The book of Jonah seems to be about so much. This short book, however, has confronted a few things in me over the years: strategies in which we run from God, and identity transformation. If we look at the entirety of the book, Jonah will teach us that there are two different strategies for running from God.
The apostle Paul actually later in the New Testament outlines these in Romans 1 through 3. The first was by becoming immoral and irreligious, someone who simply rejects God overtly (Romans 1:29). And the second by becoming very religious and moral, someone who boasts in their good works and their religious “maturity” (Romans 3:10-12).
One group is trying diligently to follow God’s law and the other ignores it, and yet Paul says both have turned away. They are both, in different ways, running from God. And this is where the book of Jonah teaches us on the topic of sin. Sin is more than just breaking the rules. It’s building an identity apart from God. And it’s something you can do underneath all kinds of religiosity and morality. You can be very moral. You can keep all the rules. You can be a leader of the church.
In the Hebrews, every place that says that Jonah’s running from the Lord, literally in the Hebrews it says, “from the face of the Lord.” The face of the Lord, what is that? Jonah is not running from the spatial presence of God. You can’t. He can’t run away spatially from God. Jonah is running away relationally from God.
Why do you think Jonah ran away from Nineveh? Jonah thought that if he went and they refused to repent, they’d kill him. Assyria was known for their brutality and violence, surely that was why he ran from Nineveh. No. He was more afraid if they repented. How do we know that? Nearing the end of the 3rd Chapter Jonah ends up going to the city of Nineveh, calls them to repent, and guess what? This wicked, evil, sick, twisted city? DID REPENT! And God gave them Mercy. This is what we see as Jonah’s response…
“But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
Don’t you feel it? Jonah is experiencing a “psychological death.” He is saying, “The thing that really gives me my identity, that really gives me a sense of value, is not that I’m pleasing God or that God loves me. It’s that I’m a successful leader of a successful nation. It’s that I’m a prophet who does things my way. It’s that I can help my nation defeat my enemies.”
Jonah… did not have his identity in God alone.
The Bible teachings us, therefore, this is what sin is: You can have a life like Jonah, and still have a life of sin even though you’re keeping all the rules. Because every person has a self-salvation strategy. The real core. Your real identity. Underneath all your morality, underneath all your religiosity, you’re building a self without God.
So let me ask you O reader, a crucial question: how are you running from God? I didn’t ask, are you running from God? I asked, how are you?
Every one of us is running from God in some way. There is something in our lives we are basing our identity on outside of God, and that is how we run away from Him relationally.
One of the most important things you can do, as a Christian, is to discover what are the ways you run from him.
So how does God turn Jonah into a nice person, a better person? You can’t make Jonah a better person. What is Jonah supposed to do? Is Jonah supposed to start obeying the Ten Commandments? He doesn’t commit adultery. He doesn’t lie. He never misses worship. He gave to the poor. He does everything he’s supposed to do. What Jonah needs to be transformed, and he’s not going to become transformed by cleaning up his life. His life’s already clean as a whistle.
Jonah needs a transformation of identity. He needs an experience of the grace of God. And let me tell you how God begins to do it with all of us. You won’t like my first point.
Number one, a storm is sent Jonah’s way. Do you know anybody who just sort of walks along the street and says, “You know, I suddenly realized that even though I look very stable on the top, underneath I’m actually unstable. I’m psychologically unstable. I love things too much rather than God, and he’s not my source of affirmation. I need to change.” People don’t do that. No, you need a storm. You almost have to have a storm. And you know, it’s funny, when storms come, troubles come, we say, “Why is God letting this happen?” Why does he do it to Jonah? Because he wants Jonah!
And number two, Jonah starts to trust God in the storm. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen. He just starts to trust. You’ll notice in Jonah 1:8, when the sailors begin to realize what Jonah has done, who he is, they ask him identity questions. “Who are you? What do you do? Where are you from?” And then Jonah starts to get it… He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” In a few verses later, he’s going to say: “God’s after me, so throw me into the water of God’s wrath, and you will be saved.”
Here’s what’s so interesting about this storm. If he continues to try to run from the storm, that’s the only way he’ll drown. The only way this storm will drown him is if he continues to run from it. But if he turns and just says, “God, I don’t know. This might be suicide, but I’m just going to do the right thing,” that’s when he’s saved.
And that’s how it almost always works. The storm comes into your life, and you don’t know what to do. Your heart will usually think that’s suicide… If you throw yourself into God and just trust Him in the midst of the storm.
And here’s what’s wonderful. Jonah says, In order to save the sailors, I need to be thrown into the storm. To his shock, there’s love beneath the waves. Yeah, there’s the fish, right? But think of what that is, the fish is just a vehicle to save Jonah from the storm. God saves Jonah because he’s willing to jump into the wrath of God. He’s willing to take God’s punishment. He’s willing to face the music. He’s willing to say, “God, whatever you require of me, I will do.” And in the waves expecting wrath, Jonah received forgiveness and grace.
But you know why? Why is it that God can forgive Jonah? Jonah didn’t expect to be forgiven.
Well, the answer is, years later, Jesus Christ said to a bunch of people, the Pharisees, he says, For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here. You know why Jonah was able to throw himself into the wrath of God and be saved? You know why you can look at the worst things that are happening in the world, and know that underneath God is really trying to help you, and love you, and care for you, and refine you; Not trying to smite you?
Because there was a true Jonah. The true Jonah, Jesus, was the one who was thrown into the real ocean of God’s wrath, the real storm of God’s wrath, and no one caught him. Nothing saved him. He just sank. And he did it… He did it for us. And only when you know he’s done that for you, will that begin to transform your identity.
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