Jonah 3:1-5, 10
Preaching can be defined as “the proclamation of God’s word to a hurting and dying world in need of conviction, salvation, and purity of heart.” Jonah heard from God that people of Nineveh needed to repent of their sins, and if they would repent he would save them from impending doom. Since the Ninevites were enemies of Jonah’s people, he decided they didn’t need to be told of God’s mercy and redemption. Jonah booked the first boat to Tarshish (in the opposite direction of Nineveh), to run away from God’s call to preach salvation to the Ninevites. God would not let Jonah get away from his call and pursued him all the way to the depths of the belly of a large fish. After being regurgitated onto dry land after three days of ignoring God, Jonah did as he was told. God spoke to Jonah a second time, and this time Jonah started off straight for Nineveh, obeying God’s orders to the letter. Jonah preached the message God gave him, and the people of Nineveh listened and trusted God and repented (Jonah 3:1-10).
Preaching is a vital part of God’s call for the world to repent.
Several years ago, according to an illustration from Illustrations for Preaching and Teaching, The British Weekly published a controversial letter:
Dear Sir:
It seems ministers feel their sermons are very important and spend a great deal of time preparing them. I have been attending church quite regularly for thirty years, and I have probably heard 3,000 of them. To my consternation, I discovered I cannot remember a single sermon. I wonder if a minister’s time might be more profitably spent on something else?
For some time afterward a flurry of guest editorials were written in the Weekly. A letter came as the final response that quelled the flurry of writings. It read:
Dear Sir:
I have been married for thirty years. During that time I have eaten 32,850 meals... mostly my wife’s cooking. Suddenly I have discovered I cannot remember the menu of a single meal. And yet... I have the distinct impression that without them. I would have starved to death long ago!
Without Jonah’s preaching, the people of Nineveh would have died. Thank God for preaching!
Derl K.
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
There are some who would eagerly sign up to kill Muslims but would hesitate doing what Jonah did for Nineveh (which was an evil enemy) to save them! He brought them a message from God that saved them. That did not make him happy. He felt about them like we do about most Muslims. The Lord had to push him to go there and warn them. He was even disappointed when his message succeeded!
It took Jonah three days to cover the city, and he proclaimed with vigor what was going to happen to them if they didn’t shape up and confess. God had compassion on them, as he would on Muslims or anyone else who sinned and confessed with all their heart.
You would think that after being saved from the big fish, Jonah would have been grateful enough to do anything for the Lord. What does it take to make us ready to do whatever the Lord wants us to do?
Instead of the fish episode, why didn’t the Lord just ask Jonah again to do his bidding? The ways of the Lord are past our understanding. Why did the Lord have Habakkuk marry a prostitute to learn how God felt about his people being unfaithful to him? Sometimes we also wait for the Lord’s message to really touch us and make us obey.
The Lord loves all people ? even the ones that we hate. He wants us to love our enemies. What does that command say to a soldier about to go into battle? I read that a very small percentage of the ammunition forwarded to our enemies ever touches them. The military thinks that either we have some very bad shots as soldiers or too many soldiers don’t really want to kill. One solution that seemed to work in our latest wars is to put so much hate in our men that they enjoyed killing the enemy. But when some came home they shot anyone that they hated.
A fellow seminary student of mine had been a soldier in the Pacific in World War II. He had built a trench and peeked out now and then. One time he peeked and there was another trench with a soldier wearing the wrong uniform. The student instantly shot and saw a bullet go into the head of that other soldier, but he noticed that he was just a teenager. The pain of shooting a young fellow was so strong that he often woke up from his dreams at seminary crying out in pain and guilt.
I read about episodes like that in present wars. We can hate in general, but it is different when we see an “enemy” face-to-face.
Jonah was sent to save those hateful people. It is a message that God loves all people. He had the job of a missionary. We sometimes are called to serve a people that our country wants to destroy. Isn’t it better to convert an enemy than to kill him? When will we honor a missionary (who also may be risking their lives and maybe even the lives of their family) even more than a soldier?
Bob O.
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Philosopher Alain de Botton has characterized much of the pressure and anxiety members of industrialized Western societies feel as a function of our mad quest for finding recognition by the world, which we think we can get from our acquisition of power, influence, wealth, and things (Status Anxiety). Botton also notes that once we have acquired or achieved something our levels of happiness begin to decline (Ibid., pp. 196-197). The French philosopher Blaise Pascal had it right. We are unhappy because deep down we realize that the present pleasures are false and the pleasures for which we yearn are vain (Pensees, p. 49). In face of these realizations, Paul urges us to avoid getting caught up in the things of the world. Martin Luther provides reflections reminding us that the eternal blessing that is ours in faith entails we need not get too caught up on the things of the world:
This is the general teaching for all Christians, that they should treasure that eternal blessing which is theirs in the faith, despising this life so that they do not sink too deeply into it either with love and desire or suffering and boredom, but should rather behave like guests on earth, using everything for a short time because of need and not just for pleasure.
(Luther’s Works, Vol. 28, p. 52)
When the things of the present (like marriage, wealth, power) are not about owning them, just good things to share, then like John Calvin we can say:
Hence, it is not without good reason, that the apostle, with the view of arousing us from this stupidity, calls us to consider the shortness of life, and infers from this, that we ought to use all the things of this world, as if we did not use them. For the man who considers that he is a stranger in the world uses the things of this world as if they were another’s -- that is, as things lent to us for a single day.
(Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol. XX/1, p. 257)
Mark E.
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
When Count Niclaus Ludwig von Zinzendrof, the founder of the Moravians, was ten years old he began to share with his playmates that Jesus is their redeemer. The count later reflected on his early attempts at witnessing, surmising “My deficiency in knowledge was compensated by sincerity.”
Application: To be a disciple of Jesus, all that is required is sincerity.
Ron L.
Mark 1:14-20
John had done his job and now Jesus could take over. We must never stop learning about Jesus, but there comes a time when we are baptized and confirmed and may still not be ready to take over our Christian responsibilities. John may have been finished and was paying the price for his faithfulness. In one respect we are never finished. Even John’s death was part of his contribution to his witness. He demonstrated the price we might have to pay. We pray we would have the courage to accept the price if we are forced to do so.
Jesus’ ministry was just beginning. The first part of his job was to raise up some converts to help him. It seemed like sort of a casual job. He just asked them to follow him, and they dropped everything to follow him. They didn’t even apologize or ask their father to take over.
A missionary friend had just finished his training and was headed to Africa on his first assignment, but his mother complained strongly that he should not leave her. She complained all the time he served that his first responsibility was to his mother. She was a faithful churchgoer and thought she had a biblical basis for her demands, but then so did Zebedee! It doesn’t say if he tried to stop his boys, but I’m sure he felt betrayed that they left him with the hard work.
Jesus told them that they would still be fishermen, but now they would be fishing for men.
It is true that some might desert a job that the Lord had given them in order to escape to some faraway place of adventure. That is why the church has to examine each prospective missionary to make sure that they have received a call from God and not just felt some inner urge for adventure and a call away from a boring job. Every parish can be a new experience of excitement for a pastor. It can also be an adventure for a new member. We each have to weigh which is a call from God or just an urge to change jobs.
One seminarian turned down a church that would have been just right for him, because he thought he had the wrong motive in accepting it since it was such a great church.
I wonder if any motives are pure. When my wife and I signed up for Nepal, some of our feelings were mixed. It seemed like an exciting adventure. It was better than a boring retirement. Visiting a new country would be interesting and educational. We had to decide if the Lord’s call to service was the “primary” motive.
We can’t help having mixed motives in any prospective service, both positive and negative. We need to keep in prayer and also be guided by the advice of fellow Christians.
Bob O.
Mark 1:14-20
In a sermon that I wrote for Preaching magazine, I said that as Jesus came preaching, he needed disciples around him who would be able to finish the work he would start. Jesus saw something in the ragtag group that surrounded him. Christ spots the value in each person, even if others can’t. I wonder if Jesus knew Peter before his wilderness experience. As I reach verse 16, I sense that it was not the first time Jesus and Peter had an encounter. He may have walked by the lake several times and seen Peter, and possibly even chatted with him about fishing. Peter probably knew something about Jesus as well. After all, John’s gospel records the account of Andrew coming and telling Peter that he had found the Messiah. The gospel writer John records that Andrew had initiated a conversation with Jesus and was one of John the Baptist’s disciples. The Baptist had spoken his heart and mind and had gotten himself thrown into prison. It may have been with a sense of bewilderment and the question in his mind “Where do I turn now?” that Andrew went back to the fishing business. Jesus said to both Simon and Andrew, “Come, follow me and I will make you fishers of men.”
Jesus went seeking after such people to follow him. When the disciples attached themselves to a rabbi, they would study the law of God. Jesus was the fulfillment of that law. He did not say that the law was unimportant. He said, “Come, follow me and we will join in going after people and lift them up out of their circumstances and show them God.” That idea was appealing enough to Simon and Andrew that they immediately left their nets and followed after Jesus.
Jesus called them to be fishermen of people. Churches can be like some fishing clubs. They learn about all the ins and outs of fishing but never actually get around to fishing. We are all witnesses. For all of us who know Christ, there was a time in our life when he issued his call to us and we took him up on it; and when we signed on as his disciples, he promised to make us fishers of people. What we need is to have an experience with Jesus that is real and sensitive to opportune moments to tell people what Jesus means to us.
After Jesus called Simon and Andrew, he saw James and John and called them as well. They left the family business to follow Jesus.
A survey was taken of Americans over 90 years of age. They were asked: “If you had your life to live over again, what would you do differently?” Their answers were “I would reflect more, I would risk more, and I would invest in more things that would outlive me.” Peter, Andrew, James, and John all invested in a cause that would outlive them on this earth, and found it was eternally worth it.
Derl K.