A Fight You'll Never Win

It was a good fight, but the fish wasn’t big enough to eat me. But I’ll venture to say that if God had appointed that King Mackerel to eat me, it would have found a way!

God appointed a fish to swallow Jonah because Jonah was running from God, fighting against his will. Who ever wonders what’s going to happen to them when they disobey God? You think about it doing the wrong thing but you get worried what might happen. Or you go through with that thing you know you shouldn’t do, and then you tense up waiting on the lightning strike.

We all rebel against God, at least in small ways. But rebellion against God is rebellion against God. And I think we all get nervous about what will happen. That’s what we’re going to talk about tonight some, and I have to tell you that being swallowed by a fish is within the realm of possibility! I can tell you one thing for sure though.

Fighting against God’s will can only result in bad things.

PRAY!!!

Jonah, the fight against God’s instructions

vv1-12

Don’t be surprised by bad outcomes when you reject God’s instructions!

You know the scene in the super hero movie where the hero stops a truck or a train. Someone is in trouble and the hero has to get in front to save them and they stand there with there with their hand up to stop the train? Or in Spider-Man’s case he shoots webs everywhere and slows it to a stop. Well in a world with no super heroes with super human abilities, that doesn’t happen. This is what happens… video of guy getting hit by van.

This guy just gets hit by an ice cream truck, imagine if it were a bus! Trying to go against God’s instructions is a lot like trying to stop a bus. You can’t stop it.

Isaiah 46:10 HCSB

I declare the end from the beginning, and from long ago what is not yet done, saying: My plan will take place, and I will do all My will.

vv1-3, Jonah is a prophet and he is called to Nineveh. This isn’t a great assignment.

It would be like God telling me to go to North Korea or Syria to proclaim the Gospel. Which is a thing that the Lord does…!

Jonah doesn’t like this. He doesn’t want God to forgive them because he hates them. But it’s not up to him. It’s up to God. And God has decided that no one is so evil that they don’t get to hear the Gospel.

Look at Paul!

We don’t get to decide who is worthy to hear the Gospel. Guess what, no one is! But you still got to hear it! So you have to tell others!

If there are people you think are too bad to be saved, people who are so evil that it makes you angry to think about them being forgiven… give some hypothetical examples, small and large scale, then you need to repent of that because it’s sin.

And because God won’t let you off the hook!

vv4-5, Jonah’s rebellion against God welcomes God’s punishment.

Jonah gets on this boat and God’s like, “You think you can just run from me?!” He sends this huge storm and all the sailors start going nuts! Imagine the scene.

Give me some storm sounds.

The sailors are freaking out and throwing everything overboard to lighten the ship. I don’t really understand how that would work…, but that’s what they were trying.

I’m not saying God is going to give you a near death experience when you disobey Him, I’m not saying that every bad thing in your life is because you have sinned. But know that when we rebel against God, we aren’t inviting his blessing.

If He tells you need to go to someone you’ve done wrong to and apologize and you try to go in the other direction, He could cause you to have a wreck. You spin around a bunch of times, car ends up facing the direction you were supposed to be headed.

Or it could be in smaller things. Where did I got to college? Yes, that’s correct, but that’s not the whole story! I didn’t start at Alabama!…

God will discipline us when we rebel, but it’s because He loves us.

Hebrews 12:6 HCSB

for the Lord disciplines the one He loves and punishes every son He receives.

He also knows that when we rebel we will either repent and return to Him, or we will further harden our hearts.

vv5b-12, Jonah is so busy running from God that he makes no effort engage these pagan sailors. He’s hardened his heart.

Jonah is that guy. The guy on the football team who didn’t learn the playbook and is missing every assignment. He’s the guy on the road trip crew whose job it was to pump gas, but he just didn’t do it because he wanted to grab some Funyuns. He was the last person in the storm shelter who was supposed to lock the door and didn’t do it, so the tornado ripped the door off.

He got on the boat and seems like he paid and went straight to sleep to try and get away from everything. Don’t we do that? We know God is telling us to do something, or stop doing something, but we don’t like it so we try to ignore it or run from it?

You shouldn’t be arguing with your parents and you know it, but you don’t want to humble yourself so you stop talking to them. You know you shouldn’t be drinking but you don’t want to stop cause you’re having fun. Your church friends are trying to hold you accountable, so you stop hanging out with them. God convicts you about your sexual impurity when you pray, so you stop praying.

When we rebel we have two options, repent and honor God or run further away, harden our hearts more, and make it even more difficult to turn back to Him.

We can not put off doing God’s will, repenting when that’s what we need to do, because the more we do, the harder it is to go back.

You ever get into a fight with a friend and you don’t want to call them to talk about it the first day. The next day it feels uncomfortable to think about. A week later it feels like there is no way you could ever get the friendship back because it would be so awkward to talk to them?

The same thing can happen in our relationship with God. We’ve got to be immediately obedient, and when we aren’t we’ve got to repent as soon as we realize we need to!

Jonah didn’t do that though. He was so stubborn that he basically told these men to kill him instead of just saying, “Ok God, you got me! I’m sorry, I’ll go to Nineveh like you asked!”

He tells the sailors to throw him over board because that’s the only way that God will let up with the storm. He tells them what God’s way for them to be saved is, but they fight against it.

The sailors, the fight against God’s plan for saving

vv13-16

Instead of doing it God’s way, they try to save themselves their way, under their own power.

Don’t be too hard on them, they didn’t know any better and they were making an effort to save Jonah’s life, but they were fighting against God’s way to be saved.

When you take swim lessons they teach you everything, even how to drown properly, right? If you ever can’t keep yourself above water and have to be saved, what do they tell you to do when the life guard comes for you? Or to not do really? Don’t fight, quit putting forth effort. Just let the life guard do it all. Why? When you try to help the life guard probably won’t be able to save you.

If we try to help God by putting our own effort into our salvation, then we can’t be saved. We can only be saved by trusting in his grace, in who Jesus is and what Jesus did for us.

2 Timothy 1:9 HCSB

He has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.

The sailors figure out trying to do it their way, under their own effort, isn’t going to work. So they submit to God’s way (which just happens to be tossing Jonah overboard). And they are saved.

Are you rebelling against God?

Are you refusing to submit to the Lord in some area of your life? Some sin you won’t let go of? Something God is leading you to do that for whatever reason you won’t go Nike and just do it?

Submit to God, stop your fighting against a storm. Stop inviting God’s wrath into your life. It’s not a gamble worth playing. And stop now, before your heart gets so hard that you don’t know how to repent.

Are you fighting against God’s plan of salvation? Are you trying to save yourself with your own effort and your own ideas? It won’t work.