuing us.
[00:27:43] Maybe it's with storms, with mercy, with patience, and ultimately with Jesus, as that is the greatness of his love.
