1. Running From Your Life - Amazing Jonah - Tim Mackie (The Bible Project)

John chapter 1 verses 1 to 3 the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amitai 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 Tarsus to flee from the Lord all right guys ready for action so great I've waited years to do a series on Jonah how many of you are familiar with the story of Jonah show of hands here I think it's important how many smelly so the vast majority of us are familiar with the story of Jonah and this is a problem I think that's actually a huge problem and one that we're going to have to overcome here in the next five weeks and it's a problem because if I would have asked a question how many of you have thoughtfully read through the Book of Jonah in its entirety maybe even more than once maybe even like read a Study Bible or something like that comment on it and learned about the Book of Jonah and I did I'm not going to ask that question it's okay so but if I did ask that question far far fewer hands would have raised so I'm guessing actually many of us have probably never actually thoroughly or thoughtfully read through the book but you know about it because of what yeah exactly right so I call this the veggie tail sector okay you notice and the veggie tales factor and so honestly when I said The Book of Jonah what came in to many of your minds was the talking cucumber you know having the talking tomato or whatever and and this this is a this is a challenge and a problematic just in general with especially in the Old Testament the stories of the Bible because most of us if we have encountered the stories of the Old Testament at all its have not been through thoughtful reading of them they've been mediated to us through children's media and what happens in children's media is that most of these stories they get they get watered down or they're simplified and somehow they all of a sudden teach a bland moral truth like be nice or something be a nice person you know suddenly every story in the Bible is about that and so and especially Jonah holy cow for Jonah it's a no-brainer there is one element of this story that every every children's book 6/8 on and what element is that Jonah endless come on the fish come on you know this so just random sampling of book covers rent from from amazon.com and so whether it's the 3d version right with the little glasses over here whether it's the sticker book version right here I mean just look at it there you go what's the Book of Jonah about it's about a guy in a fish there you go that's that's the VeggieTales factor that we have at work with us and so you guys the fish appears in two sentences in this entire story except the fish is not the thing the fish is not the thing to make the fish the focus or the main theme is to actually miss what this story is really what the story is really about so the Book of Jonah is a part of the sacred scriptures and the purpose of the scriptures is not to entertain children the purpose of the scriptures is not to teach us about fish the scriptures purpose is to reveal the character of God it's to reveal Jesus to us and his character and his purposes and what he's up to in the world that's what every book of the Bible is for to reveal God and reveal Jesus and his character and his purposes to us and so whatever the Book of Jonah is about it's doing that and whatever I think the Book of Jonah is about that distracts from that I'm probably like way on the wrong track and need to get back it's the VeggieTales factor and so the fact is the Book of Jonah especially is I mean it's great children's story but to actually get what's going on in this book you have to be an adult absolutely The Book of Jonah is one of the most brilliantly told stories in the entire Bible was full of wit and irony and humor there's humor in the Bible really history and sarcasm and what the book was really doing Jonah as we're going to see he's a representative character in the story he represents the Covenant people of God through whom God wants to do his work in the world and what this book does is it by exposing Jonah is a horrible man by the way do you know this he's a horrible person every chapter of the book just exposes what a horrible flawed person he is and by by holding him up for for ridicule for shame for critique with the was what the story Tower is really doing how many of you have seen this kind of a stock seen in many like spy action movies where like this dark alley or a warehouse the good guys chasing the bad guy and now all of a sudden the good guy sees the red laser beam sight on his chest you know I'm saying you know that scene you could name ten movies that have that same in it right now so that's the Book of Jonah because you're reading a store and you're like wow this is crazy in this guy's crazy a fish and whoa this and then all of a sudden if you're paying attention you realize like yeah this is about me like this whole story is aimed at punching me in the gut right now and it's the story is aimed at exposing the worst tendencies that tend to form in size of God's covenant people which which is pride hard-heartedness judgmentalism tribalism small-mindedness and an inability to grow and change and let god's grace actually surprised me and explode the boundaries of what I thought was possible in the world that's what the story's about and so it's one of the things where you know you think you're just reading this kind of harmless tale or something and then you realize someone's talking you in the gut that's that's the Book of Jonah and so surgeon general's warning you know this is probably going to hurt five Sundays in a row it's going to hurt but you're kind of used to that around or foe I think that's kind of why a lot of you are here is because you like the pain you like the fact okay so no how else does so think of think of these five weeks it's kind of like a rescue mission we're going to rescue the Book of Jonah from all of the layers of vegetation that have grown over it we're going to pull it out and try and understand what the story is really saying it's profound revelation of the character and purposes God yes with me all right so you're already open here and specifically today so reading any book of the Bible especially the Book of Jonah we're kind of its kind of like I'm watching afternoon soap operas when you have not been watching beforehand and you're like who are these people and why do I care about this and there's clearly all these stories that have already been going you know what I'm saying here some beer ashamed to even admit that you would watch so proper stuff so anyway so that's kind of will be what's that what's going on as we dive into Jonah there's all these backstories that you're just supposed to know the in-form and help you grasp what the author is trying to do to you he's trying to mess with you here but you need to grasp the backstories and so we're camping out in the first three verses this week to set the playing field and so we can pick up and just run in those in the Sundays that follow so verse one let's go for it lightning speed the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of ami time okay let's stop Sabri there's two things we got to pay attention to here first of all the author just landed big a big ball a easy ball slow ball on a soft ball underhand I don't know I'm trying to say he's mate he's like surrounding us a bone different metaphor altogether talking about with this uh with these first sentences here with this person what's that what kind of book in my reading rent we just opened up the Book of Jonah what kind of book will be reading the first clue right there so the word of the Lord comes to what kinds of people in the Bible especially in Israel comes with prophets it's a prophet so apparently this is a book of and in the Bible prophet doesn't mean fortune teller or something like that the prophets sometimes look into the future and discern what God's will be doing in line with his character and so on but for the most part the most basic definition and role of prophets in the Bible is to speak on God's behalf their just messengers to speak on God's behalf give God's perspective on something and that's what a prophet is in the Bible and so the word of the Lord comes to prophets that kind of turn the page to the next book of the Bible it'll just be one page for most of you this is another book of the prophet Micah and how does it begin well begins the exact same way the word of the Lord that came to Micah of Moorish chefs during the reigns of all these kings of thumb causes Keauhou kings of Judah the vision you saw concerning Samaria and Judah now here's what's interesting here's what follows what follows in Micah is seven chapters that are a collection of Micah's words of his poetry his poetic prophesy to Israel and so and this is how all the books of the prophets begin you realize they are Obadiah Ezekiel or Zechariah and they all begin with the words of this prophet or the word of the Lord came to or the vision of that came from God that so in Isaiah saw this is how all the books of the prophets begin and so we turn back to the Book of Jonah and we read the first sentence and we say oh the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of armeteo I know what kind of book I'm about to start reading it's a book of prophecy in am i right I'm wrong I'm not the first tented throws you off everything is wonky in this book and that's precisely the point the first sentence throws you off because you think you're about ready to read a collection of Jonah's poetic prophecy like every other book of the prophets but that's not what you get what you get is a story about this prophet I just want you to stop and think about that God's God's Word takes many different forms in the scriptures sometimes God's Word to his people is speaking directly through the Prophet and through his words that's God's words to his people through Micah the Book of Jonah is God's Word to his people through a story about a prophet and so if you want to hear God's Word you have to read and reread and meditate and think about the message of this story not about a fish about the message of the whole story right including the chapter I've I have a child remote but I read to my son with with like grimace clenched teeth or something it's the story of Jonah and it completely leaves out chapter 4 it doesn't even mention the story that he gets angry at God and chefs war it's because well that's kind of a little inappropriate for kids get angry at God you know I think so no you got to read the whole thing and what is the message of this whole of this whole book and so what that raises is okay this is a story about a prophet what cut what kind of story is this and so the Bible is like a small library and there are many different books there are many different kinds of literature in these very different books there's different kinds of stories different kinds of narratives there's different kinds of poetry there's erotic love poetry the Song of Songs but then there's also prophetic poetry which is a different character there's you can read someone else's mail in the Bible the letters of the New Testament and there's different lots of narrative one-third of the bible is narrative another sort of it is poetry and you should not read all of those things the same way whenever you open up the Bible the first question you should ask is what kind of literature my reading right now and then how should that shape what I expect to get out of this and so that's a question we should ask is okay this is a story about a prophet but what kind of story is the author telling me like how can I honor God's Word and like let it dictate what kind of story this is to me and so others essentially I'm I have to go very quick here because I don't just want to give a lecture about The Book of Jonah but I think it's helpful because it's teaching us how to think and how to read the Bible more more intentionally there's there's two basic views on what kind of story the Book of Jonah is there's nothing else like Jonah in the Bible there's no other book about a prophet and not only that there's no other book that has this unique kind of storytelling style to it and so you know you read kind of teachers or commentators and this kind of thing across the whole spectrum but even even among Orthodox Christian scholars the Bible is God's Word Jesus God and human that whole deal so Orthodox Christian scholars there's two views you can come across them and all and all of the comment areas one is that the author has received a historical tradition about this guy named Jonah son of amitayus real historical figure and he's passing on to us this story as a historical account of the things that happened in the life of Jonah a brief revival in the city of Nineveh and so on so that's one one view and and very common recommend do I think probably most people haven't really even thought about it they might assume that the second view again also held by Orthodox Christian scholars is that there's something there's more than meets the eye to this book it's that the Jonah is a form of narrative parable and that this is a parable based off of a historical real figure because we're going to see here Jonah was a real figure based on history but that the author does not intend us to take the story as historical narrative but rather as parable similarly to the parable that Jesus told in Luke chapter 16 where he used a named character the rich man and Lazarus in that parable there's very clear it's a parable and it's the collection of parables and so on has all the features of Jesus's parable but Jesus used a named figure most likely a figure that would have been familiar to his hearers or so on a beggar named Lazarus but then puts that real character into the parable a parable type setting so those are the two main two mains views now this is like a lecture right now hey you guys done okay there's some of your board sorry sorry but most of you aren't and so I'm just going to keep going yeah so so here's the problem here's the problem here now let's be very honest what has happened for the most part in the last couple hundred years especially many church circles is because the fish is the main thing the choice between the two views all of a sudden becomes a litmus test on whether or not you really believe in miracles or whether or not you even believe a man could survive an officious done work for three days and if you take the view that the books a parable then you don't believe in the possibility of miracles you're sliding towards the logical liberalism and you're denying the tooth fulness of the Bible okay let's just stop stop that stop this is a wrong starting point altogether the fish is not the thing what I want to do is humble myself before God's Word not tell it what I think it ought to be but let the author tell me what kind of story he's writing and so and this is where the base comes in because Joan is a historical figure there's no doubt about that Jesus mentions Jonah and some people say well because Jesus mentioned Jonah and the people of Nineveh that's a claim that the book is historical if you go read those comments of Jesus in context though what he's not talking about what kind of book is or he's not appealing to the historicity of the Book of Jonah he's doing what he always does with the Old Testament says that these are stories and figures that point forward to me he says this the book Jonah in the whale is a symbol or a type of his coming death and burial yeah so Jesus's words don't resolve the issue for us you have to go to the Book of Jonah itself and so here's here's what's interesting is no matter what view you you hold a Book of Jonah is is unique in how it tells its story it doesn't give any dates other than Jonah it doesn't give you any name it name is one of the most important figures in the ancient world who's the king of Nineveh he's like the king of he's the equivalent of the US president in the world today he was the ruler of the biggest baddest Empire the ancient world has ever known and he has no name in the story which is very very curious usually when difficult or ease of David or Solomon or like the for biography biographies of Jesus in the New Testament they make the historical claim just out there they're telling you names and dates and other events going on in history and look everything everything is keyed in to make that claim and the Book of Jonah is just different it just it has a different kind of style and and what both camps agree on whatever view you you hold well both camps agree on is that the Book of Jonah is a beautiful piece of literary storytelling and so my lecture is kind of over now this is what I think you'll really be interested here is that no matter what view behold everybody agrees that the Book of Jonah is it as a story that reads like two forms of literature we have in our culture and those two forms of literature one is Saturday Night Live and the other one is comic books which is why it's by the way we have this comic book theme the style of the title screen here so so the storytelling style of this book is is a form of satire you guys familiar with that term I don't on let me see you might be so just think Saturday Night Live so satire stories are where you take very known known figures popular figures who are kind of stock generic characters so you take prints at a live you take political figures or celebrity is this kind of thing and you place them in extreme ridiculous stories that just highlight how flawed and screwed up these people are right and they're just the you know they're just the butt of every joke and you're just watching you go oh ridiculous these people are so ridiculous and satires are always aimed not simply telling you about some events that took place there aimed at critiquing you the reader but getting you to laugh while they're making fun of you you know I'm saying let's Saturday Night Live they're making fun of American culture which is you but you're laughing while they're doing it and holding up these characters for for ridicule and so that's exactly the book of johna the book of jonah is all about stock generic characters so you have the Prophet the man of God writes a religious prophet and he is the one who immediately runs away from God he's actually the most hard-hearted hateful person in this entire story right that has to physically like take him on the mission that he's going and vomit him out of the fish you know to get him to do anything and then all jonah does is he preaches a five word in hebrew a five word sermon in Nineveh and it was very successful this room is very successful and he's so angry he wants to die and the book ends with him chewing god out for being too merciful and he would rather dies and live with this god that says that's the man of god in the story right and then you have the bad guys right the the heathen pagan sailors in chapter one and the big baton in device and they're the most murderous oppressive people the planet has ever known and they have paper-thin conscience --is and they respond to God and repent immediately and turn their hearts towards him even the cows repent in Nineveh and Japheth so it's just it's everything is just kind of extreme and crazy and you're like whoa this is the Book of Jonah that's Saturday Night Live is the the generic kind of nobody behaves according to their stereotype the other feature and this is great and you all point this out as we as we go along is that the book is just full of what you could call comic book style everything's over-the-top the word the word great or huge in Hebrew is god old and it occurs 15 times in these shorts two pages everything's huge in the Book of Jonah the storm is huge the ship is huge the fish is huge the city is huge the city's so huge it says it takes three days to walk through it which any ancient reader would be like that was a good one that's a good one right because we could say this it's like a 45 mile wide city there is no city in the world that was 45 miles what Nineveh was seven miles around and that was gigantic for its day but it's blowing everything out of proportion because it was the most significant city on the planet at that at that time every Jonah is hugely happy he's hugely afraid he's like a man has manic-depressive he's just too crazy that you's a crazy person who needs it these ancient therapists so you guys get the feel here just everything everything's crazy and extreme and and this is this is exactly what the author is trying to do he's telling us a tale and wrapping us in and we go oh this is so what a great what incredible story this is so look at that guy he's so stupid and then you finished the store in your life oh that's me dang it you don't have you I want to run away something like this the power of the Book of Jonah so it's the ancient it's the biblical Saturday Night Live comic book okay my lecture is over hey guys done okay good so that's all just kind of orient us and I think part of it too is we just don't expect this kind of thing in the Bible therefore we never find it it's kind of like to a person with a hammer in their hand everything looks like a nail so just reverse that to a person who doesn't have a hammer in the and they never see any nails that doesn't I just did that on spot that didn't really work but you kind of get my poet right if you don't think there's satire and humor and irony in the Bible of course you're never going to see it but once you do all of a sudden you realize do this Jonah is a piece of dynamite that is just being loved at God's people on purp in love and the love and compassion to help wake us up to the worst tendencies that it always tended to be going on in the community of God's people that's the Book of Jonah the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of on the time hey guys yeah okay let's keep going keep going the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of a meat I now you're supposed to laugh right there was this a laugh track so Jonah's name means dove Jonah means dove son of onit I mean son of faithfulness the doves are in you know images in the Bible of innocence purity and so on the pure innocent one the son of faithfulness that's rich that's rich because he's the most faceless character in the entire story the word of the Lord says go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because it's wickedness has has come up before me so again there's a whole backstory here you're just supposed to know about Nineveh you're supposed to know about Jonah because he appears one other time in the Old Testament and all of a sudden you're like oh this is this is rich this is so great so this is so great for a number of different reasons Jonah he's the perfect person to tell to be the main character in this story I mean there's it's absolutely brilliant that he's he's the main character here for a few different reasons here's the one other time that Jonah is mentioned in the Bible in the Old Testament here it's in second Kings 14 and just to kind of give you a sweep of the story of Israel there Jonah comes kind of midway through the Kingdom period after David before the last book of the Old Testament he's right in there and here's the story here it's about Jeroboam - now Jeroboam - he was the son of Jehovah is rayul in the fifteenth year of King a mazayas reign in Judah now Jeremiah Jeroboam reigned in Samaria 41 years of the long term in office yeah 41 years and he did what was evil in Yahweh's side he refused to turn from the sins that Jeroboam son of nabob had led Israel to commit he also recovered the territories of Israel between Laveau Hamas and the Dead Sea just as Yahweh the God of Israel had promised through Jonah son of ami ty the prophet from God ever now I'm guessing that most of us if we came across this paragraph and King he would be like okay a guy with funny name bad guy won a battle now I'm moving on you know Jonah that's interesting okay now I'm moving on I don't think that's what most of us would probably do so know if it really really didn't think about what's going on here Jeroboam - good guy or bad guy I mean just look at this clear statement of the story good guy or bad guy the really bad guy right he's named after Jeroboam the first who was the king who led the northern tribes to secede essentially started a civil war a civil split between the tribes of Judah and jerome actually built two alternate temples as a rival to the temple of Yahweh and Jerusalem and he put golden calves in them that's what Jeroboam did and this guys named after him and apparently he didn't not only did he just like keep it up he he made it even worse he's a bad guy in the bit and the biblical imagination he's a bad bad King bad as they ever came jonah prophesied favorably favor and victory for this apostate faceless king hmm now granted we're told that it was a prophecy through yahweh the Jeroboam was able to gain through a battle all of these different territories up in in the northern area but in the later imagination later biblical readers that would be reading this would be like Jonah yeah he's that guy who prophesied favored over that really horrible King and not only that in the Book of Amos chapter 7 Amos actually reverses this he says the people of Israel have gotten so bad that Yahweh is going to let Assyria come and wipe out all of the same territories again he's going to go back go back because Israel is disobedient and so readers of the Bible would view again if you know this backstory here when you hear Jonah son of Amitai doves son of faithfulness you're like mmm yeah I don't know about this guy I don't know about this guy he he prophesized that Israel would increase its national territory that's what he's known for and now he's being asked to go preach a message to Israel's most hated enemies and we'll see why why he runs in just in just a minute now Nineveh good guys bad guys but I had to do too much work here so Nineveh was the capital city of the ancient Assyrians and Assyria was the empire that came and wiped out ten of the tribes of Israel wiped them right off the map they don't exist anymore because of Assyria they were the most brutal oppressive and violence of the ancient empires of the ancient world and we'll learn more about them when we get to chapters three and four their general practice was to plunder a city and skinned alive all of the leaders of the city in front of everybody before they deported them back to Assyria this is horrible horrible and so God's depicted as this great king and he's surveying his realm so to speak and the oppression and the injustice of Nineveh rises up before him and he is like done like that's not going to continue and so he sends a messenger doves son of faithfulness how's the story going to go but Jonah ran away from the Lord and he headed for Tarshish he went down to Joppa he found a ship bound for that port that is for Tarsus and after paying the fare he is honest man I suppose after all he went bored all the children's book for the reader my son he's hiding in a little basket so it makes it look like he snuck on the ship anyway so this is here he paid the fare he paid the fare and he went aboard the ship he sailed for Tarshish to do what says twice in verse three what's Jonah's ultimate aim here to flee from ascetics we're at the beginning and right at the end this is this is his gold now again another chuckle oh that's rich that's a good one that's a really that's a really good one and I'll this is I'm fully geeking out here tonight so let me show you a map let's do the next one yes oh the font and I forgot to turn off the animation there you go okay we'll work on that for the second second service so you can see the Assyrian Empire here and you can see Nineveh is what direction from Israel east where does it Jenna go yes now not just west Tarsus is the equivalent in the Bible of like English we say Timbuktu no literally because it's the last port before you go through what's that the Straits of Gibraltar that what that is there yes the Straits of Gibraltar and out out to the vast ocean that was the edge of the known world Jonah doesn't just flee he actually flees as far as you can in the opposite direction as was humanly possible alright that's the idea here this guy's he's booking it to Tarshish he's trying to get not just like he doesn't just go down to Egypt that would be fine he actually goes as far in the opposite direction as you could possibly can and we're supposed to be iconic that's great that's crazy that's crazy what's he like he's doing and he's a prophet for goodness sakes surely he's read Psalm 139 the Josh preach from last week right can you feel it can you do this can you flee from the Lord of course you can't I mean he's a part of he's a part of the Bible itself clearly you should have known Psalm 139 there's something going on inside his heart and inside his mind that is just scrambled his view of reality yes we're going to camp out on in just in just a second here so everything is rich everything is is crazy and upside down in in this in this story and what it raises is the question is why Jonah's only prophet in the Bible who runs away from God he's this upstanding religious man of God so we think but yet he's actually running furthest from God than any other character in the story why why does he do this why and why do you think I mean Nineveh is in the habit of skinning people alive when it conquers a city and you're being asked to go march into the capital city of that Empire and preach against it what do you think his motives are it doesn't say here but what do you think just from reading historia yeah this would be like like like parachuting into Berlin or Munich during world war two okay like that I was like you just and and carry up a sign say down with the Third Reich you know you just don't you don't do that right so we think he's scared he's scared right God's asked him to do something he's scared doesn't want to do it but that's not that's not why that's not why he runs look at chapter four this is again part of the brilliant storytelling of the Book of Jonah chapter four verse one in chapter three he preached his five word sermon the city the King and the cows repent but the Jonah the facts that the Ninevites should find forgiveness and mercy this all seemed very very wrong wrong he's angry at the success of his own preaching he became angry he prayed to the Lord out you can imagine through gritted teeth here isn't this what I said Lord when I was still back at home this is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish I knew that you are gracious and compassionate God you're slow to anger you're abounding in love a God who relents from sending calamity now Lord take away my life it'd be better for me to die than what does send of faithfulness so what okay so clearly he needs to see an ancient therapist that's clear after reading these three verses here but he tells you exactly what he ran right here if you were not afraid why did he run why did he when he knew that somehow Yahweh would find a way to bring His grace and His mercy to these people through their repentance he just knew that somehow this was going to have a happy ending and he does not want a happy ending for his enemies and so here this is really what's going on here is that Jonah has he has a plan he has a wonderful plan for his life that's what he does right he has a vision of how this prophetic career is going to work out and it doesn't include this mission so he for especially as a prophet up in the northern kingdom to be the Prophet that brings forgiveness and life and repentance to the most hated enemies of your people like that's not going to great go over great it's not a way to win friends and be popular parties or stuff but so this just not it's going to make him suspect among his own people you can of course he doesn't want this to work out and so this is it at the base of where this is really happening here inside of Jonah's heart he knows perfectly well the Yahweh loves to show mercy he knows somehow the Ninevites are going to find mercy that just does not fit into my vision of what my life is about no thanks and so he books it to Tarshish and so really how the Book of Jonah begins is with a really profound just exploration of the nature and the psychology of disobedience it's really what this is about and I don't know what you you know if I say the word obey obey or obedience I'm guessing that most of us don't have like really flowery positive associations coming to the top of our minds right and some of you have Alan drew the giant that comes to your head when I say obey and that's just ten of you that look at that that's okay but but essentially like the obedience isn't a positive idea in our culture and that's because for the most part I mean we read this the word of the Lord came to Jonah go to the great city and we go oh here's God commanding people again he sure to do that in the Bible doesn't it so that's how many of us our vision of God is he's the power trip whatever kind of volatile deity and just loves to kind of flick people around tell people what to do better submit right that's the vision that many of us have of God our default mode and many of you have that for lots of different reasons primarily because many of you had moms and dads that were like that and those might be the same moms and dads that taught you about God and so of course you're going to project that back up on to the sky but the biblical vision of God is very different and think about this command God is commanding Jonah to go preach to the city of Nineveh there's so many ways the story could have gone you guys gods could do like what he did at Mount Sinai like move in in a big dark cloud and lightning and yell down from a bullhorn you know and I'm sure that would've been very effective over Nineveh I didn't like you know turn from your ways and you know you're doing wrong horrible stop it something and I'm sure that would have been effective but God almost never does that kind of thing in the Bible the the what happened there at Mount Sinai was very unique the way that God works through almost all events throughout the story of the Bible is what he called his people into being for in the first place he chooses to work through his people to the primary vehicle they God chooses to work through this through people his covenant people and so what's actually happening here is Jonah is being invited to step into a story that is much broader that's more risky it's way bigger than anything he ever signed up for that's basically what's happening here Jonah has a vision here's what my life is about here's what my prophetic career is about yeah there's that whole god thing clearly calling me in that direction I'm just not interested and so at its root what this comes down to a way to kind of rethink what obedience means in the Bible is that God has and we have competing competing visions of what life is about of what the good life is of what actually constitutes true life as a human being and you and I operate according to that vision it's just default in there and we behave in ways that make the most sense to us given our circumstances that's just what we do that's how we operate and so Jesus comes into the picture and he's like follow me and there's a whole bunch of things that you're doing that you think is life but actually it's not life at all that's what's happening right here it's competing visions of lies and when and when God calls his people the first thing that we're confronted with is I'm am I going to settle for the path of life that I'm on and what I call life where am I going to entertain this new invitation to lives and so you have the sad irony here right at the book of johna it is the first expose of brokenness in God's people is that it's very easy to train ourselves through just being in a church community or something that we're doing pretty good and we're involved or whatever doing whatever and so we're like yeah okay just making progress here some but then there's this clear glaring area of our lives where we know we're being called to grow we're being called to change and somehow we just end up especially religious people we just like compart we're able to compartmentalize that off and be like and yeah not really not so much there Jesus but I'll always go to a sunday gathering done and won't you be happy with me then you know okay let's totally how we operate and so here's this very religious man who when it comes to it here's a core issue where his vision of his life is being challenged and he's booking it to Tarshish and the sad irony is that he thinks he's running for his lives he thinks God's ruining his party and the tragedy is that he's actually running from life I mean look what he has a chance to participate in a movement of God's grace that is on a greater scope than anybody had ever known and he totally misses out on being a part of it and enjoying it because he won't give up his little vision that's a good life you guys with me what an ancient irrelevant story I have two sons I'd like to show them show them to you they should have beer here shortly one of them is named Roman he's two and he's awesome and the other one is August who you've been hearing some about and he's now a little over a month old and he's he rocked like four hours of sleep in a row last night that that progress I'm telling you that's progress side so these are my two these are my two boys and this is a shameless plug to just get to show my children in front of all my friends but this also epitomizes their relationship what's happening picture so Romans two and he loves he lucky adores his little brother he loves to kiss him constantly kissing him and he'd also does stuff like this we'll just kind of run up to him and to his chest to his face and this has so much energy it'll just be like Aaron is like whoa buddy chill out you know so but you definitely get the picture here August is a passive one right now in Romans the charger and this is also for me this picture I look at all the time because it just was my son Roman right now is he has formed he's just turned two he's formed this you know the first energy around his little selfish well holy cow okay and so right now what we're working on is this very basic thing which is please stop and come here now Roman that's if we could just make progress there I'd be very happy tonight very happy because you know so we're walking around the neighborhood or what-have-you we live right right closer to division and Division Street and does I could tell the story 25 different times we're cruising on the sidewalk going for a walk and he really doesn't know how to walk he just runs just runs everywhere and so he'll like see a dog or like a dump truck or a bike or something he likes his long ways off and he's just he's just on it alone and so I turned my head five seconds and then like he's half half way down the block you know that kind of thing and so I was talking with somebody about this being a parent of toddlers is essentially you feel like a rescue person every day because you're saving them from mortal dangers like 10 times every single day that's really funny and so he's cruising he's cruising and obviously there's like busy streets divisions a busy street for traffic and bike traffic and so on and so we've gotten to the point where we're making progress because I could all say Roman Roman buddy stop stop and come back here and we've gotten to the point where he will slow down slow down I know look at he'll look at me and he knows I mean it's all right there he knows exactly what's going on and so here's what's what's so hard you guys and it's so crazy I have only good will for my son I love him more than anything I want him to go see that dog so badly all right but all he gets and that mama is dude dad you are crashing my party right now yeah I think like his view of the world he has a vision of his life and what where things need to go and how I was going to work out and I'm ruining that clearly clearly ruining that and so in his mind he's running for his life for his better for betterment you know for the good life because he wants to go see the dog what he cannot see it he's actually running from his life if he runs across the street and there's a car done you know I'm very aware of that and this is precisely the image of what's happening here in Java it's exactly the image of what's happening God wants Jonah to participate in this amazing amazing event of His grace and mercy coming to these people that you would never expect it and he's so fixated on his little deal he can't see that he's blind to it and so he thinks he's running for his life the sad reality is he's running from his lives and it seems to me this is the situation every single one of us finds ourselves in every single day when we face the decision of whether or not man follow me follow Jesus and in a way you know this whole vision of obedience and what's happening here I mean this is this is all summed up at the cross because when Jesus calls us to follow him he's calling us to see that he was the human being he was the faithful human the faithful covenant partner of God human being that none of us ever was or ever ever fully will be the side of his return and he lived for us in a way that I could never live and he died to absorb the cumulative waves of just the horrible stupid decisions that we make when we run from life when we run according to our vision of the good box and in His mercy and in his love he conquered it by raising from the dead so that he can offer us life and grace and forgiveness and so like what we did at baptism last week at the park when I come to Jesus there's a death that takes place and it's a death to your vision of the good life your vision of what your life is about you've got to let it die and you got to let it die and face that what Jesus is asking you to and inviting you into is so much richer form of life that you could ever imagine which may not involve whatever like a big house and nice cars or something no that's different that's a different gospel okay so what we're talking about is what Jesus called abundant life life that's so rooted in his love for me that I see he only has good will for me and when he tells me to stop and turn around and come his way he only has my best in mind and so this is a big room and there might be some of us here you know we were on the investigative side we wouldn't self-identify as Christians or maybe you would you're kind of seeking whatever trying to figure this whole thing out and so you know for those of you first of all we're just stoked that you're here thank you for being here and you know just to put it straight to you that's really what's involved here becoming a Christian involves letting my vision of what my life's about to let it die and it may be that I'll take a whole bunch of that up again on the other side but with a whole different perspective now because it's not my little story that's at the center it's the fact that I am now a bit player in the story of Jesus who's at work in the world and inviting to become a part of it and so could it be that your vision of what your life is all about is just too small and Jesus is inviting you to something different and for those of us who are here the majority of us we'd self-identify as Christians I mean this is everyday and so for some of us we might have patterns patterns of behavior that we need to stop patterns of thinking of ways of acting and they don't lead the life and we know it and we're scared to let go of that because that's what we know that's the only life we know and following Jesus is in involve letting that die and who knows what your life is going to look like on the other side of it's the choice you have the choice you have for some of us it might not be stopping behaviors it might be starting new behaviors that will invite us into life and so the reason why we did the prayer series over the summer was to invite the whole church into a new phase of growth through learning the language of prayer and so on that's the path of life and some of us we do whatever we we run we're lazy we don't want to do the work that's involved with carving out times for solitude or quiet and so what we just it's not a part of our vision of a good life and so we're never going to get there and that's to our loss and so whatever form its forgiveness of someone who's wrong with you it's finally like spending less money on yourself and giving more of it away I don't know whatever that step is for you it's a competition of views of life and so as we go into our time of worship as we come towards the bread in the cup I just encourage you to just hear this first of five punches in the gut from the Book of Jonah for those of us who can be honest and self aware enough to know that we're running this summer some arz realizing maybe doing good I guarantee for all of us there's some part of our lives where you're booking it to Tarshish and your Jesus is not welcome there and if you want to experience life we have we have to let it have to let him go that we have to stop running and tonight some of us need to make a decision to do that and so as we come to the bread in the cup as always in our time of worship you know for some of us I would just encourage you make this a moment where you get that issue that person that thing in your mind as you take the bread in the cup which symbolizes his death is broken body whose shed blood on the cross for you just ask Jesus to let that part let that issue for you whatever it is to let it die with him at the cross and allow him to speak his life to you tonight and it's grace and that's if there's anything about the character of God revealed in this story it's one of extravagant mercy and grace amen amen let me close in a word of Prayer

Channel: Tim Mackie Archives

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Length: 49min 34sec (2974 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 16 2017