1/21 Sermon - Go To Ninevah

Go To Ninevah

Jonah 3:1-5, 10

The year is 750 BC. The Assyrian nation lived just north of Israel, in modern day Syria. Here are actual words from their king, Ashurbanipal:  

I built a pillar over against his gate, and I flayed all the chief men ... and I covered the pillar with their skins ... some I impaled upon the pillar on stakes. Many captives ... I burned with fire ... From some I cut off their hands and their fingers, and from others I cut off their noses, their ears ... of many I put out the eyes

-“I flayed as many nobles as had rebelled against me [and] draped their skins over the pile [of corpses]; some I spread out within the pile, some I erected on stakes upon the pile … I flayed many right through my land [and] draped their skins over the walls.” The Assyrians were strong and terrible!

Jonah didn’t like the Assyrians, for two reasons! First of all, they were horrible, cruel, bloodthirsty people. I don’t like them! Second, Jonah’s homeland, Israel, was a next-door neighbor to Assyria! They were the bad guys! God told Jonah, “Go to Ninevah,” and Jonah was stubborn, maybe with good reason, and he said, “no!” I’ll just summarize the story: He runs the opposite way and sails to Spain. It was like going to Kansas City instead of Chicago. A whale swallows him. He repents. He goes to Ninevah.

One reason the book of Jonah is so famous is that it resonates with people. Jonah is flawed! Just like me, just like you. A major focus I’m going to talk about today, a major focus on this lesson, is outreach, telling people about Jesus. Jesus says to you and me, “Go to Ninevah!” Maybe we don’t hop on a plane and fly to Spain, but when God wants us tell people about Jesus, invite others to church, we can be stubborn, just like Jonah! Let’s talk about some of our excuses, our stubbornness when it comes to outreach.

It's scary, isn’t it? Inviting someone to church? Telling them about Jesus? God told Jonah to travel to Chicago and Jonah ran to Kansas City. His first reaction was “run” and that’s ours too. Run. Not do it. Stay quiet. Go back to our house. Go to Ninevah! But it can be scary…

One excuse we have is this: we think we have time. We say to ourselves, “Next time. Next time I’ll invite them, next time I’ll say something. Next time.” Will there be a next time? “40 more days and Ninevah will be destroyed!” The people in Nineveh only had 40 days. Who in your life who only has 40 days? God says, ‘Go to Ninevah!’ But we say, ‘they have time.’

It can just be discouraging, though, can’t it? Look at this church. It’s been around for 40 years. 40 years! But there’s not lot to show for it. We’ve tried the past year, our church has been trying for 40 years, but people leave, reject the message, prioritize the passing things of this world over eternal life. God says, ‘Go to Nineveh!” But we say, “We’ve tried…” 

Do you know the two little phrases in this text that just explode with grace and love? The first one is this: The Word of the LORD came to Jonah “a second time.” A second time. Despite Jonah’s hesitations, his fear, his stubbornness, his dislike, that doesn’t stop our God. God forgave Jonah. That’s what Jonah realized as he sat in the belly of the whale. He proclaimed, “Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them. But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, Salvation comes from the LORD.” So, Jonah went to Ninevah and proclaimed the same forgiveness he had.

That’s what God preaches to you as well. God comes a 2nd time, a 3rd time, a 9000th time, every day, again and again, he forgives us for our hesitations, sins, fear, and stubbornness. Our sin is forgiven, again and again, because the mercy and grace of God is never exhausted. Now as we stand in this forgiveness, this grace of God, we take the same forgiveness that is shown to us and we go to Ninevah. No, not to Syria on the other side of the world, we go to each person God has put in our life and we invite them to church, to hear about this wonderful grace of God.

Do you know the other phrase in this reading that explodes with grace? God said, “Proclaim the message I give you.” Maybe you’ve heard of the word “influencer.” Have you? Everyone today wants to be an “influencer.” That means their YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok account has millions of followers, and they make lots of money when people watch their videos. You can find anything! They want to push their ideas, their content, their message, their cooking, their traveling picture. People want to sell themselves. That’s not what God wanted Jonah to do, that’s not what God wants us to do. God gives us his message, not our own. The message is simple, it’s what Jonah preached. It’s what we preach. Repent, forgiveness.

Repent! That’s the message we have. It cuts to the heart. It says that we sin. I’m a sinner, me! You’re a sinner, you! So many messages in our culture tell us we’re good people, we’re great, we’re the good ones. That’s not true. Repent, Jonah said. Repent, we say. It’s painful to hear, it cuts our hearts.

Forgiveness. That’s the message we have. It heals us. Yes, we sin, yes, we hurt other, but through Jesus, through the blood he shed on the cross, our sins are washed away. God gives us a simple message of repentance and forgiveness.

We don’t need to sell ourselves! WE don’t push our message. We tell others about God’s message. By his grace, by his choice, by his power, we believe, and our sin is gone, we are holy before God through Jesus. It’s so simple. “Go to Ninevah,” God said to Jonah, “with this simple message, repent and believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins.” God says the same thing to us.  “Go to Ninevah and tell people this message: your sin is gone, you have life in Jesus.” All we do, all it takes, is to say this, “I want to invite you to church with me and hear about forgiveness and life.”

Have you ever been told to do something you didn’t want to do? When I was small, my mom said, “Clean you room.” What did I do? I pushed it all under my bed to hide it. Did it work? No, my mom found it pretty quickly. Have you ever been told to do something you didn’t want to do? Taxes? Mowing the lawn? Dishes? … Inviting someone to church? We can be stubborn sometimes, like Jonah. But that’s not who we really are! It’s not who you are. You are not an 8-year child, you are not a stubborn Jonah. Who are you? You are someone who knows and believes the simple message that Jesus takes our sin away and gives eternal life. So now, what do you do? We “Go to Nineveh.” How do we “go to Ninevah?” How can we invite people to church? What are some lessons? In our reading from Mark, Jesus gives us some good application. 

Read 16. What do fishermen do? They cast nets and rods. Even if you’re not a fisherman, the picture is pretty clear, right? What do fishermen do? They fish. Every day. Maybe they get something, maybe they don’t. They still fish. Whether by pure love of their hobby or necessity of their job, they fish. It’s just what you do. What do Christians do? They fish! It’s who we are, we fish. Every day, week, or month, we’re thinking, “How can I fish? How can I do something to invite people to church? To show my faith?” Maybe we see results, maybe we don’t. That doesn’t matter. We’re not catchers, we’re fishers. What do we do? Christians fish for people.

Read 19. He saw ordinary people: Andrew, Peter, John, James. And he called them. Just ordinary people. They had no special schooling or gift. Ordinary people! They were fishermen. Why them? Why us? Why you? That is how God works. He uses the ordinary, like you and me, to spread his kingdom.

- you, brothers and sisters, are the best missionaries in our church. Yes, I am your pastor, I try to meet people and invite them to church, but each one of you are more effective missionaries than I am. You have more people in your circle than I could meet in a couple of years. You all have friends, neighbors, co-workers, family right now. All we say is a message so simple, “Come to church with me.”  

Read 18 & 20. Immediately, without delay they left. They didn’t wait. They didn’t put up excuses. They just left! I’m sure they were scared, they had hesitations. But here the disciples performed admirably. They left and got to work. Let’s do that! We have work to do here in Burlington, nets to cast, fishing to do. The last thing I want to look at again is our mission plan for 2024. Look in your bulletins and I’ll walk through a rough draft of what we’re planning to do this year at Our Savior….

- (Briefly walk through our mission plan for 2024)

Jonah had excuses for why he couldn’t go to Ninevah, he complained about it, but then he actually did what God told him to do, he went to Ninevah, and do you know what happened? This crazy thing: the whole city repented and believed! Who would have thought that when God tells us to do something, it makes a difference.

Does God promise the results WE want? No. The people of Assyria and Ninevah, whether the same people or their children, still rejected God. But that doesn’t mean we stop trying. We keep fishing. Who knows, maybe all of Ninevah, I mean Burlington, will repent and believe the good news. Let’s go to Ninevah, go to Burlington, and invite people to church.