“The God of Second Chances”

Series: Having a Heart for Nineveh
Jonah 3:1-4
INTRO
In the book, Rebuilding Your Broken World, Vernon Grounds begins with the question—
“If the whole structure of your existence is shattered,
Like a broken vase—dropped on a hardwood floor
Can those shards be gathered up and made into something beautiful, useful again?”
To put it another way— Once Humpty Dumpty had his great fall— Are all the king’s horses and all the king’s men incapable of doing anything -except lamenting as they consign his fragments into the rubble?
It is a question any of us who have failed ask ourselves -when our lives fall apart-be it through addictive behavior, having an abortion, choosing to drift, making a collective set of choices that have veered us from the life God intended is there hope of ever being whole again—hope of being useful for God?
-Jonah 3:1-3 speaks to the question (read)
Before we unpack these verses—let’s consider again the context -as we saw at the beginning, Jonah had the opportunity other prophets would dream about—go to a big city, set up a festival, preach to a pagan audience—be used powerfully of God--but he did an about face and ran -for reasons that become clearer in chap 4
Illustration-
Having sat on his wall of self-made plans—Jonah fell and his world shattered
-and in this he joined the ranks of other broken world people-Jacob, Asa, Samson, Saul, you, me
-but now, having literally hit sea bottom, coming to the end of himself
-coming to grips with the fact no one can escape from the call of God
-Jonah reaffirmed his prophetic commitment
-and was unceremoniously deposited unto dry land as so much Poisson puke (read 2:10)
And in this context—God gives us these verses-3:1-3
A. If you look closely at the words found in verses 1-3, you will find they sound
Repetitious
1:1-the word of the Lord came to Jonah
3:1-the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time
1:2-arise and go to Nineveh
3:2-arise and go to Nineveh
B. There is an intentional parallelism that tells us we have moved from Act I to
Act II
-(think of Jonah as the OT version of Groundhog Day with Bill Murray)
-God will keep starting the day with Sonny and Cher until Jonah gets it right and starts living for Someone beside himself
C. Jonah came to this moment of realization that he cannot escape the assignment
-Jonah cannot even choose to die-God won’t let him
-so this time—Jonah listens
-but there is a difference in this text—slight—but big
-1:2-Jonah was challenged to “speak against Nineveh”
-3:2-now Jonah is commanded to “speak to Nineveh
-having tasted grace, Jonah is commanded not so much to denounce as to speak into their lives, not so much to consign and condemn as to warn and prepare
-to proclaim the message “which I Myself will give to you”
So Jonah arose—just as he did in 1:3—and went-as he did before -only this time there is no detour to Joppa—no cruise ship to Tarshish -though it may have made little sense to preach to a nation that had ruled with harshness for 270 years
-Jonah was reconciled to God’s call In all of this—as with any book
-God is telling us something about Himself
-here’s what’s clear in the book of Jonah so far—
1. GOD IS IN THE BUSINESS OF CALLING US
-Jonah underscores what is found from Genesis to Revelation to this moment
-that at various points—we will be brought face to face with why God has created us—what He has placed His hand on us to be, to do
-we won’t find it—it finds us-just as it did Jonah -and, as Os Guinness notes in his book, The Call, it will come in various seasons
a. teens begin to reckon with it as they begin to emerge and discover themselves, their passion, a faith that is becoming their own
b. graduates confront it as they move into a world of opportunity
c. people in their 30’s confront it when work and life press in from all sides—and they begin to ponder what Allender calls “four core questions”
-who am I to serve?
-where am I to be?
-what burden am I to bear? (for all of us are called into a world of
need)
-how am I to engage? (depending upon our gifts)
d. people face it in mid-life—especially when they find that what they are doing may not be matching with what they sense they were made for
e. people-with enormous success face it—when they realize that their success does not equate into something significant
All, one way or another, will hear God speaking, calling us first to Someone
-and then calling us to something
-for “sentness” is our fundamental identity
-John 20:21-as the Father sent Me, so I am sending you
-to be a radical follower of Jesus
-to submit our gifts and abilities to Him—allow God’s life be willed through us
-to be a prophetic voice
-to go to our Nineveh and declare God’s justice, God’s grace
-to be a world changing community of believers
But sometimes-when it is there in front of us—staring at us—calling to us—and it will
-like Jonah—we may run from it
-be it through indifference—because we are too absorbed in our own purposes
-be it fear—for we have learned in life to insulate ourselves from risk
-be it outright disobedience—disagreeing with God
And because of this—Jonah shows us a second thing
2. GOD IS IN THE BUSINESS OF REFORMING US
-for when we run—miss becoming this channel for God’s glory and work on
this planet
-life gets mis-shaped
As Jonah 2 underscores-things eventually move into a downward trajectory
-we bang our shins, scrape our elbows, waste our gifts
-our world can begin to fall apart—as any world built on self does
-we realize we have missed what we were made for
-miss God’s will for this world--
-and God—because of His profound love--must do His work of reforming us back to Christlikeness
-painful as that is
But here’s where lots of people stop—at 2:10
-I’m back on dry land-by the grace of God
-but I’m only as good as fish vom.
But Jonah tells us something else about God—the pt of verses 1-3
3. GOD IS ALSO IN THE BUSINESS OF RESTORING US
-here God is telling us He is a God of genesis and regenesis
-as Karen Mains puts it—
“He composts life’s bitter fruits, moldering rank and decomposing, and applies the matter to our new day chances”
-or to put it in the words of Jeremiah 18-the potter takes the spoiled clay and remakes it into another vessel “as it pleased the potter to make”
-verses 1-3 is God’s affirmation that He is interested in calling us once again to do what He intended to do through us in the first place
-not merely to wholeness—but to usefulness again
Not that the consequences of running automatically disappear—nor that it is automatic
-some seemingly get one chance—
-the unnamed prophet of I Kings 13 failed to heed God’s clear directions and was mangled by a lion
-Moses struck the rock once—and was denied another chance to lead Israel into the land
-and there are others—Cain, Lot’s wife, Saul, Achan, Ananias and Sapphira
But these are the exceptions of Scripture
-for every Moses there is a John Mark
-for every Cain, a David, a Peter—who God chose to restore to usefulness
-for every unnamed prophet, there is a Jonah
-men, women given a renewed commission
This is what God is in the business of doing—
-this is what the work of Jesus on the Cross is all about
-taking broken world people and sending them forth once again as His servants in growing the kingdom
CONCLUSION
-but here’s my fear—some of you may not take Jonah seriously
-I’m not interested in God’s call on my life
-but here’s what you better prepare for—God is tenacious—and He will not give up
-and if it takes tossing you into the depths of the sea—He will
-but the greater concern here is that some of you might be buying in to the Accuser’s voice
-you’re too messed up—you can no longer be used
-the shards cannot be made into something useful, beautiful again
-I think this is true of lots of believers, lots of churches
-we had our chance—we have had our season—-we might be good enough for reformation—but not restoration
But that attitude raises really big questions
1. If God restored a Jonah—would He not restore you?
2. How deeply do you believe in God’s capacity to forgive?
-in the largeness of the Cross to reclaim us?
-the largeness of God’s love to reform us?
-the largeness of God’s power to rebuild and restore us?
3. Could it be you are denying God the pleasure of using you as He created you
to be?