Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Jonah 3:1-5,10
Pastor: Pastor Berg
Sermon Date:  January 24. 2021

Of all the miracles recorded in the Bible, which one is the greatest? That’s kind of an unanswerable question, isn’t it? It’s like debating the greatest world leader of all time or the greatest invention of all time. There’s really not a right answer. Some could argue  the day when the sun “stood still,” others when Moses parted the Red Sea, still others the raising of Lazarus from the dead. We could keep listing miracles until the cows come home, but we’re never going to get a definitive answer. 

What about in the story of Jonah? Surely, we can find the greatest miracle in this story, right? It’s rather obvious, isn’t it? The whole reason most people know about Jonah is because of the great miracle that involved him. And what’s the miracle? Jonah is thrown overboard and swallowed whole by a great fish, inside which Jonah spends three days and then gets spit out on dry land, perfectly fine. There’s really no debate on this one…or is there? 

While there’s certainly no debate that Jonah’s adventure inside the fish is the most remembered of the miracles recorded in this short book, I would argue that it’s not the greatest. The greatest miracle in the book of Jonah is what happens after Jonah gets out of the fish. It’s what happens when: “the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: “Get up. Go to Nineveh, the great city, and preach to it the message that I tell you.” So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh just as the word of the Lord had commanded.”

If Google existed back then and you searched Nineveh, you’d have found entries like this: “Nineveh: Money Magazine’s top place to live in the 700’s B.C.” “Nineveh: the ancient world’s New York City, on steroids.” “Nineveh: more power grubbers per capita than Washington D.C.” Nineveh was a power hungry, money chasing, culture creating city. And while we might have to guess what the world’s headlines would have been for Nineveh, we don’t have to guess how God felt about it. Straight from the Bible, God said, “Nineveh: the city of blood,” “Nineveh: the city of lies, the city of plunder, the city never without victims.” Nineveh was a nasty, sinful place. 

Not to mention that these nasty, sinful people were special enemies of Israel. As much as American’s have loathed ISIS and Al-qaeda, Israel had much worse feelings about Nineveh, and for good reason. Nineveh was more powerful and in some ways even more evil than modern terrorists. So when God tells Jonah to head for Nineveh, and preach the Word to them, you can understand why Jonah, Israel’s prophet, is shocked and troubled. You can understand why he ran away the first time. However, after he came out of the fish, “Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: “Get up. Go to Nineveh, the great city, and preach to it the message that I tell you.” So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh just as the word of the Lord had commanded.”

And what was the message that God had Jonah proclaim?    “Now Nineveh was a great city to God. It required a three-day walk. Jonah walked through the city for a day, and he called out, “Forty more days and Nineveh is going to be overthrown!”

How many lunatic “preachers” do you think there are in New York City screaming about the end of the world? Isn’t that what you think of when you hear about Jonah walking the streets of Nineveh? Wouldn’t you expect him to get the same reception? Think about it. What’s the likelihood of anyone from Nineveh listening to a Jewish prophet predicting the overthrow of their great and mighty city? At best, Jonah would be lucky if everyone ignored him or laughed at him or called him crazy. At worst, he wouldn’t leave the city alive.

But that’s where this story flips the script. That’s where the Hidden Glory is Revealed. You can hardly believe what you read in verse 5. “The men of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least.” In what can only be described as a miracle, these horrible, nasty, sinful people listened to Jonah. And not only that, they believed what God was telling them through him. And not only that, but their belief, which again can only be described as an unimaginable miracle, prompted them to actions associated with sadness and mourning. They didn’t eat. They put on the mourners clothes. They showed by word and deed that they had taken the Word of the LORD to heart.

But perhaps, that’s not even the greatest of the miracles. Listen to what God does. “When God saw their actions, that they had turned from their evil way, God relented from the disaster which he said he would bring on them, and he did not carry it out.”  It sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? The movie writers wouldn’t take a script like this. It’s not realistic, even by Hollywood standards. Yet this is reality. This is truth. This is the Hidden Glory Revealed. This is the Hidden Glory of Repentance.

Take a moment and picture the worst sinner you can think of. Got that picture in your mind? Is it a self-portrait? It really should be. Too often in this life, we are told that everyone is good and everyone has “ good” in them. We’re encouraged to think highly of ourselves, to raise up our self-esteem. At worst, we’re just a little rough around the edges and with a little refining, a little self-control, a little will-power, a little nip here and tuck there, we’ll be the good people. But that’s not the truth. Everyone is not good. Everyone does not have good in them. God tells us in his Word that there is no good thing residing in us, that is in our sinful nature. There is no one who is good, not even one! We are 100% sinful and will always be that way. That’s the truth. We may look around at our world and what happens in our own community, in the bigger cities and faraway nations of the world and somehow think we are better than them. There’s no way we could be compared to Nineveh, right? Right?

You know that’s not right. We’re just like Nineveh. In our sinful nature, we’re just like Nineveh. We’re power hungry, money chasing, God avoiding sinners–just like Nineveh. And anyone who tells you differently is lying. And that’s why God has sent his Word into our lives. For just like Nineveh, the Word reveals it’s Hidden Glory in Repentance. Just like Nineveh, when you hear the Word of God, you’re cut to the heart by God’s Law. You know your sins. You know what you deserve–an eternity in hell–and it scares you to death. You are genuinely sorry for your sins, for your unfaithfulness to God, for your apathy towards his Word, for your indifference for his work. But God’s Word not only cuts, it heals. And so, just like Nineveh, you hear the Word of God that says, “I forgive you all of your sins because of Jesus.” And just like Nineveh, you are moved by God’s unbelievable mercy to say thank you to him. Empowered by God’s love, you sing your hymns of praise, you dedicate your lives to serving God wherever he has placed you, you do your best to make his Word a part of your everyday life, to make his work a priority. 

That’s the Hidden Glory of Repentance. It helps you to overcome your sinful nature. But friends, this is a daily struggle. Paul has some strong words in Romans chapter 7. “So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is present with me. I certainly delight in God’s law according to my inner self, but I see a different law at work in my members, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me captive to the law of sin, which is present in my members.”  You are at war! This isn’t a lover’s spat. This is war. If you try to deal with your sinful nature as a reclamation project or a rehabilitation case, you’re going to lose every time. Your sinful nature can’t be reformed, it can’t be rehabilitated. There’s only one way to death with your sinful nature. It’s to drown it. It’s to drown it with daily sorrow over your sins, with daily trust in God’s forgiveness. It’s to beat it to death with the promises found in God’s Word. 

Jesus once said in Matthew, “An evil and adulterous generation wishes for a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah the prophet. For just as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish for three days and three nights, 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 in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. But one even greater than Jonah is here.” 

 The greatest miracle in this whole story is the mercy of God in calling Nineveh to repentance through the preaching of Jonah. Friends, it’s no less a miracle that God in his mercy calls you to repentance through the preaching of his Word. In fact, it’s just as great a miracle. Each and every week, we overcome our sinful nature when we listen to God’s Word, when we confess our sins and trust in the forgiveness of the one greater than Jonah. In view of that great miracle, in view of that undeserved love, in view of God’s incredible mercy, let’s emulate those people of Nineveh by showing fruits of repentance. Instead of fasting, let’s feast on the bread of Life, the Word of God, by making worship and Bible Study a priority. Instead of sackcloth, let’s put on the armor of God to defend against every attack the devil, the world, and our sinful nature will fire against us. Let’s show our thankfulness to God by supporting his work with our time and our talents and our first-fruit offerings. And let’s emulate Jonah, who though at first was unwilling, listened to the Lord and shared the Word with those who desperately needed to hear it. Let’s invite more and more to witness one of the greatest miracles they will ever see! Let’s offer them the only thing that will help them to overcome their sinful nature, the Word of God, the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ! Amen.