The Gospel in Jonah (11/11/18 Stand alone Family Service)

ATTN: The very first time I heard the story of Jonah, a large fish swallowing a man, I was child attending a Vacation Bible School in Korea. I believed the story then. A kid will believe anything especially if he’s told that it’s in the Bible. Now that I’m old, more educated, and more in tune with science – what’s possible and what’s not possible – I still absolutely believe it happened just like the Bible said it did. it is far easier to believe that a man lived in the belly of a large fish for 3 days than to believe that something as amazing and complex as a human being was developed by a completely random and mindless chance.

The Book of Jonah is a very puzzling book. Jonah was not exactly a model prophet. If anything, he seems like a pouty teenager who’s bitter that his archenemy did not get in trouble with the teacher like he expected… So, what is the point of the story? What is it trying to teach us? Why is it in the Bible? Outline: I. What is the book of Jonah about? II. Where is the gospel in this? III. How Jesus is the better Jonah.

 

1. What is the book of Jonah trying to teach us?  

What is the point of Jonah? Most pastors, myself included, preaches it this way: Jonah is an example of what not to do. He was sulky and pouty and didn’t have compassion for the bad people. And that is not the right attitude to have as God’s people. So, let’s not be like Jonah, rather let’s learn to have compassion even on hard-to-love people, and be pleasing to God. And then some practical applications on how to do it. The end of the sermon.

I admit, I preached it that way years ago. But if that is what Jonah is about, then why do we need God? Why do we need Jesus? How is it different from say, “Aesop’s fables,” that are written to teach us moral lessons? Where is the gospel – the good news – in this?

 

1. Where is the gospel in this?

There are two ways to look at the story of Jonah. The first is the moralistic way I just described to you – that Jonah is a bad example and therefore, let’s do better than him. But the other way, the correct way to look at Jonah I believe, is the gospel way.

What is the gospel way? That God does what we cannot do and gives us the credit for it. That is why Jesus is the gospel – the good news. You and I are mired in sin and was heading toward hell. Like a sinking sand, we are drowning and nothing could pull us out. Jesus jumps in, takes our place and rescues us, but in the process he loses his life. That is the divine exchange. His life for ours.

But what about Jonah? Where is the gospel in this?

1. Jonah was a sinner – selfish and unloving just us.
2. God wants him to love his enemies but he couldn’t.
3. But God is still compassionate on Jonah and performs a miracle to provide for him.
4. In the end, Jonah gets the credit for the salvation of many Ninevites .

The moralistic way to look at Jonah is: Jonah is a bad example; let’s be better than him. The gospel way is: Jonah is us! We are no better than him. We need grace and compassion from God to change us or we are doomed. Thankfully, god IS gracious and compassionate on all who would come to Him in repentance.

APP: Do you see yourself in Jonah? Do you see yourself as a sinner who cannot live up to God’s holy and compassionate standard? Are you better than Jonah who couldn’t love his enemies? It’s easy to love an enemy in our imagination. But not so easy when that person is real.

Ex) What about your parent who abandoned you and won’t accept you to this day? What about your ex-husband who cheated on you and wants the custody of your child? ? Your ex-wife? What about that coach or teacher that ignore or even abused your child? What about the clerk that messed up your paper work that cost you hundreds of dollars or the doctor who misdiagnosed your loved one that they passed away way to early? Can you love them? Impossible. It’s not in us to love.

But Jesus demands that we love one another as He loved us – he died for his enemies. We can’t.

God didn’t give up on Jonah even though He should, and God doesn’t give up on us even though He should. That is the good news. That is the gospel. God does what we cannot do and gives us the credit for it.

 

III. How Jesus is the better Jonah

So, Jonah is not the bad example we are not to follow, but rather he shows us how we are and our need for the Savior. The flip side is also true. Jesus is not the good example we are to follow. No, He’s the Savior we are to receive so that He can purge away our sins. Then, broken by His sacrifice and embraced in His love, we can love Him and follow Him. We would all be doomed if we have to live up to His perfect standard in order to be accepted by Him!

ILL: Martin Luther was an augustinian monk who was very devoted to the things of God. To him, the holiness of God was something he felt in His bones. So, he spent his days in prayer and service. He spent up to six hours a day confessing his sins to a priest. He fasted for days and refused blankets at night, believing that he earned God’s acceptance through self-imposed suffering. But he would always wonder if he had done enough. What if there were sins he’s forgotten to confess? During a visit to Rome, he climbed a staircase on his knees, saying a prayer on each step. But when he got to the top, he again wondered if it was enough. He had a tormented soul saying, “I was myself more than once driven to the very abyss of despair, so that I wished I had never been created.”

While preparing a series of lectures on the Psalms and Romans, he came upon the words, “Righteous of God.” And he hated those words because he knew that he didn’t measure up to the righteousness of God. But upon further meditating and studying, he realized that he had been wrong the whole time about the nature of the righteousness of God. He realized that the righteousness of God is not something that we try to earn and live up to, but it is something that He gives to those who would receive it by faith. To quote Martin’s Luther’s own words that changed the course of world history for the last 500 years:

There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning: the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, namely, the passive righteousness with which merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written, “He who through faith is righteous shall live.” Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates. There a totally other face of the entire Scripture showed itself to me.

This is what the story of Jonah is about. Jonah was a sinful man, like you and me. He was selfish and did not live up to god’s standard. However, God chose Him anyway, showed him grace to use himself mightily to save a nation.

I’m not better than Jonah and neither are you. But God sent His perfect Son not to condemn us for not living up to His standard, but to save us, to do what we cannot do. Would you come to this Jesus? Would you receive this Jesus? Would you walk with and know this Jesus until your life becomes like His?