The Lord is Turning Towards You

Jonah 3, if you have your Bibles, it's always good to have it out in front of you.

Do you know what happens in Jonah 3?

Do you know the story?

Obviously, we just heard it read to us, and we just watched a cricket-interpretive skit, but I think most of us already knew the story of Jonah coming here tonight.

It's a familiar story.

It's a popular and a famous story.

Guy runs away from God, God catches the guy, Guy does what God told him to do, the end.

It's a good story.

Like many of us, I think I was introduced to the story of Jonah in Sunday School, probably.

And it's a great story for Sunday School, because it's simple to understand, it's got whales and kings and fish and cows and fun stuff, and there's a good moral at the end.

So I think many of us have entered into this story for the first time in Sunday School.

And that's awesome, but the danger is that I found for myself and maybe for others, we come to think of Jonah as a kid's story, as so simple that we don't need to study it in depth and come to it again and again.

When I was a kid, through Sunday School, I was taught that the reason Jonah didn't want to go to Nineveh was because they were the bad guys, and he was scared for his life.

So God calls him to go to the bad guys, but Jonah didn't want to.

And I remember distinctly the moment in a youth camp that I went on as a teenager where we studied the Book of Jonah for two or three days.

And I realized that is not at all what is going on in the story of Jonah.

That's not why Jonah didn't want to go to Nineveh.

So if you don't know what I'm talking about, then wait till next week, and you will have your minds blown like mine was.

The danger is we come to Jonah and we think it's a kid's story, because it's a simple story, but the reality is Jonah is complex, well-crafted and a masterpiece of Hebrew narrative.

It is a good story.

On the surface, it has a straightforward plot.

It's easy to understand what's happening, but underneath the surface, pun intended, there is a whole world of things happening in the story of Jonah.

It may be, for my Bible, two and a half pages, four chapters long, but there is a lot of good stuff in Jonah that we miss if we think it's a kid's story.

So we're coming to the text now, Jonah chapter 3, and as we come to it, just like we would come to a Shakespearean play or a musical masterpiece or a good book or a poem, we can pull it apart and study it because it is a good, well-crafted story.

We can understand what Jonah is trying to do.

One of the ways that we understand how Jonah is working is by thinking about what makes a story good.

Do the names Trey Parker and Matt Stone mean anything to anyone?

A couple.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone are story writers.

They're most famous for their work on a couple of TV shows, including South Park, but the thing they are very good at is story.

They are good story writers.

And in particular, they have this nugget of truth, which is so good about what makes a story a good story.

According to Trey Parker and Matt Stone, a good story should never contain the words and then.

So, this happened and this happened and then disconnected from what just came before it, this happened.

I was talking at home today about Ted Lasso Season 3, and we realized it's an and then kind of story.

It's not a good season, in my opinion.

Instead, every moment, every movement, every plot point in the story should be connected either with the words therefore or but.

This happened, therefore this happened.

But this happened, therefore this happened.

The whole point of a good story is the interplay between therefore and but, because every beat of the story connects to what came before it.

The story of Jonah is a good story because it follows this pattern.

Everything, every moment in the story of Jonah responds out of what came before it.

It responds.

Think about it like this.

God calls the prophet Jonah to preach to Nineveh, but Jonah ran away, therefore he went to Joppa.

But the Lord sent a storm, therefore the pagans cried out to God.

But Jonah was asleep, therefore they had to wake him up.

But the whole story, we could tell the whole four chapter story of Jonah as a oscillation, a play between therefore and but.

That's what makes a story good.

Everything in Jonah responds to what came just before it in one of two ways.

Either it will, our expectations will be right, what we think is gonna happen will happen, this happened, therefore, what we were expecting, this happened.

Or it will flip our expectation upside down.

This happened, but this happened.

What we weren't expecting, everything in Jonah can be seen as therefore or but.

And it's a fun exercise, I think, actually to write therefore or but in the margins of your Bible.

Because it goes therefore, but, therefore, but, therefore, therefore, but, but, but, therefore, but.

The whole story, it's good fun.

Jonah's a well-crafted story.

And as Jonathan said from the text in the past two weeks, as a good story, Jonah holds up a mirror, and when we read Jonah, we look at ourselves.

Because Jonah forces us to ask ourselves the question, what do you think is going to happen next?

Is it going to go the way you expect, or is it going to flip that?

And as we engage with that question, it tells us about our attitudes, our feelings, our thoughts.

Jonah holds up a mirror to understand ourselves.

Therefore, and but.

We're going to come now to the text and work through it, pretty much top to bottom, through this lens of therefore and but.

One thing, before we get to the text, the NIV was the translation that Jack read out.

Normally, we preach from the NIV here, but the NIV is a more paraphrastic, good English kind of translation that sounds good for the ear, but is not as faithful to the true Hebrew words.

As such, as we're looking for these repetition of patterns, I've opted for the NASB, the New American Standard Bible, which is a bit clunky in English, and we'll see that, but it's more true to the Hebrew, so that's just a heads up.

Jonah 3, verses 1 to 2 in the NASB.

Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and proclaim to it the proclamation, which I'm going to tell you.

Proclaim to it the proclamation.

That's the NASB.

Jonah gets a second chance.

The word came a second time to Jonah.

We've just come out of a three week series called Again.

We were looking at the second chance moments in the Gospels, where someone who had failed through the grace of God is given a second chance to try again.

And Jonah gets an again moment in the text.

It says, the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.

Well, the first time was in chapter 1 verse 1 of Jonah.

The word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and cry against it, for its wickedness has come up before me.

And we know the story, because we've looked at it the past two weeks.

The story continues from that point with three words, but Jonah ran.

But Jonah ran.

And the whole story, two chapters, is following this snaking, winding trail of what happens when Jonah runs away from the Word of God, involving a fish, the belly of a fish, and being vomited back up onto land.

It starts off with, but Jonah ran.

The first time, the Word of the Lord came to Yahweh.

The Word of the Lord came to Jonah.

And I think that's an encouragement for us, that he speaks a second time.

Coming out of the Again series, we might have felt prompted by God to do something, to have a conversation with that person, to do that thing that God is calling you to do.

And maybe we haven't had the courage or the faith to do it yet.

But one of the things we see in this story is, God can speak a second time and give us a second chance.

Which is encouraging to me, because I feel like I mess up a lot.

The story restarts.

The Word of the Lord comes to Jonah a second time.

The first time was a but moment.

The Word came to Jonah, but Jonah ran.

The second time is a therefore moment.

The Word of the Lord came to Jonah, therefore Jonah went to Nineveh.

The NASB uses the word so, which does the same thing.

So Jonah went to Nineveh, because the Word of the Lord came to him.

So we're seeing a pattern.

The pattern repeats where God has spoken to Jonah twice, but each time there's a polar opposite response from Jonah.

Jonah is repeating patterns and themes and motifs, but flipping certain parts of the story.

That's the way that it works.

We'll continue from Jonah chapter 3, verse 3.

The word comes to Jonah.

So therefore Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the Word of the Lord.

Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days walk.

Then Jonah began to go through the city one day's walk.

And he cried out and said, yet 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown.

It strikes me as strange in this part of the passage, the unnecessary details that it gives us.

It says Nineveh was a great city.

More specifically, a great city of three days walk.

And even more specifically, that Jonah enters one day's walk into that great city of three days.

At the surface level, this seems like just detail that you paint in a story that doesn't mean anything.

But when we have a framework, a lens of reading Jonah that looks for repetition and patterning, based on the understanding Jonah is a well-crafted story, we see three days and we go, hang on, I've seen that before.

It's the second time three days comes up in the story of Jonah.

Verse 3 of Chapter 3, Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days walk.

Nineveh is three days.

Now, you will never guess what else in the Book of Jonah is described using the word great, into which Jonah enters for three days.

Jonah 2, verse 17, and the Lord appointed a great fish.

The Hebrew word is gadol, great fish.

It's the same word for the city, a great fish to swallow Jonah.

And Jonah was in the stomach of the fish, three days and three nights.

There's another pattern, three days.

Jonah enters into something great, a fish first and then a city, enters into that great three days.

This is a pattern that the story of Jonah is inviting us to understand and to think about.

That Hebrew word gadol, meaning great in English, means large, imposing, vast, powerful, great.

So there's a repetition of a great three days.

Great three days in a fish, Jonah enters the great three days of Nineveh.

Speaking of patterns, does great three days remind you of something else?

In Matthew 14, Jesus makes the explicit connection between the three days in Jonah and his own three days, the three days that he spent between his crucifixion and his resurrection.

Jesus had a great three days himself.

Last week, Jonathan unpacked the meaning of the sign of Jonah, which is this great three days, as saying sin, disobedience and rebellion will always result in judgment, isolation and separation from God.

That's the meaning of a great three days.

When Jonah was in the fish, it was a place of judgment, isolation and separation from God.

And now Jonah enters into the great city of Nineveh, a place of judgment, isolation and separation from God.

Jonah is called to enter the great three days and preach to it, to be a witness to God in a place where God is not worshipped, he's not known.

Nineveh was a wicked, terrible city, one of the most terrible cities, civilizations in world history.

Jonah is called to enter into that great three days.

In the midst of his own story of coming out of that place, I think that's a beautiful picture of God delivering Jonah from his own place of sin, judgment, isolation and separation so that he could enter into somebody else's place and bring and witness to the character of God in that place.

Nineveh needed God, they needed to know God, and Jonah brings the reality of God into the city of Nineveh.

A city living in terrible wickedness and violence and evil with no understanding, no care for who God is and the life that he calls them to live.

God called someone, a person, a prophet to bring the reality of God into the situation where there was none.

That's what God does.

He calls people to bring his reality into a situation.

That might speak very specifically to you right now in the season you're in.

You might feel a burden in your heart, maybe your mind, you can't stop thinking about a place, a person, a situation that does not know God.

You feel burdens by the Lord, a holy discontent to bring the reality of God into that situation.

God does that kind of thing.

He calls people, you and I, empowers us by his grace to be a witness for his character in a situation where God is not worshipped.

So if that's you and you feel that burden, look at the story of Jonah and find encouragement that God calls people to bring his word into violent, evil, wicked places, and transformation can happen.

That's an encouragement to us, I think.

God uses people, you and me, to be a witness, to bring the reality of God into a situation.

That's what Jonah did.

Jonah was called by God to bring God and the Word of God into a situation of sin, judgment, isolation, and separation.

Jonah brought the reality of God.

Chapter 3 verse 1 said, Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, he brought the word of the Lord into Nineveh.

He brought the word, the reality of God, into Nineveh.

When you look at the text of that verse, it says, now the word of the Lord in all caps, Lord came to Jonah.

It's not on here because it doesn't copy when I copy paste.

But in the Bible, when you read it, the word of the Lord in all caps came to Jonah.

When we see Lord in all caps, it is a signal that the translators are translating the divine name of God, Yahweh.

They don't want to utter it to treat it as holy and special, which is a good thing to do.

They write Lord instead, Adonai is the Hebrew word.

But it's Yahweh.

Yahweh is the word who Jonah brings into Nineveh.

Exodus 3 is the first time God reveals his name to the people of Israel, to Moses.

In the story of the burning bush, Exodus 3 verse 13 says this, Then Moses said to God, Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you.

Now they may say to me, What is his name?

What shall I say to them?

God said to Moses, I am who I am.

And he said, Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, I am has sent me to you.

I am is the Hebrew word Yahweh or close to it.

It means I am, I will be, I was, I am, and I will be.

Yahweh is the holy precious name of God revealed to Moses in Exodus 33.

And if we continue following the thread of what Yahweh means in the Old Testament, we would come to Exodus 34 and verses 6 to 7.

Exodus 34 is called the character creed.

It is the most succinct, beautiful picture of the character of Yahweh in the whole Bible.

When a passage in the Bible wants to talk about the character of God, it will more than any other passage refer to this passage.

This is the most concentrated nugget of the character of Yahweh.

And it says this in Exodus 34 verse 6.

Then Yahweh passed by in front of Moses and proclaimed his name, Yahweh, Yahweh God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness and truth, who keeps loving kindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin.

Yet, he will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.

How do you feel listening to that?

The first half, I think we're like, thank you, gracious, slow to anger.

The second half, he will not leave the guilty unpunished, but that's who he is.

That is the fundamental character of Yahweh, is these two attributes, these types of attributes, held in perfect and inescapable, unavoidable tension in the person of Yahweh.

Gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love, and yet just, holy and righteous.

These two attributes are perfectly matched in the character of Yahweh, who revealed himself to Israel.

That's fundamental to who Yahweh is, and that is the Yahweh who Jonah brings into Nineveh.

Yahweh, gracious yet holy, loving yet righteous and just.

Jonah brings that God, Yahweh, into a situation of sin, judgment, isolation, and separation.

Jonah enters the great three days of judgment, separation from God, and he brings the reality of Yahweh to that people.

His message is, yet 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown.

In Hebrew, it's five words, a five word sermon, yet 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown.

So what do you expect to happen next?

Is it a but moment or a therefore moment?

What's going to happen?

In a sense, you think about one of the most wicked civilizations in the history of the world, who are so violent and evil, that when a holy God is brought to bear on that situation, they should be wiped out, destroyed.

That would be loving of God, loving of God to the victims of these violent people in the city.

It is a good thing for God to bring justice on a situation of evil, but what happens in the story?

We read on in verse 5, 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown.

Jonah says, Then the people of Nineveh believed in God.

We can't possibly feel the weight of the way that would hit an Israelite reading this story two and a half thousand years ago.

Nineveh, the furthest away from God, the most wicked, evil, violent city in history, one of them believed in God from a five word sermon.

I've lost track of how many words I've had to say already.

Not five.

I don't know if it is a but or a therefore.

In a sense, Jonah preaches, therefore they repent.

But this has to be understood as the biggest subversion of our expectation in the whole Book of Jonah.

This is the but of all but moments.

Jonah preaches, bringing the reality of Yahweh into a situation, but the people repented.

This is completely upside down.

That's what happens in Jonah.

And verse 10 is God's response to their repentance.

When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which he had declared he would bring upon them.

And he did not do it.

The flow of logic in this story.

Jonah brings the reality of Yahweh gracious yet holy.

He brings that into a wicked situation, a wicked city.

Therefore, you should think that the city will be destroyed by a holy God, but the whole of Nineveh repents, therefore God forgives.

Yahweh, fundamental to his character is grace, love, slow to anger, compassion and holiness.

And Nineveh experienced his grace, his compassion to them.

So the question we might ask ourselves is, did Jonah's prophecy come true?

Yet 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown.

Jonah brought the reality of a holy God into a wicked situation.

40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown.

Did that happen?

Did these two forces collide and be, and Nineveh be overthrown?

The answer is yes, actually.

The Hebrew word overthrown has two senses.

This is beautiful.

I love this.

On one hand, it can mean destroyed, overthrown, wiped out.

Or the same word can mean turned around, transformed, repenting, and coming into proper relationship with God.

That one word, overthrown.

From the bottom to the top, the whole thing is flipped upside down.

One word means the same thing.

So we're asking the question, did Nineveh get overthrown?

The answer is yes.

The whole city overthrown, upside down.

Because that's what happens.

When the reality of Yahweh, gracious yet holy, comes into a wicked situation, it will be overthrown.

Either it will be destroyed if it persists in wickedness against a holy God, or it will be transformed, flipped upside down from the inside out.

Everything will be overthrown in the face of Yahweh, gracious yet holy.

It will be overthrown.

Nineveh was on track to experience the holiness of Yahweh, to be destroyed just like those other cities in the New Testament, in the Old Testament, when God brings judgment on a wicked people.

They were going to experience the holy face of God, but instead, through repentance, they experienced the grace of God, the compassionate face of Yahweh.

That's what happens when Yahweh hits a person.

They will be overthrown, destroyed or transformed.

Jonah brings that reality, the reality of Yahweh, into a situation, and it overthrows them.

That in itself is a pattern of what has happened already in Jonah.

In chapter 1, Jonah didn't know he was doing it, but he brings the reality of Yahweh into the boat, into the storm.

The pagan sailors realize it is Yahweh God who is causing this storm that is going to kill them.

They come, not face to face, but very closely encounter the holiness of Yahweh against sin, and they are overthrown.

The same word, it says, let us call earnestly on God, is repeated in Chapter 1 and Chapter 3.

Calling earnestly on God, the sailors, the pagan sailors repent and are overthrown.

And it's Jonah who is literally overthrown.

That's what happens when Yahweh comes into a situation.

It will be overthrown.

So Jonah gives us this pattern.

What do you do when you're confronted with the reality of Yahweh?

A gracious, yet holy and just and righteous God.

What do you do when you come face to face encountering that God?

What do you do?

Jonah puts Yahweh before us.

And I want to try and let him do the same thing to me and to you right now.

To let Jonah put the reality of the character of Yahweh before us.

The Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God himself, is in believers working in this room right now.

God is present.

It says in scripture, the heavens, even the highest heaven cannot contain you.

God is unable to be contained.

He is present in this room, paying attention to you, to you, to you and to me.

He is here.

A holy God is paying attention to us right now.

So what do you do when you encounter the reality of Yahweh in your life?

We will be overthrown.

We will be overthrown in the face of a gracious yet holy God.

I think I'm probably speaking to two groups of people.

The first are ones who their whole life might be marked by the story of feeling distant from God.

You've never had a relationship with God.

Your whole life is angled away from God.

And in that sense, the story of Jonah offers to you an invitation to repent and turn to God.

And experience not his holy, just face against wrath, but face against sin, the wrathful face of God against sin.

But you can experience the grace and the compassion of God.

And bring your entire life, like Nineveh, overthrow your life and come into alignment with the character of God.

The second group of people, I think, is the majority in this room.

They are those who, broadly speaking, our life is in alignment with the character of God.

And yet, there are parts of our life, parts of my life, where I know I am persisting in rebellion against God.

Parts of my heart are bent away from the character of who He is.

And I am so struck by Jonah that it is a call to holiness, to be holy, for He is holy, to not persist in sin.

We can't justify it, keep on doing it, because He is a holy God and He will overthrow us.

Instead, we repent of our ways.

We turn to Him, come into alignment with the character of who He is.

And we experience not His holy face against our sin, but His compassionate and gracious face.

That's the invitation that Jonah puts before us.

What do you do when you encounter the reality of Yahweh?

You have to repent.

Turn from your ways.

Believe.

And what I love about belief is, it's said in the text here that the king of Nineveh said, who knows, maybe, maybe if we repent, maybe He will not send the calamity which He threatened on us.

Who knows?

We can only try, but we know, we know, He made a way to show His grace to us.

John 3.16 says, God, Yahweh, holy and gracious, so loved the world, you and I, while we were still sinners, as Paul would say, that He gave His Son, the Son of God, Jesus, to stand in the gap between us and God and to take our sin on Himself and to take the wrath of a holy God on that sin.

Jesus took that and He entered into a great three days.

He let that sin push Him into a place of judgment, isolation and separation from God.

Three days later, He rose again and He left the sin behind and He offers you and I, everyone joining online, an invitation to be made right with God, to experience His grace, His mercy, to call Him Father.

It was unimaginable to Moses in that moment when Yahweh revealed His name, that Moses, anyone could ever call Him Father.

This is a holy God and yet because of what Jesus has done in standing in the gap between us and our sin and a holy God, we can call Him Father.

Our whole life can be brought into alignment with the character of Yahweh.

As the Holy Spirit in us compels us, convicts us, points us to the truth, to the love of the Father, we can come into alignment with a gracious holy God, Yahweh.

So whichever group you find yourself in, maybe your whole life is living in that rebellion against God or like me, there are parts of your heart that are not submitted to God.

We can turn to Him, repent and believe in the finished work of Jesus on the cross that makes a way for us to know Him, to know Yahweh and to call Him Father.

That's the point of Jonah, I think.

It puts the reality of Yahweh before us and we respond to it.

We respond to His gracious invitation in the Lord Jesus.

I'm going to invite Jazz up now.

Brooke Ledgerwood and Stephen Furtick wrote a song last year called Nineveh, based straight out of Jonah chapter 3.

And I was listening to that song, I have listened to it for months, but I listened to that song at 7 a.m.

on Monday as I came to this text and was trying to understand what's happening.

And the first line of the song knocked me out.

It moved me so deeply.

And out of the experience of the grace of God and the truth of who He is, who I am, out of that moment that one line of a song did to me, this whole message kind of came out of that moment.

The line is, Nineveh, O Nineveh, the Lord is turning towards you.

When I listened to that, I had a chill run down my spine to think a holy God, Yahweh, uncontainable, indescribable, would turn towards you and I.

That's terrifying.

It's terrifying for a holy God to turn towards you.

And yet, quickly, the holy Spirit of God within me said, well, He's not looking at you with wrath, with evil, with judgment and justice.

He looks at you with grace and love because of what Jesus has done.

So, Jazz is going to sing this song for us.

And I really pray and I want to implore you to enter into that place of encountering the lyrics of this song as Yahweh has put before you.

What are you going to do?

Let me just lead us in a prayer of response.

Our God, we come before you now, and we remember who you are, who you revealed yourself to us as gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love, and yet holy, just and righteous.

And as we're confronted by the reality of who you are, as you come into our lives, we can do nothing but look with the deepest gratitude at the cross of Jesus, who stood in the place of judgment, of separation from God, so that we might call you Father.

And for those who have never called you Father before, would you lead us in what it means to repent and believe, to be overthrown in all of our lives, to come into alignment with who you are, that we might experience for the first time, your grace and your love.

And for those who have tasted your love before, but parts of our heart are bent away from you, please, Holy Spirit, convict us the way that you do, always pointing us to the love of the Father.

Lead us in what it would mean to repent, to overthrow our lives and in every part of who we are as individuals, as a church, to come into alignment with the reality of who you are, Yahweh God, our Father.

And we come to you now to worship you, to give you glory, to lift our voices and declare truths about who you are, who we are, what you've done for us, what our role is.

So please continue to minister to us.

Holy Spirit, we pray, in Jesus' name.

Amen.

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