The Warning From God Most People Ignore|03.15.26|When God Loves Your Enemy pt.4

I have a confession to make: I don’t like being interrupted. For that matter, I don’t like being slowed down, and when I’ve got some momentum, I REALLY don’t like being stopped.

Every one of us knows that feeling of momentum when life is moving along at a pace. Work is busy, schedules are full, decisions have been made. Now we’re just living it.

And it’s incredible, but once we start moving in a direction, it’s surprisingly hard to stop. Even when we know we should. Even when the warning lights are flashing.

“I know my car has been making a weird noise… but it’s still running, so I’ll get it looked at… later.”

“I know my body is experiencing that weird pain… but Advil and forward motion are keeping me going, so I’ll talk to a doctor… later.”

“I know my connection with my spouse is weirdly distant… but we’re just in a busy season, so we’ll find time to reconnect… later.”

Once we have that momentum in our life, and it’s heading in a direction, it’s hard to stop or change directions. But sometimes the most merciful thing someone can do in those circumstances is to interrupt us.

It’s like someone shouting “STOP! Don’t take another step!” because they can see the danger ahead.

[Scripture Ref]

That’s exactly what happens in Jonah ch3. Nineveh is moving toward destruction, and God interrupts them. So I hope you brought your Bible with you today, or maybe you use the Bible app on your phone… because I’d like you to open it up to Jonah ch3.

If you didn’t bring a Bible, you can always use the black, seat-back one, but as you’re finding Jonah ch3 (p667), I want to remind you where we’ve been in this series…

Because too many people, when they think of Jonah, they think of a cartoon with a whale. But Jonah isn’t really about a runaway prophet or a miraculous rescue. It’s about the uncomfortable truth that God’s grace is wider than we want it to be.

This book of Jonah exposes our tendency to want justice when WE are wronged, and want mercy when we are guilty.

But the scandal of grace is that God loves the people we avoid. God forgives the people we resent. God shows mercy to people who look nothing like us.

And then he invites us to be transformed by that same mercy.

And today, we’re going to see that God’s warnings of judgment aren’t threats of rejection. They are MERCY trying to stop us before destruction. Let’s read…

[Jonah 3:1-10]

[Jonah 3:1]

“The word of the Lord came to Jonah a SECOND time…”

Jonah has heard God’s call to go to Nineveh once already, but he ran away, and then avoided, then numbed himself, and then almost died.

But God saved him, delivered him back to shore and then gives him a do-over on being God’s messenger to Nineveh. (Praise God for second chances!)

[Jonah 3:2]

“Go to Nineveh and proclaim my message.”

Notice that God didn’t force Jonah, but he INVITED him again. Because God doesn’t force us or coerce us towards his mission. This is a GET-to, not a HAVE-to. And this time, Jonah goes!

[Jonah 3:3-4]

And he gets there to this great city, and in the first day there, he delivers the sermon that God sent him there to say. One sentence. In the hebrew, it’s actually only five words: “40 days more Nineveh overturned.”

And that word, “overthrown/overturned” is actually fascinating. Listen to what I learned about it:

The hebrew word is “hapak” and it has two meanings. First, it can mean to “turn over / turn upside down,” as in destroy or overthrow. That’s how the word is used to describe what happens to Sodom in Genesis 19.

But the second meaning is to “turn around,” as in “bring to repentance.”

So it seems that God is warning the people of Nineveh because he wants them to stop going in the direction they are headed… towards destruction.

But if that’s true, the real question in all this is… why didn’t Jonah want them to stop? Clearly… because Jonah didn’t want them to live. [...]

And if we peek ahead to next chapter (4:2), Jonah literally tells God that the reason he ran to Tarshish in the first place was because he was worried that God would actually forgive the Assyrians, and he couldn’t stand that idea. “No, they were too far gone for mercy!”

So, even though Jonah obeys God and delivers the message, he’s hoping that it is carrying the first meaning and proclaiming their overturning and coming annihilation.

And the way that the people of Nineveh respond, it looks like they hear it as the first meaning and are expecting doom and gloom.

But we see that God actually sends the warning because he HOPES they will be turned around in repentance. God’s warning isn’t an angry shout of cruelty. It’s a shout of mercy, trying to interrupt the path heading towards destruction.

[Jonah 3:5-6]

And the shocking part of this story is how Nineveh responds to Jonah’s 5-word sermon: they “believe God” and repent IMMEDIATELY.

No defensive debating. No excuses or empty promises. No delay!

The entire city, “great and small” alike, just… stops. They declare a fast and ALL OF THEM get involved.

**and I wonder what kind of connection WE would have with God if ALL OF US engaged when it came time for 21 days of prayer and fasting?

What kind of connection with God WE would have if ALL OF US turned away from the distracting life that is is constantly pulling our attention and affections… and turned towards God with expectation and hunger?

Nineveh experienced transformation, deliverance, and mercy.

What would our church experience?

What would our whole Sauk Valley community experience?

The entire city repents, and even the king steps off his throne, replacing his royal clothing with sackcloth, and sits in the dust.

[Jonah 3:7-8]

And THEN the king gives this speech where he EXPANDS the fast to include abstinence from drink, and extends it to include the animals, which means the entire city is filled with the sound of hungry livestock.

And notice that he commands them to cry out to the God of Israel. He doesn’t just say, “cry out to all the gods you can think of.” Unlike what we saw in chapter 1 with the sailors, this time there’s no confusion with Who to direct their prayers to.

But the final command he gives is to make sure that they aren’t just doing the outward signs of repentance with fasting, and sackcloth, and prayer. He wants them to actually REPENT, to TURN, to STOP the actions that were driving them in the wrong direction: their evil and violence.

And so Nineveh does what Jonah has refused to do for the last two chapters: they stop. [...]

They stop working. They stop eating. They stop pretending nothing is wrong. [...]

Church people have a hard time with this, don’t we? We are constantly wanting to hear God… but we are rarely willing to STOP and turn and listen. And that’s not necessarily rebellion, it’s more of a comment on the momentum of our busy and distracted lives.

[Jonah 3:9]

And the irony of this whole section is that the king of Nineveh and his people AREN’T church people. They even know what God is like!

He says, “Who knows? God may relent…”

They don’t KNOW this Yahweh. They don’t know that he is abounding in love. They don’t know that he is the provider, the protector, the sustainer, the redeemer, the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

They don’t know ANY of that. But they still hear his message and RESPOND with repentance. They stop. They turn.

[Jonah 3:10]

And God sees their turning. Our text doesn’t say that he saw their sackcloth and changed his mind. It doesn’t say that he saw their fasting and relented.

It says, “God saw how they TURNED from their evil ways…” And God had compassion on them. The warning had accomplished its purpose. The disaster was avoided.

And because the people stopped and turned, they were able to experience God’s mercy.

[When God warns]

This is what I hope you take away from this today: when God warns us, it isn’t because he’s against us. It’s his mercy trying to stop us before we meet destruction.

I mean, if one of my kids is running towards the road, you’d better know that I’m going to be yelling!

Not because I’m angry with them. Not because I get my kicks from limiting their fun.

Because I love them too much, and I don’t want them to end up in the road!

If one of my kids is reaching for a hot pan on the stove, you’d better know I’m going to say, “Don’t you do that, or you’ll be burned!”

If they didn’t understand, they might think, “Dad has a blowtorch, and he’s going to burn me with it if I disobey him!”

Is that the truth? No!

I’m telling them to stop because they are headed towards disaster.

God doesn’t warn us of judgment because he wants to punish. He warns us because he wants to SAVE. [...]

And that’s exactly what Jonah was afraid of. He knew that God is a God of mercy, who is willing to sacrifice his reputation when it comes to justice because he LOVES to forgive!

And Jonah struggled with the same tension most of us struggle with: we like God’s grace… when it’s offered to us.

But when it’s offered to corrupt leaders, or enemies, or people who hurt us, or people who “should know better.”...

…suddenly we don’t want God to immediately forgive. Suddenly we want a waiting period. We want people to sit in sackcloth and ashes for a while. We want their repentance to look a little more like feeling bad about what they’ve done and sitting in shame for a while.

But the Apostle Paul, a man whose life was headed in an AWFUL direction, he has an incredible reminder for us about repentance. Because he was spending his life tracking down Christians and arresting them or having them killed, because he thought they were following a false god by worshiping Jesus.

…until he was STOPPED on the road by Jesus, called to turn around, and invited into God’s mission of helping people accept Jesus their Lord and Savior.

Here’s what the Apostle Paul says in Romans 2: “It is God’s KINDNESS that leads us to repentance.”

Repentance isn’t feeling “sorry.” It’s being STOPPED from the direction we were headed. It’s TURNING back to God.

Repentance is a gift that leads us to freedom.

God’s warning isn’t because he’s against us. It’s his MERCY trying to stop us before destruction.

[Where is God telling]

And Nineveh heard that warning… and stopped. So the question for us today is simple: Where is God telling you to stop?

Is there a habit where God has been saying, “stop” ?

A relationship God has been telling you to stop?

Is there a direction your life is moving where God has been saying, “Don’t take another step!”

Because, if we believe that God is a good Father, then we can trust that when he’s telling us to stop, his warning isn’t about rejection. It’s mercy.

God’s judgment isn’t because he doesn’t love us. God’s judgment is LOVE refusing to stay silent. [...]

[END]

And there’s no better example of God’s love leaning in to stop us from careening into the destruction we were headed for than the person of Jesus. And it’s interesting how Jesus references Jonah and the people of Nineveh in Matthew 12. He said that the people of Nineveh would stand up on the last day in front of the judgment seat of God, because they REPENTED at Jonah’s message.

Jesus brings this up, because everyone who was gathered around him were second-guessing his words and his works and whether or not he was actually a messenger from God.

So Jesus said, “Nineveh repented at Jonah’s message, and now someone GREATER than Jonah is here…” (referring to himself)

Someone greater is here, but you’re ignoring it and questioning it and trying to explain it away… but you aren’t STOPPING. You aren’t repenting.

Someone greater than Jonah is here, and unlike Jonah… Jesus actually wants people to be saved.

Jonah preached 5 words. But Jesus gave his life.

Jonah warned of destruction. But Jesus stepped INTO destruction on our behalf.

Jesus went into the grave and came out again so that when God calls us to stop and turn back to him… we are actually ABLE to turn back to him… We’re actually able to turn back to LIFE.

God’s mercy sometimes shows up as rescue. Sometimes it shows up as a second chance. And sometimes it shows up as a warning:

A voice saying “STOP, don’t take another step! Because destruction isn’t what God wants for you. Where you’re headed isn’t what God wants for you. That pathway leads to death, and that’s not what God wants for you.”

Life is.

So where is he telling you to stop? Where is he telling you to turn back to Jesus?

At the cross, Jesus brought together God’s justice AND God’s mercy as he absorbed judgment on our behalf and extended foriveness to us all. Even to his enemies. Even to you.

Isn’t that good news?