The God Who Gives His Word

Jonah Series | 1:1-2 | Pastor Duane Smets

This first week of the series is an exegetical introduction to the book of Jonah. It covers background information of the person of Jonah, the role of a prophet, the reliability and relevance of the book of Jonah, and the nature and function of God’s Word in our lives. This sermon was originally preached on February 27th, 2011 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.

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The Resolved Church
Pastor Duane Smets
February 27th, 2011

The God Who Gives His Word | 1:1-2
I. Why the book of Jonah?
II. How can we know the book is true?
III. What in Jonah is relevant for us?
IV. Who is Jonah of Amittai?
V. Where has God called you?

Introduction

Today is a super exciting Sunday because we’re beginning a study through a new book of the Bible and I’m just super jazzed about it because we’re doing the book of Jonah! And it is just a fun and awesome book.

In four short chapters a ton happens…it’s just got great stories with all kinds of surprises and twists and turns…ships caught in a storm, a great fish, a whole city coming to God, and a crazy magic plant. You guys ever heard the expression, “it’s a whale of a story”? That comes from this book.

At the same time, besides it being a great story, the doctrine in it is just rich and full. It grapples with some of the most difficult theological questions you can ask. And really puts God on display. Many have mistakenly looked at it as book about Jonah where we’re supposed to learn a moral lesson from him. But the book’s really more about God and what He does. It’s not so much a biography of Jonah but a theography of God.

On top of that, the book has got some moments where it really digs deep and get under our skin and looks at how we operate as humans and what goes on in the psychology of our hearts. It looks at things like fear, sorrow, anger bitterness and resentment. This book gets into us deep.

Then, most of all…it points to Jesus in a totally unique and powerful way. Jesus himself talked about this book of Jonah and said it was the one sign that proved he was for real in what he came to do. This book though it documents something that happens sometime in what I’m going to argue is the 8th century BC…we learn that from God’s perspective it was setting the stage for something greater he had planned to happen in the 1st century when Jesus would come, live, die and rise again.

It’s just an awesome book. Kids love it. Scholars fight over it. And book nerds just eat it up. Any of you ever read “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville? Here’s what he said about the book of Jonah. Here’s what he said. You sort of have to read it like a Pirate. “Shipmates, this book containing only four chapters – four yarns – is one of the smallest strands in the mighty cable of the Scriptures. Yet what depths of the soul does Jonah’s deep sealine sound! What a pregnant lesson to us is this prophet! What a noble thing is that canticle in the fish’s belly! How billow-like and boisterously grand!” That’s awesome.

So here’s the plan. We’re going to take 8 weeks worth of sermons and work through this book, word for word. Today’s the first one, titled “God Gives His Word” and we’re just going to look at the first two verses and sort of get our bearings to get settled into the book.

So let me read ‘em and pray over ‘em and we’ll jump in. (read text and pray)

I. Why the book of Jonah?

My first point for today is, “Why the book of Jonah?” Here I’ll try and answer, why we’re doing it here at The Resolved and then the bigger question of why it’s in the Bible.

First why are we at The Resolved going through the book of Jonah. I thought it would be helpful for you to know a little bit about how we make decisions as church leaders and also what we see as our responsibility and commitment to you when it comes to sermons on Sundays.

So anytime we go through a book of the Bible, in our elder meetings we pray and talk about it a lot. We try to ask questions and get feedback from church members beforehand to look for confirmation, we look at the calendar and try to plan things around winter, spring and summer. Spiritually we look backward at where we’ve been as a church and try to get a sense of what we’ve learned and what we need to grow and we try to pick a book that is going to fit well with what it seems God is doing among us. Then once it seems like we’ve got a handle on that we go ahead and move forward.

Sometimes the book is my idea, sometimes it’s one of the other pastors. This time around, the book of Jonah was actually Ron’s idea. We were wrestling with what book to do next…wanting to do an Old Testament book since we just finished Matthew up in December and Ron suggested Jonah and as we talked and thought about it, it just really fit well. I know you guys don’t hear from Ron a lot up front here so I’m constantly trying to help you hear and see how much he really loves, serves and leads this church. We work together and we’re excited about new elders God is raising up among us to be added into the mix.

Here’s the second thing, which is important for you to know and that’s why we go through books of the Bible like we do. Last week, we just finished what was our first systematic or topical series we’ve ever done in six years here at The Resolved. Which was good and it’s fine to do that occasionally in order to address some specific things. But that isn’t our normal way. Normally we just pick a book of the Bible and preach through it, chapter by chapter, paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence and word by word.

This is why we do that. If you’ve got a pen out you can write down these three verses.

2 Timothy 4:2-4 the apostle Paul says, “Preach the word. be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”

The Bible says preach the Word, so we preach the Word. We don’t preach our own ideas or our own agendas. We preach the Word. My prayer is always is that our confidence and commitment as a church would be to the authority of the Bible. We believe it’s the Word of God that does the work of God. I’m not interested in creating a cult of personality here where you all come because you like my preaching.

This up here is a sacred office, where a man, called by God, preaches the Bible. It doesn’t matter who is up here, his job is to preach the word. Preachers are meant to be knights, who wield the sword, slay dragons and bring glory to the king and that’s my mission each week and our promise for every person we ever have up here when I’m not.

Okay, second verse and then we’ll move on. Acts 20:27, the apostle Paul lets us know here what he meant when he said to “preach the word.” He writes about his own preaching when he was in the ancient town of Ephesus. Acts 20:27 “I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.“

Why do we go through books at a time? In order to teach the whole counsel of God. Sixty-six different books. That’s God’s whole counsel. So far we’ve preached through four of them. We’ve got a long way to go.

Last verse, Nehemiah 8:7-8, Ezra and the other preachers of old, here’s how they did it, Nehemiah 8:7-8, “(They) helped the people to understand the Law, while the people remained in their places. They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.”

So that’s what we do. We read a passage and work through it fully so we can get a clear sense and understanding of what God said.

That’s it. We’re seriously super old school and super basic. We preach through books of the Bible word for word here because God means for the Word of God to do the work of God. So if we give you the word of God then we’ve done our job well.

II. How can we know the book is true?

Alright. Let’s move on to our next point for today…how do we know Jonah is true and not just “a whale of a story.” You see there’s been a lot of doubt and skepticism about the story of Jonah…for a number of reasons.

Most obviously, this huge fish that swallows Jonah and he is kept alive in there for three days then gets spit up on dry land. It just sounds too fantastic. Then you have the whole city of Nineveh repent and come to God which just sound super unlikely. Then at the end there is a plant that springs up one day and jack and the beanstalk style gets big enough to cover a full grown man and give him shade and then the next day it shrivels up and disappears. So come on…how do we know these are not just fairy tales, what, if any, reason do we have to know the book is true?

There’s some other more high level arguments questioning the date, authorship and the unity of the book, but I’m not going to address those here, maybe I’ll write a blog on that stuff this week for you nerds who care about stuff like that. There are good answers. But I do want to respond to the seemingly fantastic nature of the this book and I’ve got three responses.

Basically here what we’re dealing with isn’t so much a question of whether or not this is a fairy tale but whether or not there is such thing as miracles. Fairy tales claim to be fairy tales. They start out with “one upon a time…” This book doesn’t, it starts out with a truth claim. What is it? “The word of the LORD came to Jonah.” Not a fairy tale but the true and trustworthy word of the LORD.

So miracles. The first thing to recognize about miracles is they are all over the Bible. So if you’ve got a problem with miracles, you’re going to find that almost anywhere you turn in the Bible. But here’s the thing, the Bible is a book about God and God is presented in the Bible as being the one who created everything in the beginning and is all-powerful and never stops being so.

So basically, if there actually is a God, then there’s nothing he can’t do. Miracles are not hard for him! He can exercise his supranatural strength and authority any time he chooses…because he’s God. So if there’s a God, then everything the book of Jonah says happened, is entirely possible and within the bounds logic and reason.

Second thing about miracles. To reject them, David Hume the great skeptic actually acknowledged, is based on experience. What he didn’t acknowledge is that just because you haven’t experienced something doesn’t mean it isn’t true. For example, I’ve never had the experience of seeing the Eiffel Tower. But just because I’ve never experienced it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Things that are true stand true regardless of my personal subjective encounter of them.

Okay, third thing. Real simple. In Matthew 12 and Luke 11 Jesus talks about the stories in Jonah and treats them as being completely true and factual. So here’s the point. Was Jesus wrong? Was he deluded or even lying? I don’t know about you but I don’t feel too comfortable telling Jesus he’s crazy. Have fun with that, let me know how it works out for you.

III. What in Jonah is relevant for us?

Cool. Let’s move on to our third point for today, “What in Jonah is relevant for us?” Now that I just insulted you if you’re having difficulty with Jonah being true, let me through you a bone. You don’t have to believe everything that happens in the book of Jonah actually happened in order to benefit from the book.

What I mean is you can sort of put on hold your judgment about Jonah’s historicity and just look at look at it as a story meant to teach something and you can still get a ton out of it. The themes of fear, anger, guilt, and freedom are universal things we deal with as humans. The picture of God that results from it, who is he and what he is like…that shines bright regardless of whether or not you accept everything that happens. So if you’re here and you’re not yet a Christian there is time and grace for you.

Here’s what’s cool about the book of Jonah. It was written about ten thousand years ago but there’s not a whole lot in it which separates us from it. A big goal of mine is always to take us into the time of the Bible and get ourselves into the shoes of the people who were first hearing and reading these words. And a lot of times that changes some big things. But here in this book, the culture and the issues it deals with are so similar…there’s really not a lot of distance between it and us.

In Jonah we’ve basically got this self-righteous Christian who thinks he’s better than everyone else and we’ve got a bunch of pluralistic pagans who think there are many belief systems, all are fine and there are many different ways to God. Sound familiar at all? This book is extremely relevant and helpful for us who live in a culture not to different to the one the book of Jonah finds itself in.

So what in Jonah is relevant for us? Everything. If you stick with us through this series, I promise you, you will not be disappointed. This is a powerful and amazing book and if you commit to coming and taking it in, it will change your life.

IV. Who is Jonah of Amittai?

Okay. That’s enough set-up book of Jonah preparatory stuff. Let’s get into these first two verses. Verse 1, “Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai…” Let’s stop there and talk about who this Jonah of Amittai is.

Other than when Jesus talks about Jonah there is only one other place in the Bible where he is mentioned, 2 Kings 14. So open your Bible to 2 Kings 14 because we’ve got some good information here about Jonah. I’ll read verses 23-27.

“23 In the fifteenth year of Amaziah the son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, began to reign in Samaria, and he reigned forty-one years. 24 And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. He did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin. 25 He restored the border of Israel from Lebo-hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath-hepher. 26 For the Lord saw that the affliction of Israel was very bitter, for there was none left, bond or free, and there was none to help Israel. 27 But the Lord had not said that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, so he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash.”

This is hugely important for understanding who Jonah is. Here is what has happened. During the time of the previous king things were real bad. If you read through 2 Kings chapter 13, you hear how the king of Assyria repeatedly oppresses Israel making them like dust.

Guess where Nineveh is? Assyria. In fact it’s very likely that the king of Nineveh that we’ll read about later in Jonah is one and the same as the king of Assyria. Regardless, the Assyrians have brutally attacked Jonah’s homeland. During an excavation an 8th century BC Assyrian inscription was found describing this particular beating of 2 Kings 13 and it documents 2,000 chariots being lost and 10,000 men being killed. No wonder 2 Kings 14:26 says the “affliction of Israel was very bitter.”

The passage we just read said Jonah’s from Gath-hepher. That’s a town in Galilee about three miles from Nazareth where Jesus grew up. It’s extremely likely, that Jonah had friends and family who were killed by the people of Nineveh, Assyria.

Then what happens after this killing? 1 Kings 14:25, the word of the Lord comes to Jonah that God sees the bitter affliction of his people and saves them by enabling Israel to restore the border and push the Assyrians out! And Jonah’s the one whom God had tell them to do it. Jonah’s a hero. He prophesied it would happen, his people were delivered, and his key role gets recorded.

So that’s the first thing about Jonah we know that the Bible tells us. He gets put on the map first by bringing a message of deliverance and salvation from God to the people of God during a time when they were in bitter affliction. What was the message? Restore the border and push the Assyrians out.

Now, we don’t know how much time goes by. Most likely it’s years later. Then the word of the Lord comes to Jonah again. Jonah 1:1, “the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai.” So same Jonah. And what’s the word this time? Verse 2, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” What’s the word? Go preach to Nineveh, the great city in Assyria. The first word was to fight against them, now the word is to go preach to them.

We’ll talk about the nature of God’s calling here in a second, but first I want us to notice a couple things that are important for us to learn here.

One, you don’t choose the Word of the LORD. You see, this is the way most liberal scholars and critics of the Bible look at passages and books of the Bible which say, “the word of the LORD came…” They read that and they hear that and what they hear is…”okay, we’ve got a guy here who is either hearing voices in his head and calling it God or he’s just making it up in order to manipulate and coerce people, so he says it’s God and calls his message “the word of the LORD.” Am I right?

Well, what about that? A few problems. Sure people think they’re hearing from God at times and use that to justify doing something they really just want to do…so “God” becomes your sort of stamp of approval so no one can question you. However, that doesn’t mean God has never genuinely communicated things to us through special men in the past who were selected to impart and record his message to mankind for all time. Just because the water in some places is bad doesn’t mean all water is bad.

Here’s the other thing. 2 Kings 14 clearly identifies Jonah as a “prophet” and likewise the book of Jonah begins in classical “prophet” language…which is why it’s placed in your Bible in the group of books known as the “minor prophets” even though most of it’s internal content is actually of the narrative genre. So what’s a prophet?

The word it’s self, “navi” in Hebrew means spokesperson or mouthpiece. A prophet is merely a vessel through which God imparts his word. Sometimes it’s foretelling but usually it’s forthtelling, just telling it like it is. You that’s one of the differences between saying “God told” me when he really didn’t. Usually the stuff God is saying is stuff you don’t want to hear and obey. God’s usually not a cheerleader for us doing our own thing to follow dreams and desires.

So here’s the principle. You don’t choose the word of the LORD, it chooses you! God’s word comes down and speaks to us. And what we have here in the book of the Bible has been tried and true. It proves trustable. You can trust the Bible, which is the word of the LORD. There is no better and reliable guide for your life.

Okay, here’s the last thing on this point…”Who is Jonah?” Jonah’s a “prophet.” Now, in the Bible, prophets are writers of Scripture and in the New Testament both Paul and John, who were apostles and prophets, say all the things God wanted recorded as Scripture have been recorded and we’re not to add or take away from them (Eph 2:20-3:5; Rev 22:18-19). So if you come to me and tell me you’re a prophet I’ll tell you you’re crazy and there’s the door.

However, this principle of prophets does stand true for us. Here it is. Prophets didn’t choose the Word of the LORD and they didn’t choose to be prophets. God selected them. Every prophet had a strong sense of destiny. They were doing what God called them to do as his servants.

Now that still stands true for us. I believe God has a destiny and a purpose for each and every one of you. Here’s what Sinclair Ferguson says, “Few things are more important than for Christians to have a conscious sense of God’s destiny.” We are called to be his servants in this world. So this is the last major point I want us to talk about and then conclude on, “Where has God called you?”

V. Where has God called you?

Next week, we’ll move on and deal with a few more verses in Jonah and see how he responds to this second word of the LORD in his life telling him to go preach to Nineveh after the first word when God had said to go fight against Nineveh.

What I want us to linger on in this final point this morning is really taking in this question, “Where has God called you?” Have you ever even thought about it? You see, I’ve said it before…but it’s almost like we’re groomed from an early age to think life is our life to do with it what we want…so we ask our kids, “what do YOU WANT to be when you grow up?” That’s a bad question. The question ought to be “what does God want you to be when you grow up?” Where does God want you to go?

Acts 17:26 says this, “(God) made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place.” God has determined and destined a place for you to be where you might serve him and his people. Do you know how God wants you to serve him and where he wants you to do that?

Don’t just do your own thing. Struggle and wrestle and fight and get counsel and pray and think and weigh and do your best to discern the calling of God on your life. You see sometimes I think Christians think it’s only the preachers or pastors that get a calling. But according to Ephesians 4, everyone gets called and gifted. You have a calling on your life and the question is whether or not you know it and are obeying it.

Some of you have plans you need to abandon. Some of you need to take the risk and rise up and embrace what you know God means for you. We live the city of San Diego, one of the most transient cities in the country. But we believe very strongly that God has called us here and meant for us to start this church and to reach this city. We need you. God is doing stuff among us. It’s exciting. And we could use a hand.

So I’ll give my pitch. It’s been awhile since I’ve done this. Whatever time you were planning on being here in San Diego, just double it. If it was going to be a year, stay here two. Two years stay here four. If five years stay here ten. Some of you are meant to be SD lifers (you’re my favorite).

The reason I’m saying this is it often takes time to figure out what God has called you to do…so in the meantime, let us teach you and help you and grow you into a godly, Spirit empowered person, who can become equipped to go and be wherever God has called you. If I had my way it’d be here in San Diego for all of you…but I don’t get to choose the word of the LORD.

Okay, last thing. Jesus. You cannot talk about “the word of the LORD” and God’s calling and be biblical without talking about Jesus.

John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”

John 1:14 “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Hebrews 1:1-2 “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.”

That’s just a small sampling. The point is this. Wherever we go, whatever we do, whatever God has called us to, we know this…Jesus is the Word of God, that is the most clear thing we can know and whatever he has called us to, the one thing we can know for sure is God has called us to His Son. God has called us to believe in, love, follow and listen to his Son.

You see the truth is we need the word of the LORD. Bad. But we’ve all rejected and ignored it in one way or another at various points in our lives and for some, you may even just be in a state of rejection. If there’s a theme to this whole sermon today, it’s that…we need to hear and be under the Word of the LORD.

I’ve thrown out a ton of information today, but my concern always when I do that is that you’ll just hear information and you won’t hear the gospel. That nothing will get beneath the surface with you. So let me try and make it real clear and preach the gospel for you.

Not listening to and being under God’s Word is bad. That’s what the Bible calls sin. And we’ve all done that and often continue to do it and it’s a big deal. Contrary to some heretics wishful thinking, there is a hell and no less than hell would do justice to the holiness and goodness of God’s word and our disobedience against it. Defying the God of the universe is no small thing.

Yet that doesn’t mean God isn’t loving just because there is the consequences of hell. God in love did something about this, he sent his own Son, the word in flesh, for us. Jesus sat under the Bible his whole life. Perfectly listening and obeying every word. Never sinning. Never deserving any punishment for doing his own thing.

But he came into the world with a calling and a destiny. To die for his people. So Jesus lives the life you and I have failed at and then he goes to the cross and dies the death we deserve for rejecting and ignoring God’s word. And he rises again. That’s the good news of the gospel. Jesus dies for sin and then gives us new life.

When you realize that…when you believe that…when that really gets ahold of you…you really believe you’re a sinner who deserves hell…and you realize that God died for you in love…there is no better news that changes you. This is not just past sentimentality…it is present reality for us who believe in Jesus.

And you know what happens when that change occurs? It makes you soft. All the sudden the level of resistance in you against God’s Word changes and you become teachable and hungry. The word of God becomes like a song to your soul and you can’t get enough.

Some of you are just hard. And I’m not thinking just non-Christians here but professing Christians too. There is a hardness to you that needs to soften. The grace of God’s word needs to pierce you. And I know that’s scary. To be vulnerable and to trust. But you can’t protect yourself. Instead entrust yourself to God who has promised to love you and protect you and care for you no matter what by covering you in the gospel.

Conclusion

Here’s my conclusion today. Jonah is an amazing book of the Bible. Perhaps what is most amazing about it is that it consistently butts us up against both the judgment and mercy of God. And that’s what the Word of God always does. Jeremiah 23:29 says the Word of God is like a hammer that breaks the rock of our hearts into pieces.

My prayer is that you would allow the word of God to break you, today and throughout this series. If you don’t allow yourself to be broken you’ll never see how truly beautiful and amazing and glorious the God of this book is.

We’re going to receive the Lord’s supper here in just a moment. Here’s how I’d come today. Remember that Jesus is the God who allowed himself to be broken for you. His body, His blood shed on the cross so that we might be changed and healed.

Let’s come to the table and come in this way…say, “Oh God speak your word to me and thank you for the word that was spoken in your blood!” There is none like Jesus and none like the word of the gospel, so let’s come and receive and be blessed by our LORD.

Let’s pray.