Video to come.
Morning Message Text: Jonah 1: 1 – 2: 1
Jonah 1
1 The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai:
2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”
3 But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD.
4 Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up.
5 All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep.
6 The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish.”
7 Then the sailors said to each other, “Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.” They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah.
8 So they asked him, “Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What kind of work do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?”
9 He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”
10 This terrified them and they asked, “What have you done?” (They knew he was running away from the LORD, because he had already told them so.)
11 The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?”
12 “Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied, “and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.”
13 Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before.
14 Then they cried out to the LORD, “Please, LORD, do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, LORD, have done as you pleased.”
15 Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm.
16 At this the men greatly feared the LORD, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows to him.
17 Now the LORD provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Jonah 2
1 From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the LORD his God.
Morning Message:
In 1624, the English poet John Donne penned a meditation whose title comes from the first line: “No man is an island.” The theme of the short poem is the interconnectedness of human experience—what happens to one affects all. It is much easier for us to think of ourselves as individuals, we would prefer to be islands. As I was writing this, maybe because of the recent passing of Dolly Parton, the song Islands in the Stream came to mind. The lyrics have nothing much to do with what I am preaching today, except for the first couple lines of the course: “Islands in the Stream. That is what we are. No one in between. How can we be wrong?” To be an island, self sufficient and totally existing for ourselves, is not what we are called as Christians to be, and truthfully everything that we do as God’s people affects those around us. God did not call us to a life of seclusion or even a life limited to just one other or a few people.
When the prophet Jonah was fleeing from the call of God on his life, the ship he was on encountered a bad storm. The sailors concluded that it was Jonah who was the cause of their dangerous misfortune. They demanded to know who he was and what he had done to put them in danger. This reminds me of when my daughters were teenagers and dating. We would always laugh about it, but the two things that I wanted to know from the boys who wanted to date my daughters were: Who exactly are you? And, who are your people? Not in those words exactly, but that was what I most wanted to know. Jonah’s actions had put all of the crew in danger and they wanted to know why.
Jonah’s situation illustrates the point that we do not act alone in life; our behavior impacts those around us. It raises the rarely discussed dimension of stewardship called the stewardship of influence. We are responsible for the influence we have on the lives of others. And here we thought that in order to be a good steward all we needed to do is give of our money and time. The stewardship of your influence may have a greater impact in this world than both of the others put together. This takes some deep thought and intentionality on the part of every Christian. What you do, the choices you make, affect the lives of others. As God’s representatives here on earth, we can have a positive effect or as Jonah did, a negative effect, on the lives of those around us. I believe that this is the reason we as a nation find ourselves dealing with young people that think that something as dangerous as socialism and even communism is a good idea.
We are called to be salt and light to the world. We need to be intentional and ask God for the grace to be a Godly influence on those with whom we come in contact with. This is an important stewardship issue. I saw a quote by Henrietta Mears, “Your influence is negative or positive, never neutral.” Think about that for a moment. Everything you do and say has either a positive or a negative influence on those around you. Our problem, as Christians, is that we think that we can be neutral, no harm, no foul, but this attitude can be harmful. Thankfully, God works even when we make wrong choices. I always think to myself when I read this story, at least in the end, the men on that boat learned who the true God is.
Now as we read further, we discover something else interesting. The scripture says: “Now the Lord prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three nights. Then Jonah prayed to the Lord from the fish’s belly.” I can relate to Jonah here. When we find ourselves faced with a seemingly unsolvable challenge, someone usually reminds us, “When all else fails, read the directions!” A similar reminder is sometimes issued among Christians: “When all else fails, pray!” We often must be reminded that prayer should be our first impulse, not our last.
Has God ever given you direction for your life that you resisted? Don’t answer that too quickly. You might think that God has not given you direction, but I am sure that He has. What happens most of the time is we block out His voice. Not on purpose, we block it out with the things that we want to do. We get so laser-focused on our goals, on our plans for what we want our lives to be, that we don’t listen for God. I will use myself as an example as always. Unless I can get one of you to come up and share your story. That’s what I thought. I was once what we used to call in the warehouse, a good union man. God gave me the gift of being able to interact with people and the ability to understand contract language, and of course, the ability to talk. I was making a life for myself; I was good at representing people and I had ambitions. I had my sights set on making good money and one day being in charge of my local union. But, if I am being truthful, something deep down in my soul didn’t feel right. The closer I got to God the more I questioned if I was pursuing the right path, but I drowned that voice out because my sights were set. God got His way. He always does. It’s only a question of how long we insist on going our own way.
Jonah would have done well to have stopped and prayed instead of running the other way. The further you run the longer the journey back to what God had for you all along. He waited until all seemed lost and he knew there was no other way out. Don’t wait until you are in the belly of a fish before you bend your knees and pray for God’s will in your life. Pray first even if you think you have everything figured out, maybe especially when you think you have everything figured out. Before we can pray, “Thy kingdom come,” we must be willing to pray, “My kingdom go.”
In Christ’s Love and Peace,
Pastor Bob
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