An article in “On Mission” magazine, published by the North American Mission Board, highlights some non-Christian responses to why they don’t go to church.
Allen from Texas is a 34 year old software engineer.
He says “I’ve tried church twice in the last few years, but neither time did I meet anyone I could relate to.. ,is there a way to convey to visitors that church members are not so perfect just because they smile from ear to ear and shake your hand like they have all the confidence in the world?”
Kathy from New Hampshire is a 20 year old grocery store employee.
She says, “I’d had two stepfathers by the time I was 15. One was wonderful and died in a car wreck, but the other one was a drunk who slapped me and my mother around almost every weekend. Why didn’t God keep the first stepfather alive to love me? Why did God allow the second one to hurt me?”
Eddie from Minnesota is 31 and manages a retail store.
He says; “Seems to me that if I make a conscious effort to apply the golden rule to my family, my friends, and my customers, I’m living as a Christian. I don’t see any need to go to church.” These are people next door that need to hear the gospel from someone kind enough and concerned enough to tell them.
These are people much like you neighbors and co-workers.
Jesus wants us to go and preach to all the nations.
We must have obedience in evangelism. We must obey God’s command to evangelize.
We see in the book of Jonah three reason’s to obey God’s command to evangelize.
1. Because God tells us to preach.
2. Because Judgement is impending.
3. Because God will have mercy on those who repent.
Let’s open our Bibles now to Jonah chapter I verse 1-3
Let us Pray
Dear Heavenly Father,
Help us oh Lord to see those around us who need the Lord.
Awaken us, to fact that many that we know are traveling the
road to hell.
Help us during this message to hear your word for us.
You speak, move me out of the way.
And may you receive all the Glory and the Honor.
Amen
Let’s look at the text: God tells Jonah in verse 1 to announce the judgement.
God has seen the wickedness of Ninevah- But the when God tells him to go, Jonah goes the opposite direction. And this refusal brings consequences.
It is clear that God takes the call on our lives very seriously.
God works through people, when they disobey his plan is disrupted and consequences ensue.
Now, I don’t believe that God has a threat mentality, but I believe the righteousness of God requires consequences.
The Bible says the consequence of sin is death. And we must pay that debt or accept the substitute of the death of Jesus to pay for the debt for us. Sin produces consequences.
Here in this story we find Jonah’s sin results in getting swallowed by a
big fish.
We see that God takes his call on our lives seriously.
Serious enough that dangerous consequences occur in the avoidance of that call.
We all remember the Pony Express riders of the old west.
They were men commissioned to take the mail as quickly as possible to the settlers out in the prairie land. They had a message to deliver.
They were not detoured by weather, darkness, thieves, or wild Indians.
The messages were delivered because that was their job.
It is your job, Christian, to take the message to the world. You have a much bigger message to deliver.
This is a message that can prevent some of your closest friends from
spending their eternity in hell. And we are each commissioned by God to take it to this world.
What message do you preach? You can learn Got Life or FAITH, or You can always find a good outline inside the cover of any of your Sunday School books.
These books give a brief outline similar to this.
1. God loves all persons. John 3:16
2. But we are all sinners. Romans 3:23
3. The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin. John 15:8-9
4. Your response is to repent of sin. Matthew 9:13
5. And to place faith in Christ as Savior and Lord. Romans
10:9-13
6. Prayer for Salvation.
It is as easy as that, God just wants us to obey and go-
II. We not only need to obey and preach the gospel because
God said so, but because Judgement is impending.
Chapter 1 and verse 2 says to announce my judgement because God has seen
it’s wickedness–we see in chapter 3 verse 4 that the judgement is that God will destroy this city in 40 days! It is imperative that Jonah gets this message to the people.
Every year about this time, we see on the news that storm that ripped into a town or community. The downtown areas cities are turned into disaster areas.
Many people now days have weather radios for days where the weather
threatens.
Many of these Radios have an alarm feature that will turn the radio on if an alert is activated.
There are storm warning coming of a different sort. The storm warning of Jesus…the warning that he is coming soon.
Let’s look at a list taken from Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21
by Bruce Bickel and Stan Jantz in their easy to follow book, Bruce and Stan’s Guide to the End World to see what Jesus said the signs of his coming would be.
He said that there would be:
International wars,
Revolutions,
Famines,
Earthquakes,
Epidemics,
Strange Natural Disasters,
Worldwide dissemination of the message of Jesus,
Persecution of Christians,
and Rampant Immorality.
We must tell others about Jesus, because looking at this list, it is clear His return and judgement are on there way. For the sake of those around us, we must give the
people around us the warning signals.
Lastly, We must obey because God will have mercy on those who repent.
We see here in chapter 3 verse 5 That the people of Ninevah believed God’s message.
Let’s stop here a second–we see that it is God’s message …not Jonah’s message,
and certainly not our message,
when we start talking about it being our message, we steer from the original intent
so many times today we hear the argument “well it maybe true for you but not for me ”
…but when it is God’s message, That message is true for everyone!
And that’s probably why the people of Ninevah reacted the way they
did.
Verse 8 and 9, chapter chapter 3
They knew that God was the author of the judgement, and they repented.
Look at verse 10 God heard and had mercy.
We see here that repentance works! It worked in the city Ninevah and it
can work in our nation as well.
2 chronicles 7:14 says “Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from
heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land.”
God gives us the equation for national repentance in this verse …so let’s look at it in practice in the city of Ninevah.
First, we are to humble ourselves–look at Jonah chapter 3 verse 5
Then we are to pray and seek God’s face–verse 8
Finally, we are to turn from our wicked ways,–verse 8 continued
And then we see the response from God
I will hear from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land.–verse 10
This is a message we all need to hear! Our nation needs to hear!
But if we are to heal this nation, we must begin one by one turning a faces toward heaven.
Your life may be in chaos tonight.. .we talk about the problems in the nation but what about your own problems. The problems that you are dealing with.
You don’t need a sermon to point out the problems of the nation, you see those sins
first hand each day you wake up.
We see that this equation for healing a nation also works in healing ourselves and our
families.
Then if we who are called by His name will humble ourselves and pray and seek God’s face and turn from our wicked ways, God will hear from heaven and forgive our sins
and heal our land–our families–our hearts.
God sent his son, Jesus, to die on the cross as the payment for our sins. You can only find the father in Him.
He invites you today to seek Him, He will show you the Father.
Let us pray.
Dear Heavenly Father,
Be with the hearts of those around us who are hurting,
Help us to go to them and proclaim your message of hope to them.
In Jesus name, I pray,
A-Men.
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This sermon was preached in March 2003 at Padgett’s Creek Baptist Church