When God Sends Us to the People We’d Rather Avoid

By Dean Collins

The instruction from Jesus found in the last three verses of Matthew is repeated in the first chapter of Acts. All followers of Jesus — his disciples — are to always take the message of Jesus with them wherever they go. Our words and our actions reflect our discipleship. Luke makes sure that we understand that we start in our local community, but we are to expand our witness throughout the entire world. The good news of the kingdom of God is for everyone.

Here is a tough question that believers must wrestle with: What if every follower of Jesus shared the gospel at the same level that I do? While some may answer with great confidence because they share Jesus with others daily, many of us would probably just be looking down at our shoes, afraid to share how rarely we follow this instruction from Jesus.

Reading the first chapter of Jonah this morning, another hard question came to mind. What if we behaved as the prophet Jonah did when God told him to go preach to Nineveh? You remember the story. Jonah chose to run in the opposite direction of Nineveh and boarded a ship to Tarshish, choosing to not only ignore but to disobey what God had told him to do.

Scholars tell us that Jonah didn’t want to go to Ninevah because he despised the people of Nineveh. He also believed that God was merciful, and he did not want God to show compassion on a group of people that he wanted nothing to do with. 

We may not want to admit it, but I suspect that all of us have people who we are so used to hating that we really would hate it if God gave us an assignment of going to spend time with them and share the good news. Who would it be for you? What if God sent you to share the good news with:

The Democrats?

The Republicans?

The people of Israel?

The people of Iran?

The companies that build data centers?

The people who traffic pornography?

The poor?

The rich?

I suspect that all of us have those people who we are so against that we just can’t imagine that God would be for them. Surely God wants to judge and condemn them and not show them his love and mercy.

When we read the first chapter of Jonah, we discover that God’s prophet was stubbornly determined to not obey God, even to the point of dying in the sea before he would dare risk that God would show mercy to his enemies. We also discover that those on the boat, who Jonah would have viewed as godless, were the very ones who cried out to God seeking mercy. Read what the sailors said:

 “Therefore they called out to the Lord, “O Lord, let us not perish for this man’s life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you.” So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.”

Jonah is another book of scripture where we see God turn things upside down in order to one day put everything in the world back where he created it to be. The little book of Jonah forces us to consider if we are willing to go where Jesus calls us to go. It challenges us to consider if we will stay stuck in our preferred groups or risk that God actually loves and wants to show his forgiveness and mercy to those we don’t even want to talk with. 

Father, forgive us for our stubborn pride. Melt our heart to love others, even the ones we have chosen to hate in the past. May our repentance open doors where we might love and talk to people who are different than we are and hold different opinions that we do. Expand our hearts and minds that we would follow you wherever you lead us today. In Jesus’ name, amen. 

Your Time with God’s Word
Jonah 1:1-17 ESV

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