Lesson 1: The only place we go when we run from God is a dead end.

This morning we begin a new sermon series on the story of Jonah. You may not know a lot about Jonah but just about everybody knows that Jonah was swallowed by a huge fish. Some of you have trouble believing that really happened and believe that this story is really a parable or allegory that it isn’t historical. Just so you know, I believe that this really happened even though it defies my understanding of science and nature. The main reason I believe it is because Jesus believed it. In Matthew 12:39-41 Jesus used this story as a testimony that just as Jonah was three days and three nights "in the belly of a huge fish" (NIV) so he would be "three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (v. 40). Since Jesus came back alive from the dead, I’m not going to argue with someone who can do that. If you don’t agree, then that is fine and we’ll just agree to disagree.

Whether you buy or believe the story of Jonah and the whole fish thing isn’t the point of the story or the point of this series. The story of Jonah is the story of everyone in this room today because all of us either intentionally or unintentionally have run from God. Every single person has tried in some way to avoid God or avoid something that God says or wants us to do. Every one of us has experienced resisting God’s will and purpose for us in a small thing or a big thing. We all share the same experience where we have tried to put God in our rearview mirror and move on with our life or our plan for our life. What everyone in this room hasn’t discovered is that the only place you go when you run from God is a dead end. Many of you know that because you tried to run from God only to discover that you ended up going nowhere. Others of you have yet to discover that because you think you can outrun God. The only problem is you don’t know it but you are heading for a dead end. Do you know what you will find at the end of the dead end? God—because you can run from God but you can’t outrun God. Our lesson from Jonah today is that the only place we go when we run from God is a dead end.

Now if you can try to find the book of Jonah and we’ll look today at Jonah 1:1-17. Don’t worry if you can’t find it because it’s a very small book in what we call the Minor Prophets in the Old Testament. If you can find Malachi—the last book in the Old Testament—just go left. You’d be better off just looking at the page number in the table of contents. In the pew Bible the page number is 654. Now, look or listen to Jonah 1:1-2: " The Lord gave this message to Jonah son of Amittai: "Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh! Announce my judgment against it because I have seen how wicked its people are."

There are a couple of things you need to need to understand about Jonah that these verses tell us and one thing that they don’t. The book tells us that God spoke to Jonah, who was the son of Amittai. What this doesn’t tell you is that Jonah was a very faithful prophet of God who lived in Israel about 700 years before Jesus was born. In fact he is mentioned as speaking God’s word to a king named Jeroboam II in II Kings 14:25 instructing that king to set up boundaries around his land for expansion and protection. His hometown was the same place Goliath was from in King David’s time. My reason for telling you this is to help you understand that Jonah was a very faithful man of God whose track record to this point has been one of obedience to God and was used by God.

What this passage tells us is that Jonah was told by God to go to the city of Nineveh and tell them that God was going or intending to judge them. Nineveh is in modern-day Iraq, about 250 miles north of Baghdad in the area of Mosul. It was the capitol of the nation of Assyria. The Assyrians ruled the area from modern day Israel to Iran for about one hundred and fifty years. They were horribly violent and cruel people. They made Saddam Hussein look like Mr. Rogers. The kings of Assyria boasted about the levels of cruelty they placed on their enemies. You need to understand that what God is telling Jonah to do would have been like telling Billy Graham to go to Saddam Hussein in the height of his reign of terror and tell him, "God is going to get you!"

What did Jonah do when he understood what God was telling him to do? "Jonah got up and went in the opposite direction in order to get away from the Lord" (v. 3). The Bible says he went down to a port city called Joppa on the Mediterranean Sea and caught a ship going to Tarshish. Just so you know, archeologists believe that Tarshish was a seaport in Spain—two thousand miles away from where Jonah was. A modern rabbi, Sheldon Blank, said that Tarshish is, "…anywhere but the right place; it is the opposite direction, the direction when he turns his back on his destiny…." (The Message of Jonah, p. 67, IVP) Jonah heads off to the farthest place he can imagine to get away from what God has told him to do. Jonah is trying to outrun God.

Why did he run? It could have been he was afraid for his life and who would blame him? Everyone knew the horrible things the Assyrians did. I believe the greater reason was because Jonah couldn’t imagine God offering any kind of a warning to these people. He knew that if God warned them then there was the possibility of their repentance and God showing compassion to them and that was something Jonah couldn’t handle. He could not imagine God being kind to a people so violent. God was pushing him to the limit of what Jonah understood or could conceive as possible and his solution was to run.

What this tells us is that running seems like an option when God pushes us to the limit. Any one of us who is a believer has run up against a time when God pushed us to the limit of what we thought was possible. Then he asks you to do something that you can’t conceive is possible. For instance, you are a person who is faithful to God. You are doing all the right things and then a tragedy happens or a crisis hits you in the face. Or, you are faithful to God and then you encounter something that makes you wonder if God is who he said he is. Don’t excuse yourself from the story because you know God isn’t calling you to be a missionary or preacher in some unheard of place. The story of Jonah is our story every time we come up against something that God is asking us to do that we don’t think is possible for us. When we get to that place, running from God may seem like a solution. It may be that we drop out of faith and everything that goes with that or we just go on like nothing has happened. Yet, either way, we are running as far away from God as we can possibly go. Just like Jonah, running seems like an option when God pushes us to the limit.

While running from God may have seemed like an option for Jonah, the reality was that it allowed God to demonstrate his endless possibilities to bring him back. (Jonah 1:4-16) We read in Jonah 1:4 that the Lord "flung a powerful wind over the sea causing a violent storm" that threatened to sink the ship. The word used for "flung" is really the word for "appointed" or "directed." In other words, Jonah was trying to run from God on the sea so God used the elements of the sea to get him to change his mind. In verse 5, the sailors are so afraid of the storm that they start throwing the cargo overboard in order to keep the ship afloat. What is amazing is that Jonah is down inside the ship sound asleep while the storm rages above him. He is so numb to the presence of God that they have to wake him up and plead with him to pray to his God to save them.

In Jonah 1:7-10 the sailors show that they believe that this storm is no accident. Somehow someone on board has displeased one of the gods and they need to find out who it is. Through a process of elimination, it is obvious that Jonah is the cause of their problem. They start to probe him with questions as to his identity and he finally tells them, "I am a Hebrew, and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land." (v. 9) He adds that the reason he is on the ship was that he was running away from God. They can’t imagine why he would try to do something so foolish but what they really need to know was: How do they stop the storm? Jonah’s solution was for them to throw him into the sea. The sailors try everything they can to avoid this but finally, with no other options, they throw Jonah overboard. (Jonah 1:13-16).

Jonah never intended for his disobedience to affect anyone else but it did. He probably could never imagine himself so numb to God’s power that he could sleep through the storm. He would never have dreamed that some ungodly sailors would have to force him to admit that he was a believer in God Almighty. It is possible that never in his lifetime could he ever see himself as only so much baggage that could be thrown into the sea. Jonah saw no hope but death. It was a hopeless solution for a helpless prophet.

When we run from God there is one thing that is certain: It allows God endless opportunities to change our direction. You never imagined when you turned away from God that you would run right into a storm. You thought that what he asked you to do was hard but you ran into something harder and you are making it harder on everyone else. Things may be going bad but because of your resistance to God, you are just numb to his voice, you are asleep while the storm is raging. In all of this you have lost your identity as a believer and people don’t even know that you once were a strong follower of Christ or they know and can’t believe what they see in your life. Even people who aren’t Christians can’t believe what is happening. It all comes down, ultimately, to you and God. It is not about anyone else but you and God and you have a choice: keep running or change direction. What is hard for us to understand is that the more we run the more opportunities God can use to get us to change direction. Listen: God never runs out of ways to get our attention so we can change our direction!

Jonah must have thought his life was over. It may have been that Jonah realized that he couldn’t run from God and that being thrown into the sea to die was nothing but a dead end. What Jonah was going to discover was that running gave God the chance to turn his dead end into a way out. (Jonah 1:17). Jonah 1:17 says, "God arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah." The word for "arranged" meant a direct calling or appointment. When God asked Jonah to "go," he ran. When asked a creature to obey him, it did. There is no end to the commentary on this issue with the fish swallowing Jonah. The arguments for and against this being real are extensive. The point is that this is a supernatural event that was designed by God to save Jonah’s life. What is important is that God met Jonah where he was in order to deliver him. He could not escape the consequences of his choice and ends up worse off than if he would have obeyed God. God couldn’t save Jonah, turn him around, until Jonah had given up all hope. Jonah’s being swallowed by the fish and staying there for three days seemed like a dead end. Instead, it was his only way out.

Running from God may seem like an option when we are pushed to our limits. We discover, though, that we will run out of time before God ever runs out of options to get us to change direction. What may be hard to see is that running gives God the chance to turn our dead end into our only way out. Here is what I see that the "fish" is for us: The "fish" can be an event, circumstance or period of time that God uses to bring us to the point where we recognize our resistance and break us from our own way. You see, God loves us so much that he says, "Fine, you don’t want to do what I know is best, then let’s give you a full dose of the results of your rebellion." "You think you know better than me, then try living with the consequences of what you want." You find yourself "swallowed" by some thing or event that is the result of your choice. You may think that this "fish" is the end of the road when really it is the first step back to where God wanted you to be all along. Your dead end is the chance God has been waiting for to give you a way out.

Today are you running from God? Has he pushed you to the limit of what you can understand and you have had enough? It may not look like it to everyone around you but you have bailed on God and you are running. Don’t you see that you can’t outrun God? The longer you run just gives him more opportunities to get you to turn back. It may seem that your running has brought you into something that has "swallowed" you whole and it seems like there is no way out. All your running has done is bring you to a dead end. If that’s where you are today, then I’m sorry but I am also glad. I’m sorry because you are hurting but I’m glad because now you can begin to see that there is a way back. That way back is called repentance. It just means you change your mind from your way and are willing to follow God’s way. Today Jesus is ready to meet you in whatever has "swallowed" you. The only place we go when we run from God is a dead end. The good news is that Jesus is there to meet you with open arms and a heart of love. Stop running from God and let him meet you at your dead end.

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org