Not Just For Kids

Not Just For Kids is explained in the video below. I already know that I have enjoyed, and benefitted from, going down this path. So I will be sharing some of these things with you through the EquippIng For Life Blog. and /or our Truth Hunter Podcast. Also, there is a slightly edited transcript below the video. WordPress ‘likes’ things to appear a certain way – but content was not altered at least where the computer transcript was legible!

Soli Deo Gloria!

Not Just For Kids – The Video  

Hello, thank you for joining. I want to share something new with you. It goes back to the thought that I’ve expressed many times lately. And it seems that the longer I go in my own faith journey, the more profound the simple things become. And by that, I mean those things that we teach our children, things that many of us learn when we were, you know, just barely able to walk.

We teach our kids things like God is love and God is good. And somehow, I think we grow up and we get a little older and we think, well, I’ve outgrown some of those things. But the more you dive into those very, very simple things, the more profound they become. And as a matter of fact, I have taken lately to writing about some of those things on the blog. and there’ll be some information in the video link here. You can connect to one or two of those pieces if you’d like.

But this is another project and it’s called Not Just For Kids, okay? There are a number of Bible stories that we teach our children. And when we look at those again through our grown up eyes, there are many things for us to learn, things we probably would never have thought of as a child. And so I’ve shared some of these with our church and I’ve written some of this on the blog. So there’s an even larger project that I want to do and this is kind of a launch of that here on the podcast.

So what I want to do today is start our, Not Just For Kids run with probably the most well-known story in the Old Testament. I’m sure that you know the story of Jonah.

Jonah – Not Just For Kids

1:57 We teach that and it’s good, nothing wrong with that. But we learn it, we think, oh, I know that. And now, you know, I can move on to something else. And then we fail to learn the lessons,

2:13 if you will, from Jonah. And there are many. One of the things that I would share with you about that particular book is that even though Jonah is named and, you know, listed in the minor

2:28 prophets of the Old Testament, his writing was not prophetic. It’s unique in that sense. It’s the story of one of God’s servants who was a reluctant servant, an uncooperative servant. And what

2:46 God did in that situation and what the servant learned and the struggles that he went through. And that’s valuable for us. because we go through those same struggles. We have those same issues.

2:59 And so seeing someone else go through the things that we inflict upon ourselves many times is a good thing. And we can learn a great deal from it. So let me share with you just today as an initial

3:17 venture to Jonah, one other thing and then kind of an overview of the book. First off, God says that he prepared a great fish. Now, we tell the story of Jonah and the whale, okay? Now, did you

3:35 catch the words fish whale? One of the things that I tell the pastors that we teach in our pastor training school for equip us is study the Bible and see what it says, not what you’ve been told that

3:52 it says. And that’s very often challenging because we have our misconceptions and we come by them innocently enough, but they’re still misconceptions. I really don’t think that what God prepared for Jonah was a whale, it says He prepared a great fish and whales are not fish.

Now, God can do anything He wants to, He’s sovereign over all things. I personally think that God prepared a unique creature. God made all that is on the land, all that is in the sea, So He can certainly make something else to handle a wayward prophet. And I really personally think that that’s what He did, But we can’t prove that. But I just wanted to make that little comment because it’s easy for us to get into these misconceptions. It’s, as one of the folks in my church is fond of reminding me, I have a tendency of ruining the stories, You know, at Christmas time, there weren’t three wise men at the manger. They came later and we can prove that, but that’s not today.

But we come up with these things and we hold these ideas in our minds and we’re looking at what we have been told the Bible says, not what it actually says. And so in the case of Jonah, God called Jonah to do a very specific work. And you know the story well enough to know that Jonah didn’t really want to do what God wanted done. So the story of Jonah falls really into four parts.

Jonah – Getting The Big Picture

Chapter One is Jonah ran from God. He did not want to do what God wanted him to do. That’s the part that you know. And then the next part is that Jonah ran to God. Now, how would he do that? Well, he was in the belly of the fish and Chapter Two is what happened while he was there. Jonah came to his senses. He understood that he really could not escape God. He could not escape God’s purposes. God always accomplishes what He intends to accomplish. Jonah came to realize that he was just making things hard on himself. So Chapter Two is Jonah’s realization and it’s said in the form of a prayer of thanksgiving to the Lord.

And you know, there’s a lesson there for us and we’ll get to that later. But Jonah first ran from God. Next he runs to God and when he did that, then the Lord had the fish spit him out on the beach and then Jonah ran with God Jonah was intent on getting to Nineveh and preaching the message that God had declared that Jonah should preach. And so that’s cooperating with God.

Now, you may be less familiar with the end of the book. You know, after the people of Nineveh repented, then Jonah had some of his own issues again. He really wasn’t happy with the situation. And there are a lot of reasons for that, and some of them are in the book, and we’ll talk about those later as well. But Jonah, in the final part of the book, was running ahead of God. And when you think about that, running from God, running to God, running with God, or running ahead of God, if we’re honest, every one of us has probably done all four of those things And it’s certainly true for me.

I ran from God and unlike other people, I never left the church to do it. That’s a whole other story. But, you know, you can run to God’s purposes and find the greatest joys of your life. Then you can, you know, run with the Lord and see Him do great things. And He is doing great things today through EquipUs in the mission volunteers that we have. And even so, when God

8:18 is doing those great things and you see those great works, sometimes we just don’t have our Father’s perspective. And our Father’s, you know, point of view, We don’t have His heart, we don’t have His knowledge; He knows the end from the beginning. You know, sometimes we just don’t get it. And we ask questions based on our lack of understanding, a little bit like Jonah was doing at the end of the book. And we get ourselves in trouble and we have to have the Lord teach us some new lessons.

Summary – Not Just For Kids

And so those are a lot of reasons to look at the book of Jonah and this entire series, which as I said, I’m going call Not Just For Kids. So we’re going to look at several of these things, kind of break them apart and break them down and learn from them. I certainly hope that you’ll tune back in and we’ll do that together. And I hope that it blesses you. So I’ll look forward to seeing you on the next one.

Once again, this is a great opportunity for us to share the Word because it is life to us. And I appreciate you checking in. Stay in tuned in and I’ll see you on the next one!