We’ve been talking about the search for God’s heartbeat in every situation of our lives. We want to understand what it is that He wants to reveal about Himself and us in the mundane and momentous circumstances in which we find ourselves. We have tracked Jonah through the stages of his search and found him ‘cold’ and ‘warm’, and now we come to the moment in which he is truly ‘hot’, and he sees God’s heartbeat in his mini-epic story! And so if we agree that as Christians it’s crucial that we be searching for God’s heartbeat, and that the search will bring us to something important, helpful, and satisfying, we agree that finding just what God wants us to do and become is the goal that we should all be shooting for. We have to realize that it’s not good to be content in the ‘cold’ zone, and that ‘warm’ isn’t good enough in the search!
The first thing we’re going to see from Jonah 3, and that we’ll notice as we see Jonah finally arrive at ‘hot’ in the search, is that God is faithful and His Word still stands.
Jonah 3:1 says that the Word came a second time to Jonah. God is the God of second chances. Aren’t you glad that He is? At times we’ve been excited about serving God and what He is doing in our lives, and at other times we’ve failed Him and let Him down. But He’s patiently waiting for us to enter into fellowship with Him once again. Sometimes folks pigeonhole God as this unmerciful flame-thrower Who would consume people and cultures at the drop of a hat, but a close study of His methodology will show that He is merciful and gives people a chance to respond to warnings and wake-up calls. Sodom and Gomorrah had some chance to respond to God, Rahab received God’s mercy because she cooperated with His people, though she was not a particularly spiritual type! Israel, of course had so many warnings by the prophets and urges to turn from idols to God. And the Ninevites had the Word of God through Jonah warning them of impending doom. Also, we see that God’s Word speaks, and that we have a duty to obey. What might be some examples of what God’s Word is speaking to us about in the midst of our lives? How about, “You can be content with less!, stop overreaching and compromising values for gain!”, or, “You really should say something to that person. You’ve been talking about all the standard stuff for years, but you’ve never said anything spiritual!” Or maybe: “Hey, you need to stop doing that. You don’t need that in your life!” It may be in your mind, or someplace you go, or something you do……” Also, when it comes to God’s Word, it will have an effect. Heb.4:12 talks about How the Word is powerful and able to get to the heart of the matter instantly. It can figure out all that’s going on in the human heart. The next verse says that nothing can remain hidden from the Word.
Next, Jonah obeys. Jonah 3:3. Ok, now I admit that it seems anticlimactic to say that Jonah is ‘hot’ because He simply obeys, but that is the great secret of living the Christian life! It is easy to say but often difficult to do. That’s what puts us in the ‘hot” zone! You’ll remember that we said that though Jonah was right to have a thankful heart even though being in a dark, slimy whale belly, that He needed to go on to obedience because to “obey is better than sacrifice”. Obedience to God and it’s value are summed up in Rom.12:1, where we are to become a ‘living sacrifice’. Here, the idea of obedience and sacrifice is united and we are to obey by giving of ourselves! It’s our spiritual act of worship. In obeying, Jonah had a powerful message to communicate. Remember, we’ve said that God’s heartbeat has to do with a work in us and a work using us. Jonah had God’s message to communicate that was serious and powerful. What kinds of messages might God want us to deliver? Men have a message to give to their wives: “I truly want to love you sacrificially the way Christ loved the church”. Moms have a message for kids. That of accomplishing tasks, respecting dad, and not talking about others. Friends have a faithful message that may wound to deliver: “I really care about you; I want you to live all-out for Jesus, and what I’m seeing is off the mark…..” And we have a message for seekers who don’t even know that it’s God their needing to find!
God Works. Again, God is working in our hearts and through our lives. Jonah 3: 4,5. Think of the wonderful opportunity God gave Jonah to have his faith built up! He obeys and gives out the Word. And what happens? God does something truly mind-blowing! Ninevah was one of the largest cities of the ancient world. It had all of the marks of any large city, the amazing buildings and the public spaces. It also had all of the vast variety of sinning human beings of any large city! Jonah should’ve allowed this miraculous work among the Ninevites to be a transformation in his life, but he rebels against it. God was working behind the scenes. Jonah didn’t acknowledge all that God was doing in the Ninevite’s hearts. We simply don’t take the time to realize that God is at work in people in ways that we can’t comprehend. We need to be faithful to give out the message, and He will take care of the transformation. The Ninevites wanted to change direction. Jonah 3:6,7. They repented in sackloth and ashes. What is up with the whole sackloth and ashes thing anyway? Sackloth was a black goat hair covering. It was pretty much a sack; a non-flattering, non-Macy’s kind of clothing. Bible cultures and other ancient cultures showed their attitude of mourning or repentance by dressing down to sackloth and scattering ashes over their heads. I suppose our American culture resembles this ancient custom most closely by its habit of wearing black to funerals.
Jonah’s best success grasping God’s heartbeat in his life was short-lived. His passion for it “withered on the vine”. Jonah didn’t believe that the search would bring him something of value-something important! Jonah didn’t identify what truly matters to God! He was so irritated with the heartbeat of compassion for people that he was sick to death over it! God tried once again to reach Jonah with His heartbeat. He wanted to teach him about compassion for people. Jonah 4: 6-11. God had grown a leafy plant to shade him. Then He caused it to wilt. Then, when Jonah got irritated, God asked him if he had any right to be angry about a silly plant. He tried to urge Jonah to look at his attitude of compassion for a plant and lack of compassion for a population of what scholars believe to have been 100,000 people!
We stand before the Lord in our lives and we are passionate sometimes about all the wrong things. We have the liberty to be passionate about things which aren’t important to God, but we don’t have the right. He wants to do a work in us today so that we might truly care about what He cares about!
Alice Cote had to pass away for her basement treasure to be found. The Fall River, MA lady was newly married in the early 1940’s, and her husband soon went off to war. She began to collect and arrange in scrapbooks the newspaper clippings that told of the sacrifices of the many men and women from Fall River who were serving overseas. One man had to crawl across soggy ground on his belly with a mine sweeper so that tanks could advance against the enemy. One family had five men serving. Three came home, and two did not. Some people were imprisoned in Nazi pow camps. Alice had an incredible assortment of clippings that chronicled a whole era of local history, and the stories they told were of deep and lasting importance. She stopped her labor of love in the ’50’s. Her husband died in the 1980’s. One day recently she died in her home. Family had been instructed to clean out and sell the house when she passed away. That’s when her nephew found the scrapbook, a veritable World War 2 treasure of the record of the many families and soldiers from Fall River, some of whom made the ultimate sacrifice.
In our search for God’s heartbeat, what might have to pass away in our lives so that we might become ‘hot’ and find the treasure that comes from obeying Him?
pscott
West Paris Baptist Church 