Lesson 3: God expects people near to him to run for him to people far from him.

This morning we continue with our series on "Jonah, Lessons from a Man Who Ran. The story of Jonah being swallowed by a huge fish may be the thing everybody remembers about Jonah but the truth is Jonah is about every one of us because Jonah ran from God and all of us have run from God. We have said that every one of us has been a runner, is a runner or will run from God so the story of Jonah is about all of us.

We have learned from Jonah that the only place we go when we run from God is a dead end. Jonah thought he could outrun God only to be swallowed by a fish. Last week we saw that God is always waiting for us to run back to him when we give up running from him. Jonah realized that his being swallowed by the fish was not God’s way of paying Jonah back but bringing him back into the relationship and purpose that God had for him from the beginning. So Jonah ran from God then runs to God and today we want to see how Jonah ran for God. The lesson that Jonah 3 teaches us is: God expects people near to him to run for him to people far from him.

I need you to go back to Jonah 1:1-2 as we get started today. We have said that we are all runners. We may have run from God all our life or in one area of our life. Jonah, if you will remember, was a man who at one time ran for God with his whole life. He was a prophet of God who believed God could and would speak through him to his people, the nation of Israel. He had done that faithfully and obediently until God told him to run to a people he did not think deserved God’s word or God’s message. Listen again 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.’

Jonah’s response was, "But Jonah got up and went in the opposite direction in order to get away from the Lord" (Jonah 1:3). Jonah ran. Why did he run? I do believe that one reason Jonah ran was because he was afraid of the Ninevites. They were a cruel, despicable, evil people and a sworn enemy of the nation of Israel. But the deeper reason Jonah ran was because he could not imagine God warning such an evil people and giving them a chance to change. God pushed him to the limits of his understanding about God’s nature and character. In Jonah’s mind, the people of Nineveh were only worthy of destruction and if Jonah warned them they might change and God would forgive them and that was something Jonah couldn’t handle. We will learn more about this in our last message on Jonah.

Now I need you really to understand some things about God that Jonah 1:1-2 shows us. One thing these verses show us is that God knows how far people are from where they should be in relationship to him. He tells Jonah that he has "seen now wicked" the people of Nineveh really are. He was fully alerted to the sin, evil, wickedness and violence in their heart and in their culture. This has always been true about God. God hasn’t changed! God still knows how far people are from him and a relationship with him because of their own sin, their own choices to resist God’s desire for them. God knows how far people are from where they should be in relationship to him.

There’s another thing these verses say to us. Because God knows how far people are from him, his ultimate concern is to bring them back into a relationship with him. That’s why he told Jonah to go to Nineveh in the first place. That’s why he sent the storm and the fish to bring Jonah back to where God wanted him. He did all of that because he knew how far these people were from him and he desperately wanted them to have a relationship with him and change. That is why he tells Jonah in Jonah 3:1-2, "Then the LORD spoke to Jonah a second time: ‘Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh, and deliver the message of judgment I have given you.’" God was so determined to give these people a second chance that he dug a guy out of the belly of a fish and sent him off with his message! God’s ultimate concern is that people who are far from him have a relationship with him.

There’s one more thing that both Jonah 1:1-2 and 3:1-2 teach us and it is this: God has determined that people near to him are to tell people far from him how they can have a relationship with him. That’s where Jonah fits into the story so uniquely. God saw people far from him, wanted those people near to him and sent one person to tell them that. God had an expectation for Jonah that he would run—not from him or just to him but for him. God still, right now, here in this church, in our community, expects people near to him to run for him to people who are far from him.

Can I make it just a bit clearer for you? Listen to John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life." What does that tell us? God knows how far people are from him; they will "perish" unless something is done. It tells us that God’s ultimate concern to bring people near to him was so complete that his Son Jesus was the only way for people far from him to be in relationship with him.

God knows how far people are from him. God’s ultimate concern is to bring them near to him. Here is where it gets tough: God expects you and me to be involved in telling people that! Listen to Romans 10:14: "How can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?" "How can they hear about him unless somebody tells them?" "Jonah, go to Nineveh!" Jesus said, "Go, and make disciples." Bruce, "Run for me to people who are far from me so they can be near to me." You need it clearer: God expects Christians to tell lost people they need to be saved by Jesus Christ! But we don’t and when we don’t and we run from him in this area, the stakes, the losses, are higher than anywhere else because there is no other plan. God expects people near to him to run to people far from him.

You say, "Okay, Bruce, maybe you have my attention and I see your point but if I want to run for God to people far from God, where do I start?" Here’s where I think we start: Running for God refuses to set limits on how far I can run for him. (Jonah 3:1-4). We have already heard God’s message to Jonah the second time to go to Nineveh and this time he does exactly what he is told to do. I mean, wouldn’t you? Here is a guy who’s been in a storm at sea, swallowed by a fish, stayed there for three days and nights and is spit back out on the land and God says, "You ready to listen?" The Bible just says, "This time Jonah obeyed the Lord’s command…."

From where Jonah was on the coast to where Nineveh was inland was about 600 miles or twenty-five days’ journey. He gets to the city, which is so big it takes three days to see it all and without catching his breath Jonah starts speaking God’s message. "Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed." (v. 4) Now the word that Jonah uses for "destroyed" can be understood two ways: destroyed or changed. God’s message to the people was actually only five words in Hebrew but the message was clear: change or be destroyed! There is a warning but there is also a way out. Your end is near but it doesn’t have to be! Jonah was at last unwilling to restrict what God could do with his life and ran for him.

So let me ask you, "What limits have you put on God in this area of running for him to people who are far from him?" Most of us put a limit on God that says, "God, here is what I’ll do: I’ll perform at my own comfort level of acceptable Christianity but I will not run for you to people who are far from you. I’ll be a believer. I’ll belong to a church. I’ll participate. But when it comes to what is really your ultimate concern—people who are far from you, that’s where I draw the line. I’m not a turn or burn sort of guy. So, God, I’ll do this much but I won’t run for you to people who are far from you!"

Here’s the question: Why do we think God says, "Oh, okay. I didn’t mean it anyway"? I am not saying to you that you should go stand on a street corner and cry out, "The end is near!" I’m just asking you are you willing to leave a circle of comfort and walk across a room, an office, a backyard, a street, a desk to just relate, engage or connect with someone who is far from God. Will you even take the first step to get close enough to someone who is far from God so they can see the difference in your life that God can use you to bring them near to him? If you are going to run for God, you must refuse to set limits on how far you will go to run to people who are far from God. Running for God refuses to set the limits of how far you will go for him.

Running for God refuses to set limits on how far you will go for God. One thing you discover, though, when you run for God is that God has already been at work before you. (Jonah 3:5-9) After Jonah preaches his five-word message, an unbelievable miracle occurs. "The people of Nineveh believed God’s message…." Now why would a cruel, evil, violent people respond so powerfully to a five-word message? I’m sure Jonah looked awful after being in the fish and walking 600 miles but there is another reason. We know from the Ninevites own records that they were facing a severe famine, a northern attack by enemies one hundred miles away, internal conflict and at this same time they had a solar eclipse that was understood as a warning. God was working behind the scenes long before Jonah got there. When he showed up with the message, "Change or be destroyed," people were ready to change!

The depth of the sorrow is extensive in both the people and the king himself. The king declares that everyone fast from food and water—including the animals. He tells them that each person has some soul searching to do and change (v. 8). Here’s his hope: "Who can tell? Perhaps even yet God will have pity on us and hold back his fierce anger from destroying us." (Jonah 3:9) Maybe there is hope. Jonah didn’t know but long before he started running from God, God was working to prepare the people for the message!

Here’s the deal: We never know what God is doing in someone’s life to bring them back to him unless we run for him. Does it mean that when you start connecting with people who are far from God to see them become near to God that they are going to have this kind of miraculous change? No, it could happen but it would be very unusual if it did. Go back to our original thought: God knows what’s deeply wrong in someone’s life. He knows how far they are from him. He knows that you and I can be part of helping that person find their way back to him. He’s working on them. His Holy Spirit is working on them. He is inviting you and me to run for him to people far from him so they can discover the way back to him. He is not asking us to do this by ourselves. He is already at work behind the scenes. He is not asking us to do his work. He is doing the preparing. He is asking us to run for him but we’ll never discover how God has been at work unless we do it.

Running for God refuses to put limits on how far you will go. Running for God discovers that God is already at work before us. There’s one more thing to see: Running for God to people far from God experiences the miracle of grace all over again. (Jonah 3:10). Look closely at verse 10 again: "When God saw that they had put a stop to their evil ways, he had mercy on them and didn't carry out the destruction he had threatened." Here is what is amazing: Jonah isn’t even a factor here. This is all about the people and God. Jonah has spoken the message but now it is God who watches the response: they change! His response was that he changed: "He had mercy on them and didn’t carry out the destruction he had threatened." The words "had mercy" meant an internal sense of sorrow. God felt deeply their repentance and he could not do what he had said because they changed. The miracle of God’s grace is seen in this verse. God knew how far these people were from him. His ultimate concern was to bring them back to him. He used one person to run for him to tell them that. They change their ways and he has mercy on them.

Can you see John 3:16 here? God knows how far every one is in relationship to him. They are going to "perish," people will be separated from him in Hell forever. God’s ultimate concern is to bring people far from him into a relationship with him to prevent them from perishing. That is why he sent Jesus, his Son, to our world, out of his love for the world, to die on the cross for our sins. He came to bring us back to God. The way our destiny is changed from perishing to one of eternal life, where we have a relationship with him, is by believing that Jesus is enough to bring us near to God forever! God knows we are far from him. God wants us near to him. God sent Jesus to bring people near to him. He asks you and me to run for him to people who are far from him so they can be near him. When we run for him we get to join God in experiencing the miracle of grace all over again.

God expects people near to him to run for him to people who are far from him. Here’s the question: Where is God calling you to run today? Some of you are being called to run to God. You know you are far from God and there is an eternal price to pay if you keep running. There’s a God who is waiting for you to run to him, to run to Jesus, so you can be with him forever. Others of you are being called to run for God—to commit today to run for him, to people far from him. You need to refuse limiting what God can do with you, believe he is already at work and join the experience of his grace changing someone’s life. There are still others who need to run with God in a church like this. You need to belong with others who are running for God to people who are far from God. You can’t do it alone. We can’t do it alone. Together we can fulfill God’s longing, his ultimate concern for this world that people who are far from him come near to him because Jesus has died for them. God expects people who are near to him to run for him to people who are far from him. Are you ready to run?

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org