A Reluctant Witness

A RELUCTANT WITNESS

 

      We can find the story of Jonah in the Old Testament. In chapter one of this short book called appropriately Jonah, we find his first call to go on a mission trip and Jonah’s running away. Jonah was swallowed by the large fish, and spent three days and nights in his stomach. In chapter two, Jonah does something that we all do when we are in trouble; he found himself on his knees in the slimy stomach of the fish, praying his heart out for forgiveness. The third chapter brings us the account of Jonah’s experience in Nineveh, and the revival that resulted.  

      However, the Jonah story is more than an exciting “fish” story. We find God asking Jonah to do an incredible thing, something that Jonah really did not want to do. God asked Jonah to go into the enemy country of Assyria and preach to people who were so unlike him and his comfortable traditions. Jonah began thinking and his thoughts were not in line with God’s thoughts. Jonah said to himself, “My own people need to be preached to, so why should I go to people who are so unlike me? Why doesn’t God send someone else? Surely, someone over there can tell them the salvation story.”

      Jonah suddenly had a problem. He had attempted to place boundaries and limitations on who should, and who should not hear the salvation story. Jonah was afraid and that is understandable, but he also had a deeper more serious problem that you will see if you read the entire story. Jonah thought that he and the Jewish people had God in a box, and God was not to be shared with anyone else. In fact, the entire Jewish nation thought that since God had chosen them as his people, they could sin and treat him any way they wanted to and God would never severely punish them, and certainly would never offer salvation to other nations becoming their God also. So when God asked Jonah to take the message of hope and salvation to the city of Nineveh in the heart of enemy territory, Jonah went the other way.

      However, after Jonah spent a long weekend in the stomach of the fish, he reluctantly went, as God had asked, on the people waiting in Nineveh. This story is about a reluctant messenger, a saving message, and people who had receptive hearts. The people in Nineveh were ready to hear about the true God. God’s timing for the salvation of those particular people was perfect, and God chose Jonah to carry the good news.

      God uses people to carry out his work; he can use you and me. Paul writes in Romans 10:14, “But how are people going to call upon God if they don’t know about him? And how are they to believe if they have never heard of Jesus? And how are they to hear unless someone is sent to them?” If we claim to be witnesses, then we are the “sent” ones.

      God has called a team of witnesses from our church to take the Jesus story to Asheville. So we pray that the Holy Spirit will go before us each day. We pray that those who need to hear will hear the message God has given us. We pray that the message will be received and accepted, expanding God’s kingdom.

      God is looking for witnesses who have a genuine personal message and are willing to share it with others; not for any other reason except to bring others into God’s kingdom; witnesses who are willing to lay aside themselves and the need to please themselves in order to please the One who has sent them. Will you and I be those witnesses?

Rev Tim McConnell, Long’s Chapel UMC June 16, 2013