118 Jonah: Living a GO Life

There are certain words the writer of the book of Jonah uses to emphasize important elements of the story. Words like “great” and “down.” But there’s another important word that is in fact, one of the most fundamental words in the Bible. 

GO. 

Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David, and Esther – all were called by God to GO. To step out in faith. To take a risk. And because they obeyed, they changed the course of history.

Unfortunately, over time, God’s people began to define their holiness not in terms of GO, but in terms of STOP. What they had stopped doing. Where they had stopped going. Who they had stopped being with. As a result, they ceased being influencers for good.

This is the deeper meaning of the book of Jonah.  It wasn’t merely the story of a man who refused to GO to those God had a heart for, it was the story of a nation who refused to fulfill its purpose.

Nowhere was this seen more clearly than in the lives of a group called the Pharisees, a first-century sect whose religion was one of prohibition rather than liberation.  

As you can imagine, this approach put them on a collision course with Jesus. Jesus didn’t confuse being set apart for God with being set apart from people. Rather, at all times and in all ways, He sought to engage, to help, to heal, and to restore. Rather than running from evil to good, He brought good to evil.  

The tragedy is that, in our day, all too many would-be disciples have embraced the ethic of the Pharisees rather than the ethic of Jesus.  For them, the word isn’t “go,” but “stop.” Friends, the heart of Christian discipleship is not what you have stopped but how you’re going.  It’s not primarily evidenced by what you’ve avoided but in how you’re engaged.

Jesus made the importance of this quite clear in how He lived.  But He also made it quite clear in what He taught.

John 20:21 captures that: “As the Father has sent Me, I am sending you.”

Notice that first little word: As. That two-letter word contains both a motive and a model.  

Why did God send His Son into this broken world?  Because He loved it. As with Him, so must it be with us.  As those who have been touched by His outrageous love, so we are called to love.  

But not only is that our motive, it’s our model. Jesus didn’t love from a distance. Jesus didn’t play it safe. Jesus was engaged. Jesus got involved. 

Christ’s ethic sends us into the fray.  It’s about engagement.  It’s about restoration.  It’s about healing. It’s about going.

Jesus’ last words, words that are known as “The Great Commission” summarize not only His life but His call to everyone who would be His disciple: “GO into all the world…go into the marketplace…go into the schools…go into the neighborhoods of your city. Go into the prisons and the hospitals and the food banks. Go into all the world. And don’t leave it as you found it.”

Text: Jonah 3:1

Originally recorded on May 15, 2011, at Fellowship Missionary Church, Fort Wayne, IN.