In the book of Jonah, Jonah cant get away from God... and Gods mercy. Listen in as Thomas Terry unpacks this beautiful book.
Transcript
Welcome to this week’s sermon from Trinity Church in Portland, Oregon. We hope this message inspires you, roots you down deep into the Lord, into His Word, and may His Spirit be your guide as you enjoy this teaching. Thanks for joining us. Here’s the message. All right. Well, we’re going to be continuing through in Jonah today, so if you’ve got your Bibles or a cellular device that has access to the scriptures, get your way over to Jonah chapter 1. The word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me. But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish, away from the
presence of the Lord. But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Well, most Christians, at least to some degree, know the story of Jonah. It is, after all, one of the most popular books in the Bible. And I would even venture to say that a lot of non-Christians know the story of Jonah. That’s how famous this story is. But if you were to ask the vast majority of people to explain what exactly is the book of Jonah about, or ask them to help you understand what is the main idea of the book, most people would probably say that it’s a story that has something to do with this man who doesn’t do what God asks him to do. And as a result, he’s thrown off a ship, swallowed by what most people think is a whale, and
stays in the belly of this whale as some sort of divine time out from God until he realizes that he’s done something completely wrong and promises to obey when at that point he’s spit out of the belly of this whale onto the shore to do what God originally called him to do. That’s most people’s underlining framework of the book of Jonah. And that’s because most people understand Jonah’s story through the lens of either fairy tale or veggie tale. So whether it’s Pinocchio or a talking tomato, the moral of the story is the same. Obey right away or be severely punished. And that’s a sad reality because that’s such a superficial understanding of this book. The story is so much more profound and compelling. It’s so much more nuanced and complicated than that. The story of Jonah is the remarkable and unbelievable story of God’s mysterious mercy, who freely
and indiscriminately extends this mercy to the most unlikely of people, including those people considered to be the enemies of God. It’s a story that shows God to be more patient than punitive. It’s also a story that perfectly holds in tandem God’s justice and mercy, God’s wrath and grace. And this book beautifully captures God’s relentless pursuit of sinners as well as saints through compassion and calamity. And one of the most magnificent aspects of this book is that it pulls you into the story and forces you to consider just how similar Jonah’s struggle is with our own struggle. I said this last week, but the book of Jonah is meant to be a mirror, a creative way to help us see ourselves and to reveal our hearts and our own desperate need of mercy so that we might point others to the mercy of God. So again, I’m going to move slowly through this book and try to apply its deep truths
to our current and immediate context. And so this morning I’ve taken the first three and a half verses and I’ve broken them up into three sections, the great commission, the great disobedience, and the great storm. But before we dive into these three sections, let’s first start with a few principles of approach. And I’m not going to spend a lot of time with these principles because Jan did just an amazing job last week to sew up a lot of this for us. And just a side note, if you missed last week, if you did not have a chance to listen to Jan’s sermon, my encouragement to you is to go back and listen to it. He did such a fantastic job setting the framework for us for this book and he’s made my job really quite easy. But nonetheless, let’s begin with some principles of approach.
The Great Commission
The first is what kind of book are we dealing with? Some think this book is more of a mythological kind of book, a fictional book. Some view this book as nothing more than allegory, a story filled with symbols and metaphors. But if we intend to get out all that’s in this book, we need to be clear right out of the gate that this book is not a fictional book. It’s not allegory. It’s historical narrative, meaning the events told in this book actually happen. Jan mentioned this last week that Jesus himself in the gospel of Matthew chapter 12 references the book of Jonah as a historical book. So if Jesus himself considers Jonah, the great fish, and all of the other crazy details as actual historical events, then so should we. We ought not consider ourselves to be more wise or better theologians than Jesus. And I know that some of the content in this book is crazy.
It’s hard to comprehend. From a skeptic’s perspective, some of the events in this book seem pretty unbelievable. But listen, it’s not more unbelievable than Genesis 1, where God with only his words spoke creation into existence and bang, it happened. It’s not more unbelievable than a virgin birth or even the resurrection, but all of these things actually happened. And so in the same way, the story of Jonah should not be considered unimaginable, but instead miraculous and mysterious. And so with the understanding that this is a historical narrative, let’s begin at the very beginning of this actual story in chapter 1 verses 1 and 2 with the Great Commission. Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me. So the story begins with the word of the Lord came, and that saying there is stated
over 100 times in scripture. This was typically the way God spoke to people back then. He would choose a prophet or commission a prophet with a specific message to convey his words to a specific people. This is what prophets did. They heard from God and they spoke for God. So in one sense, this book about a prophet, Jonah, is very similar to other books with other prophets, because it starts the same way. God has given words to the prophet Jonah to give those words to the people of Nineveh. But in another sense, this prophetic book and this prophet are entirely different from other prophetic books and other prophets, because this prophet receives his instruction from God, but actually refuses to obey God’s instructions. Other prophets might have struggled a bit following through with what God commanded them to do, but there was never this straight up defiance or disobedience.
So this book and this prophet are unique in that regard. Another reason this prophet is different is that God calls a Hebrew prophet to go speak to people outside of Israel. God calls him to go into a Gentile area to speak for God. Now that’s huge because up to this point, no other prophet was called to speak the words of God to folks who are not considered to be the people of God. So God gave words to Jonah and commissioned him to give those words to the city, the great city of Nineveh. Now we don’t know much about Jonah personally. The Bible doesn’t really give us a lot of details about him. In fact, Jonah’s rise to prominence really only began the moment the word of the Lord came to him. So we don’t know about his life or very much about his history. But the one thing we do know is what his name means.
Jonah means dove, which is a symbolic name for peace and compassion. And the name son of Amittai means the son of the faithful or truthful. And it’s here with Jonah’s name where we see a bit of God’s divine satire and that he uses a prophet who fails in every single way to live up to his name. He does not care to bring peace or compassion to Nineveh, nor does Jonah immediately faithfully proclaim God’s word to Nineveh. Instead he’s predominantly marked by hate and rebellion when it comes to this commission. Now what exactly is Jonah’s commission? What is God? What has God commanded him to do? Well it’s really two part. First, God commissioned Jonah to arise, to get up and go to the great city of Nineveh. Now that word arise doesn’t mean just get up from the ground. It’s more get up with a sense of urgency right away.
Get up and go to that city right now. And secondly, once he arrives, he is to call these people out for their great sin. God has commissioned Jonah to serve as the world’s first street preacher, to go and proclaim God’s judgment to this evil city of Nineveh. Now what I find interesting in God’s instruction to Jonah is that God does not call Jonah to go into the great city of Nineveh and talk about God’s love. No, God’s mission for Jonah is to go into the city and bring warning about his coming judgment. To tell the people of Nineveh that God is angry with their evil deeds. That their sin has become so offensive to God that they either repent or face the inescapable judgment of God. And that is such a different world than what we’re used to when it comes to preachers today.
It’s very rare in our world to tell people to repent of their sins or face the judgment of God. Because in our culture, including Christian culture, it doesn’t sound very loving to tell people the truth about sin and judgment. And it’s not very culturally relevant to mention sin or repentance. I mean, I literally hear preachers all the time say things like, you know, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Now that’s not entirely untrue. But what is absolutely true is that unless you turn from your sins and receive the forgiveness that only God can provide through Jesus Christ, you will be perfectly judged by a perfectly righteous God. And so God calls Jonah to go to Nineveh. But what is Nineveh’s deal? What kinds of people are we dealing with here? And what have they done to cause God to set his sight on the city?
Well, first, Nineveh was the capital city of Assyria. And the Assyrians were considered one of the most violent and murderous cultures in the ancient world. I originally intended to read a few excerpts from church historians about the kind of violent acts the Assyrians inflicted on people. But given the fact that there’s young ones in our congregation, I couldn’t in good conscience read it out loud. That’s how bad the Assyrians were. Think of the most violent, heartless terrorists you could imagine. The Assyrians were likely far worse than that. The Assyrians were also considered the greatest enemies of Israel and the greatest threat to Israel. And we know that Israel was God’s chosen people. So it would make sense right out of the gate for God to call Jonah to go to Nineveh with a message of judgment, that God’s wrath was aimed at the Assyrians for their blatant and
barbaric sin. But when the text says, call out against it, that’s a statement of warning. That’s a call of repentance that’s open-ended, meaning there’s a possibility of a positive outcome. If Jonah goes and calls them to repentance, they could very well turn from their evil ways and escape the judgment of God. So despite how evil and murderous these Assyrians were, God was allowing them the opportunity to turn away from their wicked ways and escape God’s wrath. God gave Jonah a mission of mercy for these evil people. Despite their hatred towards God and God’s people, the Assyrians have become God’s target for missionary outreach. Now why in the world does God show mercy to the enemies of God’s people? Why does he do that? Because God is not like us. As humans, if people offend us, if people attack us or violate us, we remember and we
seek revenge. This is why cancel culture is so prevalent in our world right now, because it’s an easy and accessible way to get revenge. In fact, we are exceedingly quick to make friends enemies, just like that. But God is not like us. God is in the business of making his enemies his friends, just like that. Romans 5.10 says, for if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. Colossians 1.21 and 22 says, and you who were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, that means enemies, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him. You see, brothers and sisters, this was us. We were enemies of God.
We hated God. We did not desire the things of God, but God in his love for us showed us mercy. In fact, God sent someone to each one of us at some point in our rebellious life to call out against our sin, to call us to repentance. And by the grace of God and by the aid of God, we responded and we became friends of God. You see, it’s God’s heart for people that causes him to mobilize missionaries to go into the world and to tell people about their sin and to embrace Jesus as Lord and savior. I mean, we all know the New Testament Great Commission, Matthew 28 verses 19 through 20, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded
you and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. All nations, that means all kinds of people, men and women, different cultures, different ethnicities, self-righteous, moral people, and God hating pagans. This is the heart of God. And long before Jesus gave this New Testament Great Commission to his disciples to preach the gospel of repentance right here in the book of Jonah, in the first chapter, in the first two verses, you see the consistent character of God, that he has always desired to extend mercy to all nations, including the God hating terrorist nation of the Assyrians. So God gives this Great Commission to Jonah to be the agent of his radical mercy to the Assyrian nation. But instead in verse three, we see the great disobedience. But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish.
The Great Disobedience
So he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish away from the presence of the Lord. That is an interesting juxtaposition between verse one and verse three. If you look at the structure of the verse, in verse one, God says to Jonah, arise again immediately, get up and go to Nineveh. And in verse three, Jonah rose. He immediately gets up. So it’s almost as if Jonah is getting ready to follow through on the Lord’s command to do what he’s supposed to do. But what initially looks like obedience ends in a great disobedience. Jonah got up. And he went in the exact opposite direction of where God called him to go. So instead of going to Nineveh, he heads towards Tarshish. So just to give you some perspective on the modern day geography, Jonah is in Israel. And instead of going east to Iraq, he goes down to a seaport in Tel Aviv to catch a boat
to go towards the far west coast of Spain, which in a Mediterranean world would be as far west as you could possibly go. So Jonah literally goes in the exact opposite direction of where God called him to go. The question is, why? Why does Jonah run? I mean, there are a lot of different perspectives on the reasons why Jonah would choose to run from God’s command to confront the Assyrians. Some people would say that Jonah ran because Jonah was a racist, which means that he had hatred in his heart towards the people of Nineveh solely based on the fact that they were of a different ethnicity than Jonah. But to be honest with you, I really don’t see that in the text. It would be really easy and convenient for me in our current racial climate to just say that Jonah was a racist and then try to make some really good application on why we should
confront the sin of racism. But that’s not in the text. And I don’t want to do what our culture is so quick to do right now, and that is to call everything racism without a reasonable or honest assessment. Now do I think that we should confront racism, the sin of hating other people on the basis of ethnicity? Of course I do, absolutely. I just don’t think that this is the text that we point to do that. There are countless other texts in scripture that help us do that. So I don’t think Jonah was a racist, but I do think Jonah was a nationalist and a bigot. And I think we can easily deduce that from the text, other passages, and other church historians. Because the nation of Israel was inextricably connected to the religion of Israel, and because Israel was God’s chosen people, Jonah’s theology and his political ideology were one and the
same. For Jonah, his world was God and country. Jonah operated with the assumption that God only cared for the nation of Israel. After all, Israel was committed to God’s laws, so there was a certain level of national superiority when it came to Jonah, which made it quite easy for him to look down on the Assyrians because they were in every way a Gentile pagan nation who hated God and hated his laws. Jonah hated the Assyrians because they were a threat to his political, religious independence, and because they did not live according to Jonah’s theological and political ideology. So yeah, I think Jonah was a nationalist and a bigot, but that’s not why Jonah ran. I think Jonah ran because he was a coward, because he was afraid for his life, and we would certainly understand that as a reason. I mean, imagine God calling one of us from Portland to go into the epicenter of ISIS
to preach, to call them to repentance. Most of us would run from that. Most of us would be afraid to do that. We would begin to question if God actually would call us to go into that violent place. The Assyrians were very violent people, so it was reasonable that Jonah would be afraid. But as we’ll later see going through this book of Jonah, he is not afraid to die. In fact, what we’ll see later in Jonah is that he would rather die than go and preach to Nineveh. So it’s not the fear of death that causes Jonah to run. See, here’s the thing. If we really want to know why Jonah ran, in chapter 4, Jonah tells us with his own words. Jonah 4, chapter 2 says, this is why I made haste to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting
from disaster. Jonah ran from God’s commission because of righteous indignation. Jonah did not want God to show mercy. Jonah wanted God to kill him. Jonah wanted righteous revenge for their wicked, evil deeds against God and against Israel. Jonah ran because he believed, ultimately, that he knew better than God. Though he was a prophet, though he was a religious man, though he knew about God’s righteousness and justice, Jonah knew nothing about the goodness, trustworthiness, and wisdom of God. He thought he knew what was best for Israel and God’s people. So he thought his plans were far better than God’s plans. And you see, this is nothing new. This is the same story with Adam and Eve. This is the same story with us. I mean, oftentimes, when we don’t understand God’s plan, when we don’t believe that God’s plans are better for us, when we don’t trust that what God has for us is best for us, what
do we do? We run, sometimes in the opposite direction. Jonah was so concerned about the righteousness and justice of God that he failed to see the wonderful and mysterious mercy of God, that he draws enemies to himself, that he is kind to the most terrible kinds of people. And it wasn’t that Jonah didn’t have a theology of God’s mercy. He knew God was full of compassion. He just didn’t think that the Assyrians who posed the greatest threat to God’s people deserved mercy and compassion. See Jonah failed to recognize his own need for mercy. And so it would make sense that he couldn’t conceive of extending mercy to the Assyrians. And this is not just an issue back then with Jonah. This is just as much an issue with us today. We do this all the time. We make judgment calls based on our limited and finite understanding on whether certain
people should receive God’s mercy. And in some cases, we actually want God’s judgment to rain down on certain people. Many of us know that my son Tobin attends a classical education school in Gladstone. The beginning of the pandemic, his class was broken up into cohorts. So for a couple of months, they were doing this in-person class for a few of the students for just a few hours a day. Now, I don’t know if you know how far Gladstone is from Portland. It’s not quite the distance between Nineveh and Tarshish, but when you’re driving there in the morning, it seems that far. Well, on Mondays, it’s typically my day off and I take Tobin to school. Instead of dropping him off in Gladstone, driving all the way back to Portland only to return in a few hours, I found this little coffee shop that was around the corner from
Tobin’s school. So I would go there and I would work on sermon prep. Now this was a coffee shop that was obviously Christian-owned because there were scripture verses everywhere, and there was Bibles everywhere, and those left-behind novels and stuff. Well, one day as I was studying, I heard a group of people sitting next to me. It was a big table next to me, and I could tell based on what they were talking about and the things that they were saying that they were a church staff. There was a few pastors, perhaps a couple of worship leaders and some staff, and they were speaking loud enough to where I could hear everything they were saying. And I began to overhear them talking about Portland, specifically about Antifa. And this was right around the time when there were protests and riots happening every night in Portland. And as I listened to these church folks and what they were saying, I became completely
discouraged because I consistently heard them mention those kind of people are the scum of the earth, that those types of people are not deserving of human freedoms, that they should be shipped off to another country. And then finally, one of the pastors, he actually said this out loud. He said, you know what we need to do is drive over to downtown Portland and shoot these protesters in the knees, not kill them, just shoot them in the knees, because then they can’t march around the city of Portland anymore. And as I heard him say that, sitting in a Christian coffee shop, I literally just started to cry. To hear church staff talk about people, image bearers like that was shocking to me, because out of all people, these folks should understand the mercy of God. They should know that had it not been for God’s radical mercy invading their life, that
they would be under the wrath of God. How quickly did this church staff forget how much mercy they’ve received from God? And as I left the coffee shop and got in my car to go pick up Tobin, I just kept saying to myself, I can’t believe that a pastor would say that. I was so angry. And immediately, I felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit flood over me. Because sadly and embarrassingly, in my moments of self-righteousness, I’ve thought those same kind of things before. I’ve said those kinds of things before, more times than I’m comfortable admitting to you. You see, brothers and sisters, this is what happens. What often happens, God, in his mercy, pulls us out of the pit and cleans us up and makes us new. And after a while, walking around in clean clothes, we start to believe that we are the
ones responsible for coming out of the pit, that we are righteous by our own doing, that we somehow cleaned ourselves up. And so we start to look at other people who are still in the pit with disdain, judgment, and contempt. See, this is why we must consistently remind ourselves of the mysterious mercy of God and his marvelous grace. This is why we need to sing songs about it. This is why we need to read the scriptures about it. This is why we need to share the testimonies of what God has done with his radical mercy on us. He could have left us in the pit, but for some mysterious reason, he showed us mercy. See, when we talk about mercy, when we sing about it, when we hear people’s testimonies about God’s mercy, it keeps the reality of his mercy consistently before our eyes. It reminds us of who we were and who we are.
It keeps us thankful for mercy and desperate for mercy. And ultimately, it makes us agents in the ministry of mercy for those who are desperate to receive his mercy, who are still lost in the pit. You see, Jonah thought he knew better than God that it would be better for these folks to be wiped out, that the world would be a better place if he would just wipe out these evil, vile pagans. And so Jonah runs as far away possible in an attempt to flee the presence of the Lord. Now look at verse three for a moment. There is a heavy emphasis on Jonah running from the presence of the Lord. It’s mentioned twice in verse three. The presence of the Lord is translated the face of the Lord. Now what’s Jonah’s deal? Does Jonah have poor theology? Does Jonah actually believe that he could run from the presence of the Lord?
Of course not. Jonah’s theology is sharp. He knows that God is everywhere. Jonah knows Psalm 139, where shall I go from your spirit or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in sheol, you are there. Jonah knows the omnipresence of the Lord, but he runs anyway. You see what Jonah’s doing here is he’s bifurcating his theology and his emotions. He knows theologically that God is everywhere, but he pretends he’s not everywhere. He pretends to suppress those feelings of guilt and shame. He does not want to see the face of God when he’s in the midst of disobeying God. We could look at that from an outsider’s perspective and see the futility of fleeing the presence of the Lord, but don’t we often do the exact same thing? Every single one of us in some way has tried to hide from the face of God, from the presence
of the Lord, even though we know it’s theologically impossible. We do that by leaving a location that we think God is most present, like a church, like a Christian home, like a Christian community. We do it by drowning out the words of God or drowning out the voices of God’s people. I mean, if we’re honest, we’ve likely tried to hide from the presence of God this week, or at least we’ve denied the reality that God is everywhere present. Are there things that you would not have said if you were sober to the reality of God’s presence being everywhere? Are there things that you would not have looked at if you were sober to the reality of God’s presence everywhere? Have you this week tried to hide your thoughts and actions from God? Have you tried to convince yourself or pretend that you can hide from him when deep down
inside you know he’s everywhere and that he knows everything? When you pretend to hide, this is functionally killing your conscience. This is what it looks like. But how much better would we be as Christians, as a church community, if we lived with the ever-present reality of God? How would that change the way we interact with one another? The things that we say or the things that we don’t say, the things that we look at? Jonah’s theology is such that he knows he can’t run from the presence of God. He understands that God is omnipresent, but he doesn’t live according to what he knows theologically. He lives in a pretend world where he can run and hide and not be found. But listen, the mercy of God will not let Jonah keep on pretending. He will not let Jonah continue to try and run and hide.
The Great Storm
He won’t let Jonah continue to disobey. God’s love for Jonah caused the Lord to send the great storm. Verse 4, but the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea. So as Jonah tries to run from the presence of the Lord, God hurls a storm. That word hurled is better translated throw. Like a spear in battle being thrown at enemies, God literally threw a severe storm at Jonah. Now there are two ways to see this scenario. You can see God throwing this storm at Jonah predominantly as God’s punishment. I mean, after all, Jonah obviously disobeyed God. He could get what he deserves. Tim Keller says this, if Jonah refuses to go into the great city, then he will go into a great storm. And to some degree, God throwing this storm at Jonah is God’s discipline. But punishment is not God’s primary reason. It’s God’s mercy.
It’s God’s mercy. What lies underneath this calamity is God’s compassion. God sovereignly sends this storm to stop Jonah in his sin, to capture him, to correct him, because the Lord cares so deeply for Jonah. You see, Jonah’s disobedience and Jonah’s running from God was only going to hurt him. So God rescues Jonah from himself and from his poor decisions. Now I want to be clear, this doesn’t mean that every difficulty or storm that we face is because of some disobedience in your life. That’s not true. But it does mean that if you are God’s child, then he will go to great lengths to draw you back to the path of obedience and human flourishing if there is disobedience. Hebrews 12, 6 says, for the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastens every son whom he receives. Like a good parent raising children, the end of discipline is not merely compliance.
I have to say that to myself all the time. Discipline is not for just compliance. It’s for safety. It’s for joy. It’s for flourishing, and it’s for love. It’s hard to understand this, but this is often how God works. We usually don’t see the beauty in difficulties or the purpose of storms. But eventually, if we are God’s children, we will see the mercy of God in whatever he sends to correct us, to conform us, to change our hearts, and to draw us in to deeper degrees of love for God. Jonah was on a path of disobedience, destruction, and death, but God threw a great storm at Jonah. The word of the Lord came to Jonah to go to Nineveh, but Jonah fled. Jonah went down to Joppa. Jonah paid the fare. Jonah went down into the ship. Jonah set course for Tarshish. Jonah did the exact opposite of what God called him to do.
Jonah disobeyed God, but God intervened. The greatest words fallen humanity has ever heard but God. Brothers and sisters, these two words perfectly capture the weight of God’s mercy. Ephesians 2, 1 through 5 says,
and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. Following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved.
— Ephesians 2
(ESV)
Brothers and sisters, this is God’s mercy.
The very thing Jonah had so easily forgotten and had no desire to proclaim to the city of Nineveh, Jonah now receives. Jonah’s disobedience to a righteous and just God, listen, deserves divine judgment. Because God is holy, to disobey a holy God deserves God’s righteous judgment. But God showed him mercy in the form of a storm. Through the storm, God is chasing after Jonah, and as a result, Jonah is beginning to remember what mercy feels like. The songwriter Jess Rae, in her song, Runaway, perfectly captures the heart of God who chases after runaways like us and like Jonah. She writes, I can see it in your eyes that you’re going to run. I can hear it in the way that you speak to me that you’re going to leave. So as you slip away, I will say. As you pack your things, I will sing. Even if you run away from me, over the mountains, through the valleys, I will not rest but search
But God
east and west to bring you back to me. Even if you sail from me, across the oceans and the seas, I will move again like the mighty wind to blow you back to me. The storm and its mighty winds is the sovereign move of God’s miraculous mercy, of his mysterious mercy. Can I ask you this morning, dear Christian, are you running away from God? Are you hiding from God because you’ve done things or because you’ve thought things that you think are so bad that God couldn’t possibly forgive you? Listen, there is nothing God cannot forgive. I want to let you know, dear runner, that God is right there running with you. He is chasing and he’s also chastening. And hopefully you’ve seen in his text this morning that God definitely is more patient than punitive. He is merciful and if you turn to him, he will forgive you.
Maybe you’re here this morning and you’ve completely forgotten what mercy feels like, what it looks like and what it tastes like, and in so doing, you’ve made a pattern of looking at the people in our city with disdain, judgment and contempt. Maybe you’ve even called out to God, send your wrath right now on the city of Portland. Remember his mercy this morning through his inspired word and let the character of God change the way you see people who are lost in the pit and in desperate need of mercy and call out to them to repent, declare the beautiful message of forgiveness of sins that you yourself have received through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And to the non-Christians who are here this morning, are you longing for mercy? Do you want mercy? Have you come to recognize through God’s word this morning that your pattern of life is
an offense to a holy God? Are your sinful choices becoming the death of you? Listen, they will ultimately be the death of you, an eternal death. Your sin deserves God’s perfect justice, but you can have mercy this morning through Jesus Christ. On the cross, Jesus took the perfect judgment. He took the punishment that you deserved for your sins against a holy God so that you could experience the mercy of God through the sacrifice of his son, Jesus. You can trust in Jesus Christ this morning for the forgiveness of sins. Believe that Jesus is who he says he is. He will forgive you of your sins and he will make you new because he’s a merciful God. Let’s pray. Our father and our God, your word has been a mirror. We are all over the pages of this story. We were your enemies, but you displayed mercy to us.
We have often run from you, but in your mercy, you have chased after us. I pray, God, that you would help us to see your loving and correcting hand as you pursue wayward runners. Help us, father, to be a congregation who are agents in the ministry of mercy, that we would be quick to look at our dying world and extend to them life through Jesus Christ. May we never be the kind of people who look at those who are in the pit with disdain and self-righteousness. Change our hearts, oh God, and correct us through your spirit and through your word. We pray these things in Christ’s name. Thanks for joining us for this week’s sermon from Trinity Church in Portland, Oregon. If you’d like to learn more about us, you can visit our website at www.trinityportland.com.