I enjoy trying different things from time to time. I'll admit it, routine tends to bore me a little after a while. After finishing the book of Jonah last Sunday night, I pulled out my notes from the last time I preached it. I don't normally keep my old notes, but these were from when I was the Interim Pastor at Niobe 10 years ago and they were kept. I found out I finished the book of Jonah the first time on December 7th, 2003. And here it was going to be December 8, 2013. We had a flashback Sunday. I preached the message with the same title and basic outline of 10 years ago and we pulled up the same order of service we had 10 years ago complete with the same hymns. I had fun, anyway.
The title 10 years ago was "How to avoid God's blessing"
Don't laugh, please. It was one of my favorite titles of all time. None of us would claim to try to avoid God's blessing, but all of us follow in Jonah's footsteps some times and manage to avoid God's blessing just the same. Some of the ways we do it: we avoid spending time with God, we avoid letting relationships go deeper where people really get to know us, we 'pout' when we see other believers being blessed and we covet the blessings they have received, oh there are lots of ways we do it.
How did Jonah do it? Simple - 1) He forgot about God's successes. Ninevah had repented, but Jonah wasn't interested in God's success, he was only interested in his own well being. 2) Forsake God's presence and people. In all of Assyria, 99% or higher of the God fearing people in the nation were in Ninevah, and Jonah walked away from them. He also walked away from God when God asked him a question to challenge his pouting attitude. And 3) he focused only on his problems. Not on how God had blessed him with a gourd. Not on the 120,000+ souls in that city, on the tragic loss of 'his' gourd.
So, obviously I don't want you to walk in Jonah's steps, so we need a reversal.
1) Celebrate God's successes. In your life, in your church, in your community, in your missionaries, in your family, and in your spiritual family. If you hear that 12 people accepted Christ at an evangelistic meeting at a church down the road - Praise the Lord! Rejoice with the one who shares the news with you! If you hear of God blessing someone with a great job, a new house, a new baby, a great opportunity - rejoice! Tell them how blessed they are and how good God is!
2) Embrace God's presence and people. Spend time with God. Talk with God. Make Him a bigger part of your life today than He was yesterday, And embrace His people. Deepen relationships, overcome misunderstandings, work through the uncomfortable and awkward disagreements that come up since none of us agree totally with any other of us. Enjoy the differences, talk about why you hold different beliefs and seek to understand one another. You may be right, they may be right, or you may both be wrong and discussing it will lead to the truth.
3) Focus on the needs of others. It is a given that you will see your own needs, so focus on the needs of others. Don't sit in traffic stewing over how inconvenient it is for you when the fatal accident that is slowing you down just claimed the lives of people who were loved and will be missed by others. Just broaden your horizons to see what others are experiencing, exercise your ability to empathize with people, to feel their pain. Don't overwhelm yourself with the needs of the whole world, or spend all your energy thinking about needs you can't do anything about. Look for needs around you and ask God to help you meet them.
If Jonah was so good at avoiding God's blessing, by reversing his steps, we can most assuredly find God's blessings. How do I know? Because 1) God does good for His glory. (see John 9) 2) God made us for fellowship with Him (Genesis 2) and to live in community (John 13:34-35) and 3) God desires us to share in the needs of others (Philippians 2:1-4)
Be blessed!
No comments:
Post a Comment