What do you do when your will clashes with God's? There are two options aren't there, Jonah 1 makes that abundantly clear. God says 'Go' Jonah can either say 'yes' or 'no'. But it is what he does next that is so telling and also so easy for us to relate to. Jonah says no and goes on the run. "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." The question is why does he run?
It is clear that it isn't a theological problem. Jonah knew that God was not limited by geography, that he wasn't restricted to the boundaries of Israel. After all God had sent him to Nineveh, where Jonah expects God to be at work, hopefully (from Jonah's point of view) to judge the Nineties or maybe, Jonah fears, to forgive them when they repent. He also has a large view of God as the one who made the seas and the land and who is the God for heaven. Jonah doesn't run away because God may not be able to find him, though man has reacted to his sin by hiding from God ever since Adam in Genesis 3. I think Jonah runs because he doesn't want Nineveh to have a chance of salvation and because he doesn't want the daily reminder of his sin in refusing to take God's word to Nineveh.
We are no different are we? When our will clashes with God and we decide to sin we run from God and remove ourself from reminders of God's will and our disobedience. We might start to become irregular at church, or home group, or anywhere where through his word God may confront us about our sin. So often a long time after the event you find that behind the given reasons for someones non-attendance at church the real reason is a clash between God's will and the individuals. And they stop coming because they don't want to be reminded of their sin, they don't want their conscience pricked, their sin outed.
But there are more subtle ways we may do it. Are there no go subjects in our lives? Places where our friends and family know not to confront us or challenge us? Are there parts of the Bible we simply avoid because of the challenge they bring, a challenge we will not accept?
The great news of the book of Jonah is that God pursues his hard hearted people with grace. Grace seen in discipline, grace seen in patience, and grace seen in forgiveness and undeserved restoration.
Showing posts with label Jonah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jonah. Show all posts
Tuesday, 5 April 2016
Thursday, 31 March 2016
Jonah - a timely reminder
Back in the dark days of December I planned for us to follow Easter with a brief 4 weeks series on Jonah. This week as I've been preparing it I've been confronted, comforted and challenged in ways that I hadn't quite expected.
Our area is changing. There are over 300 (3, 4 and 5 bedroom) homes currently being built that significantly alter the socio-economic make up of the area. At the same time there are plans, potentially, for another 700 homes of a similar type. Not only will the area have doubled in size in 15 years but there will be a significant shift in the type of families living here. And as that has begun to happen I have noticed a couple of trends which are already in danger of being firmly entrenched. The main one is division between the haves and the have nots. Our playground community has always been relative division free, anyone would and could talk to anyone, but that is changing and changing quickly not for the better.
The divisions we see in the media between middle and working class are increasingly being seen played out in the community. Which estate you live on seems to matter more and more in terms of who you build relationships with and who you talk to in the playground. That presents all sorts of challenges for the community and for the church.
Into that evolving situation Jonah comes with its call to take God's compassion and grace to all, not to hoard it and restrict it to those like us or who we thought we would be taking that message to. Here's my confession, my burden has been for the deprived in our community, to reach those who, by and large, our middle class British evangelical churches have not reached and are not planting to reach. But what do I do with the growing middle class community in our area - at times I find myself thinking there are enough churches who reach them let them do it. But God has sent them into our area, to the mission field I believe he has called me to, the place where he has planted Grace Church.
Just like Jonah I am tempted to have my prejudices, his is that his message and calling is to Israel mine has become that I am called to take the gospel to some estates and not others. But Jonah confronts me with that prejudice and calls me to be a compassionate preacher more like my compassionate Saviour and Father than the compassionless prophet Jonah had become. The gospel, my calling, the churches mission is to ensure that all hear the gospel and have the opportunity to turn to Christ. But first the gospel it has to do it's work in our hearts so that we are remade into the image of the Saviour who calls us to go to make disciples of all ethnicity's, nations, tongues, and classes without prejudice.
Our area is changing. There are over 300 (3, 4 and 5 bedroom) homes currently being built that significantly alter the socio-economic make up of the area. At the same time there are plans, potentially, for another 700 homes of a similar type. Not only will the area have doubled in size in 15 years but there will be a significant shift in the type of families living here. And as that has begun to happen I have noticed a couple of trends which are already in danger of being firmly entrenched. The main one is division between the haves and the have nots. Our playground community has always been relative division free, anyone would and could talk to anyone, but that is changing and changing quickly not for the better.
The divisions we see in the media between middle and working class are increasingly being seen played out in the community. Which estate you live on seems to matter more and more in terms of who you build relationships with and who you talk to in the playground. That presents all sorts of challenges for the community and for the church.
Into that evolving situation Jonah comes with its call to take God's compassion and grace to all, not to hoard it and restrict it to those like us or who we thought we would be taking that message to. Here's my confession, my burden has been for the deprived in our community, to reach those who, by and large, our middle class British evangelical churches have not reached and are not planting to reach. But what do I do with the growing middle class community in our area - at times I find myself thinking there are enough churches who reach them let them do it. But God has sent them into our area, to the mission field I believe he has called me to, the place where he has planted Grace Church.
Just like Jonah I am tempted to have my prejudices, his is that his message and calling is to Israel mine has become that I am called to take the gospel to some estates and not others. But Jonah confronts me with that prejudice and calls me to be a compassionate preacher more like my compassionate Saviour and Father than the compassionless prophet Jonah had become. The gospel, my calling, the churches mission is to ensure that all hear the gospel and have the opportunity to turn to Christ. But first the gospel it has to do it's work in our hearts so that we are remade into the image of the Saviour who calls us to go to make disciples of all ethnicity's, nations, tongues, and classes without prejudice.
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