Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

How many of you have been in a situation where you deserved to be punished?

This is a near daily occurrence for us.

We get in our car and we go 56mph in a 55mph zone - we deserve a speeding ticket.

The Bible shares with us that we break God’s law and we do this on a daily basis as well.

Because of this, as we talked about this morning, we deserve eternal separation from God.

I read a story from a prominent Christian author and teacher this week in which he talked about his past, specifically his teenage years.

During his teen years this individual would go out with his friends and prank people by ringing the doorbell and running away before the person could open the door.

As this went on week after week in the summer, the group of boys escalated to something more daring: busting the mailboxes of some of these same people.

After a few weeks of doing this, the boys decided to up the ante once more by staging some fights while stopped at a stop sign.

One boy would get out of the car and fake punch another boy while another would bring a baseball bat out and pretend to hit the boy a couple of times.

All this is going on with people watching all around them.

Finally they would grab the kid and throw him into the trunk and drive away really fast.

These boys were reckless and had the cops called on them numerous times because of their crazy actions.

As time has gone by, this teacher noted that he and his friends now realize how dumb their actions were and how they are fortunate that they did not get in more trouble than they did because they deserved serious consequences.

We hear stories like this and maybe you are reminded of some foolish choices you have made in your life - I am reminded of the same, such as whenever I played hide and seek on the roof of FBC Ozark!

Whenever we remember some of our mistakes, naturally we also are reminded of some of the consequences for our actions.

We looked last week at Jonah’s disobedience and how there is a consequence: Jonah was thrown overboard and eventually swallowed by a great fish.

Tonight we will look at the result of this on the life of Jonah as Jonah cries out to the Lord and the Lord answers this powerless prophet.

We Must Know that God Hears Us (1-2)

Jonah has faced the consequence for running away from the Lord in chapter 1 and finds himself in the belly of the fish… But he still remembers that he serves the One true God and he goes to God in prayer.

See, the fish was not just God’s judgment but the fish is also God’s mercy.

Jonah is not being paid back for his sin, he is being brought back from his sin.

God has a perfect plan and that plan does involve justice but it also involved mercy and grace.

The fish serves as a grace of God as Jonah finds himself stuck for 3 days.

Assuming this is a fish and not a whale, there wouldn’t have been much room to move around for those 3 days.

Have you found yourself stuck before?

Probably not stuck in an animal but sometimes we get stuck in life.

I’ve been stuck climbing a tree before and that’s not a very fun position to be in.

Sometimes we get stuck in our cars in a traffic jam and we can’t get out.

Jonah was stuck in a fish and he couldn’t move and he couldn’t escape… He had 3 days to think back to God’s call on him to go to Nineveh and to reflect on his mistake in the past of ignoring God’s command.

Jonah knew he was in a dilemma, either he would go to Nineveh and they would reject the message and probably kill him, or he would go to Nineveh and they would accept the message and God would have mercy on them.

Either way, things don’t go well for Jonah because he wants to see these people get what they deserve… As we’ll see later in this study, Jonah demonstrates genuine sinfulness to us as clear as day.

He was willing to say yes to God in some areas but not all areas.

He wasn’t willing to believe that the people of Nineveh deserved God’s mercy and in refusing to share this message of repentance, he fails to immediately do what God wanted him to do.

Are we that different?

Sometimes we’ll come to church or read our Bible and we’re fine with 99% of it.

We’ll live out 99% of the Bible.

We’ll agree with 99% of a sermon or a Sunday school lesson, but sometimes we don’t want God’s way in 1 area of our life.

We don’t really want to surrender our marriage to the Lord.

We don’t really want to surrender our family or our jobs or our future to the Lord.

We won’t fully trust in God’s plan for our finances because we think that we don’t have enough money to tithe and we definitely won’t allow God to call us to uproot our lives here and move halfway around the world.

Jonah isn’t all that unlike us - God touched his nerve with this request to go to Nineveh… and God touches all of our nerves whenever He demands complete Lordship of our lives.

This includes all aspects, public and private.

This is where the rubber meets the road and sometimes we need to be stuck in the belly of a fish for 3 days in order to have time to figure out who really is in control.

As CS Lewis said, He’s either Lord of all or He’s not Lord at all!

In this situation, Jonah begins to understand Who God is and he calls out to Him for help in this situation, just as many of us would whenever we find ourselves completely stuck.

In this moment, Jonah prays and this marks a turning point in this book.

Here’s the question for us this evening, “Why do we often wait for Rock Bottom to start looking up to God?” Jonah had the opportunity in chapter 1 to pray to his God just like all the sailors were doing but he passes or at least we aren’t told that he does so in the first chapter.

In fact, it is the secular sailors who cry out to his God in chapter 1

Jonah remains silent… until chapter 2 and then he prays.

This presents a timely truth for us and it serves as one of the recurring themes throughout Scripture - our God hears our prayers whenever we call out to Him! Look at some of these passages in Psalms

We shouldn’t wait until rock bottom to begin, but whenever we cry out to the Lord, He is near.

He hears us.

He answer us!

Jonah admits that he is in the place of divine judgment (Sheol) but he knows that even whenever we experience judgment, God hears us.

What an important truth for us to remember in our suffering - God is near and He hears us when we cry out to Him… Let’s make use of that truth before we get into the fish, though!

We Must Know that God Holds Us (3-6)

Jonah says that the Lord heard his voice and then transitions in the middle verses to discuss what the Lord has done thus far.

In verse 3 we see that Jonah realizes, once again, that everything that has happened thus far has been from God.

Notice what we find at the end of verse 3, “All your breakers and billows passed over me.”

There was a purpose in all of this and Jonah realizes this.

As the great reformer Martin Luther noted, “Jonah does not say the waves and the billows of the sea went over me; but your waves and your billows, because he felt in his conscience that the sea with its waves and billows was the servant of God and of His wrath, to punish sin.”

Jonah had disobeyed and deserved destruction, not deliverance.

Jonah is experiencing a consequence from God due to his sinfulness.

Even in the midst of this, though, Jonah continues to pray.

Let this be a lesson to all of us that even in difficult moments of life, we should continue to pray and seek the Lord.

This should be our message to others as well - even when life seems overwhelming and as if you are drowning in anxiety and worry, cry out the Lord because He hears us and He is in control.

In the midst of our trials and tests, let’s remember that it is our God who promises to be with us.

Charles Spurgeon, called the Prince of Preachers, struggled with depression for years and years of his ministry… He knew his Bible extremely well.

He was a faithful preacher.

He married and counseled thousands of people.

He knew the right answers but he still struggled with depression and sadness and defeat.

He once shared this, “I’ve learned to kiss the wave that throws me upon the rock of ages.”

Spurgeon doesn’t blame Satan for his problems… He understands that even in the trial of worry, he can rejoice that his depression pushes him to trust all the more in Jesus.

Isn’t this the truth that has to carry us through the dark days of our lives?

Our God holds us even when things seem out of control?

I want us to camp out specifically in verses 5 and 6 for a couple of minutes as we reflect on moments in our own lives where we have gone astray and take heart in what Jonah shares.

Jonah talks about how he was thrown out into the sea and the water encompassed him to the point of death and how he slowly sank.

Have you ever watched the VeggieTales story of Jonah?

I love VeggieTales, but the Jonah version doesn’t exactly get this part right.

In the VeggieTales version, Jonah is thrown out into the sea and almost immediately the fish swims up to him and he is swallowed after a minute or so.

Verse 5 seems to tell us a different story - obviously whenever Jonah was thrown overboard the sea calmed but we see that Jonah was encompassed by the water and it slowly brought him in deeper and deeper.

Jonah hits the water and the Lord lets him float for a little while.

Have you ever tried to just float for a long amount of time in a pool or body of water?

Floating for a couple of seconds isn’t that hard but after a few minutes it can be hard to stay above water.

Imagine trying to do this out at sea!

This would be very difficult.

Add in 20 or 30 foot waves and this becomes impossible!

We see Jonah floating and slowly sinking in verse 6.

Why does this happen?

Once again, to emphasize the deliverance and power of God.

Did Jonah smell really bad and is that why the fish came and swallowed him?

No. Was the fish already underneath the ship and Jonah simply dove straight into its mouth?

No. Jonah was descending slowly and says that the earth with its bars were going to surround him forever.

In 21st century vocabulary, Jonah was on deaths door and he couldn’t do anything about it.

He couldn’t swim harder.

He couldn’t take grab a lifejacket or do anything of his own power to save himself.

This is how our lives can feel at times.

Life can feel overwhelming and daunting.