Jonah 3:5
Big Idea: God’s means of salvation has always been the Word Proclaimed and the Word Believed. In our text for this morning we see that the Ninevehites exercise the second means of salvation by embracing God’s Word as reality and acting upon their acceptance of its implications.
The Word of God Proclaimed
The Word of God __________________________
Jonah 3:5 (ESV) 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God…
Genesis 15:6 (ESV) 6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
Romans 4:9–12 (ESV) 9 Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. 10 How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. 11 He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, 12 and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.
Forever and always our access to God’s power and grace is through trusting in what God has declared to us.
When God Speaks He is Declaring _____________________
Jonah 3:4 (ESV) — 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”
Hebrews 11:1–3 (ESV) — 1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2 For by it the people of old received their commendation. 3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.
Romans 8:3–4 (ESV) 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Colossians 2:9–10 (ESV) 9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.
1 Corinthians 15:21–22 (ESV) 21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
Galatians 5:1, 25 (ESV) — 1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery… 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
When we Believe we _________________ on that Belief
Jonah 3:5 (ESV) — 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.
James 2:14–17 (ESV) — 14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
The pattern of our sanctification is always to know the truth, to embrace the truth, to submit to the truth, and to live out the truth.
Questions to Consider
In what ways is God calling you to believe what he has declared about you? Why is this so hard?
What are some things you know to be true of you because you are in Christ? How might this change the way you react to different circumstances in your life?
