Goal for Today

• God repeatedly pushes Jonah back into the most difficult areas of your life, an area where he struggles to obey God and often fails

• And this is true of our lives as well. We’ve often been pushed into difficult areas of life (Relationship, Work situation, Difficult Colleagues, Life Decision etc)

• And these are often areas in our lives (like Jonah) where we struggle to obey God. But why does God do this?

• Why does He permit/allow these difficult seasons to persist in our life?

• He does this out of love: he is teaching you about your heart and drawing you nearer to himself

That’s the goal for today, to understand that God is drawing us near to Him in the midst of the most difficult seasons of our lives.

Let’s get back to Jonah

God gives Jonah a second chance

• When Jonah sinfully ran away from his calling, the Lord did not simply write him off and condemn him to the fate he deserved.

• God graciously offered Jonah another opportunity to do what he was told to do in the first place.

• This is an important aspect of the teaching of the book of Jonah: Our God is a gracious and merciful God who deals with us far more patiently than we deserve.

Jonah’s Response to the Ninevities this time

• Jonah is still a reluctant prophet.

• Observe a few interesting things. He doesn’t tell the Ninevites anything about the Lord, as he did with the sailors, or even mention the Lord’s name.

• Jonah doesn’t say a word about his own recent experience of deliverance, which he had spoken of so eloquently while still inside the fish.

• After all of the Lord’s graciousness to Jonah in delivering him from the very gates of Sheol and giving him another opportunity, there doesn’t seem to be much real change in Jonah’s heart. Instead, he simply says, “Forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”

• So, the way in which he did it reveals the hardness of his heart, and it is often the same for us.

It gives me the impression that his reluctance and hardness of heart towards the Ninivites led him to be satisfied by having “done his duty” uncaring about whether we have presented it in the best possible way to communicate the Lord’s undying love for sinful people. I don’t see any evidence of him sharing the grace he has recently experienced in the belly of the fish and then applying that same generous grace to the Ninivites.

The Reluctant Prophet

It should astound you that the Word of the Lord came a second time to Jonah. He didn’t deserve a second chance, nor did he particularly want one. But the Lord called him to go to Nineveh once again. This shows God’s mercy to those who fail and sin, which differs from how we typically respond when people let us down.

If they are our employees, we fire them. If they are our families, we yell and scream. If they are friends/classmates we withdraw in cold silence, or we store up the incident to use against the offender for years to come. But God is not like us. He is loving and patient, the God of second chances. Yet we should also recognize that this is not an absolute principle in the Bible. There are times when there are no second chances for the servants of God.

Exmaples;
When the son that is born to David and Bathsheba gets sick, David fasts, prays, and mourns his sin in an effort to see God to heal the boy. When the child dies, David simply receives this outcome as God’s judgment.

Rich Young Ruler did a lot of righteous deeds. He was keen to learn more about eternity. He realised his weakness/limitations. Jesus invites him to be a follower. But the ruler turns down the offer. And walks away. Jesus did not go after him, begging him to come back

Moses, the leader of the Exodus, through whom God delivered people from Egypt To whom the law was given. In NT, Moses is listed in the people of exemplary faith. Yet Moses, for all of his blessings, was not allowed to enter the promised land because of his actions.

Equally there are several examples, of God showing second chances to many like Jonah (Peter, Joseph’s family in OT etc)

Therefore it would not be reasonable to draw out any explicit principles with Jonah’s Second call

But we also cannot deny, that we need to know why does the Lord allow a second chance here? Was it only for Ninevah? If yes, God could have worked with anyone else after Jonah’s behaviour. This means we have to ask why the Lord gives Jonah another chance here. The Lord is once again deliberately confronting Jonah with his worst nightmare: The Lord is calling him to obey in the most difficult area of his life. In his faithful pursuit of Jonah’s heart, the Lord brings him back into precisely the same circumstances/situation where he failed before.

Step back and ask yourself
Have you ever felt the Lord doing that with you? You have an area of sin or struggle, and instead of the Lord safely steering you away from temptation, he pushes you right back into that area.

Sometimes I feel that way about church planting and pastoring. There are many things I love about it, the opportunity to be involved with so many young working professionals, the chances we get to a fair bit of mission work/social work etc. But there are these days, where I feel gloomy and tired of being a Church leader, moments of solving people’s problems which is beyond my ability, times where I have to correct people, difficult conversations, disputes about Theology with close friends in NBCC. When members compare NBCC to other churches, and feel we’re not as good as another church. Covid Season when NBCC goes through a sudden financial decline because of decline in attendance.

All of this and more exposes my sins and weaknesses. I long for God to easily safely get me out of difficult situations. There are few times He’s done it. Yet time and time again, I find myself driven by the Lord back into addressing another problem in church, the result is usually more mess and more sin on my part.

I’m sure you have your own similar experiences in life (Struggles with Family/Marriage/Parenting/Finances/Work/Overworking/Nervous breakdowns at office/)

Haven’t you ever wondered? Why does God do that with us? Why does He allow it? Like Jonah’s story, God doesn’t just allow/permit it, we read He causes it. The storm/The Boat/The Big Fish/The receptiveness of Sailors/Ninevties - God was in all of this. Why does he send us right back into areas that expose Jonah’s sin? Why does he send us right back into areas that expose OUR sin?

I’d be very happy for the Lord to instantly make me a better person and a better pastor so I love people well all the time. But he doesn’t appear to have chosen that option. In pushing us into difficult areas, God is not merely testing our/Jonah obedience. God is doing something beyond that. What is God doing in all of this?

God works through us. God delights in working not merely with weak people, but with broken and seriously deformed people (Moses, Peter, Gideon, David, Abraham, Samson). In that way, it becomes evident that the work is entirely his, not ours. When God uses us in spite of our terrible attitudes, horrendous imperfections and uncaring selfishness, what can we say except Salvation is of the Lord, not man, not us. God works In Us.

But there is another reason as well. We are not merely tools God uses to achieve his goals; we ourselves are people in whom God is at work. The Lord brings us into areas that expose our weakness, brokenness, and foul sin to show us the wickedness that remains in our hearts. Remember how Jonah already had a successful mission as a prophet in Israel. Maybe his success went to his head and made him feel as if he was something special. If so, his experience with the Ninevites was going to challenge that: Jonah promptly failed again. God was not just saving Nineveh, he’s also saving Jonah.

Jonah’s Attitude

Jonah obeyed the Lord’s call and went to Nineveh. Yet his actions upon arriving there suggest he was still far from being entirely on board with the mission. He went just one-third of the way into the city and cried out possibly the briefest and most vague message in all of prophetic history. If you read any of the Major/Minor Prophetic Books in OT, all of whom God was conveying a message through them to people. This particular message is —a mere five words in Hebrew

“Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown”

When we evaluate his message - we see there’s nothing mentioned about God, his grace, redemption, Ninevah’s sin etc. The kings and nobles of Nineveh were apparently not even aware of his visit until news reached them by way of the common people.

It exposes his heart. The closeness to God that seemed present when Jonah was crying out from inside the fish is now missing. Jonah seeks God’s help in times of distress, but there’s no evidence he does the same when it comes to serving or obeying God. His impression of his reluctance “I’ve done my duty, don’t ask me for anything else”

Aren’t we often like Jonah in this?

Our lack of love for others is exposed in the careless way in which we fulfil our mandate from the Lord to bring them the good news of salvation. Sometimes it’s like “I’ve done my duty” and spoken the truth— uncaring about whether we have presented it in the best possible way to communicate God’s undying love for sinful people.

Conclusion

When life is easy, most of our inner corruption and wickedness remains hidden from us (and people). But in times, God pushed you into difficult areas of life, we learn something about our heart. Think about the extremes we incline to when pushed to difficult times in serving God

- Give up. We don’t feel God is understanding our situation (Like Jonah), live in resentment towards God.
- “Did my duty” mentality without caring about God’s heart for mission.
- Give In (to prove ourselves).
- We want to complete the task to prove our performance in front of God (Unlike Jonah).

Often we are not seeking a second chance out of a humble desire to serve others but out of a proud desire to prove to God we can succeed. If that is our motive, our “obedience” may be done in such a self-justifying way that it barely qualifies as obedience at all. In both cases, we are distancing ourselves from the heart of God. In both cases, we are isolating ourselves from the very burden that God has to reach out to us and the people around us.

Motives matter, even when we outwardly say yes to God. Instead of obeying out of a humble desire to serve God and others, we may instead obey out of
(1) a prideful desire to prove how godly we can be, or
(2) a guilt-ridden desire to feel better about ourselves or avoid God’s anger.
Which of these self- focused motives tempts you, and why?

God is not just saving others, he is saving you. The Gospel message is precious to both the Christian, and the potential Christian. And that salvation process includes sanctification, which involves teaching you about your heart. If he has chosen and called you, he will not give you up. He is at work in you and will complete that great work on the last day. Let that reality encourage your heart before God today and soften it toward others around you.