Jonah 3:1-5,10
1 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Go to the great city of
Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”3 Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. 4 Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” 5 The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.
10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.
God’s Unchanging Grace Changes Lives
I want you to think back on your most recent or your biggest regret.
What would you have given to have a second chance to make things right? To be able to swallow the words that so carelessly came out of your mouth? To take back the actions inspired by anger or frustration? To seize that rare opportunity that you watched slip through your fingers?
Second chances are about as rare as they are precious. When you score an all-too-elusive do-over it’s enough to change your whole outlook on life. It gives you new hope and a soothed conscience. It makes you feel that all is right in the world.
So, imagine being told by God to go to Nineveh and preach the Gospel there, i.e. to reach out to your sworn political enemy in an attempt to spare them from the destruction that they fully deserve; to be an agent of mercy to your cruel and barbaric neighbor to the North.
It’s not hard to understand why Jonah ran away. He didn’t want God’s grace to come to these people. He wanted God’s wrath to come to them, and, if I’m completely honest, I don’t know that I would have responded any differently. Would you run to the defense of people you don’t respect, people you actively despise? Or would you find sick delight in your opponents’ demise?
So, imagine that you’re Jonah, and in your distaste for the mission that God gave you and in your fear that God might actually be gracious to your enemy and spare them, you charter a boat to take you as far away from Nineveh as humanly possible. Only, one night, a squall hits – not unlike the squall we had this last week – a storm so severe that the seasoned sailors you hired to man the ship have given up all hope and have turned to whatever superstition or religion might offer them the miracle that they need to survive.
As you see them helplessly flailing for hope, you feel your conscience pricked. You know where to go for help, but it’s hard to pray to God to come to your aid when you’re in the process of running away from him. And then it hits you: this is no ordinary storm. This is an act of God’s judgment against you. The wrath you wanted God to visit on your enemies had come knocking on your door because of your willful rebellion against your gracious God. And now you’ve put these otherwise innocent sailors in harm’s way because of your sin. So you do the only honorable thing left – you have them throw you into the sea, so that God’s wrath can be satisfied and so that they can be spared.
If it gave you any sense of satisfaction to think of your selfless sacrifice for the sake of those sailors, you better believe those warm-and-fuzzies got cold-and-prickly quickly when you realized that there was a fish in the water big enough to swallow you whole, when you felt the rush of water pulling you into its gaping mouth, where, in what may be the cruelest twist of fate to date, you survive. Inside an animal. In the depths of the sea. In complete darkness. With nothing but your thoughts. With nothing but your guilt. With nothing but an aching regret that you didn’t listen to God.
Can you imagine the pangs of conscience? You know regret. Every one of us does. But has any of us known regret like that? Has any of us craved the mercy of God like that? So, imagine, after three days of nothing but darkness and regret, seeing the light of day again. Who cares what vile way you might have gotten out of that fish, or what unsightly stretch of land you may have been spat up on? God’s mercy had come! Here was your second chance!
They may have sounded mundane/routine when you first heard them this morning, but listen with new ears to the start of Jonah chapter 3: “Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: ‘Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.’”
God had given Jonah a second chance to go to Nineveh to give them a second chance. The same grace that God showed to his reluctant rebellious prophet, he now extended to the wicked and immoral capital city of Assyria – a people and a place known for unspeakable abominations, but a people and place loved by God nonetheless.
Scripture is full of second chances. God’s Word is replete with his grace. It’s written on every page! Jonah’s message to the Ninevites may sound like doomsday hysteria, but when he said, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown,” he struck a perfect balance between God’s Law and his Gospel.
On the one hand, the Ninevites, like Jonah, had done things worthy of God’s wrath. Hence the threat of destruction. On the other hand, God sent Jonah to issue this threat and to give even these wicked and immoral people hope that God could and would relent if they would just repent.
And miracle of miracles, what did they do? “The Ninevites believed God,” and were saved! An entire city in a single day! What grace! What undeserved love! The miracle of God saving Jonah by keeping him in the belly of a fish for three days has nothing on the miracle of God saving 120,000 Ninevites in a single day through his Gospel promise.
Brothers and sisters, that same Law and Gospel applies to you too. Maybe you don’t live in the most cruel and barbaric city known to modern civilization, but the same sin that corrupted Nineveh lives on in you. The same sin that caused Jonah to rebel against a direct command of God beats in your heart and pumps through your veins.
Every time that you knowingly contradict one of God’s Commandments, you are no better (and no less foolish) than Jonah trying to flee from the Lord. Every time that you choose to satisfy your own desires, rather than to satisfy God’s will, you are just as wicked and immoral as the pagan Ninevites. Like Jonah, your rebellion deserves God’s wrath. Like the Ninevites, your depravity warrants eternal destruction. The sins of this world and the sins of our hearts do not change. The penalty for those sins does not change. But the good news is that God’s grace doesn’t change either.
God has given you a second chance too. Not by sending Jonah to you, but by sending Jesus for you. Rather than giving you the punishment that you deserve, God placed that penalty squarely on the shoulders of your Saviour when he lifted him up on a cross to die for your sins. Rather than forsaking you when you turn your back on him, God forsook his Son to death. And just as Jonah was as good as dead in the belly of the fish for three days, so Jesus lay lifeless in the grave for three days.
But, miracles of miracles, Jesus did not stay there. You thought Jonah felt relief when he emerged from that fish after three days? Imagine the relief of knowing that death could not hold your Saviour in the grave after three days! What am I saying? You don’t have to imagine that. That’s what happened! That’s what God’s Word tells you. That’s what God’s grace does for you. It buries your sin and guilt and regret with Jesus and it leaves it there. Then it raises Christ to new life as a guarantee that you too will not be in the grave forever, but you, like Jesus, will live again and will live eternally in the home of your God of unchanging grace.
God has given you a second chance. What are you going to do with it? Jonah finally did what he was supposed to do in the first place. He fulfilled the commission that God had given him to share God’s grace with those who were 40 days away from eternal damnation, and the Ninevites were eternally thankful for it. Jonah set aside his political convictions and spent himself sharing God’s compassion.
Are there political enemies who need you to share God’s grace with them? Are there people you see as your enemies or as dangers to the world? Have you engaged in heated debate with them or in smear campaigns against them, rather than seeing them as sinners that God wants to be saved too? Then maybe you need to repent before you tell them to.
But when you do, rejoice, because we have a God who has given us a second chance. He has shown us his forgiving love in Jesus. He has washed our sins away and gives you new opportunities every day to bring his grace to others. So, don’t run away. Look for a way to share God’s unchanging, yet life-changing grace to the people in your sphere of influence. Maybe it’s not Nineveh. Maybe it’s your neighbour down the street. Maybe it’s that person who always seems to pick a fight with you on Facebook. Don’t fight back. Don’t let politics define the way you look at other people. Let God’s grace do that.
Just as he forgave Jonah and gave him a second chance to do what was right; just as he forgave the Ninevites and enlivened to live for him – so too does God’s grace work in you, forgiving your sin because of Jesus, and empowering you to respond to his grace with faith in love, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Amen.