Trinity Baptist Church

Knowing and Doing God’s Will

I’ve Messed Up!

Jonah

 

In the course of our study of knowing and doing God’s will, I shared with you two fundamental truths that we need to keep in mind or we will get off track.  One of those is God is a good God.  No matter what else I believe, if I will live my life under the control of the knowledge of God’s will, I must be convinced deep in my heart of hearts that God is good.

 

The second truth walks hand in hand with the first one and that is, not only is God good, but you can trust Him. If I can always come back to those two foundational truths, then no matter what my circumstances or experiences, I can continue to be obedient to do God’s will because I know God is good and I can trust Him.

 

Today I want to add a third conviction to that list.  And it is the one that sometimes helps us be able to hang on when we can’t sense or see God’s goodness and we wonder what He is up to and that is, “God is sovereign”.

 

That means God has all power.  He is omnipotent.  He has all knowledge.  He is omniscient and He has all presence being everywhere at once.  He is omnipresent. In fact, if you stop for a moment and think of the word "sovereignty" you will discover there is a smaller word nestled in the heart of it and that is the word "reign".

 

And I will say to you before I even begin, I don’t know how to explain it or help you understand it because the sovereignty of God is one of the incomprehensible attributes of God!  It is above our finite minds to really comprehend!

 

We do not know anybody that has infinite knowledge let alone full control over every event so that they know the end from the beginning!  So we really have no point of reference to understand this attribute of God. 

 

In our world there are all kinds of limitations.  We may try to control things to bring about the desired end but we aren’t always successful. There are always limitations and unknowns!

 

But to God there are no limitations or unknowns! He has the ability to give you a freedom of choice and to know your choices before you know them and to bring about His plan utilizing your choices to His end!

And that is why He is sovereign!  He “reigns” over every detail of every part of His creation.

 

The reason this particular attribute of God is so important in our study of knowing and doing God’s will is because we’ve all made bad decisions and wrong choices.  Anyone who has lived for the Lord very long at all can look back at some things they wish they hadn’t done or said.  To put it simply, we got out of God’s will.

 

Now the tragedy for many is that got out of God’s will and never got back in.  And if that is true for you, I want to say to you today getting out of the will of God is not the end of the world and it’s certainly not the end of your usefulness to God.

The devil will try to convince you it is. He will tell you if you make a mistake and get out of the will of God you will never get back in.  God won’t have anything to do with you.  The church will never understand or accept you.

 

But you will never find that being said by God.  In fact the Bible is full of illustration to the contrary.  It is one story after the other of people who messed up terribly, yet were restored and used by God in amazing ways.

 

And the key to understanding that is found in the sovereignty of God.  Somehow we’ve come to believe that if we get out of God's will, then we’re on our own and God is no longer involved in our life.  He’s just sitting there in heaven wringing His hands hoping we can find our way home.

 

Listen:  If you’ve gotten off the road of God’s perfect will somewhere along the way, I want you to understand God knew the exact moment when you detoured, He knew all time where you were, He can  guide you back on the road and will even use the events of the detour for your good!

 

Now some would say, “Well if God knows all, that must mean everything is God's will!” I am just along for the ride and really have no responsibility over what happens.  No, not everything is God's perfect will for your life for you have choices and you have to live with the consequences of your choices!

 

But God’s sovereignty means He knew the choices that you would make and has the power to even work the wrong ones out for your good!

 

God's Sovereignty is not based upon His power to make you do things but rather upon His foreknowledge of what choices you will make and His provision to try to guide you to the right choices!

 

God doesn't make choices for you and force you to do His will, but God knows what choices you will make and works those choices together for your good!  God doesn't make you go against your will but He knows how to make you willing.

 

I know of no greater Biblical illustration of that than we find in the life of a man named Jonah.  If there is anything that Jonah teaches us, it is this:  You cannot successfully run from God.

 

I love the story of a little boy who kept riding his bicycle around the block, and a police officer was sitting by the side of the road and he watched this little boy ride around the block about ten times.  Finally, he got out of his squad car and stopped him and said, "Son, you keep riding around this same block over and over, what are you doing?" The little boy said, "I'm running away from home." The officer said, "Running away from home?  How can you be running away and keep going around the same block?"  The little boy said, "Because my Mommy told me I couldn't cross the street!"

 

In a real sense, we are all like that little boy.  You may think you can run from God, but you really cannot.  When God speaks and tells you to do something, whether you think it's a big thing or a little thing, you had better do it because if you don't, your life will become just one catastrophe after another looking for a place to happen.

 

In a sense, Jonah is about every one of us, because at one time or another all of us have run from God in some way, some form, or some fashion.  Perhaps you are on the run today, because of something you did in the past such as a mistake you made and you are running from guilt.

 

Perhaps you are on the run, because of a relationship that didn't work out and it was your fault and you are running from grief.  You are running from God, perhaps, because you are afraid of doing something you know He wants you to do or you are running from God, because you are so arrogant you are determined not to do what He wants you to do.

 

I am really not talking today just to those of you who are on the run.  I am talking to those of you today who are tired of running.  In fact, it is a shame there are so many people running from God when instead, the best thing they could do is run to God.

 

So today I want to talk to those who’ve messed up when it comes to doing God’s will.  Whether intentionally and deliberately or by some bad choice or decision you thought would be okay, you wake up one day to realize you’ve missed God’s will.  What do you do now?

 

So let me tell you the story of Jonah, and as we progress through it, we’ll see the lessons it teaches us, then from one specific scene in his life, I’ll give you some practical counsel about what to do when you’re out of God’s will.

 

 

 

 

Now the premise of the book of Jonah is, when God speaks and tells you to do something, whether you think it's a big thing or a little thing, whether you want to or not, you had better do it because if you

don't, God can see to it that your life becomes a miserable existence.

 

Actually what you discover as you study the four chapters of this book is the grief that can come from

rebelling against God’s will as well as the glory that comes from obeying God’s will.

 

Here’s the first lesson:

 

 

The story begins with a call of God on the life of Jonah.

 

Jonah 1:1-2

 

Now the command seems simple enough.  Jonah was to go to Nineveh.  It was indeed a great city.  It was the capitol of Assyria. It was enclosed within eight miles of walls, with fifteen gates and had a population of 175,000 people.  The king's palace there covered five acres, had 71 rooms with hallways 180 ft. long and 40 ft. wide.

 

But primarily it was a wicked city.  The Living Bible translates verse 2, "Their sin stunk to high heaven."  The stench of their sin had become so putrid in the nostrils of a holy God that He decides to send a preacher named Jonah to give them an ultimatum:  repent or face God’s discipline.

 

      

But there was only one problem: Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh

 

Verse 3

 

Why did Jonah disobey God?  Well, to put it bluntly Jonah was a racist.  The Ninevites were among the most hated enemies of Israel, and Jonah was afraid that their rebellion might turn into repentance, and their repentance might turn into revival, and Jonah’s attitude was, he didn’t want them saved.  He wanted them destroyed.  So he made up his mind he wasn’t going to have anything to do with calling them to repentance.

 

You may be sitting there thinking to yourself, "How terrible!  How horrible!  How selfish!"  May I tell you, that any Christian who refuses to witness and tell other people about Jesus Christ, has the same "Jonah" attitude.  Their attitude is, "People might get saved, but it won't be because of me!"

 

Because of his disobedience Jonah became a man on the run.  He was running and running hard, because Nineveh was 550 miles east of Israel and Tarshish was 2,500 miles west of Israel.  Now these cities are very important.  Because they are the only two cities mentioned in this book, and that is for a reason.

 

Nineveh represents the will of God, and Tarshish represents the will of man.

 

Now listen carefully:  Everyday you go to one of those two cities.  God allowed you to make the choice, but remember this:

 

Every time you choose to Tarshish over Nineveh it's going to cost you.  We're told in verse 3 that when he found the ship going to Tarshish, "he paid the fare."  Whenever you run with God He pays the fare, but when you run from God you pay the fare.

 

I would suggest you think about that the next time you decide you're going to disobey God and refuse to listen to whatever God is telling you to do. Whenever you run from God, the trip is always longer, always costlier, and always harder. Just remember, sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay.

 

And keep in mind, the consequences of Jonah’s decision weren’t limited to just him.  There were a lot of people who were impacted because of his disobedience. And that will be the case with you also.  I wonder how many kids are messed up today because momma thought she needed her independence.  I wonder how many families have suffered because dad chose to go to Tarshish.

 

From verse 4 to the end of the chapter we are told that a great storm arose.  Everybody began to pray to their God, throw out the cargo, lighten the load, but nothing worked.  Jonah sizes up the situation and tells these men that they must throw him overboard if they're going to live, and that is exactly what they wind up doing.

 

I heard a story of a ship that was sinking in the middle of a storm, and the captain called out to the crew and said, "Does anyone here know how to pray?"  One man stepped forward and said, "Yes sir, I know how to pray."

The captain said, "Wonderful, you pray while the rest

of us put on life jackets; we're one short."

 

Well, disobedience led to discipline. Because Jonah was not only thrown into the storm, he was swallowed by the sea by a great fish.

 

I want you to learn this lesson.  If you are a Christian, in your heart you have a hot line to heaven.  Every time that telephone rings God is on the other end.  When you answer God does not want you to say simply, "Hello," He wants to hear you say, "Yes, Lord, whatever you ask I will do."  Just remember, it is always God's way or the highway.  Disobedience brings discipline.

 

 

Now the scene shifts from the bottom of a boat to the belly of a fish.  If you could sum up the first two chapters it would go like this:  God said, "Go!"  Jonah said, "No!"  The great fish said, "Oh?" and Jonah said, "Whoa!"

 

Now there are those who ridicule this story as mythical, non- historical, a fairy tale.  There are pseudo intellectuals and liberal biblical critics who say it is impossible for a fish to swallow a man; keep him for three days; spit that man out on dry land and that man come out alive.

 

You know what I say to all of that: "With God all things are possible."  By the way, this was not an ordinary fish.

 

Verse 17

 

This was a God-prepared fish.

 

May I just go a step further.  I not only believe that Jonah was swallowed by a great fish, but if God told Jonah to swallow the whale, I believe that by God’s power that could have happened also.

 

What happened was simply this:  Jonah got a whale house for a jailhouse; spent three nights on a foam blubber mattress; and then was spit out on dry land.

 

What I want you to understand is, this whale was really a woodshed where God took Jonah and whipped him for his disobedience.  You see, it was God that sent the storm, and it was God that sent the fish to do two things in Jonah's life.

 

First of all, he drove Jonah to prayer.

 

Jonah 2:1

 

Quite frankly, that's what Jonah should have done in the first place.  If Jonah had prayed before he got onto that ship, the ship would have never gone through the storm, and Jonah would have never been swallowed by the sea.

 

But it also drove Jonah to repentance.  Notice what he says in his prayer: 

 

verses 3,4,9

 

Jonah had learned his lesson the hard way; it just took a storm to teach him. Oftentimes God sends storms into our lives because of our disobedience.  Other times God allows storms into our life because of our obedience.

But either way, those storms are always meant to draw us close to Him; to see how helpless we are without Him; and to bring us back to a point where we are totally surrendered to Him.  That's why the psalmist said, "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word."  (Ps. 119:67)

 

I was reading the other day when Hurricane Hugo was hitting Charleston, South Carolina, there was a group of Christians in a small little whiteboard church who were praying like mad.  The wind was howling outside when one man, known for his eloquent prayers, said, "Oh God, send us the spirit of the children of Israel; send us the spirit of the children of Abraham; send us the spirit of the children of Moses; send us the spirit of the children of the promise land!"

 

They said one guy interrupted him and said, "God, don't send no spirit, you come yourself, this is no time for children!"

 

Well, it's always great when God sends a storm if it drives us to seek Him and no one else.

 

 

Jonah 3:1

 

I thank God more than I can tell you that He is the God of the second chance. I am so grateful that when we fail, and we do, falter, and we do, fall, and we do, God does not throw us on the junk heap of life.  Thank God that with God failure is not fatal, nor does it have to be final.

 

      

God allowed Jonah in spite of his former disobedience to be the preacher who led perhaps the greatest revival recorded in all of the Bible.  Now his message had two parts:  mercy and judgment.

 

Verse 4

 

Now notice they had forty days to get right; that was mercy.  If they didn't get right they would be overthrown; that was judgment.

 

Now I have been pretty hard on Jonah up to this point, but let's give old Jonah his due.  He preached exactly the message he was supposed to preach.  He was not politically correct.  He was not seeker-sensitive.

 

God had said in verse 2, "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I tell you." That's exactly what he did.

 

I know it is not popular.  I know it’s not always politically correct.  I know it’s not the way to wind friends and influence people or get the most popular preacher award.

 

But I make this promise to you: I am going to preach what God tells me to preach. I had an old black pastor tell me a long time ago when you throw a rock over in a pack of dogs the one you hit is the one who will bark the loudest.  You may not like to hear what God says, but that’s not my problem.  It is my responsibility to help you be the best Christian and church member you can possibly be and one of these days I will answer to God for how I’ve done.

 

 

And you will answer for what you did with what you heard.  And the best preaching you will ever hear is the kind that tells you straight and helps you to be in God’s will.

 

Now there is a reason why you should keep the gear of your life in drive, and never put it in reverse.  There is a reason why the word "no" should never come out of your mouth when it comes to God.  There is a reason why His every wish should be your

absolute command and that is because

 

 

Jonah finally does exactly what God told him to do.  He preaches the Word of God in the city of Nineveh.  We learn that God is always ready and willing to put the sword of his judgment back in the sheaf of His forgiveness if a nation is willing to repent, and that is exactly what happened.

      

Jonah 3:10

 

I want you to put a circle around that verse because that is the real miracle in this book.  Jonah is not primarily about a physical miracle of a great fish; it is about the spiritual miracle of a gracious Father.

 

Because Jonah obeyed God, he had the privilege of seeing God do an unbelievable spiritual miracle.  In the most unlikeliest of cities, in the most unwilling of hearts, in the most ungodly of people, God brings a revival.  In one day over 175,000 people, an entire city, got right with God.

 

 

 

At no other time do we ever find, either in history or in the Bible, where every single person in a city came to know God.

 

Now that should have been a delight to Jonah.  But it is interesting to see Jonah's reaction to the revival.

 

Jonah 4:1

 

Jonah went from a preaching prophet to a pouting prophet.  All this chapter is about is a prophet's pity party.

 

Why was he angry?  Because God kept His word.

 

Jonah 4:2

 

Now think about that.  God is gracious, but Jonah wanted to be ungracious.  God wanted to give mercy; Jonah wanted God to give judgment.  The prophet that was quick to anger was angry over a God that is slow to anger.  The prophet who wanted to destroy a city was angry because of a God who relents from doing harm.

 

Now Jonah’s response is a reminder that there was still work to do in Jonah's heart, just like there is still work to do in your heart and mine.

 

You know I sometimes believe that people really don't understand the lesson of the book of Jonah.  One teacher asked her Sunday School class, "What is the lesson of the book of Jonah?"  A little boy raised his hand and said, "I know what it is."  She said, "What?"  He said, "People make whales sick."

 

      

Well, that really isn't the lesson.  Let me tell you the lesson that this book teaches us.  It is one thing to resist the command of God, and the call of God, but it's quite another thing to refuse it.  That's what Jonah did, and God kept after him until he finally said yes.  But what a tremendous price he paid.

 

The real lesson this book teaches us is this:  When God speaks you better listen.  Wherever God tells you to go, whatever God tells you to do, whoever God wants you to be, you had better obey Him and submit to His will and do what He tells you to do.

 

Now, before we close let me show you, from the life of Jonah, how to do that. See, our God is the God of a second chance.  Aren’t you thankful?  For anyone who has ever disobeyed and rebelled against God or made a bad decision that messed up their life, and later returned to God, you understand better than anyone what it means to have a God who provides second chances.

 

I don't care how long you've run, how far you've gone, or how distant you think you are from God, Jonah learned in the belly of a fish that there are three things that you can do and if you do them God will receive you with open arms, forgive you of your sin, restore you to fellowship with Him and give you a second chance to make the most of your life.  If you are tired of running today, here are three steps to take -

 

 

 

 

 

After Jonah is swallowed by this great fish and now he is engulfed in total darkness, feeling the burning of those gastric juices on his skin, wrapped in the seaweed with the stench of those fish-like body fluids around him, the first place he looks is the one place you can always look - you can look up.

 

Jonah 2:1-4

 

Up until this point, God and Jonah had not been on speaking terms.  God had been speaking to Jonah, but Jonah had quit speaking to God.

 

Here in the belly of the fish, which is about as low as you can get, Jonah had hit rock-bottom.  When you are at the bottom, there is only one way you can look and that is up.  What did Jonah see when he looked up?  He saw God.  To look toward the temple, meant to turn your eyes and look toward the place where you knew you would find God, which was in the temple.  There was something Jonah knew deep down in his heart and that is when you can't turn to anybody else you can always turn to God.  When everybody else's door is closed, God's door will be open.

 

If you are at a point where you don't know where to turn, today, I am telling you that you can always turn to God.  If you are at a stage in your life when you don't know where to look, you can always look up.  Here is why - When you look up you will find God was there all the time.

 

The second thing to do when you run from God and you are tired of running and you want a second chance is this -

 

 

Jonah 2:1-2

 

I find it interesting that Jonah would not pray on the bow of the ship, but he would pray in the belly of the fish.  If you go back and read Chapter 1, you will find that Jonah never says a word to God -  not even when he was asked to pray would he pray.  He had stubbornly shut his mouth.  He was a pouting prophet and he was determined he wasn't talking to God at all.

 

When we are determined to shut up God has a way of making us speak up.  What is frustrating is had he told God, on the ship, what he was telling God now in the fish, he would have never been in this mess.

 

Like all of us, we wait until we get into a mess and then we pray.  We wait until the wife walks out or the bills are past due or the police knock on our door and then we pray.  Just like Jonah, we say, "I called out to the Lord out of my distress."

 

Think about this. God has absolutely no reason to listen to Jonah's prayers.  Jonah has no leverage with God.  Here he is in the belly of this fish and he can't say, "Lord, from now on”, because there is no now on.  His distress was his mess and the only thing to do was confess.

 

There is only one thing that will stop God from hearing your prayers no matter what you have done or where you are.  It is not location since God can hear your prayer anywhere.

 

It is not distance since you are never so far from God that He can't hear you.  The only thing that will stop God from hearing your prayer is sin.  Any time you are ready to come clean with God and get right with God and confess to the distress of your mess, you will find the next statement is true that we read in verse 2 -

"And he answered me." (Jonah 2:2, NIV)

 

When you look up you will find that God is there.  When you speak up you will find that God will listen.

 

Then you must take the third step -

 

 

Jonah really has come full-circle, because listen to how he closes his prayer.

 

Jonah 2:8-9

 

Jonah has turned the belly of this fish into a concert hall and he is singing a song of thanksgiving to God.  He is thankful!  Now why is he thankful?  It is not because God had delivered him from the fish, because He hadn't.  Not because God was going to deliver him from the fish, because he didn't know whether God would or not.

 

He was thankful that he was back in the good grace of God.  Whether he lived or whether he died, when God asked him to do something, now he would do it.  When he made a promise to God he would keep it.

 

All God ever wanted for Jonah was to simply give up.  God makes sure that when you run away from Him that eventually you will give up.

Do you realize that Jonah prayed this prayer immediately after being swallowed by this fish, but God made him stay there three days?  Why didn't God just have the fish regurgitate him immediately after praying this prayer?  Because, God's discipline is thorough.

 

When Israel rebelled against God and refused to enter the Promised Land, He didn't make them wander in the wilderness one year, two years, five or ten.  He made them wander forty years.  If you go back and read the story, you will find that when they rebelled against God and God told them what their punishment would be, they immediately asked for forgiveness.

 

They begged God to change His mind, but He wouldn't, because He knew there was a lesson they needed to learn.  I remember times when I was a kid that I would do something wrong and my dad would go for his belt.  I don't mind telling you every time I saw my dad go for his belt, I was a changed man.  I could say the word "repent" in thirty different languages, but I got a whipping just the same, because Dad wanted to make sure that I learned my lesson.

 

I read a story about a blind man and a seeing-eye dog who was known to disobey his master at the most inconvenient times.  This man and this dog were crossing the street and the dog unexpectedly sat down in the middle of the road with all this traffic whizzing by.  A passerby darted onto the street, grabbed the dog and the man and dragged them to safety.

 

 

The blind man, scared to death, shaking like a leaf, reached into a sack for a cookie to give his dog.  The man who had rescued the two could not believe what this man was doing.  He said, "I can't believe you are going to reward that dog for lying down in the middle of the road!"  The blind man shot back and said, "I am not rewarding him.  I just want to locate his mouth so I can kick him in the tail!"

 

God wanted to make sure that Jonah got the kick that he needed, so he would be where he needed to be and he would do what God wanted him to do.  That is why these words in verse 9 are so key,

 

Jonah 2:9

 

In other words, Jonah had finally surrendered.  Don't miss this lesson.  God's grace only comes to those who completely give up.  Whether your problem is guilt or grief, the only solution to either one is grace.

 

Every day that you run from God is a wasted day.  Every place you run from God is a wasted opportunity.  God is a God of the second chance.  When you look up He will be there.  When you speak up He will listen.  When you give up, He will pick you up and He will give you a second chance.  Why?  Not because you deserve it, but to teach you that God is a second-chance God.

 

Listen:  It’s always best to do what He says.

 

One of my favorite basketball players of all time is Larry Bird.  I think he is one of the five greatest NBA players of all time.

 

During the final seconds of an especially tense close game, Boston Celtics coach, K. C. Jones, called a time-out.  As he gathered the players together at courtside, he diagramed a play only to have Larry Bird interrupt him and say, "Just get the ball to me and get everybody else out of my way."

 

 Jones exploded.  He looked at Larry Bird and said, "I'm the coach and I'll call the plays!"  Then he turned to the other players and said, "Get the ball to Larry and get out of his way."

 

Well, they did what Larry Bird said and won the game.

 

Well, Larry Bird is not God, but God is God, and when God speaks, just listen and do what He says.

God will give you the victory and He will get the glory.

 

Let’s pray.