Resisting Open Doors - Part 2

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. They matter to God. Conservative people and liberal people, Muslims and Atheists and New Age people, every color of skin, Asian people, Hispanic people, Caucasian people, African American people, gay people, old people. People matter to God, every one of them.

I wonder how many of us really act like Jonah. I wonder how many of us would really resist going through an open door because we do not want to minister to people we don't like. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt.

Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. God takes the context of storms and testimony and so often brings a loss to Him. What do you think is a storm is a door. I wonder if Chuck Colson would have ever had the ministry ahead if he wasn't in prison. Oh, that's a terrible thing, not in the long run. Or how about Helen Keller?

Or how about Shawna Eareckson-Tada? Your life's a storm. How has God used that? You see, so often what you consider this storming, you're so spiritually blind to the doors that all you think about is this is just awful, this is just terrible, this is just awful.

Yes, it is. What an opportunity you have in the context of a storm of your life for God to use you in an immeasurably great way, in a way you could not possibly imagine. When God opens doors for us to serve Him and His kingdom, we often allow fear to hold us back, other options to hold us back, spiritual blindness to hold us back, and an unrealistic sense of guilt or inadequacy to hold us back.

What is Jonah thinking in this context? I'm a failure. I'm disobedient.

I have nothing to say. I know what God wanted. I know what God's was in my life, but I didn't do it. You see, he's resigned himself to his own inadequacy and his own guilt. You see, again, look at verse 11 and 12, they said, What should we do for the sea to calm? And he said to them, Pick me up, throw me into the sea, then the sea will become calm for you. For I know that on account of me, this great storm has come upon you. What's he thinking?

He's thinking this. This will be the end of the story. I am such a disappointment. This is how you end a story. Throw me overboard. I will drown. That's it. My life's ending. You see, that's what he is thinking. I have no adequacy now to do anything to help anybody. It's an amazing scene, a terrifying superstorm, terrified sailors, a runaway prophet, a sinking boat. And then calmness.

We do that so often. You see, so many of us have so many other kind of restrictions or difficulties, and we keep thinking, well, God won't use him. He's not going to use me. Not now, not in my past, not with my health, not how old I am, not how young I am. Whatever it is, there's a sense of inadequacy or guilt, and it's like, well, God can't really use me now. That's never the case.

Don't let an unrealistic sense of guilt or inadequacy hold you back. It says in verse 17, the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah. And he said, Jonah was in the stomach of the fish for three days and three nights. This is the famous part of the story, kind of.

By the way, there's probably no way it's a whale. OK, I know that we like to say that. In fact, I don't know if there's anything here that's natural. The key word in this whole chapter is great. This is all great stuff.

This is God at work. It's a great city of Nineveh. It's a great storm, so great that experienced sailors say we're all going to die.

A great wind. The sailors then had great, same Hebrew word, fear. And now you have a great fish. And this fish, it says in the English, it says that it was appointed. The Hebrew word's almost like that, but it means commissioned.

It's kind of an interesting word. It's usually what a king does to like an ambassador. I commission you to go to that country and represent me. So God commissions a great fish.

How'd that work? Hey, fish, this is God. Yes, Lord, go pick up Jonah. But this is really important.

Swallow, don't chew. He said, and then I'll tell you where and when to drop him off. Got it, Lord. So Jonah finally is now going to pray. And then Jonah prayed to the Lord, his God, from the stomach of the fish. And he said, I called out of my distress to the Lord, and he answered me.

I cried for help from the depth of Sheol. You heard my voice. And he said, and you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas. And the current engulfed me, and all your breakers and billows passed over me. And so I said, I have been expelled from your sight.

Nevertheless, I will look again to your holy temple. Water encompassed me to the point of death. The great deep engulfed me.

Weeds were wrapped around my head. I descended to the roots of the mountains, to the earth, with its bars, was around me forever. You have brought my life up in the pit. Oh, Lord, my God, while I was fainting away, I remember the Lord, and my prayer came to you. In your holy temple, those who regard vain idols forsake their faithfulness. But I will sacrifice to you with the voice of thanksgiving. He says, that which I have vowed I will pay. Salvation is from the Lord. He's an eloquent guy. This guy's good. I don't know what it would be like to be in a fish for three days, but this is quite a prayer.

But you might not realize something. When God said, rise and go to Nineveh, what didn't Jonah do? He didn't pray.

It says he took off. You see, sometimes when God opens a door for us to serve him and his kingdom, we allow the lack of prayer to hold us back. We don't pray.

Now Jonah is. He's praying. And it's a great prayer. You know, sometimes God can put you in a place where there's nothing you can do but pray. Sometimes you really have to hit the bottom, and that's in case for Jonah, before you look up.

Jonah finally gets it. That which I have vowed I will pay. Salvation is from you. And one of my favorite verses in the whole story. And then the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto the land. Love that. Big spiritual moment here in vomit.

Hebrew words more graphic, kawach. Almost sounds like you're going to vomit, like a gag reflex, kawach. He just vomits him. And now he's on the land.

And you know, there's a principle here, by the way, often after you vomit, you feel better. And certainly Jonah did. So now he says, OK, let's do this again. Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, Arise and go to Nineveh, the great city, and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you. And so Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord.

And now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days walk across Nineveh, an enormous city. He's there. He's ready to do it. He finally went the right way. That happens to us so often.

No, no, no, no, no, no, maybe, OK, I'll do it. That's what happens with Jonah. But there's something else now, one last thing. When God opens the door for us to serve him and his kingdom, we often allow fear to hold us back. We often allow all the options we have to hold us back. We allow our spiritual blindness to not even see the door. We have an unrealistic sense of guilt or inadequacy, and that holds us back. A lack of prayer can hold us back as well.

But ultimately, that may be the most important thing, it's a lack of love that holds us back. That's what really does it. Verse four. And then Jonah began to go through the city one day's walk, and he cried out with a loud voice, yet 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown. This might be the worst sermon ever preached.

That's it. Now, you just saw him in Chapter two praying. This is an eligible man. This is a prophet.

He's a wordsmith. Forty days and you guys get it. Now, that's reluctance. I did it, Lord.

I just told him 40 days, they get it. Shock. And then the people of Nineveh believed in God and they called a fast, and they put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. And when the word reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe, covered himself in sackcloth and set on ashes.

And he issued a proclamation that said in Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his nobles, do not let man, beast, herd or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat or drink water. But both man and beast must be covered in sackcloth. Think of the logistics of this. Get them, get them. Don't let them drink water.

Cover them in sackcloth. I mean, just imagine what this whole scene was like in this huge city. It's an enormous city. And the king is decreed and everybody feared the king of the Assyrian empire. He said, Let men call on God. God says earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands. Who knows? Now you see his motive. Who knows? God may turn and relent and withdraw his burning anger so that we shall not perish.

He's trying to save his skin, just like the sailors and the skin of all of his people. God saw their deeds and that they turned from their wicked way and then God relented concerning the calamity, which he had declared he would bring upon them. And he did not do it. Wow. What success. He never would have dreamed this in a million years. Now watch how Jonah responds. But it greatly displeased Jonah. And he became. Angry. He prayed to the Lord this time and said this.

Please, Lord. Was this not what I said while I was still my own country? He says, Therefore, in order to forestall this, I fled to Tarshish. For I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God and slow to anger and abundant love and kindness and one who relents concerning calamity. Therefore, now, O Lord, please take my life from me. Death is better than to see this.

What's he saying? I hate these people. And I just knew you're just the kind of God that would end up saving people like this. God is a work in the Muslim world.

You can read it in so many different accounts. He is very much a work in the country of Iran. It's astounding how many Iranians are coming to Christ.

And from my perspective, I see no joy in the Christian community at all. None. Oh, we hate them. Wow. John Ortberg says this. He said, God doesn't look at the categories the way I do and think. He said, the way I see it, people in this category, they're my kind of people.

And I like those kinds of people. But people in that category over there, he said, I can let go of them without much pain at all. He said, but the problem is people matter to God, depressed people, educated people, divorced people, people with different politics from yours. They matter to God, conservative people and liberal people, Muslims and atheists and New Age people.

Every color of skin, Asian people, Hispanic people, Caucasian people, African-American people, gay people, old people. People matter to God, every one of them. I wonder how many of us really act like John.

I wonder how many of us would really resist going through an open door because we do not want to minister to people we don't like. When we act like this, God is not pleased. The Lord said, do you have good reason to be angry? And then Jonah went up from the city and said east of it, and he made a shelter for himself and said under the shade until he could see what would happen to the city.

He was hoping against hope that it would still kill all these people. And so the Lord appointed a plant and it grew up over Jonah to get shade for his head and to deliver him from this discomfort. And Jonah was really happy about that. He got a plant that's giving him shade.

He doesn't have to worry about a bad sunburn. He's got his plant and now he's happy. These people coming to God made him angry, he wanted to die.

My favorite part of the story in this sense of the greatness of God. And God appointed a worm when dawn came the next day and it attacked a plant and withered. That's a great worm. Everyone's impressed with the fish, but think of the worm.

I guess it a worm like what is it? But God appointed it just like he did the fish. Same word commissioned it. And it came about when the sun came up and God appointed a scorching east wind and the sun beat down on Jonah's head so that he became faint and he begged with all his soul to die. I can't take this sun.

It's so hot. Death is better to me than life. And God said to Jonah. Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?

And he said, I have good reason to be angry even to the point of death. And then the Lord said, you had compassion on a plant for which you did not work, he said, and which you did not cause the grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. He said, should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know the difference between their right hand and their left, as well as many animals. Most people believe most Hebrew scholars don't know the right hand from their left means children. One hundred and twenty thousand children, which mean the city was probably right around six hundred thousand. Which would be pretty much what archaeologists thought of Nineveh and its heyday.

That's a big city. See what God's doing here. He's saying, Jonah. You care about you. I care about people.

Nothing's changed. You see, when you resist going through opening doors, guard doors, God has opened for you. What you're really saying to God is I care about me. I don't really care about people. And you can have all kinds of reasons.

You could have the fear of it, that ministry, where it's at, what it require of you. That'll hold you back. You have other options. I'm too busy. I have things to do.

They're important things for me. That'll hold you back. You'll be so blind you don't even see it as a door. You can have an unrealistic sense of guilt. Oh, if you knew my past, God won't use me. Or inadequacy.

You know, I'd like to, but I really can't do those kind of things very well at all. Often you just let a lack of prayer hold you back. But they almost all get put together under the last and most important category. It's a lack of love. It's a lack of love for God and love for man. Jesus said there's nothing more important than that. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and your neighbors yourself.

Closing observations. Just a couple. You know, what Jonah teaches me, sometimes if you would just walk through the door. And if you even did it with a little faith and a stinking attitude. You might be surprised how greatly God will use it.

You see, God used Jonah in spite of Jonah, not because of Jonah. Same thing is true with you and me. And one last thing. This book has a weird ending. You think, wait, there's got to be more. I mean, we got a we got a guy sitting on a hillside.

Who's unhappy with the sun. Try to think about that and ask my question, why? Because I don't think this is about Jonah.

God didn't. He's like an artist here. God doesn't want this to be a story just about Jonah.

That's why he leaves it hanging. This is a story about you. See, this is a story about me.

That's what this is a story of. And somebody close by saying this. There's a door out there. With your name on it.

And it's open. What are you going to do? Let's pray. Father, I thank you for the book of Jonah. The most convicting thing to me, Father, as I read page after page of Jonah, I see myself. Not in his situation.

Not in a storm. Not trying to find my way to Nineveh. But you know what, Father, I think for all of us.

You open a door and say go to Nineveh and we have some way that we decide not to go and we want to go to Tarshish. Father, I want to encourage every one of us. That if we would simply respond to you with faithful obedience. I think all of us would be amazed at what you might accomplish through us. Father, I pray that we examine our own hearts and say what is holding us back from serving you and your kingdom. That you convict us where we need convicted. In Christ's name.

Amen. That's oneplace.com and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online. At that website you will find not only today's broadcast but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org.

That's fbcnola.org. At our website you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for you can listen online or if you prefer you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember you can do all this absolutely free of charge. Once again our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.