Just Not For Us - Jonah 1

God’s love and grace if for everyone.  Jonah pitched a fit about going to Ninevah because he couldn’t stand the people.  Jonah kept going to the bottom instead of the top. The grace that God shows Johan isn’t just for him but for all the people who were following God. Like Jonah, we all have our ups and downs. All along, God is trying to tell us to “get up.”

This series will take us on a journey into the world of the prophet Jonah. Most of us haven’t given the story of Jonah and the great fish a second thought. Afterall, what can we possibly learn from the story about a man getting swallowed by a fish? Throughout this series we will see a full picture develop of God’s love, compassion, and realize that no one is beyond redemption. That the gospel is for all who repent and believe. We will learn from this reluctant prophet Jonah and be determined to obey God doing whatever he asks and going wherever he leads.

Jonah learns some extremely valuable lessons about his leadership, his faith, and about God’s activity in the world around him.

God was asking Jonah to do something he didn’t want to do. This created great conflict for him. He wasn’t so interested in being a vessel of God’s message to Nineva, he just wanted to live his life his way.

No one deserved God’s favor less than the people of Ninevah and Johan knew it. He also knew that God would forgive them and bless them if they would turn from their sin and worship God. Jonah greatly disliked the Assyrians. Hate is a very strong word, but probably safe to say he hated them. He wanted vengeance for them, not mercy. So, when God chose Johan to be the one to go to Ninevah he initially ran the other way. In the end, God confronted Johan about his self-centered values and lack of compassion.

Jonah was facing a big problem… to obey or disobey.

He knew that Ninevah was facing big problems. (see the list in verse 2/wickedness)

Paul introduced us to a new word: GADOL.

GADOL means great!

v. 2 Great City; gadol
v. 4 Great Wind, storm; gadol
v. 5 Great Fear; gadol

Later in the story we will learn about a gadol fish; a great (big) fish.

Let’s face it, we all have problem. Some of our problems are…. GADOL (great, big). We all have different habits, hurts, or hang-ups.

The reality of Jonah is to go to the GADOL city, to get involved in the GADOL problems because God wants Jonah to be a part of the GADOL transformation.

The call of God is to go UP to GET UP, not to run away or go down. The more Jonah goes down and tries to move away from God, the more the chaos goes up.

Our calling is to be salt and light, love and life. Distributors of peace and grace. We have been chosen, called to GET UP and go; be FOR our community our WORLD.

Jonah was called to get UP and be FOR Nineveh. We must come to the point of being FOR others. To do that we must remember that we serve a GADOL God.

Let’s stop going DOWN, instead, with humility, GET UP!