God Using Sinners to Save Sinners
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Jeffrey Heine:have a bible, I invite you to turn to Jonah chapter 2. While you're returning there, I just wanna express thanks for how you welcomed doctor Thomas Beavers, as he came and preached last week here. He said he thoroughly enjoyed his time here, and and I had a great time at New Rising Star. They were incredibly welcoming, and just so much fun to preach where people actually give you feedback. I'm just gonna throw that out there.
Jeffrey Heine:Alright? That's right. Amen. It's amazing how many times after a sermon people come up to me and say, I just wanted to stand up and just yell amen. Now I'm gonna say, well, you know the people of New Rising Star did.
Jeffrey Heine:They did. Actually, twice in one of the sermons, people stood and they just started clapping. And I was thinking, I could get used to this. I I really could get used to this. But you always have permission here to be more responsive.
Jeffrey Heine:Jonah chapter 2, we're gonna begin in the last verse, chapter 10, and then we're gonna read all of chapter 3. And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah upon the dry land. Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you. So Jonah arose and he went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city.
Jeffrey Heine:3 days journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city going a day's journey, and he called out, yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least. The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes, and issued a proclamation and published throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles.
Jeffrey Heine:Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mighty to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way, and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows God may turn and relent, and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish. When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he said he would do to them, and he did not do it.
Jeffrey Heine:This is the word of the Lord.
Connor Coskery:It is my job. If you
Jeffrey Heine:would pray with me. Father, like we read earlier from Isaiah, May your word go forth and not return void. May your word go forth and accomplish the very thing that you have set out your word to accomplish. We ask that in this place, you would give us hearts of repentance. Hearts that long for you.
Jeffrey Heine:I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but, Lord, your words would remain and they would change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. Alright. So when I was in seminary, I drove a forklift in order to, make ends meet.
Jeffrey Heine:That was that was the only way I could really provide, income. And so I worked in a warehouse for 3 years. During that time, I labeled everything in this warehouse in Greek and in Hebrew. It was my way of getting job security because nobody understood the entire system while I was there. And, and so they needed me.
Jeffrey Heine:And so I got to drive a forklift around and one day, I'm doing this and I had to get things off the top shelf, lower it all the way down, go into the next warehouse, raise it all the way up and do that. And I was doing it over and over again. And then one of the times, I forgot to lower the forklift, as I was driving into the other warehouse. And so, I put a 20 foot hole in the warehouse. I just went through all the cinder block.
Jeffrey Heine:I went through everything. Thankfully, I was not hurt, but the whole building shook. And, and my boss came running in, because how could you not hear what just happened? And I've done 1,000, probably tens of 1,000 of dollars of damage to this place. And he he looks at me.
Jeffrey Heine:He goes, well, just proves you were working. I'm like, okay. And he goes, if you could finish taking that pallet there and just continue working on that, that would be great. And he left. And that's all he ever said to me.
Jeffrey Heine:And I I I couldn't get past his his grace and the mercy he showed to me. And he showed that most by letting me continue the work He had asked me to do. He just asked me to continue on with the task, even though I had literally blown it big time there, and cost him 1,000 of dollars. That's exactly what's happening here in Jonah. In chapter 3, right after God gives Jonah a new lease on life, he then goes so far as to give Jonah a second chance to obey him.
Jeffrey Heine:Despite Jonah's immense failure, God doesn't discard him. God doesn't put him on a shelf, saying you had your chance. Now I'm gonna get Jeremiah. Now I'm gonna get somebody else. He doesn't say that.
Jeffrey Heine:He doesn't say, you know, I rescued you. Okay? I got you rescued, but but I'm not gonna use you anymore. He gives Jonah the exact same task. Chapter 3 begins the exact same way as chapter 1 begins, with the call to Jonah.
Jeffrey Heine:The word of the Lord coming to Jonah. Telling him to go to Nineveh, telling him to call out against it. And once again, you have Jonah rising up, but this time he doesn't flee. This time, he goes to Nineveh. But we need to be realistic here, and we'll find out more about this in chapter 4.
Jeffrey Heine:He still doesn't wanna go. Inwardly, he's still rebelling. He's still seething. This is outward obedience, not an inward obedience. I'm not sure if you noticed this as we were going through his great prayer in chapter 2, but there was one enormous thing that was missing in that prayer.
Jeffrey Heine:As they're as they're going through this prayer, he's, you know, he remembers the Lord. He cries out to the Lord. Yes. He's deeply grateful to the Lord for rescuing him, but he never repents. He never expresses sorrow for his sin.
Jeffrey Heine:He he never asked for forgiveness. And then he's vomited out onto dry land. And so, yes. There's some change that's happening in Jonah, but there's still a lot of inward rebellion here. I mean, let's be honest, what is he supposed to do at this point?
Jeffrey Heine:Go back into the ocean? I mean, he could probably still see the fish swimming around. He's he's not going back in the ocean where God was in another storm. He knows if he goes to the mountains, God would just send a snowstorm. Goes to the deserts, there'd be a sandstorm.
Jeffrey Heine:Like, what is he going to do? He can't flee from God. He knows it. He might as well get it over with. So he goes to Nineveh.
Jeffrey Heine:It makes you just wonder as you're reading this, and I've talked with, a number of you have wondered this, Why exactly is God sending Jonah? I mean, why of all the people, him? I mean, there's there's gotta be a lot of better options out there. I've already mentioned how Amos and Hosea were contemporaries of his. They also preach to the same people the same time.
Jeffrey Heine:And they would have been better. I mean, honestly, you you read Amos, and I would have loved to see Amos go to the Ninevites. He would have been pretty amazing going to that city as he told them to reap a whirlwind. I mean, it would have been fantastic. Or Hosea.
Jeffrey Heine:I mean, he read the first three chapters of Hosea, he would have gladly swapped with Jonah. Alright? He would have loved Jonah's task, instead of what God had called him to do. But God calls Jonah, a sinful, rebellious, racist man to go and to preach to the Ninevites. And this is why, it's because it's because God wants to save more than the Ninevites.
Jeffrey Heine:He's after more than the Ninevites. There are thousands of different ways that God could have saved the Ninevites, but God wanted to save both Jonah and the Ninevites. He was pursuing both of them. If saving Ninevah was all that God wanted to do, then yes, He could've just sent a better prophet. But God was also saving Jonah.
Jeffrey Heine:God was way more interested in Jonah, than what Jonah was supposed to do. Way more interested in Jonah, than what Jonah thought He could do. Thomas Beavers, who, you know, who preached here last week. He, Matt Mason, who's the pastor Brooke Hills, and Alton Hardy, who's pastor, Urban Hope. We're we're in a small group together.
Jeffrey Heine:We we get together often and pray. And on Sundays, we're always texting one another. You know, it's just, we're just constantly, we have to encourage one another, because it's gonna be a long day and we just wanna pray for one another that the Lord would work. And a common text that we often send to one another, is remember, today God has more to do in you, than through you. Remember, that today God has more to do in you, than through you.
Jeffrey Heine:God could literally get thousands of people, different people to come and to preach at your church, but he has called you. Why? Because he wants to change you through this task. He's doing something in you. And hear me, God has more to do in you than through you.
Jeffrey Heine:He he's way more interested in your heart than whatever task he is calling you to do. I mean, do you really think that whatever task it is that God's calling you to do, do you really think that God could not find a thousand other ways to accomplish that task, more likely better than doing it through you? Yes, He can. But He's chosen you, because He wants to change you as He accomplishes this task. He's pursuing you.
Jeffrey Heine:Do you believe that? I once, was talking with a young man who was struggling with whether or not he should go to seminary and go into ministry, And I'm talking with him and, finally, I was like, why do you wanna go into ministry? And he goes, well, because I have a pretty amazing testimony. Because I have amazing testimony. I love getting up in front of people and speaking.
Jeffrey Heine:People like to follow me, and it just really excites me to get up there and do that. I think that if I was a pastor, I could do a lot of damage for the kingdom of God. I was like, wow, you could do damage. You could do damage. But you need to realize God has a lot more to do in you than through you.
Jeffrey Heine:He needs to change your heart. And as he's changing your heart, he's gonna indeed change the hearts of others through that process. And that's what we see here happening in Jonah. So Jonah, he arises and he does go to the Ninevites. There's an outward obedience here.
Jeffrey Heine:Nineveh, if you remember, it's the capital of Assyria. It's a evil, violent people. Archaeologists, they've uncovered documents from this period that describe the extraordinary violence that, this people had. A matter of fact, one time, there's there's a letter we have from one of the kings and how he is boasting about skinning his enemies and impaling them. And so that's that's the type of people that Jonah is called to go out to.
Jeffrey Heine:This isn't you, like, talking to your co worker about Christ. Or you going over to your neighbor and talking to them about Jesus. This would be more like you going to the Middle East, to where ISIS has control and telling them about Jesus. It would be a wicked evil people, and that's where Jonah was sent to go, and he goes. He really has no choice, but he's going.
Jeffrey Heine:And yet despite Nineveh being this evil, evil place, look what we read in verse 3. Verse 3 says this, it says, so Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city. You think, okay. Well I mean, it was great not because of its morals.
Jeffrey Heine:It was great because it was a powerful city. But that's that's not what this phrase means. Some of you might even have a footnote and say saying that it's an exceedingly great city to God. Literally, that's what the translation is. This was a great city to God.
Jeffrey Heine:Despite all of their evil, Despite all of their violence. God loved that city. It was a great city to him. It was dear to his heart. And so he sends Nineveh.
Jeffrey Heine:What you see here, is it doesn't matter how violent you are, how how wicked, how sinful you are. Nothing can overpower God's love for you. God pursues you in His love. And so Jonah, he he enters into this city that God cares about, even though he doesn't care about it, but he enters in there and he cries out against it. And we read all of Jonah's sermon in verse 4.
Jeffrey Heine:Says Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey and he called out, yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Now this is one of the worst sermons I've ever heard in my life. It's it's a mere five words in Hebrew. I've heard bad sermons in my life, during preaching classes at Beeson Divinity School. Some guy, I remember vividly, he got up there.
Jeffrey Heine:He's shaking like a leaf. Communication was not was not his forte by any means. We're trained theologians and we're trying to figure out what he's saying and we could not figure out what he was saying. It got so bad that our preaching professor, mid sermon, got up, stood next to him and just put his arm around him. That's when you know it's bad, but this is worse.
Jeffrey Heine:This is a worse sermon here. Once again, it's it's only 5 words in Hebrew, and it's all gloom and doom. And look what's missing. There's not even a mention of God. I mean, God's not mentioned.
Jeffrey Heine:How the people's sins not mentioned. What they should do in response is not mentioned. How they can repent. And certainly there's not any mention of the possibility that God might forgive them. All of those things are missing.
Jeffrey Heine:He doesn't mention those things because Jonah wants Nineveh to burn. He wants them to be overturned and destroyed. He doesn't believe these people deserve God's mercy. And of course, the irony in all of this, is that just earlier, Jonah was more than happy to receive God's mercy. More than happy.
Jeffrey Heine:But now he just doesn't wanna have to dispense it. He was happy as he could be to be rescued by God when he was rebelling against him, and destruction was being almost on top of him. Oh, he was so happy to be rescued by God then. But to offer that to others? No.
Jeffrey Heine:The theme of this book, some people have said the theme of this book is really the mercy of God. And I would say, that's not the theme. That is a theme and certainly, you do see the mercy of God here. But, I think the theme of this book is, be merciful as your heavenly father is merciful. Or as we just prayed, father, forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Jeffrey Heine:We forgive as we have been forgiven. We show mercy as we have been shown mercy. The theme is to be merciful like our heavenly father is merciful. The picture we have here is this. God's mercy is poured on us.
Jeffrey Heine:It's poured on us to where we are filled to the point that we are spilling over with His mercy. And now God says, now go be with sinners and allow that spilling over of mercy to overflow into them. That's how we live the Christian life. It's an overflow of mercy and grace to the sinners around us. Be merciful, as our heavenly father is merciful.
Jeffrey Heine:Now here's the crazy thing when we're reading this. And I've got to admit that this makes me just a little bit envious of Jonah. Kinda like I'm a little bit of envious that Thomas Beavers gets to preach and people stand up and applaud when he is preaching. But I see people here, They listen to this pathetic sermon, and the entire city repents. Everyone repents, from the greatest to the least of them.
Jeffrey Heine:From the king to the slave. From from the, the government worker down to the janitor. They all repent. Revival sweeps through Nineveh. Even the animals repents.
Jeffrey Heine:I mean come on. Everybody's repenting. Now in the Bible, you you see all of these other faithful prophets and preachers that God raises up to to preach against an evil generation. You see, faithful prophets like Jeremiah, Isaiah, Micah, Amos, Hosea, Ezekiel, all godly men, who faithfully preached God's word, and who had a heart for the people that they preached to. And yet, they never saw any repentance.
Jeffrey Heine:An entire lifetime of faithfully preaching, and they never saw the fruit that Jonah saw in a moment, through preaching one bad sermon. It's crazy. The only time that we see anything like this, anything remotely like this happening in history, is actually at Pentecost. When there's another failure, Peter. Peter who gets up, who who just weeks before, actually denied even knowing Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:I don't even know this man. He he denied Jesus to a little girl, but then he got up to preach after Pentecost, and 1,000 were saved. 1,000 repented and believed in Jesus. But at least there, we had Peter had repented and been restored. But Jonah?
Jeffrey Heine:No. No. It's humbling as we, as a pastor, as I look at what Jonah has done. As I kept reading the story this week, I couldn't help but going back to 1st Corinthians 1. It just The verse just kept popping up in my head, where we read these words.
Jeffrey Heine:But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in this world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in this world. Even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being may boast in the presence of God. And we see Jonah, un Jonah, unwillingly, he's coming to the Ninevites weak, humbled, faint of heart.
Jeffrey Heine:I mean, after being vomited out by a fish, he probably didn't look or smell too good, I'm imagining, as he's going there. And yet, the entire city repents. Even the cows repent. Everybody's repenting, and this has gotta be so humbling. Have you ever resisted telling people about Jesus because, well, because you've thought, who am I to share the gospel?
Jeffrey Heine:Who am I? I mean, I I send all the time. Who am I to tell somebody else about Jesus? Plus, you're thinking, I'm just not good at this sort of thing. I'm not really a good speaker at all.
Jeffrey Heine:I stutter. I'm gonna get so nervous. Who knows what's gonna come out of my mouth? We should just let the professionals do this, alright? Call Joel, tell him to go and share his faith.
Jeffrey Heine:I get that. It's not necessary, because it's not you who's doing the saving. It's not you. I mean, look at what happens with Jonah. Look how the Lord uses Jonah.
Jeffrey Heine:It doesn't depend on Jonah. This is the Lord's work. Jonah came in weakness. I mean, he didn't do some slick marketing campaign. There's not some videos he's showing, you know.
Jeffrey Heine:Doesn't utilize social media to share the gospel. He's not doing some entertaining video. There's nothing. He gets up there and says 5 words, entire city repents, because of the power of God. The power of God.
Jeffrey Heine:God's saying, over the years, I have found that nothing humbles. Nothing humbles me more than preaching. As many of you know, well, I don't I don't know if many of you do know this, but I, I'm a dyslexic introvert. Alright? Which means, I'm in the wrong business.
Jeffrey Heine:I mean, that's pretty much what that means. I I I have to read a lot. I have to organize thoughts on paper, and then I have to get up in front of a bunch of people and speak. It's, it goes literally against every instinct I have, to do what I'm doing here. And preaching has always been a struggle for me.
Jeffrey Heine:And, but there have been times, a few times, that you know, I've thought I've done pretty well. And I've thought, man, I nailed that one. You never wanna think that as a preacher. But when you do, you're like, man, I nailed that one. And there's been zero response.
Jeffrey Heine:And there have been other times, where I have thought, I have been clear as mud. There's not one thing I think I said, that anybody listened to, and God works. Twice, this has happened twice, mid sermon, I have just apologized to people and left, because it has been so bad, and I couldn't take it anymore. And they were probably thankful as well. But I'm like, I'm sorry, I don't know what I'm doing, and I've just left.
Jeffrey Heine:And I find in those moments, God worked. And then you're so humbled by that because it realize that you realize it has nothing to do with you. God's gonna do what he wants to do. Look carefully at verse 5. I love this, it says, and the people of Nineveh believed God.
Jeffrey Heine:I don't know if you got that. They heard Jonah, but they believed God. They heard the words from Jonah going forth, but those words, they heard them as coming from the Lord. They recognized God's voice and believed him. And so although Jonah does a terrible presentation, he preaches only gloom and doom, the the people of Nineveh, they were able to see through that and they thought this.
Jeffrey Heine:If God really wanted to judge us, if he really wanted to destroy the city, why would he have sent Jonah? Why would he have sent a prophet to us? Perhaps he wants to save us, And they were right. We read these words in Jeremiah 18. God says this.
Jeffrey Heine:If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, And if that nation concerning which I've spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do it. What we realize is the Ninevites actually understood more about God than Jonah did. Jonah's self righteousness blinded him to who God really was. Nineveh turns from their evil ways. God relents of his disaster.
Jeffrey Heine:Perhaps, you're seeing a pattern here. Jonah disobeys. God puts him under threat of destruction. Jonah cries out. God rescues.
Jeffrey Heine:Nineveh disobeys. God puts them under a threat of destruction. They cry out, God rescues. Same pattern, with one exception. Nineveh repents.
Jeffrey Heine:Nineveh's greater than Jonah. Nineveh, evil Nineveh repents. I mean, this story is so full of ironies here. And you could just go through all the different ironic things that happened here. But, but perhaps the most ironic thing in this entire book is the sermon that Jonah preaches.
Jeffrey Heine:When he says, yet in 40 days, Nineveh shall be overturned. And he uses that word overturned, which you can translate as destroy. But you can also translate it as, to turn around and transform. It can mean either. It can either mean, in 40 days, Nineveh, Nineveh is going to be destroyed, or in 40 days, Nineveh is going to be transformed.
Jeffrey Heine:What you have is, even when Jonah got it wrong, he preached it right. And you see the sovereignty of God working through his words to change a people. And hear me. This is where we should remind ourselves of Jesus' words, and why we are studying, why we are studying Jonah. Hear these words from Luke 11, and we've read these a couple weeks back.
Jeffrey Heine:Jesus says this generation is an evil generation. It seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it, except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the son of man be to this generation. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it. For they repented at the preaching of Jonah.
Jeffrey Heine:And behold, something greater than Jonah is here. Jesus said that the most wicked nation on earth repented, when they heard a racist preacher come and preach condemnation to them. And yet, they still repented. He says, yet, I'm here. I'm here.
Jeffrey Heine:And I'm not offering judgement, I'm offering mercy and grace. Repent and believe the gospel. If you don't repent and believe the gospel, even the Ninevites will rise up in judgment against you on that day. Now this past Ash Wednesday, it's fitting that we're reading this in the middle of Lent. But this past Ash Wednesday, there was a man who was who was at the service, who had really sinned big time.
Jeffrey Heine:Destroying, in many ways, his family. And he had done this a number of months ago. And yet, really hadn't repented, and he was here. And so we have those lines. I don't know if you were here for the Ash Wednesday, and we had the two lines here.
Jeffrey Heine:We had actually 4 stations up front, and he was determined not to get in my line. No. Because I was one of the only people who knew what he had done. But as the Lord's providence would have it, as people were going this way, this way, it was just me that was open right there, and he came and he got in front of me. And I got the ashes and I looked him in the eye, and I said, repent and believe the gospel.
Jeffrey Heine:And he told me later, he said, I was crushed in that moment. Absolutely crushed. He said, I felt the entire weight of all my sin. And the Lord used that moment to finally break in. Hear me, we never outgrow that message.
Jeffrey Heine:Never. It's the message here, repent and believe the gospel. That's what we live by today. That's what we're gonna live by tomorrow. That's what we're gonna live by 10 years from now.
Jeffrey Heine:Every day is gonna be, we repent, and we believe the gospel. And we go to Jesus, and we never fear condemnation from him, because he took on our condemnation and judgment on the cross. And we know that when we go to Him, there's always love and it is always grace flowing out to us. Repent and believe the gospel. Someone greater than Jonah is calling you to do that.
Jeffrey Heine:Will you trust him? Pray with me. Our father, we pray these simple words, that through your holy spirit, now powerfully at work through your word, would You bring us to a place where we repent and we believe the gospel with all our hearts? We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
