Missions Month at GCR has become just about my favorite time of the year because we get to hang out with some of the very best people I know. Brad and Melissa Hooley, our Nexus church-planting partners from the Mountain View Christian Church in Kalispell, Montana, spent the weekend with us and we had an absolute blast getting caught up on everything the Lord is doing up there. We grilled fajitas for ten Saturday night and ate and laughed and prayed together around our dining room table. Brad and Melissa led our communion time Sunday and then we celebrated GCR CrocktoberFest with a Crockpot potluck feast after church. While the little kids played loudly, Jason Kumalo told us all the great salvation things God is doing in and through our Namwianga Missions partners in Zambia. Brad and Melissa joined us in the DP room Sunday afternoon to watch the Texans yellow flag themselves into a loss to the Cowboys. Then we hoofed it back to church for a pizza party with the GCR group that visited Kalispell three summers ago when Mountain View Christian first launched. We capped the night with a rousing game of “99” back at Stanglin Manor in which I was the first one eliminated and Brad ran the table to win. Mostly graciously.
I’m not even sure it’s possible. But if it is, I almost had too much sopapilla cheesecake.
God bless the Hooleys–all six of them!–and our brothers and sisters at Mountain View Christian.
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To help us better understand our God’s will to save the whole world and our role in his salvation plans, we are spending four Sundays in Jonah–one chapter of the story per Sunday. One of the takeaways from yesterday’s lesson is that God’s call is very clear. Always. He tells Jonah to go and preach to Nineveh. Very direct and to the point. There’s no misinterpreting or misunderstanding God’s call on Jonah. It’s really very simple. Go and preach to Nineveh.
Nineveh is the capital city of the Assyrian Empire. The Assyrians are Israel’s national enemies.
Jonah doesn’t misunderstand God’s call. God’s call is crystal clear. Jonah just disagrees with God’s way of dealing with the bad situation in Nineveh. I can almost hear Jonah:
Nineveh? Seriously? Those people are terrible! You don’t preach to people like that; you wipe ’em out! You destroy them! Those people are despicable! They have no regard for human rights! They treat women horribly! They’re always starting wars! They kill people at the drop of a hat! They don’t believe in our God! They don’t share our values! They’re all crazy! Come on, God, you’ve seen the news! Those people are insane! They’ve always been that way and they will be that way forever! They’re trying to take over the world and force their philosophy on everybody! They’d love to see us all dead! Have you read the things they write? Have you seen their videos? The best thing that could happen to them is you blowing them to Kingdom come! We should turn that whole part of the world into a giant sand trap!
I’ve been reading Jonah’s forwarded emails.
God wants all the people of Nineveh saved. He wants them to repent and come into a saving relationship with him. And God wants to use Jonah to make it happen. But Jonah doesn’t want to participate in the salvation of this particular people. So Jonah runs. I think he knows he can’t run away from God, but maybe he can get lost in another culture, another place, where he can ignore God. Jonah can maybe immerse himself in other things. He can become overly occupied with his possessions, his job, his hobbies, sports, a house, maybe a wife and kids.
The country we live in would tell us we have “enemies” in Iran. You may know that Iran is one of the two or three places in the world right now where Christianity is growing the fastest. Our government would tell us we have “enemies” in Russia and China. And our God loves them and he wants them to be saved. We know that. But sometimes our language and our prayers and our forwarded emails and posts don’t reflect that.
How quickly we forget that while we were God’s enemies, Christ died for us.
We have “enemies” right here in Midland. You have “enemies” in your town, too. Enemies of our property values. Enemies of our employment figures and tax rates. Enemies of our political positions and comfort zones. And our God’s unmistakable call is to take to them the Good News of salvation in Christ Jesus.
It’s clear.
We believe our Lord meant it when he said love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. We believe in the Great Commission. We understand Christ calls us to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and all over the whole world, to the very ends of the earth. We believe witnessing like that, showing God’s love and mercy to our enemies, imitates our Lord.
Our Savior crosses all the barriers that separate people–social, cultural, racial, political, geographical, economic–he smashes through all that to save violent outcasts, those possessed by demons, warring Zealots, traitorous tax collectors, Roman centurions, and thieves on crosses. He broke through all those barriers to save you. And me.
And our God unmistakably calls us to reach out to others the same way.
Peace,
Allan
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