The Pastor’s Pen

Jonah is possibly the worlds’ best-known Bible character story, with an unwilling prophet running from a determined God. There’s a giant fish happy to swallow human flesh, and a massive enemy city with a long and violent history which surprisingly turns in repentance to God. It has the making of a great movie and you can read it all in 4 short chapters of Jonah. Intertwined throughout this story are the extreme attitudes and behaviours which typify humanity. However, for today, it’s the later part of the story that interests me, as we watch God and Jonah both expose their innermost heart affections.

From the outset, the Lord knew how this episode would play out, with nothing taking Him by surprise. Irrespective of Jonah’s belligerent attitude, the Lord remained faithful to His mission for the salvation of sinful Nineveh and the sanctification of a wonky prophet.  Despite Jonah’s’ turbulent start, he did eventually carry through with the evangelistic mission to Nineveh, even though under duress.

Having survived three days and nights in the dark acetic belly of a smelly fish, Jonah is projectile vomited across the beach onto dry land (Jonah 2:10). Having poured out his heart to God in prayer from within the fish’s digestive juices, Jonah is beached with no prophetic response from the Lord (Jonah 2:1-9). Then, Jonah is confronted by the Lord with the same instruction for the second time; “arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you” (Jonah 3:2).

Jonah had the opportunity of a lifetime with the protection of Jehovah. He walks the one-day journey into Nineveh proclaiming the coming judgement (Jonah 3:4). He then witnessed the largest and quickest revival this world has ever seen (Jonah 3:5-9). Yet this “displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry” (Jonah 4:1). He moaned, indignant that God acted graciously toward his enemies, as he knew God would (Jonah 4:3). “For I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster” (Jonah 4:2). Jonah was one seriously conflicted prophet.

To start with, Jonah’s belief in God somehow permitted deliberate gross disobedience. Yet, he also knew the Lord well enough to accurately predict God’s gracious response to his bloodthirsty enemies living in Nineveh. Jonah’s poisoned conscience empowered such strong prejudice against the Ninevites that God’s grace was dismissed as irrelevant. His distorted sense of justice battled to overrule God’s sovereign mercy, and he thought that was Okay.

Now, the Lord could have responded differently to Jonah’s attitude, but as is typical of our patient God, He suffered long with Jonah in order to teach him the Saviour’s character. When God challenged Jonah’s self-perceived right to be angry, Jonah replied, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die” (Jonah 4:9). Jonah preferred death to helping in the Ninevites salvation. Jonah was more disturbed by the death of the plant which shaded him, than the coming judgement on Nineveh (Jonah 4:6-7).

Jonah was missing the whole point of this mission. God was saying, “I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000…” people (Jonah 4:11). For sure, God was living out His character; “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy” (Exodus 33:19).

God’s sovereign mercy is supreme, and it’s not for Jonah, or any of us, to challenge or defy His mercy. Just think of the celebration Jonah could have had with the Ninevites, rejoicing over God’s grace. Unlike Jonah, may our belief in the Lord “rejoice and be glad… May those who love your salvation say evermore, ‘God is great!’” (Psalms 70:4).

Belief is a wonderfully unique expression of the inner person. When God’s people engage in God’s work, for God’s purposes, in God’s strength, using God’s Word, ministry happens on a divine level. This is where more meaningful connections happen between the recipients of grace. This is a two-way relational engagement. The discipler gives more, while the disciple opens up to receive more. It’s not superficial, it lacks demands driven by expectations, and it patiently walks in step with whatever the Lord is doing in the other’s life. In this way we “pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding” (Romans 14:19).

While King Joash reigned over Israel in obedience, he conducted much needed repairs on the temple. 2 Chronicles 24:13 explains how “those who were engaged in the work laboured, and the repairing went forward in their hands, and they restored the house of God to its proper condition and strengthened it.” It’s a simple yet powerful observation to make, these workers were not simply employed to do a job. They were personally invested in the mission at large, which was the repair of God’s temple. These workers humbly connected their efforts for the job at hand. They united their desires for the goal of the overall mission. They also synchronised their labour with each other for the purpose of effectively restoring God’s place of worship to being proper and appropriate for Jehovah.

For this to happen, each worker had to place individualistic attitudes in the back seat. Personal desires and goals were surrendered to effectively engage together in God’s work. This would have taken considerable humility on everyone’s part, with preferences being sacrificed. Interlocked together they set to the task, to which God responded by blessing their united efforts so that the work was accomplished in a God honouring way with a God honouring result.

On the flip side, the apostle Paul explained a whole different aspect of believer’s mutual engagement. Inherent in salvation is the believers call to accept suffering for the name of Jesus Christ. As the Philippian believers watched Paul suffering while under house arrest in Rome, he exhorted them to become “engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have” (Philippians 1:30). Christians watching their fellow believers suffering pull together to strengthen, support, and lessen the load.

Difficulties, differences of opinion, and even persecution, are to be entered into with our Christian eyes wide open, looking for ways to unit and embolden each other for Christ. This is how believers engage. They don’t separate or isolate, they step into the trenches of God honouring and painful life together. They support, they share, they encourage, they empathise, they laugh and weep together. Together they explore ways to mutually participate in each other’s lives so that Christ is praised while the world gets to watch a godly testimony of the life changing power of Jesus Christ.

This is one of the greatest privileges and challenges for those born again of the Holy Spirit. Paul said it straight to the hypocritical Corinthians. “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment” (1 Corinthians 1:10). May we choose today, to be those who exercise belief that engages for the blessing of others and the glory of our Great God and Savour Jesus Christ. May God grant us the grace to abandon anything of self which would hold us back from such a lofty calling.

I recall the certainty and conviction of belief I held when entering ministry life at the age of 22. I assumed I understood everything that needed to be understood. I also assumed that my beliefs were the right beliefs, obviously, because they were my only experienced beliefs. My youthful passion was often mistaken for truth, which I was unable to distinguish.

Two realities had yet to flood my young mind. First, God is sovereign, and He is not required to ask my permission before moving me into unimagined events, challenging and stretching my faith. Second, God’s Word is totally authoritative and sufficient, presenting God’s truths in God’s way for all of life’s circumstances. As I discovered my thoughts and priorities not aligning with Gods’, my young faith made many wrong assumptions about the correctness of my beliefs. I had yet to recognise the Holy Spirit’s work of sanctification in this area of my life.

In this regard, the Holy Spirit’s purpose for all believers remains constant, moving each of us “from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Sanctification assures us of “the mercy of God” working within, therefore “we do not lose heart” (2 Corinthians 4:1). Sanctification is never comfortable; it constantly strives to challenge those things we resolve to be unchangeable and expose our heart’s vulnerability to self-deception (Jer 17:9; Pro 28:26).

However, don’t become disheartened when sovereign mercy reaches in to dethrone the idols of your heart (Eze 14:3-5). Realise that idols are by nature liars, determined to retain their position of authority over your thoughts, beliefs, and behaviours. Intertwined within all this is the vulnerable activities of human conscience, which may or may not be speaking biblically correct words.

The apostle Paul speaks to this as he writes to Timothy. He reassures Timothy with truths outside of our normal thinking in times of change or challenge. “Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, ⁹ who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began…” (2 Timothy 1:8-9).

Paul calls Timothy to reject embarrassment and the temptation to distance himself from the Lord’s testimony or from Paul the prisoner. As no doubt Timothy’s emotions were influenced by the opinions of others, he had decisions to make. Procrastination was not to be his luxury. Paul calls Timothy to prioritise his heart with God’s “purpose and grace,” God’s priorities. Poor Timothy, uncomfortable at the thought of going against the challenging people around him, he would need the same deep resolve Paul had (Php 1:12-26).

Timothy was called to walk head on into “suffering for the gospel.” While suffering is foreign to the contemporary gospel of our age, it is normal for the “gospel of God” (Rom 1:1) throughout Scripture. So, Paul tells Timothy that suffering is not to be avoided but shared. This is how “the power of God” could be actuated in both their lives, through unashamed and mutual participation in each other’s lives and ministries for the gospel, regardless of the cost.

Forward to our time, our lives, and our churches, God’s “purpose and grace” remains unchanged. God’s mechanism for releasing His power into serving believers lives also remains unchanged. His Spirit’s goal for sanctification remains unchanged, moving us to a more Christlike mature faith, a humbler faith, and a more other-minded faith.

God’s sovereignty, and the authoritative sufficiency of His Word is put in motion as we unit together in Christ, confident in His “purpose and grace.” Here, there is no shame of each other or of the Lord’s testimony. This, God “gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.”

Believers should expect that God reasons through life’s issues differently. God’s thinking is the opposite of this world’s thinking (Isa 55:8). The world injects fear into people’s lives through media news, Internet conspiracy, social media gossip and slander, governmental controls, and mankind’s own inclination towards fear and suspicion.

Even though Christians know that “God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” (2 Timothy 1:7), our fleshly appetite for negativity challenges Christ’s sufficiency in these matters. Fear produces feelings of separation from God’s power and love, having no relationship with the Holy Spirit. God’s Spirit always works to affirm God’s power and love, which always produces self-control. Anything else is not of God’s Holy Spirit.

Sadly, fear has become fashionable, empowering all kinds of wrong thoughts and behaviours. But in Christ, “there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love” (1 John 4:18). God’s children bow their feelings to the supremacy of God’s love, striving to grow towards His perfection of love within us (2Co 5:14).

Jesus even spoke reassuringly of the fear of martyrdom, “do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul…” (Matthew 10:28). While this world uses the words of people to shift your focus onto the enemy’s ability to hurt you, we rest in the unchallenged and eternal security of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus called His disciples to a belief that conquers inner turbulence, “let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me” (John 14:1). This is big belief in a big God and a mighty Saviour whose relationship with redeemed saints cannot be sabotaged.

Christians are not victims, crippled by those who oppose Jesus. No, “…everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith” (1 John 5:4). Christian faith governs emotions and should focus on Jesus (Heb 3:1), who is the risen and ascended Son of God. There is no-one greater, no-one more powerful, no love more pervading, and no foundation more secure than the Lord Jesus Christ. “Everyone then who hears these words of mine,” Jesus said, “and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. ²⁵ And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock” (Matthew 7:24-25), this rock is Jesus – Hallelujah!

Such belief puts “on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation” (1 Thessalonians 5:8). Worldly thinking should no longer enslave the minds of believers through human arguments which reduce Christ’s redeemed people (Gal 3:13) to being victims. “For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. ⁵ We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).

The apostle John reminds us that “we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He [Jesus] is the true God and eternal life. ²¹Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:18-21). We live in the understanding of things known about Christ, not in the unknown and uncertain speculations of this world. Jesus empowers us to put to death those idols of the heart which speak lies into our emotions and beliefs. Jesus rules all things, and in Him we trust!

God is worthy of the most palatial dwelling place with the most lavish furnishings, overlooking the most majestic scenery, while being surrounded by none but the most mighty and holy creatures. Revelation 21:11 describes such a place, the eternal city, the New Jerusalem, “having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.” Furthermore, “the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb” (Rev 21:23). “Nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false…” (Rev 21:27). Heaven is God’s most spectacular dwelling place, providing for full and unhindered exhibition of the His multi-faceted glories.

We also understand from Scripture that God is “Holy, holy, holy” (Isaiah 6:3), unparalleled in His perfections of purity, love, power, knowledge, and supremacy. He, being the standard of holiness, is incompatible with anything or anyone which is less than holy. He consistently reveals Himself as “the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite’” (Isaiah 57:15). What an astonishing contrast. Although God is unapproachably holy, He graciously humbles Himself to come close to sinful people who have a contrite heart attitude toward Him. These lowly in spirit people are the ones of interest to Jehovah.

The purpose for God coming to dwell with such people is to revive their spirit and heart. But why some may ask? Since the person is already humble, what more do they need? The answer is that they need God’s own righteousness, His holiness imbedded within them to make them acceptable to Holy God. That’s what humble yet sinful people need. Only then can they be an acceptable dwelling place for the Lord.

The Hebrew word Isaiah uses for ‘revive,’ basically means to ‘give life.’ Taking the spiritual heart which is dead because of sin He gives it spiritual life. This regeneration of the dead spirit, giving first time spiritual life, is wholly the work of God. The sinner has no roll to play other than being contrite, which means being broken and crushed before a holy God over sin (Psa 51:13-17).

In the New Testament, we see the ultimate fulfilment of this through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Those who were “dead in trespasses and sins,” who were “following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:1-2), God “made alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:5).

Despite a sinner’s unworthiness, God responds to their faith in Christ. For “it is God who establishes us… in Christ…  ²² and has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee” (2 Corinthians 1:21-22). The once dead heart is regenerated through the life breathing ministry of God the Holy Spirit, who seals and guarantees the reborn sinners’ position in Christ, appointing a new heavenly destination. The heart, which was once a grave, is now a living dwelling place (temple) of the Holy One (1Co 3:16). Hallelujah!

Jesus words remain true, “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6). True and lasting contentment can only be found in Christ, and only once the Holy One steps in with eternal life, bringing His peace and joy. Believers enjoy the most privileged relationship with God through Christ and His Spirit, for which we give Him all the praise. Indeed, our God is a merciful Saviour God by nature.