A couple of days ago I read through Jonah. Today I'm processing some thoughts around the last part of Jonah. We so often focus on the story of Jonah being swallowed by a big fish that we can miss the real point of Jonah.
Yes, we can learn about obedience and the consequences of lack of obedience through the first part of the story. Jonah's lack of obedience had a huge impact on him and our lack of obedience can too.
But let's think about what was happening in this situation. There is more going on than just lack of obedience. God needed to address the issues in Jonah's heart towards people.
God sent Jonah to preach to a city that was full of sin. God was planning on destroying the city because of the sin. When Jonah finally got there, and gave them God's word, the people received the message, believed it and repented. God, seeing the hearts of the people, with his love for them, showed them grace and spared them from destruction.
Surely this is a great outcome. But Jonah was not happy. He wanted God to destroy the people, to bring judgement on them the way he thought God should do it. How often do we want God to do things our way when God has something different in mind?
God's message to the people had brought repentance and salvation. Yet Jonah was not happy. God then provided a powerful lesson while Jonah was sulking, to help Jonah understand just how important people really are to him.
He allowed Jonah to find shade under a small plant, but Jonah was upset when it died and he was left to scorch in the sun. He complained to God. Notice how his focus was on him alone and not on others or even on God. Here is God's response.
Jonah 4:10-11 NET
The LORD said, "You were upset about this little plant, something for which you have not worked nor did you do anything to make it grow. It grew up overnight and died the next day. [11] Should I not be even more concerned about Nineveh, this enormous city? There are more than one hundred twenty thousand people in it who do not know right from wrong, as well as many animals!"
God had to show Jonah, that people matter to him. In fact people matter immensely to God, more than we can really grasp or understand. Ninevah had many thousands of people. People who mattered to God and should have mattered to Jonah.
People matter to God and should matter to us. Just as we are important to God, and loved by him, people who don't yet know his love and grace matter also and are loved by him. He wants them to know him, he does not want any person to perish.
1 Timothy 2:3-6 NLT
This is good and pleases God our Savior, [4] who wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth. [5] For, There is one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity-the man Christ Jesus. [6] He gave his life to purchase freedom for everyone. This is the message God gave to the world at just the right time.
God is more interested in the lost* than we could ever be but he calls us to love them, to pray for them and to share life with them so that they also would know him.
This is the lesson Jonah had to learn. The people of Ninevah mattered to God. He cared about them and loved them. He forgave them when they turned to him. People still matter to God. He still loves them and sent Jesus into the world to make a way for them to come to him. We have been given a message of hope and grace for the world. A message of salvation.
Matt 28:18-20 NLT
Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Like Jonah, we have a choice. We can run away from the call to speak God's message to people living far away from God, or we can embrace it, and be joyful when they discover God's saving grace. Then we have the opportunity to walk with them on the journey of discipleship towards maturity in the faith.
We can be so consumed by our own lives, so focused on our own comfort that we can think it's all about us. But God says to us, people still matter. There are thousands, many hundreds of thousands of people, in cities and countries in our own nation and all around the world that are yet to hear the message of God's love for them, who as yet have no way to discover the grace of God for themselves.
They are more important to God than our personal comfort. Are they more important to us than our personal comfort?
We have a message of hope, a message of grace that the world needs to hear, a message that God is asking us to take to others. Will we put aside our own comfort for the lives of other people?
(*Lost people are people who do not have a relationship with God that is based on who Jesus is, what he did for us through his death and resurrection and have then placed their hope for salvation in Jesus alone, thus beginning the journey of discipleship as a follower of Jesus)
