Big Fish… Bigger God (Part 1)

Introduction

If you’ve ever been to church camp, you probably have some fond memories. Worshiping Jesus with your friends. Serving those in need. Learning about the Bible. Eating yummy food. And, playing some fun games! One of my favorite church camp games from years ago was called Romans and Christians - if you didn’t grow up playing Romans and Christians you might know this game as Cops and Robbers, or glorified Hide and Seek. For hours late at night as the sun went down, we would be split into two teams: Romans and Christians. The Christians would go and hide and the Romans tried to go and find them and bring them to jail. Some of the Christians would try to break other Christians out of jail without getting caught. We would worship Jesus together and work hard all day long serving others, but whenever it was time for Romans and Christians, things got real serious! We had ER trips, broken bones, a lot of bloody noses, and a lot of fun playing this game over the years. Sometimes it’s easy to hide. There are animals that have this ability to blend in with their surroundings due to camouflage. There are times in life where we can seemingly hide things from other people who either don’t see something or don’t think about something that is going on. It can be easy to hide a present. It can be easy to hide sin. It can be easy to hide ourselves. With the exception of one person: God. It’s impossible to hide from Him.

Jonah discovered this last week as we began this study together and saw how he was called by God to go to Nineveh and call on the people to repent… however, Jonah disobeyed God’s command. He went the opposite direction physically and spiritually. Not only this, but his action put the lives of these sailors in danger in this process as God sends a storm to redirect Jonah and put him on the path that he was supposed to be on in the first place. This morning we’ll be reminded of the fact that it is impossible to hide from our all-knowing God and that our God works in spite of our failures to bring about His perfect plan of redemption. Wherever you’re at, wherever you’ve been, we all know what it’s like to live in opposition to God and to be caught in spiritual storms of sorts that are the result of our own sin! Today we’ll see that there is rest available through the grace of Jesus Christ. Sometimes we face big fish… but we have a bigger God!

Jonah 1:7–17 CSB

7 “Come on!” the sailors said to each other. “Let’s cast lots. Then we’ll know who is to blame for this trouble we’re in.” So they cast lots, and the lot singled out Jonah. 8 Then they said to him, “Tell us who is to blame for this trouble we’re in. What is your business, and where are you from? What is your country, and what people are you from?” 9 He answered them, “I’m a Hebrew. I worship the Lord, the God of the heavens, who made the sea and the dry land.” 10 Then the men were seized by a great fear and said to him, “What have you done?” The men knew he was fleeing from the Lord’s presence because he had told them. 11 So they said to him, “What should we do to you so that the sea will calm down for us?” For the sea was getting worse and worse. 12 He answered them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea so that it will calm down for you, for I know that I’m to blame for this great storm that is against you.” 13 Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they couldn’t because the sea was raging against them more and more. 14 So they called out to the Lord, “Please, Lord, don’t let us perish because of this man’s life, and don’t charge us with innocent blood! For you, Lord, have done just as you pleased.” 15 Then they picked up Jonah and threw him into the sea, and the sea stopped its raging. 16 The men were seized by great fear of the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. 17 The Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

Sin has consequences and sometimes those consequences include putting others in harms way. Thankfully, we know that the God of the Bible doesn’t leave us where we are at. He saved these sailors and He provides salvation to us today through the finished work of Jesus Christ. Let’s give Him thanks for His salvation today, let’s pray.

Our Rebellion Creates Problems (7-10)

Often as humans we view our circumstances through our eyes and our eyes only and don’t think about how our actions will impact those around us. If you have kids that like to kick the seat in front of them, they like this because it helps them get energy out and they get to see the seat in front of them move and they think it’s great… but if you’re sitting in the front seat driving, it hurts your back! Your child thinks this is great! You think otherwise! The same is true for us as we think about opportunities that are before us that might look good for us, but they impact other people. Whenever a co-worker doesn’t show up for work because they would rather go to opening day of SDC than work, that forces you and others to step up and fill in the cracks.

We know what it’s like whenever people drop the ball on us… and we also know what it’s like to drop the ball on someone else! Actions impact other people… sometimes years down the road! In the Bible we see this with Abraham and Sarah. God makes a covenant with Abraham, a promise, that he is going to be the father of a great nation with descendants as numerous as the grains of sand on the beach! This is a wonderful promise, except for the fact that he is 75 and doesn’t even have a child. What do Abraham and his wife Sarah do? They take matters into their own hands instead of trusting in God’s plan. Abraham has a child with a woman and this child is named Ishmael. Did Abraham and Sarah’s sin of not trusting in God’s plan cause problems immediately? Yes! Has their sin caused problems generations later? Absolutely as there has been much bloodshed between the Jewish and Arab people for thousands of years! Y’all, the Bible is painfully clear that sin is serious!

Here is Jonah, as we looked at last week, called by God to go East to Nineveh but he instead went West towards Tarshish because he didn’t want to go and call on them to repent of their evil actions. Remember these people are evil, powerful, and wicked… it makes sense why Jonah wouldn’t naturally want to go through with this. But it was what God called him to do, and sin is anything that we think, say, do, or don’t do that displeases God and whenever God tells you to do something and you do the opposite, that is in fact sin. It’s not a difference of opinion. It’s not a debatable topic. It’s not a different perspective. If the Bible says it, that settles it!

Jonah’s rebellion is putting the lives of the sailors at risk. They’ve tossed their cargo overboard. They’ve prayed. They’re trying to determine why this storm is happening and they rightly believe that it is the judgment of God, but they don’t know why and they don’t know which god. Eventually they come to the conclusion that they’ll cast lots to determine who is the person actually at fault for this situation. This seems strange to us today, but the idea was that they would toss multi-colored rocks to determine who was at fault. We see this throughout the Old Testament and we see this with other cultures that didn’t even believe in the God of the Bible. The principle that these sailors are following is that the lot or the stone will fall on the person who has sinned or done wrong and this is exactly what Proverbs 16:33 talks about

Proverbs 16:33 CSB

33 The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.

In other words, the lot or the dice are cast but the decision, the outcome, is from the Lord. Do you believe that God has all authority? Whenever you have a family member or a friend seriously sick, do you believe that God has the power to heal that person? If you have a friend who is lost, do you believe that God has the power to save them? We trust in God’s power and grace and mercy in many situations, but there are other situations in life where we are so laid back that we view it as chance. Luck. Not a big deal. Random. Consider the story of Jonah through 7 verses - he is called by God to get up and go to Nineveh. He refuses and goes down to Joppa. Down into the boat. Down into the heart of the boat. Then he comes up during the life and death storm and the lots fall on him. Is this a surprise? Is this a random event? This isn’t chance. This is the Lord demonstrating His power and His plan to these sailors and to His sinful servant. Some are uncomfortable with the idea of God being in control of the way that the dice land, this highlights God’s sovereignty that He is in control of the big things and the little things… but this doesn’t negate human responsibility. Don’t go home this afternoon and get your Yahtzee game down from the game cabinet and say, “Ok, God, if I roll a 4 then I will share the Gospel with this person and if I roll any other number than I won’t.” God can absolutely answer that, but many other times we know the right thing to do, we simply need to do it.

Rebellion has consequences and as the lots fall on Jonah he begins to explain the situation to these sailors. Have you ever been surprised before? I’m not talking about the surprise whenever you go to the dessert table at a party and bite into a cookie expecting chocolate chips and rudely discovering it to be filled with raisins, that’s a surprise! I’m talking about a level above that… like you come home from work and everything looks normal, but come to find out there are 25 people waiting inside for a surprise birthday celebration. Some surprises are nice! This one is not a nice surprise, but it is a big surprise. These sailors find out that Jonah is the reason for this storm and that Jonah is a servant of the One True God who made the heavens, the sea, and the dry land. In other words, Jonah’s God is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and the Creator and Calmer of Storms. This is not good news because 1) Jonah is in rebellion before God, and 2) These sailors are also in rebellion to God! These sailors don’t know God as they just got done praying to their gods and nothing happened.

Christians and non-Christians alike can be guilty of rebellion before God. We see this in the New Testament with the example of Peter as he denied Jesus 3x. We see this example in the Old Testament with people like King David as he sinned with Bathsheba. Maybe you are here and you are a believer and you look at your life today and you see problems and they are the direct result of your sinful actions and you find yourself in a storm of sorts… What separates a Christian and a non-Christian caught in rebellion before God? One word: Repentance. Turning away from sin and turning towards Christ. These men are facing a real problem, a life and death problem. Today, because of our sin, we too are facing a real problem. An eternally serious problem. But there is a solution that can provide us with peace.

Only Repentance Causes Peace (11-16)

Again this word, repentance! Whenever we hear the word repentance, our mind can go a few different directions. The Bible uses this word quite often and we’ll look at a few passages here in just a minute… but first we have to realize the gift that repentance is. Imagine highway 160 to our West. You are going 60mph North towards Springfield, but God calls you to go to South towards Nixa. What can you do along highway 160? You can make a U-turn and turnaround to go the other direction. This is repentance. You are actively going one direction, but you make a decision to turnaround and go the other way. You make a 180. You are going your way, but then you start going God’s way. Repentance is essential! This is what Jesus called on people to do

Mark 1:15 CSB

15 “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

Not only was this the message of Jesus, repent and believe, but this was the message of the early church whenever the Gospel was proclaimed: Repent and believe!

Acts 2:37–38 CSB

37 When they heard this, they were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” 38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

It doesn’t matter how much you have going for you, if you are actively going against God’s will, you will have no peace. Have you experienced this before? From the outside things look good. Nice situation. Nice occupation. Good family and friends. But on the inside, you have absolutely no peace? You have no stability. You have nothing that truly will last. Only by repenting and believing in the Prince of Peace can we experience His perfect peace. If you have experienced this peace today, you know how it truly does change everything. You know that you can walk through sleepless nights, scary situations, and heartbreak not by your own strength, but you walk through them because He gives you peace and strength each step you take!

There was an early Christian pastor named Justin who was brought before the local Roman governor in the 2nd century and he was told that he must stop worshiping Jesus and instead bend the knee to Caesar. He refused to do this and the governor said that he and his church would be put to death. Justin turned to his brothers and sisters in Christ and said this, “They can kill us, but they can’t hurt us.” How on earth could a believer have this type of faith in the midst of certain death? Because of the peace that is given to us by Jesus Christ Himself. As Martin Luther penned 500 years ago in the hymn A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, “The body they may kill, God’s truth abideth still. His Kingdom is forever!” This is the peace that is available to YOU today through faith in Jesus Christ. Whatever you face. Wherever you’re at. There is PEACE in Jesus.

If you’re a Christian, you desperately want other people to experience this peace. To turn away from empty wells that cannot satisfy and to turn to the Living Water that Jesus offers. Yet, some people refuse to repent. They refuse to acknowledge that they are headed down a one way road to destruction and need to turn towards Christ. Millions in our world want a solution to their problems apart from Christ. Millions want a solution for sin without a sinless Savior.

These sailors are becoming more and more aware of their situation. Death is a certainty… and Jonah tells them what to do: Throw me into the sea. Jonah had already gone down to Joppa. Down to the boat. Down inside the boat. Now he is about to go down into the water as his downward trajectory continues! Jonah knows that he is to blame and knows that he deserves this punishment, not the sailors. He finally accepts responsibility here, but what do the sailors do? They don’t want to follow through because Jonah just got done telling them who His God was - the God of the heavens and the sea and the dry land. What if we throw Jonah into the water and then God gets mad at us? They begin rowing hard to get back to the land. They are trying to do everything in their power to save this man - have you been there? You’re doing everything that you can do, above and beyond, but it’s still not enough?

This is a picture of genuine salvation. Maybe I can do enough good works. Maybe I can try hard enough. Maybe if I just do the right things… then I’ll be safe! Have you discovered the futility of this pursuit? The more we search for things to satisfy, the more empty these things become. Augustine once shared this, “Restless is our heart until it finds its rest in Thee.” Have you discovered this? It’s like you’re in the middle of the lake and you can see the shore and you row harder and harder, but you keep drifting further away. The more you row, the further away you go. We have to come to an uncomfortable realization, friends. There is a God and you are not Him. These sailors couldn’t get to safety because the storm that God had sent was growing in strength. There are times in our lives where we are trying our hardest to do something… and nothing happens because we are going against God Himself and let me break it to you, you will lose every day of the week and twice on Sundays if you’re going against God. Jacob figured this one out and he walked with a limp the rest of his life.

Friends, the God of the Bible is all powerful and He does have a perfect plan for each one of us, and part of that plan is us repenting of our sins and trusting in His perfect plan. Consider Psalm 115:3

Psalm 115:3 CSB

3 Our God is in heaven and does whatever he pleases.

God isn’t a far off, removed Deity. He isn’t a cosmic butler there to give you whatever you want whenever you want it. He is the sovereign king of kings and Lord of Lords and His will will come to pass. Notice verse 14, “For you Lord have done just as you pleased.” Eventually, the sailors realized this. This was God’s storm. This was God’s plan. God has purposes here. We all must realize this and get on board and the sooner we do, verse 15, the sooner the storm stops. Friend, have you been there? God has a calling on your heart and there is no peace because you’re either actively rebelling against that calling or you’re passively waiting for it to go away. Either way, delayed obedience is called disobedience.

About a year ago, the Lord opened up the conversation to come to South Gate. I wouldn’t say that it was a full on Jonah moment, but it definitely felt like these sailors… not knowing what to do and seeming to row and row but not getting anywhere. Having a deep love for a flock and for my pastoral and administrative staff and friends and watching God save souls, change lives, and build His Church - why would you leave that? There’s only one answer: God. Y’all, if God tells us to do something, He isn’t asking for your input or your opinion. He’s telling you what to do. You can go through the storm and have those waves rock your world for weeks and weeks, I’ve been there! It’s not a fun place to be! Or we can say, “Ok, Lord. I don’t understand… but I trust YOU!” Whenever we trust in the Lord. Whenever we turn from our perspectives and trust in His providence. Whenever we DO His will, we experience otherworldly peace. Immediately after these sailors throw Jonah down into the sea, what happens? The storm stops.

Sin leads us down. Jonah continues down physically and he continues down spiritually… notice, Jonah never repents here. South Gate, whenever we come under conviction and whenever we are in these spiritual storms, may our first response be our knees hitting the ground and repentance being on our lips as we turn from our ways and trust in God’s - in His will, there is perfect peace.

We Require Christ’s Provision (17)

Aren’t you thankful that the God of the Bible is big enough to bring good things out of bad situations? We see this in the Bible with people like Joseph - “you meant this for evil, but God intended it for good.” God is seated on His throne and promises in places like Romans 8:28 this glorious truth

Romans 8:28 CSB

28 We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

All things. Not most. Not some. Not a few. All things work for God’s glory and the good of God’s people, even when they don’t feel good, God works them for our good. Do you believe this? This sounds great in theory, but how does it work in reality? Consider what happens to Jonah. He’s on this downward spiral and the only way to redirect Jonah is for God to bring about a fish to swallow Jonah. Again, I pray that we never get to this point in our lives that God appoints a fish to swallow us, but don’t you see God working out something here? God’s plan will come to pass and God’s plan involves a big fish swallowing this rebellious prophet. Now, in Missouri we have some big fish. In St. Louis County about a decade ago there was a world record set at the time for largest catfish ever caught as it was nearly 5 feet long and weighed over 130 pounds! That’s the size of a small adult. Can you imagine that? Some wrestle with Jonah 1:17 - how could a fish swallow a person? Let’s think of some other things:

How could a blind person be blind from birth and then suddenly have their sight restored?

How can a person be lame their whole life and suddenly be able to run down the street?

How can 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish feed over 5,000 people with leftovers?

How can a dead man be called by name to come out of the tomb and walk out alive?

Have you come to the realization that we serve a God of the impossible? If you draw the line with Jonah, how on earth do you rationalize the miracle of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ? People say that this is impossible - in fact there was a video just a few weeks ago about a kayaker briefly being swallowed by a whale and people were quick to point out that it would be impossible for a whale to actually swallow a human because their throats are too small. If the Bible says it, that settles it. This is a miracle. This was also God’s plan. This fish had an assigned responsibility by God Himself, as the text says the Lord appointed this fish to do its job. As one commentator put it, if the Bible said that a shrimp swallowed Jonah, I would believe that God created a shrimp that grew to extraordinary proportions just for this sole purpose. We fixate on the fish or the whale so much, that we miss out often on the second part. Jonah was in the belly of the fish for 3 days… what was happening?

Some believe that Jonah actually died in the belly of the fish and we’ll touch on that a bit next week as we look at his prayer in chapter 2. But let’s remember what Jesus said in Matthew 12:40

Matthew 12:40 CSB

40 For as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.

He is highlighting that this truly happened and that He too would be in the heart of the earth for 3 days and 3 nights. Jonah, we can say, is a type of Christ as this event points us ahead to Jesus after His crucifixion. Consider these similarities:

Both Jonah and Jesus were from Galilee

Both preach a message of judgment and repentance to sinners

Both sleep on a boat and cause the storm to stop (albeit in different ways)

Both entered the jaws of death

Both stayed there for 3 days

Both came out of the pit by the power of the Father

Both preached their message and saw lives changed

Even in God’s judgment of Jonah, He is merciful. He saves Jonah. He saves these sailors. He has a plan. He is good. Hebrews 12 reminds us that God disciplines those whom He loves. These sailors were about to perish. They were about to lose their lives. Then Jonah went into the water and everything changed. What do we need? We need the true and better Jonah, Jesus Christ. We need the One who entered the jaws of death in our place. We need the One who calms the storm of sin and separation to provide us with His permanent peace. We need the hope that is only found on a blood stained cross. Can I give you some good news today, friend? There is a tomb in the middle east that is empty and a throne in heaven that is occupied. There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel’s veins, and sinners plunge beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.” Aren’t you thankful for the provision of Jesus? The peace that He provides? This story shows us that, yes there is a big fish… but there is a significantly, infinitely, eternally bigger God!

Because God is Bigger:

We Can Go Boldly Wherever God Calls Us

God has a purpose and a mission for each one of us! Because He is bigger, we can press on with boldness and do what it is that He has in store for us with confidence!

We Can Breathe in the Midst of Storms

Instead of getting overwhelmed by the obstacles that we face, we can breathe in the midst of the storms and remember that our God is greater and that He is sovereign and that He has a plan that will come to pass!

We Can Become Who God Created Us to Be

We are all works in progress! We can become the person that God created us to be and God promises to finish the work that He began. If you are saved, He started that work of salvation. He sought you and He bought you. And He isn’t going to drop you along the way! He is bigger than any issue. Any storm. Any fish. Any situation. Any person.

God is bigger. He is bigger than your greatest fear. He is greater than you. He made you. He has plans for you. If you are here today and you don’t yet know Jesus, why not today?

Your view of God is the anchor in the midst of the storm!