No. 6 - BROKENNESS—THE PROBLEM

Jonah 1-4

In our last study we looked at Moses and identified two purposes God has for brokenness: Spiritual maturity and effective ministry.

In this study we are going to look at the “Problem of Brokenness.” Why don’t we grow up and get involved? And why don’t we do it immediately and quickly yield to God? Why don’t we recognize and cooperate with God in the breaking process?

To answer these, and other questions, let’s turn to the book of Jonah. Some of you may have a difficult time finding Jonah, but I promise you he is not still in the whale. All I need to say concerning the event of Jonah being swallowed and sustained in a whale for three days and three nights is...I believe it, just like the Bible records it. Jesus believed it and that’s enough for me.

G. Campbell Morgan said, “Men have been looking so hard at the great fish that they have failed to see the great God.” And if I might add, we have failed to see the greatest problem when it comes to brokenness.

Let’s take a quick look through the four chapters of this book, make some observations and then draw some final conclusions.

According to 2 Kings 14:25 Jonah was to succeed Elisha, as Israel’s next great prophet. So what does a prophet to do? He preaches. What profit is a prophet who will not preach?

Jonah 1

v. 2 “Go to Nineveh.” Nineveh was the capital city of Assyria—pagan, bitter, long-time enemies of Israel. Jonah saw this as unpatriotic. Similar feelings were felt after World War II when missionaries were sent to Japan, and later to Korea and Vietnam. Everyone hated the Ninevites… everyone, that is, but God.

v. 3. “No way!” Jonah turns God down, flat. How many knows that is not something you should do? Amen.

Actually, Jonah doesn’t say anything. There is no recorded answer, but there is plenty of action. Jonah tried the “if I ignore God, maybe he will go away” routine. But God does not go away.

There are five (5) “S’s” in chapter one.

· Ship, v. 3….Anytime someone ants to run from God, Satan will provide the transportation. Jonah was willing to go to Tarshish, but not Nineveh.

· Storm, v. 4….sent by the Lord.

· Seamen, v. 5-11….they put Jonah on the spot.

· Suicide, vs. 12-16...this was a selfish act, but a sacrificial act.

· Submarine (fish), v.17...prepared by God. Try as he might, Jonah couldn’t even kill himself. I won’t suggest you push luck by trying anything similar.

Jonah 2

One would think that under these extreme conditions Jonah would get the message, get right with the Lord, and get on with doing God’s will...but not so quick. Jonah is like us. We all want to know how far we can go away from the Lord, until the Lord says “that’s too far….stop!” Do you see the last few words of chapter 1? Jonah was cooped up in the fish’s belly 3 days and 3 nights before he finally cried out to the Lord. And although all the words in chapter two “sound” pretty good and Jonah promises to obey, there is still a lot in Jonah that wasn’t broken. But God in His grace releases Jonah in v. 18, and has the fish vomit Jonah up on “dry ground.” Isn’t God good? God should have had Jonah thrown up in some “muddy hole,” because he was at this time an old “stick in the mud” as far as his attitude is concerned, but God gives him a fresh “second chance” to do what he was told to do the first time.

Jonah 3

God doesn’t change—same person called, same city, same commission, only now there is less time to do what he should have done, at least minus three days and nights. Jonah goes into the city, looking like a dried-up, winkled ghost, preaches God’s message and the whole city is converted and revival breaks out. Literally, thousands humbly turned to God and “repented.” Jesus said they did, Matthew 12:41.

Jonah 4

Jonah should have been thrilled, excited, humbled by all of this, but chapter 4 tells a different story. Jonah ended up doing what God wanted him to do, but he didn’t have to like it. Jonah is like the little boy who was scolded by his father and told to “sit down.” The boy reluctantly complied, but said under his breathe, “I’m still standing up on the inside!” That’s Jonah. And sometimes, that us.

v. 11. 120,000 small children lived in Nineveh whose mothers and daddies were saved and spared. The total in Nineveh might have reached 500,000, but what did Jonah care? How hard can our hearts be?

I don’t have time in this message to get into it, but Jonah was able to get emotionally involved in a “plant,” being both “glad” and ‘”sad” for a gourd, vs. 6-10. Before we go off on sorry ‘ol Jonah, remember how you reacted when you got that door-ding in your new car, or when your garden got hit by a hail storm, or your house was broken into and your TV was stolen, and yet we feel little or nothing for the souls and men and women, boys and girls.

God may accomplish some great things through your life, but He is not satisfied until we are broken. Jonah’s attitude has a bad odor, 1:12, 4:3, 8. He would rather die, than be broken before God.

This book ends with the real story being the tragedy of an unbroken spirit and attitude! God wants to use us, but to do so to total capacity He must break us.

Someone might say, “But look at all God did, anyway.” I am sure the Ninevites didn’t care at that moment what Jonah’s heart was like. His message was right and, to them, that is what mattered. But think of the glory God would have received if Jonah had been God’s servant, like Elijah and Elisha, his predecessors. The heartbreak at the Judgment Seat of Christ is not what good we have done, but the best that we missed! God can hits so mighty straight hits with a crooked stick!

So, what is the problem of brokenness? What is the basic barrier to the blessings that come through brokenness? What is the fundamental sin which clutters the channel of God’s blessings? It is PRIDE!

The essence of Jonah’s sin was that he didn’t mind doing something for God, so long as it was what he wanted to do. The unholy trinity in our lives is, “me, myself and I.” I will serve God only as it is convenient. My way is more important than God’s way. If I have to do something for God to bless others, I will, but I still won’t like it.

God hates pride.

· “Everyone that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord,” Prov. 16:5.

· “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall,” Prov. 16:18.

· “God resisteth the proud,” James 4:6.

Pride dirties everything it touches. There are germs that transform food into poison. Pride transform virtues into vices, blessings into burdens.

Think about this situation: God inside us...gets in our mind, we think about it… gets in our emotions, we feel it...then He hits a wall, our will, we say “no.”

· What is it that you are unwilling to do?

· Who are you unwilling to forgive?

· What sin are you unwilling to confess and forsake?

· What call are you unwilling to accept and follow?

When God deals with us, it is not like shooting a shotgun. He always zeroes in like a high-powered rifle. He aims and hits the bulls-eye. God has something specific He targets. And in some way, it probably relates to our pride.

1. The Course You Take.

Pride will humiliate you, but that’s not the same as being humbled. You can be sorry for what you do, but still not be broken.

2. The Choices You Make.

Jonah made some choices.

· Ran—he took off. You can run away from your wife, children, job, city, church, but you cannot successfully run away from God.

· Resisted—Jonah became hard, obnoxious, resent.

· Rebelled, 1 Samuel 15:23. “Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.”

· Rationalized. “Its not that bad...no one will ever know….I’ll get by with this, just this once.”

· Reluctantly Resigned. “I’ll do it, but I won’t do my best and I won’t like it.”

· Repentance is not only what Nineveh needed—it was what Jonah needed. Would you stop for a moment and see yourself as God sees you? The only different between you and the Ninevites around you is that you are saved, and they are not. You are both sinners. You both deserve hell. God knows everything about us. He knows all our secret thoughts before we think them, see all the pictures that hang on the walls of our imagination, He uncovers all our hidden motives, He observes all our dirty deals, He hears every whispered word.

“Unless we willing choose to obey God explicitly and immediately we are in rebellion,” Charles Stanley, p. 107.

3. The Consequences You Cannot Shake.

Jonah suffered some serious consequences that he could not shake. Remember this. You are free to make whatsoever choice is life you will, but you are not free to choose the consequences of those choices.

You might said, “Preacher, how can you draw any conclusion about Jonah since the book ends with Jonah’s heart and life and ministry in suspension?” That is precisely my conclusion.

However you live is how you are going to die! Does anyone know how Jonah died? There are only two possibilities.

(1) Jonah died out of God’s will…there are believers who never say “yes” to God’s breaking process, and died under God’s chastisement.

· Proverbs 29:1 “He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.”

· 1 John 5:16b “There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.”

· 1 Corinthians 9:27 “But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.”

(2) Jonah died right with God . . . at some time after this “Nineveh nightmare” he got his heart right with God, was broken about his stubbornness and went on serving and loving God until the end of his life. How is that a possibility? If Jonah wrote this book that carries his name, then we could presume that he did so on the other side of brokenness.

Real brokenness is not just our actions...Jonah did preach.

Real brokenness is also about our attitude...3/4’s of the Book of Jonah is about his attitude, written proof that the biggest need in our life is for an attitude adjustment.

Our main concern should not be whether a man can live inside a fish, but whether the spirit of Jonah lives on in us today!

Three calls of God on every person’s life.

(1) The call of salvation...to receive by faith the Lord Jesus Christ and his shed blood for your salvation.

(2)The call of separation...to totally commit yourself to the residing Holy Spirit to become the reigning Holy Spirit. What are you doing to quench or grieve the Holy Spirit?

(3) The call of service...to serve God, in your family, in your church, in your community, on a mission field, as a pastor.

Rebellion against God will bring no peace, no joy, no happiness on any level… it brings sorrow, depression, anger, bitterness and frustration.

God does say, “Would you like to do this? Would you please do this? Would you think about doing this?” God call is strong, clear and absolute!

We are not our own, we are bought with a price!