I have been teaching through Jonah and there were a few things I noticed this time that I don’t think I noticed before.
1 – God asked Jonah to go to the Assyrians to warn them of God’s judgment. Why is this important? Because he was not friends with the Assyrians. uThe Assyrians were enemies who would attack their towns. When Jonah heard that God’s judgment was coming, he wanted nothing to do with preventing it. Jonah had already judged them and decided he would rather them not get a heads up and a chance to change. The truth of this for today is that we live in a world full of Assyrians. Judgment is coming for those who do not know Christ but we look at them and decide we would rather not be the ones to take the news to them. Maybe out of fear- Jonah might have been too. Maybe it’s because we would have to get out of our bubble of people who look like us, think like us, talk like us, smell like us, and act like us – I’m sure Jonah knows how that feels too. Can I tell you what I think it is though…(of course you can)… I think it’s because we don’t really want reach those people who aren’t like us. The ones who don’t dress right, talk right, act right, or do right. If we reached out to those people then they might actually come to church. We wouldn’t want that because none of our friends know them so that would just be weird. I would feel like I needed to hang out with them when they came and I don’t really want to do that because I like having that time at church to catch up with my church friends. And we wouldn’t want to risk them not wearing the right thing because then they will feel out of place…
I could go on, but I will stop. Bottom line is that many of us don’t know anyone to reach out to with the gospel or at least act like we don’t. Everyday we are surrounded by a world whose judgment is coming if they don’t repent. If you aren’t sure if God is telling you to reach them, then go over to Matthew 28:18-20, and yes, it is talking to you too!
2 – Instead of going approximately 550 miles on land, Jonah took the extreme opposite route. He bought a ticket on a boat headed to the furthest place the trade route of it’s time could take him. Boats were not what they are today! They were dangerous and risky. When Jonah decided he didn’t want to do what God was telling him to do, he did the most illogical and irrational thing he could do. We do this too! When we run from God, we are leaving the only source for wisdom and truth so we become irrational and illogical and do things that when we are walking with Christ, we would never dream of doing. We become increasingly foolish.
3 – Jonah’s big issue was that he didn’t want to go tell bad people to repent. People who would regularly attack God’s people. It wasn’t that he decided to start partying, getting drunk, doing drugs, or killing people. He simply didn’t want to take God’s message to people because he felt like they deserved the judgment coming their way. For some reason we think that running from God means we are doing a list of things that we know aren’t right, but in Jonah’s case, it was that he didn’t want to do the things God wanted him to do.
Maybe it’s time that we start asking God to show us who to talk to, then be willing to do it, no matter who it is. I would venture to say that they probably won’t look like you, act like you or think like you.