Kaleo San Diego Church > Sermons

Loving Our City

David Fairchild
Nov 26, 2006
Series: SDSU

TEXT

Jonah 4:1-11: "But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. 2 And he prayed to the LORD and said, ‘O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. 3 Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.' 4 And the LORD said, ‘Do you do well to be angry?' 5 Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city. 6 Now the LORD God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. 7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, ‘It is better for me to die than to live.' 9 But God said to Jonah, ‘Do you do well to be angry for the plant?' And he said, ‘Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.' 10 And the LORD said, ‘You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11 And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?'"

INTRODUCTION

This evening, we're ending our ten lesson study on the major tenets of the Christian faith. We've been speaking for some time about those things which are really at the heart of Scripture and therefore at the heart of our God's passions.

We've talked about the Gospel, God, the person and work of Jesus Christ, Kingdom and mission, mercy ministries, how we go about changing, the Bible and a handful of other topics that are really important for us to rethink as we consider afresh the things that we have grown to accept and believe. We've done this out of a desire to go a little deeper than perhaps we have previously so that we see our lives and our place in this world in a different way.

Tonight, we're talking about our city, the city of San Diego. It's where most of you live. Some of you have grown up here and some of you recently moved here. Either way, this is the city that God has sovereignly placed you in for this moment in time. What we want to do tonight is to think through how we view the city. What is our opinion and perception of cities in general and then consider ways in which we can go about ministering specifically to San Diego and loving it in a way that brings Gospel transformation rather than just moral reformation.

We'll be in the book of Jonah and discussing chapter 4 of this great little book.

In looking at this book, the first question we should ask is: what is the book of Jonah all about?

In every great story, and Jonah is no different, there is an antagonist and a protagonist. What this means is that there is one who agonizes pro (for) the good and there one who agonizes anti (against) the good.

What you find when your read this incredible story is that it isn't Jonah who is the protagonist, and it isn't the whale or the storm or the ship that is for the good.

When you read the last question at the bottom of this passage you hear God say:

STUDY

Verse 11: "And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city...?"

He's saying should I not have compassion, should I not regard that great city in an affectionate way? It's a rhetorical question to Jonah. God is making an argument to him.

The story, then, is about God who is the protagonist, seeking to bring grace, love, and mercy to this big city called Nineveh while the antagonist is a religious and moral person who obeys God's commandments and lives a holy and pious life, and yet wants the city obliterated by God's nuclear bomb of judgment. It's Jonah, the great prophet of God, but it's also us.

When the Jews gather together at one of their feasts, I can't remember which one it is, they read Jonah together as a community and cry out to God, "we are Jonah," which essentially is saying that Jonah's sin and self-righteous hatred towards others is their sin and self-righteousness.

It's no different than many Christians today who are city hating, city fearful, morally pious, religiously conservative people. We're the antagonists today and God is the protagonist for a big unbelieving and unjust violent and Pagan city, a city not much different than San Diego.

So what are we to learn from this book about you and me today?

Tim Keller says there are three things to learn from this passage:

1- God's call to the city
2- God's view of the city
3- God's love for the city

1- God's call to the city

Three times God calls Jonah to Nineveh, "that great city."

Chapter 1 verse 1-2:

Jonah 1:1-2: "Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 ‘Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.'"

Then after the fish incident, God calls him again in chapter 3:

Jonah 3:1-2: "Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2 ‘Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.'"

Lastly, at the end of the book, God calls Jonah in the clearest ways since He's already said it twice before, that He wants Jonah His prophet to have the heart that He has and love that great city.

He's calling Jonah out of a place where everyone looked like him, talked like him, dressed like him, thought like him, where he was very safe and comfortable, into a place that is filled with danger, unfamiliar people with unfamiliar ideas. He calls Jonah to the great big scary city called Nineveh.

What is so odd is that God began to prove that if Jonah was going to attempt to stay in comfort in his safe homeland or attempt to go anywhere on the planet to remain safe, God would actually make wherever he was a place of unrest and a place of great danger. Think of the story and the great fish!

The point is that it is much safer to go where God has called us to and take on the same passion that our God has for those that are the most dangerous, than it is to stay in the safety of our own homes in defiance against our God.

Now, the objection that most may be thinking is, "Isn't this story unique to Jonah? Aren't you making this a blanket statement when it was Jonah's call and not ours?" Those are good questions, but we need to take a look at this. God's call for us to go and love people that are not like us in a place of personal discomfort and potential loss is certainly not unique.

Two to three centuries after this story, the Jews were taken into captivity and were conquered by the Babylonians. They were escorted off to another big, scary, unfamiliar and unsafe city called Babylon. If you want to read what happened, read Jeremiah 23-29 and you'll see what went on.

The exiles were taken to the city, and instead of going into the city, they stayed out in the suburbs and decided not to go into that frightening place. They were in despair and sitting on the outskirts utterly depressed. The exiles decided they were going to form their own little safe neighborhood outside the city and only go there if they had to get something. They wanted to be safe from the violence, safe from the sin, and safe from the doctrinal error of the Babylonians' religion.

What is so shocking about this story is that God writes a letter to them through Jeremiah the prophet and Jeremiah has it delivered it to them to read. If you look at Jeremiah 29, you'll see what he said to them.

Jeremiah 29:3-7: "The letter was sent by the hand of Elasah the son of Shaphan and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. It said: 4 ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.'"

God tells them not to stay out on the fringe of the city, but to move in and settle down. Build homes and live in them, plant gardens and eat from them, get married and have kids and see that your kids grow up and get married. Multiply in this city and don't shrink back and decrease. In other words, settle down and stay awhile. Make this your new home.

Then He says something so amazing; He says to them to pray to Him on its behalf and seek the welfare of the city, and in its welfare you will find your welfare.

God doesn't just want them to hide in their own little suburbs and have a nice safe little family unit. He wants them to be part of the city and seek after its transformation and welfare. His love is not exclusive to just the Jews, but is broader. He wants to see the place in which they are exiled, under the reign of their enemy, in enemy territory, to be blessed by their presence and to see after the shaping of the most wicked city at this point of history. He wants them to seek the peace of the city.

They wanted to stay outside away from the wicked ones, and God says go into this wicked place and seek after its healing and restoration.

Now, later in that same chapter, God begins to call out false prophets for giving counsel to the Jews that was not according to God's word or will.

After He calls the Israelites to settle in the land, He immediately blasts the attitudes of and message of these false teachers.

Jeremiah 29:8-9: "For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, 9 for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, declares the LORD."

Commentators believe that though it isn't specific in this text, the denunciation of these prophets was due to their telling the exiles the exact opposite of what God was calling them to. They were telling the exiles to stay outside the city, don't love it, stay away, and stay hostile towards it as their enemy.

They wanted them to stay separate and to stick together to protect one another, to have nothing to do with Babylonian society or culture. They assumed the Babylonians would soon be judged by God and they would be sent back home in freedom.

One of the false prophets says as much in the beginning of chapter 28, verse 3:

Jeremiah 28:3: "Within two years I will bring back to this place all the vessels of the LORD's house, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place and carried to Babylon."

This, however, was not what God was saying. Jeremiah contradicted this false prophet and said, "It will be a long time. Therefore, build houses and settle down." (Jer. 29:28).

We also see God's heart for the city in the book of Acts. I'm reading a book right now called The Cities of God in which a sociologist by the name of Rodney Stark demonstrates that the missionary activity in the first three centuries as Christianity exploded was almost exclusively missionary activities to major cities.

The strategy of these missionaries was to go after the cities and work from there out. Why? Because the culture is changed by the cities. As the cities go, so goes culture and therefore the country and countryside. To change a culture, you have to go after the heart of culture which are the major cities which have the most influence.

The city is where you have financial power, social power, political power, and judicial power. It's where the major decision-makers do business and shape where they live. If a culture and country is to be changed, it has to be changed from the places of greatest power, the urban centers.

The Roman empire was overtaken by the Gospel because of the living out of faith and proclamation of the Gospel in the center of the most powerful city on earth at the time.

This doesn't mean that every Christian must live in the city or is called to minister to the city. But, if a Christian is committed to and serious about changing the culture in which they live, the country in which they have citizenship, then the city will need to be dealt with.

Most of our American religious pride drives us away from the city. Instead of loving these great cities of our country, we have trouble not having power there and so we move to communities that are mostly like us to be safe.

Pastors even preach against cities and tell us to stay away from them for fear that you'll catch sin like a virus. But this is in contrast with the flow of history in which God is on mission gathering a people to Himself, and the way He's doing this is by sending His people to places where there is no light, to bring the light of the Gospel of grace to illuminate and restore a darkened place to beauty.

This means that we need to be on mission exactly where we are, rather than seeing mission as exclusively something you do outside of your country in the remote plains of some foreign place. Not that this isn't important as well, but we are missionaries right here, right now! This is the city God has sent us to. Are we going to sit on the hills like Jonah, safe in our suburbs like the exiled Israelites and wait for its destruction, or are we going to go in and therefore give ourselves and our resources for the restoration of the city, one person at a time?

Why does God call us to the city?

Every time God calls Jonah to the city, He does so by calling it that "great city." This has two meanings. It means, "big," with many people, and it means, "important." This is why we use the word, "great," because it can mean both. God is calling Jonah to this strategic city, this, "important" city.

If you believe the Gospel message can radically transform you and those you love from the inside how by God's grace, then what do you do with that message? Do you keep solely for yourself? What are you going to do with it? Are you going to take this treasure off into the safety of a quiet place?

If you take it to the city you can reach and shape an entire culture and therefore an entire country, which also happens to be the most powerful influence in the entire world. If you want to change the world, you start with your own heart and then bring that message of hope and reconciliation to the place that will impact your culture, the city. Even a handful of cities in this world changed by the Gospel will have enough influence for this message to change the world.

You can reach an artist, but if you want to change the art world, you move to the city. You can reach a lawyer, but if you want to change law and our judicial system you have to work with the city, etc...

Another reason is even more profound to care for the welfare of the city. Look at the story again in Jonah 4.

Jonah 4:10-11: "And the LORD said, ‘You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11 And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?'"

God shows Jonah that He has compassion and warm affection from the welfare of this temporary plant more than a city filled with 120,000 people who are lost and wandering.

He's showing a contrast of Jonah and the plant, and God and the city. This is interesting. Tim Keller talks about this in one of his lectures where he says something like this:

We go out into the countryside to see the beauty of a tree, but the pinnacle of God's creation is human beings and they are more beautiful and valuable than a tree. If this is true, why would we go into the country to see something beautiful when the city is filled with the beauty of God's image bearers?

There is nothing more precious and astounding than humans created in God's image. The cities are filled with beauty.

2-God's view of the city

God sends Jonah to preach against Nineveh because of their wickedness. Jonah agrees they're wicked, but God then seems to be lovingly concerned about their welfare and well being. On the one hand, God sounds like a moral conservative, and on the other hand, like a loving liberal! This angers Jonah. Jonah even says as much:

Jonah 4:2: "And he prayed to the LORD and said, ‘O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.'"

This is just a great verse. Since when have you hear objections against God because He's way to gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, relenting from disaster? Yet this is what our self-righteousness drives us to, a hatred for the very things we should love the most.

3-God's love for the city

Then He shows us in this story and in the story of Jeremiah that He's concerned with even the very city itself. It's not just the people, it's the very way in which people express themselves in their culture. He wants a whole culture changed and this is why He wants the city restored. Think of this verse:

Jonah 4:11: "And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?"

God is concerned even for the cattle! This is astounding. Is God just acting like an animal lover? Yes and no. God does love and concern himself with all his creatures, but cattle were the economic capital of a city. It was the heart of nourishment for the city.

Habakkuk 2:12-17: "Woe to him who builds a town with blood and founds a city on iniquity! 13 Behold, is it not from the LORD of hosts that peoples labor merely for fire, and nations weary themselves for nothing? 14 For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. 15 "Woe to him who makes his neighbors drink-- you pour out your wrath and make them drunk, in order to gaze at their nakedness! 16 You will have your fill of shame instead of glory. Drink, yourself, and show your uncircumcision! The cup in the LORD's right hand will come around to you, and utter shame will come upon your glory! 17 The violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, as will the destruction of the beasts that terrified them, for the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them."

The violence done to Lebanon was clear cutting. Lebanon had the most beautiful trees in this part of the world, and the Chaldeans were cutting down these beautiful trees and destroying the beasts, the cattle, and were doing violence to the earth. God says He's going to judge them for building cities in this sinful way.

This is amazing. God wants cities to glorify Him.

As a matter of fact, though we start in a garden, when we come to Revelation 21 and 22, at the end of the ages, we come to the living City of God which comes down to us, not us to it.

Revelation 21:1-2: "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband."

Revelation 21:22-26: "And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. 23 And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24 By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, 25 and its gates will never be shut by day--and there will be no night there. 26 They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations."

God is building a city, and this city to come is to be previewed in our cities today. The cities should act today to heal the nations and care for the welfare of others. This can only happen by the power of the Gospel, by God's grace.

How can we live in this way? We must go to Christ through the Gospel.

Jonah goes outside the city to condemn it, but another prophet went to the city and was dragged out of the city to save it.

Hebrews 13:12-14: "So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. 13 Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. 14 For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come."