Let us open our ears to hear God’s call in our lives. God never stopped talking to us. We just stopped listening along the way. God is always there for us. Let’s be there for God. There’s times when God wants us to be his messenger.
We have to turn off the radio and TV, stop playing computer games, and stop talking long enough to hear. We have to listen. Listening to God requires the same skills that we learned in kindergarten to hear our teacher. We were supposed to be quiet while the teacher was talking.
We probably didn’t stop talking because we wanted to play with our friends. If we listened to the teacher, it meant that we had to work, clean up our mess, and learn something. If we listen to God, it means that we have to work, clean up our mess, and learn something about God’s grace.
Today’s story is from the book of Jonah. It’s one of those stories that we learn when we are young about a man being swallowed by a great fish after being thrown overboard during a bad storm. Jonah was able and willing to listen to God’s call. The problem with Jonah was that he didn’t want to do the work. Jonah also didn’t want to be God’s messenger to people he didn’t like.
Jonah 1:1-4 says “The word of the LORD came to Jonah… "Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me." But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.
Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up.”
Jonah listened to God. God told him where to go. Jonah then went exactly in the other direction. That was pretty human. Nineveh was hated because they had conquered, killed, and destroyed everything that Jonah loved. Nineveh was the enemy. They were evil, corrupt, and hated. There was nothing to love about Nineveh, but God was asking Jonah to go and preach in Nineveh. God was asking Nineveh to repent and turn toward God or be destroyed. Jonah was supposed to be the messenger. Jonah liked the “or be destroyed” part of God’s message, but he didn’t like the part about God loving Nineveh and giving them a second chance. He got on a boat headed as far away from Nineveh as possible. Nineveh is in modern day Iraq in the desert and Jonah was sailing in the ocean. Do we hear God’s voice in our lives and then go in the other direction?
Jonah 3:1-10 says “Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: "Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you." Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city--a visit required three days. On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: "Forty more days and Nineveh will be destroyed." The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.”
“When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh: "By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish." When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.
The story of Jonah and Nineveh could be translated into God sending a father who lost two sons in the September 11th attacks. John Vigiano, Sr. is a retired Captain in the New York Fire Department. His sons were John, Jr. and Joseph. John was a fireman. Joseph was a police detective. Both sons died trying to save others that day.
Now, imagine God going to Captain John with a request. God asked Captain John to travel to Pakistan. God wanted Captain John to tell Osama bin Laden’s terrorist camp and the Taliban to repent or be destroyed.
The father of two dead sons may not want to go to the Middle East. He may want revenge. He may want God to destroy those that killed his sons. He may not want to be sent to preach about God’s love, grace, and forgiveness to “his enemy.” He may want to preach about God’s judgment and punishment to those who sin against God and man.
The story is true about Captain John losing his two sons. The interaction with God is just a modern day version of Jonah’s story. It is hard to have forgiveness when the sons you loved were killed in an act of war, but it sounds like Captain John doesn’t harbor hate in his heart.
Jonah did walk for three days across Nineveh. Jonah preached the message that God gave him. The people and the king heard Jonah’s message of repentance and renewal. The people of Nineveh turned away from sin and toward God. That was not the result that Jonah desired. Jonah wanted Nineveh to be destroyed because of all of their past sins. Jonah was angry with God that God was willing to forgive the sinners in Nineveh.
There are times in our lives that we must do what God asks us to do. In Jonah’s case, he had to go serve people that he thought he hated. He told them that God loved them and that they needed to change course and follow God.
I did something similar in 2007 when I felt the need to tell a chief that God loved him and so did I. The chief tried to kill me and my mission team in 2005. I met him for the first time when I told him about God’s love. I also told him that I knew that he had paid people to try to kill me. He didn’t deny it.
I asked the chief if I could pray for him. He declined. Later, I found out that the chief bragged about putting a curse on me that will keep me out of his village in the slums outside of Kumasi. God’s love is more powerful than hate and evil. I plan to go that village again this year when I go back to Ghana. I’ll tell you the rest of that story in another sermon sometime.
God wants us to tell those that “we hate” that God loves them. God wants to realize that his love conquers all. No one deserves God’s grace, but God is a loving God. It is time for us to follow God, too.
I have a good friend who is separated from his wife. They have a teenage son. I also have a cousin who got divorced recently. I have another friend who divorced early in 2008. I was talking with the friend who is starting on the path to divorce. He told that he had wasted twenty years in his marriage. I asked him to think about what caused him to be attracted to his wife when they were dating. I asked him to write down all the good times that they had over those twenty years. I asked him to think about the blessing that came out of their marriage like their son.
The hardest time to be God’s messenger is when the message needs to be given to someone that we think we hate. We need to see that person with the eyes of God again and to be willing to be God’s messenger. We need to tell them that God loves them and so do we. God’s love is more powerful than hate. God’s message of love can conquer all. Let’s go out today and be messengers to share that love with those that don’t deserve it, but are covered by God’s grace.
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