Living While Running Away | Jonah 1

This semester we’re going through a sermon series entitled,  “Living In God’s Story As We Live In This World.”  As you go through life, it’s easy to forget who you are and what story you’re a part of. Alasdyre McIntyre reminds us that before we ask, “What do I have to do today?” we must first ask ourselves, “What story am I a part of?” The story you’re living in informs the choices you make in the world. 

The claim of the semester is this: if the story of Jesus is true, then His story completely changes how we live in this world. For we are not only a character in God’s story (because God’s story of redemption is still happening right now!), we are also a carrier of God’s story. We are called to carry God’s story of love and redemption into the world because we are also a character in the story who needed to be loved and redeemed too.

So every week we ask ourselves, “How does this biblical passage teach us how to live in God’s Story as we live in the world?”

We continue our series by looking at the book of Jonah for the next 4 weeks. The story of humanity is that we run away from God. We run away because we want control, we think we’re better than others, and we look to other things besides God for our identity. But though we run away God always pursues us in love. He pursues us intensely, by confronting us, and even takes our place. Jonah reminds us of the gospel: we’re never too bad that we are beyond the reach of Gods grace; and we are never too good that we are beyond the need of Gods grace.