Jonah: Shaped By Mercy Dan Hudson
The book of Jonah is prophetic not because of the words Jonah speaks (only one sentence is recorded), but because his story speaks prophetically to us as the church today that we are to be people shaped by God’s mercy. If God can work with people like Jonah and use them, he can certainly use you and me.
Mercy is to define our lives. God cares about mission but he won’t bypass the messengers. Jonah takes a lot of shaping, and so do we. God is the potter and we are the clay.
Dan highlighted four lessons from the life of Jonah that apply to us.
1. God is a god of mercy
He showed mercy to Ninevah, and mercy to Jonah who had totally disobeyed Him. He shows mercy to us, no matter how many times we mess up.
2. God’s providence
It is thought that Jonah may have been the baby that Elisha miraculously brought back to life in 2 Kings 4. His very existence was miraculous, and yet he was prone to self-centredness, self-pity and a negative disposition! However, his time inside the belly of the fish gave him an opportunity to reflect on God’s mercy, and to praise God for it! People shaped by mercy are thankful people. We must never stop thanking God for His goodness to us.
3. Life based on mercy
Ephesians 2: 1-17 “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
Our status: Alive together in Christ!
Our position: Seated in heavenly places with Jesus!
4. Mercy goes on and on
Jonah was given another chance to obey God. The Bible is full of second-chance heroes: Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, Gideon, Samson, Peter, etc.
Jonah breaks the cycle of disobedience. God’s spirit helps us move on from cycles of sin and obey Him, helping us not get stuck on repeat like a scratched record. Jonah understood he wasn’t disqualified by his past because divine mercy had qualified him again.
1 Peter 2: 9-10 “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
Questions
- Think about how God has shown mercy to you, and share it with your small group.
- What helps you to remember God’s faithfulness and move from being downcast to praising Him?
- What are the implications for us knowing we are seated in heavenly places with Christ? How does this effect what we do now on earth?
- Spend time praying for one another in groups of 2 – 3. Can you think of an area of your life where you need the Holy Spirit to move you on from a pattern of disobedience?