Week 2 | Jonah

Grace in the Depths

Bible Passage: Jonah 2

Summary: In Jonah 2, we find Jonah praying from the belly of the fish after trying to flee from God's call. His prayer reveals his deep anguish, yet it also highlights God's sovereignty over both nature and His plans for redemption.

Application: This passage encourages Christians to trust in God's sovereignty, even when life circumstances feel overwhelming. It reminds us that God listens to our prayers and is always working for our good, transforming our struggles into instruments of grace.

Teaching: Through Jonah's experience, we learn that repentance and prayer in times of distress can lead to deliverance. God's sovereignty ensures that no situation is beyond His control and that His purposes will ultimately prevail.

How this passage could point to Christ: Jonah's story foreshadows Jesus' burial and resurrection, showcasing God's plan of salvation. Just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days, Christ would be in the tomb, after which all would be made new, illustrating the depth of God's redemptive plan.

Big Idea: Even in our greatest struggles, God's sovereign plan is at work to bring redemption and restoration.

Intro

Welcome

Name - Rotating Preaching Teaching Team

Start walking around - thank new comers, tell Bryan joke, Bible in 5 years

Anybody here for the first time this morning?

You picked a great day to visit Upwards - the coffee is hot, the people are friendly, and the pastor only goes over time … occasionally.

I guess that really just depends on if Bryan is speaking or not… UP TOP!!

Bible in 5 Years - 2nd week of Jonah

We started our in depth Bible study last week - We learned a bunch of background information to the Hebrew scriptures that will prove valuable in our study of Jonah. In fact, we only got through the first word of Jonah...which is not printed in most Bibles...funny enough. It’s the word AND...

Today, for all my Bible study folks, I promise we are going to dive in right away and get through a lot more verses.

Before we go any farther, let’s bow our heads and beseech the LORD for wisdom.

Opening Prayer: open eyes, hearts and ears so we may find wisdom.

Let’s quickly recap Jonah 1

Recap

AND the word of the LORD came to Jonah, the son of Amittai saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for thier wickedness has come up before Me.”

So Jonah arose...to flee.

Where did Jonah flee to? Anybody? Tarshish.

What does Tarshish represent?

Tarshish is a biblical representation of Eden.

The word Tarshish is used in Old Testament depictions of the Garden of Eden.

When not used as a name, it is used in the place of precious jewels.

Tarshish was also a city: a distant place (coast of Spain?) that was known for exporting precious gems and unique animals. This is an Eden Reference during the reign of King Solomon.

Why is it so important for us to understand the biblical meaning of Tarshish?

Because we are all guilty of chasing a man-made Eden - Running from God, chasing the things that are desirable to our eyes.

Jonah went DOWN to Joppa (Beauty).

He found a ship and went DOWN into it.

Fleeing from the presence of the LORD (from the face of Yahweh).

We are guilty of this too. We avoid the conversations God wants us to have. We stay in denial about things the Bible says to be true. We hold on to secret sins...

The LORD hurled a great wind that whipped up a mighty storm (tempest)

The sailors grew afraid and called out to their pagan gods.

They hurled their cargo overboard to keep it from sinking

Nothing was working.

Where was Jonah during all the chaos?

He had gone DOWN into the innermost part of the ship.

...laid DOWN.

...and went DOWN to sleep.

Yarad, yarad, yarad, yaradam. - It’s a Hebrew punchline.

Sometimes we do that right? We keep backsliding, going down, down, down...away from the face of the LORD.

And when we look back on our lives, sometimes it feels like we are punchline of a bad joke.

The captain wakes Jonah up and the sailors cast lots to see whose fault this is.

The lots fall on Jonah.

The sailors ask him 4 questions and Jonah gives 2 answers.

I am a Hebrew.

I fear the LORD who made the sea and the dry land.

Really...do you, Jonah?

We do this too, don’t we? We claim to follow God, the creator of Heaven and Earth...yet we destroy our lives running to things OTHER than God... trying to fix what is broken inside of us all by ourselves...forgetting or perhaps NEGLECTING to turn our faces to the LORD.

The sailors grow exceedingly afraid when they learn Jonah is running from Yahweh, so they ask Jonah what they should do.

Pick me up and throw me DOWN into the sea. Then the storm will calm for you.

Did the sailors like this plan? No.

They tried to turn the boat around.

But the storm was growing worse (the storm that was created by God)

Remember, when God sends a storm - He wants to grow/mold/form you into a creation that is more like Himself. He won’t let you just turn around, He is trying to get your attention.

We are 10 minutes in, does anybody feel God trying to get their attention yet?

The sailors beg God not to hold them accountable for murder...before they throw Jonah overboard and he sinks DOWN into the sea.

The storm immediately stopped its raging.

The sailors offered sacrifices to Yahweh and vowed vows.

This is a picture of conversion. These sailors now follow Yahweh.

Meanwhile, Jonah sinks DOWN beneath the waves...and the LORD appointed a great fish (sea monster - ketos: Jesus) to swallow Jonah.

Jonah remains DOWN in the belly of the great fish (sea monster) for 3 days and 3 nights.

Then after 3 days...Jonah prays.

Finally, right?!

Remember, the entire book of Jonah is an upside down depiction of Jesus Christ.

Every character in the story, animate & inanimate, respond to Yahweh’s actions immediately. Except Jonah, prophet of Yahweh.

Every character that meets Jonah ends up repenting and following Yahweh, even though Jonah refuses to try hard. At all. Yet it takes Jonah having to be swallowed in the sea before he repents and turns his face back toward Yahweh.

We have a people that are unfamiliar with the LORD, following the LORD. And then we have Jonah, a prophet of the LORD...who is running from the LORD.

Upside down land.

And that’s where we pick up the story in Jonah chapter 2. If you have your Bibles, turn with me to Jonah 2 so we can read it together. It’s only 10 verses.

If you don’t have your bibles, please follow along on your phone, a Bible app or on the screens.

Jonah 2 ESV

1 Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, 2 saying, “I called out to the Lord, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. 3 For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me. (Passover?) 4 Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.’ 5 The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped about my head 6 at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land [of the dead] whose bars closed upon me forever; yet you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God. 7 When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple. 8 Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. [The sailors] 9 But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord!” 10 And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

There is so much going on here. If I preached on this chapter for a year, we would have plenty to talk about. But I want to hone your focus in on a few key themes:

Firstly Jonah chapter 2 teaches us to Seek God in Despair… our first point.

1. Seek God in Despair

Jonah 2 begins...

Jonah 2:1–2 ESV

1 Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish ... 2 … and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice.

The LORD is not blind to your suffering. He is not apathetic about your despair.

Notice here what God is doing to Jonah:

He is allowing Jonah’s circumstances to get BEYOND his control...in order to draw Jonah back to Himself.

Has God ever done this with you? Is He doing this with you right now?

Has your running from the LORD created circumstances that are beyond your control?

You see, most of us can identify with Jonah’s story in one way or another.

Some of us feel like we are running from God solo.

Some of us have involved other people into our flight from what is right

The sailors

Your friends

Your families

Some of us have tried going to the extreme measures of running...like Jonah casting himself beneath the waves of a storm. Effectively...suicide; Relationship sabotage; Embracing of known sin.

Some of you feel like you’re sinking into a pit of darkness.

And some of you may feel as though you have been devoured by your pasts and your bad choices, like Jonah was devoured by a Sea Monster.

But each one of you has been rescued from something in your life. God has not allowed you to grow this old without holding His hand over you.

And that rescue isn’t always what you expected, was it? I bet Jonah did not expect to be saved from water by being devoured by a great fish. And then, he was saved from being digested by...GOD. The One who made the seas, the dry land, and Jonah. That’s the only answer I have.

Was it a pocket of air? Was it the ability to breath underwater? Was it the ceasing of needing to breath at all, just like the dead buried in the ground? Did he grow gills?...who knows? The author invites us to speculate on those details, as they aren’t given to us.

You breathing here today is evidence of your daily rescue...because Scripture teaches us that our sins CONDEMN us. And we don’t deserve another day in God’s beautiful creation. Even though you may not FEEL like you’ve been rescued...understand that you don’t see the bigger picture. You can’t see the good plans that God has in store for you.

I heard a story once, as a kid. It was called, “The Lessons of a Bird” and it was one of those stories that hit me deep and has stuck with me all these years. Some of you might have heard this one as well.

It starts with a bird, a sparrow who decided he was going to be different. He wasn’t going to migrate for the winter. He was going to stay right where he was. Where he was comfortable and everything was familiar.

Well, it got colder and colder, and eventually it became unbearable for the Sparrow. So he took flight and went South in a hurry.

But as he flew, ice began to form on his wings, and he fell to the ground in a barnyard below — nearly frozen solid.

He thought to himself, “how could this get any worse?”

Then, a cow wandered by and dropped a pile of manure of him.

This was DEFINITELY the end! It could not EVER get any worse than this! He began to wine and moan and complain about his situation.

But as he wined, the warmth of the manure began to thaw his wings. He felt better — warm, alive, and hopeful.

His cries of woe changed to shouts of joy as his nightmare turned into a rescue.

Unfortunately, the barn cat heard the chirping, dug through the manure, found the sparrow, and promptly ate him.

The End.

Morals of this story:

Not everyone who dumps on you is your enemy.

Not everyone who gets you out of the mess is your friend.

If you’re warm and happy in a pile of manure...keep your mouth shut!

Jonah, like the sparrow, found himself in a place he never expected— deep in the belly of a fish, surrounded by darkness and despair—an image of death in Hebrew symbolism. But it was there, in the depths, that Jonah began to SEEK the LORD and grace began to work.

The fish was not punishment for running—it was preservation from running any further. It was an act of salvation.

The belly was not the end—it was the beginning. The beginning of restoration.

Recognizing God's hand in our trials is the first step toward redemption and hope.

The great fish was used as a tool by God to put Jonah in a set of circumstances that would ultimately inspire him to turn back to Lord. To Hope.

That’s our 2nd point this morning:

2. Turn Back to Hope

Jonah 2:4-6

Notice the clever imagery the author gives us when we study the original Hebrew in the last verse of chapter 1, alongside the first verse in chapter 2:

Jonah 1:17–2:1 ESV

17 And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. 1 Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish,

In verse 17, the word “fish” that is spoken twice is a masculine noun in both instances, dag.

But in the very next verse, Jonah is said to have prayed from the belly of the dagah. A feminine noun.

Why, do you think the author of Jonah would suddenly change to a feminine noun right now?

It’s my belief that this entire scene is a picture of Jesus going into the grave and then rising again on the 3rd day.

This is a scene of resurrection.

And how does Jesus teach us to acknowledge our salvation and our eventual resurrection with Him in the next life?

Baptism. This is also an image of baptism, LOOOONG before John the Baptist came around. 760 years before Jesus is born.

What does Baptism represent? And how exactly does Baptism relate to this fish becoming a female mid story?

Here it is: Baptism is akin to being born again. That’s what it signifies. This is imagery of a birthing of new life.

John 3:3–5 ESV

3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

Why is the great fish feminine after the 3 day..? Because it is about to give birth to new life, just like Jesus in the tomb.

3 days later, the stone was rolled away and NEW LIFE was brought to ALL sinners; men and women of ALL nations. This is the gospel, right here in Jonah.

Romans 1:16 ESV

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

Just as the gospel takes something old and makes it new, takes someone broken and makes them whole...Chapter 2 shows us Jonah’s progression from despair to hope. He turns to hope in verse 4.

Jonah 2:4 ESV

4 Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.’

Jonah 2:6 ESV

6 … I went down to the [land of the dead] whose bars closed upon me forever; yet you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God.

Sometimes we feel like we have been “cast away” from God. Turned down because of our failures. “Banished”, perhaps.

I’m here to tell you that these moments serve as the backdrop for deeper revelation of God’s presence and purpose.

When you are drowning, remember His Holy temple...and look towards it. He will not hide from you.

Open your Bible, and seek Him. You WILL find Him...on one condition:

Jeremiah 29:13 ESV

13 You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

Don’t give it the ol’ college try.

Turn your screens off.

Get alone, be by yourself.

Sit down and put your Bible in front of you.

Close your eyes and pray for God to speak to you.

Tell Him why you are seeking Him. Ask Him to reveal Himself and His direction in a clear way.

Then open your Bible and start reading. And keep asking for Him to show up.

It doesn’t matter where you read, it truly doesn’t. Hebrews 4:12 tells us that the Word of God is living and active.

Just start looking for Jesus! Try to put yourself in the passage that you are reading.

And don’t stop until you encounter Him.

Turn Back to Hope, and find Him standing there EVERY TIME. With arms open wide.

Hope emerges when we remember God’s promises in our difficulties.

And what does God want from us during our trials and tribulations? Surrender.

3. Salvation Through Surrender

Jonah 2:7 ESV

7 When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple.

Jonah is turning his eyes upon God.

And there’s that phrase again, “into your holy temple”. I challenge you to write out this chapter on a piece of paper and cut each verse out so you can move them around. These repeated phrases and ideas give this chapter a beautiful structure that we don’t have time to explore this morning.

Jonah 2:9 ESV

9 But I, with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay [do]. Salvation belongs to the Lord!”

Today, Jesus is calling you to surrender, or sacrifice a piece of yourself. He wants your heart. But He doesn’t just want your heart. He wants ALL of your heart.

And so many of us have filled our hearts with the things of this world. Things that get in the way of God’s blessings and plans for us.

We are called to surrender those things in our hearts...each and every day.

I know it isn’t easy, believe me. I know. But so did Jesus. That’s why he says “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

To follow Jesus, is to surrender...constantly... in ALL things.

Surrender the time you spend scrolling on your phone so you can read His Words.

Surrender your desire to lose yourself in your hobby, and instead lose yourself in prayer.

Surrender the things in your life that separate you from Him.

Surrender...

Your music.

The media you watch.

The food you eat.

The people you let influence you and your children.

The habits and addictions you refuse to let go of.

Surrender. There is Salvation through Surrender. and Salvation belongs to the LORD.

As the worship team comes up, I’d like to tell you a story. It’s a story that most of you know, but it always gets to me whenever I read it and place myself in the scene.

Luke 15:11-32 - The story of the Prodigal Son

Luke 15:20 NASB 2020

20 So he set out and came to his father. But when he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

The son in this story had to surrender the last thing he was holding on to: his pride.

God, I can’t do this life by myself.

The son had to face his father. And admit that he was a sinner...who messed up big time.

God, I’ve destroyed the good things that you have given me. I’ve wasted my gifts, my talents, on things that have no eternal value!

I have embraced sin!

And what was the father doing? What was God doing when you chose to turn back to Him for the first...second...fifth...thousandth time...?

He was running.

While he was still a LONG WAY OFF, his father SAW him...and RAN.

He is chasing you down today. Though you may feel a LONG WAY OFF.

Trapped beneath the waves...in the belly of the beast.

Surrender.

Closing

Before the tithes and offering baskets go around and before we stand in worship, I’d like to close out the message by taking us back to Chapter 1, verse 17.

Jonah 1:17 ESV

17 And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah...

That word “appointed” is past tense. It implies that not only did God appoint a purpose for this fish before it devoured Jonah...it was appointed LONG ago. Perhaps even at its birth or creation.

God ordained, from the very beginning, according to His purpose...that great fish to swallow Jonah.

God is just as organized with your plans. The dominoes have been falling since the dawn of creation, and they have ultimately placed you here, in this church, this morning.

Don’t miss him, like Jonah does in Chapter 1.

Seek Him in your Despair, He will hear you.

Turn Back to Hope, He is chasing you.

Find Salvation through Surrender to Jesus. Salvation belongs to the LORD.

Let us pray.

Prayer

Tee up baptism....

Isn’t Jonah such a profound book? Chapter 2 brings us this amazing imagery of resurrection and baptism. It serves as a powerful reminder of how important a decision like getting baptized can be for a believer and follower of Christ.

After our last song, I am going to meet my friend Kandy down by the baptism pool and we are going to celebrate, together, her new life in Christ.

Baptism - Kandy Keith