Salvation Belongs to the Lord (Jonah 2:9)

Is the Gospel implied or explicit? Is this for their “circle”? How does this make them Jesus’ apprentice? R&P: Jonah 2:7-10 (862) + Christ Church in Gilbert (Adam, 8:45a & 10:30a) INTRO: When our lives are frantic & fast paced, when it seems to slipping through our fingers and out of our control, well-meaning ppl may tell you to Stop & smell the roses. • That’s their way of telling you to slow down, to make sure you’re recognizing the blessings and to make sure you appreciate all the good things going on in your life. • As we’re quickly making our way thru Jonah, I think it’s important for us to slow down & smell one particularly beautiful rose. To appreciate this especially important truth before we go on to ch 3. That truth is at the end of v. 9. Just 5 words in English. • “Salvation belongs to the Lord.” Some have said, the book of Jonah can be summarized w/ this verse. Others have even said the whole Bible can be summarized w/ these words • My hope for you this morning is that by slowing down to look at these 5 words that God helps you recognize the blessing of salvation & to appreciate it more as a result. • TR: To get us started, let’s look first at the … 1. [PP] CTXT: Now, Jonah probably learned this truth from his knowledge of the Psalms • V 9 is actually a quote from Ps 3:8, “Salvation belongs to the Lord.” HW, the truth he learned became real in his life as he sat dying at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. • Think about it, he was a good as dead down there. He was in a panic. He had no way to escape. He was helpless. He was not strong enough to get away. He was not smart enough to get to safety. He was hopeless. He had no possible way to save himself. • Remember, as death was swallowing him, as he was being entombed in a watery grave, as seaweed engulfed him like a mummy’s wrap, as his life was expiring, God saved him • 1:17, He appointed a fish to pluck him from the sea floor & save his life. And it was there, in the fish’s belly, that this truth came alive to Jonah, “Salv belongs to the Lord.” • Notice, Jonah says these words at the end of a song. He is so overwhelmed that God saved him that he composed this song to say Thank You to the Lord for rescuing him. • Jonah’s grateful that God would save a rebel like him. So, these words were said loudly, with a grateful heart & with full conviction that “Salv belongs to the Lord.” • TR: Now, from these 5 words we learn some very important truths that each of us needs, like Jonah, to embrace with all our hearts & with full conviction. What is that … ? 2. [PP] TRUTH: Simply, that Salvation belongs to the Lord. • What is salvation? Salvation refers to deliverance, rescue from danger like military enemies bent on killing u or even death itself like here w/ Jonah. Or, the word is used 4 rescue from all kinds of distress like disease, misfortune, oppression, affliction & pain 1 Is the Gospel implied or explicit? Is this for their “circle”? How does this make them Jesus’ apprentice? • HW, the way we mostly think of the word ‘salvation’ has to do with being rescued from sin & what sin does to us. Listen to … o Mt 1:21, Mary “will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his ppl from their sins.” Also, Jn 3:17, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” o And Rom 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” 1 Thess 5:9, “God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” o Finally, listen 2 Tim 2:10, Paul talking about his ministry & the struggles he’s been facing said, “I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.” • So, ‘salvation’ includes rescuing people from their sins, from condemnation & from wrath. ‘Salvation’ is received by faith in Jesus only, not anything or anyone else. And this salv that’s only found in Jesus brings eternal glory, eternal joy, eternal life w/ it • So, there’s an aspect of salvation that is salvation FROM danger, even eternal danger • AND, there’s an aspect of salvation that is salvation to safety, to well-being, to eter life • Now, look at v. 9 again. Who is this LORD Jonah says that salvation belongs to? o When someone says your name, u're identified. U pay attention. U respond. o In the Bible, LORD is the English translation of Yahweh or Jehovah, the name of God. This name identifies the one true God. IOW, ‘salvation’ doesn’t just belong to any L-O-R-D. It belongs exclusively to Yahweh. o This LORD, Yahweh, Jehovah is identified as a “Father” some 15x in the OT (cf. Deut 32:6, Isa 63:16, 64:8, Jer 3:4, 19, 31:9, Mal 1:6). o This same divine name, LORD, Yahweh, Jehovah is identified as Jesus: Phil 2:10 says every knee should bow & every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. HW, that is a quote of Isa 45:13, where says every knee shall bow & every tongue shall swear allegiance to the LORD. o Jesus made this connection obvious in Jn 8:58. He called Himself by the divine name when He said, “Before Abraham was, I AM,” which = LORD! o So, in the Bible, the LORD all caps is identified as the Father & as Jesus. o And, LORD all caps also identifies the Holy Spirit. In Isa 6, Isaiah sees the LORD who then speaks to him. HW, in Acts 28, it says that the Person speaking those words was the Holy Spirit. Why? Bc the Spirit is the LORD. o So, the LORD, Yahweh, Jehovah is the Trinitarian God of the Bible, F, S & S 2 Is the Gospel implied or explicit? Is this for their “circle”? How does this make them Jesus’ apprentice? • Finally, what does it mean that salvation belongs to the Lord? In the context of Jonah, it means salvation goes where He wants it to go, when He wants it to go & how He wants it to get there. Think about Jonah. God wants salvation to go to Nineveh & He wants Jonah to take it there. So, it’s going to Nineveh & Jonah’s taking it there. • So, when it comes to avoiding eternal wrath, when it comes to enjoying eternal life, for a person to have salvation they must get it from the Lord bc it belongs to Him. He owns it. He has exclusive rights to it. It is His enterprise, His invention, His business. He is in charge of salv. It is under His authority. He does with it whatever He pleases. • Now, look at 2:10. As soon as Jonah said those words “Salv belongs to the Lord,” the fish spit him out! Like the fish, most ppl in church today will not stomach this truth. • They want to think that salv belongs to them, that they can own it, that they can be in charge of it & that they can do with it whatever they please, but that is not true. • Exod 33:19, God speaking, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” Paul quotes this verse in Rom 9:15 & adds, in conclusion, salvation does not depend on human free will or on human good works. • Well, if it doesn’t depend on that, what does salvation depend on? Paul continues. It depends on God who has mercy. Why does salv depend on God? Bc salv belongs to God. It is His & His alone. He gives it whenever, wherever & to whoever He wishes. • TR: Now that we’ve seen the context & the truth of Jonah 2:9, let’s look 3rd at the… 3. [PP] IMPLICATIONS [REPEAT] • If “Salvation belongs to Yahweh, to the LORD” then He is the only Savior. He is the only god who saves. All the rest cannot save bc all the rest do not own salvation. o No wonder Isa 43:11 says “I, I am Yahweh, I am the LORD, and besides me there is no savior.” Hosea 13:14, “I am Yahweh, I am the LORD your God…besides me there is no savior.” He is the only one. o This makes us uncomfortable in our ‘make sure everybody likes us,’ fear of man, co-dependent age, but the truth is the truth. o Most ppl view belief systems like ice cream flavors or movie tastes, pick the one you like. HW, no belief system sees itself that way. All see themselves like math problems with right & wrong answers that contradict each other. o Simply put, either Jesus rose from the dead or He didn’t. If He did, Xianity is true regardless of how it makes me feel or what it does for me. If He didn't, it’s false regardless of how it makes me feel or what it does for me. Sense? 3 Is the Gospel implied or explicit? Is this for their “circle”? How does this make them Jesus’ apprentice? o Now, 20x Jesus is called “Savior” & Acts 4:12 says, “there is salv in no one else for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” He is the only way to be saved bc salv belongs only to Him. • A 2nd implication of Jon 2:9 is that all the other sources of salv, all who claim to have salv, or claim to own salv, or claim to be THE channel of salv on earth, cannot save! o No group, no race, no ethnicity owns salv bc salv belongs to the Lord. o No organization, no institution, no religious system, no ideology, no philosophy, no ecclesiastical structure has salv bc salv belongs to the Lord. o No ritual or good work like baptism, no life time accumulation of good works can allow someone to own salv for themselves bc salv belongs to the Lord. o No human being, no prophet, no guru, no master, no Pope, no pastor, no body of leaders, no woman, no man owns salv bc salv belongs to the Lord. o Saying you or some organization owns salv is like saying they own the univ. You didn’t create it; it doesn’t belong to you & the same is true for salvation. o It belongs to the One who created it & that one is Yahweh, Jeh, the Lord. • From this comes a 3rd implication from Jonah 2:9, namely, that you & I don’t own salv either & we never can. We can’t achieve it. We can’t earn it. We cannot put God in our debt so that He owes us salv. It cannot belong to us bc salv belongs to the Lord. o If we have salv, IOW, it didn’t come from some natural power we all have o Salv didn’t come from some desire to do what He wants us to do. Before we can act for God we must want to, but there’s nothing in us that wants God. o Salv didn’t come from some inclination all of us have to follow God. There’s nothing in you or in me that is alive to God so as to reach out for Him. o If we have salv, it didn’t come from some intellectual gift that figured it out. o If we have salv, it’s didn’t come from always being a spiritual person. o Could you imagine if salv only came to those who are naturally powerful, intellectual or spiritual? What would that communicate? Not that salv belongs to the Lord but that it only belongs to the gifted & special among us. o Some vile criminal, right now, could cry out for mercy & be saved while some well-off, moral, nice guy is too good to do so & will be lost forever. o No, salv can be yours no matter how gifted or average, how competent or incompetent, how wise or foolish, how strong or weak you are. • And, a 4th implication is this, everything we need 4 salv was done by Him & Him alone o In eternity past, the Lord who is the Father arranged salvation for all who would believe in Jesus. Eph 1:3, “He chose us in Christ before the foundation 4 Is the Gospel implied or explicit? Is this for their “circle”? How does this make them Jesus’ apprentice? of the world,” before the universe was created. Before the first photon left the sun, salvation was His idea, His plan that He thought of. o On top of that, almost 2000 years ago, the Lord Jesus accomplished salvation for all who would believe in Him when He died on the Cross. Rom 5:9, “since we have now been justified by His blood [on the Cross], much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.” o He did it all by Himself. No one, the richest king, the holiest saint, the bravest martyr, the poorest believer cannot possibly contribute anything to the salv that belongs exclusively to Him. We do the sinning; He does the saving. o On top of that, in the past, the moment you were saved, the Lord who is the Holy Spirit applied salvation to you. He didn’t do His part & you did yours. § You were dead & like Lazarus in the tomb He called out to you & you answered. You needed spiritual life so He birthed you again. § If God required you to take the first step to your salvation, He makes salvation impossible for spiritually dead cannot do anything spiritual like believing or obeying or repenting or trusting so as to be saved. § You were headed for God’s wrath, but He converted you. He turned you around. He united you to Jesus. Bc of that union, He adopted you. § You were guilty & He gave you justification. You were a slave to sin & He redeemed you. You were His enemy & He reconciled you. § All the synonyms for salvation show God doing this for us o On top of that, right now Xian, the Spirit is progressively applying salvation to you by sanctifying you, making you more like Jesus (2 Cor 3:17-18) & by guaranteeing that all of God’s promises of salv are already yours (Eph 1:13f). § The Lord arranged that His salvation would come to all who believe in Jesus in eternity past. He accomplished His salvation on the Cross. § He applied it to you the instant you were saved & He daily applies it to you and He gives you more grace to grow & more grace to remain committed to Jesus so you stay committed for the rest of your life. o And on top of all that, God promises to save you absolutely when you are glorified, when Rom 8:30, he who God justified he also glorified. § Soon and very soon, your eyes soaked w/ tears will be flooded w/ light. § The heavenly city will be your home address forever. Your joy will be made complete. You will be like Jesus; you will see Him as He is. § All our foolishness, our fears, our besetting sins, our regrets will disappear. You will shine brighter in holiness than the whitest white. 5 Is the Gospel implied or explicit? Is this for their “circle”? How does this make them Jesus’ apprentice? § Everything God prepared for those who love Him will be yours. o This is the culmination of salvation where the LORD gives us our full inheritance and we experience eternal life in perfect likeness to Jesus. o Break one link in that chain & salvation is hopeless. We were lost & He found us. We were dead & He gave us life. Salv belongs to Him & He gave it • From beginning to end, salv is something God does FOR ppl, and Jon 2:9 show us why. It’s bc salv belongs to Him. Bc of that, He chooses. He dies. He calls. He births again. He converts. He unites. He adopts. He justifies. He redeems. He glorifies. • Heb 7:25, He saves to the uttermost. He saves completely, totally, entirely, exhaustively • TR He does it all, why? Bc salv belongs to Him. And if that’s true, based on everything we’ve seen so far, what for our lives is the … 4. [PP] APPLICATION – What is the APPLICATION for our lives? • From Jonah 2, the first application is obvious. It’s gratitude & worship. o Think about it. When Jonah realized salvation belongs to the Lord and that Lord saved him, he wrote a song about it. He couldn’t hold it in, v. 2. He heard my scream! He answered my cry! He saved me! I can’t believe it! o If you have cried out to the Lord to save you from your sins and He did, if He has taken the salv that belongs to Him and shared it with you, that’s cause for a lifetime of gratitude and worship no matter what else happens in our lives. • The second application is not seen in Jonah, but it’d be pretty obvious too. It’s humility o If salvation belongs to the Lord, and if you can’t even want to have it let alone earn it with you good works so that you can own it for yourself, but you have it bc He shared it with you, that truth should humble you. o He didn’t see anything impressive in us. He didn’t see anything valuable in us. He didn’t see extraordinary in us. He shared His salv w/ us as a gift of His grace. If u contribute anything to your salv, u can boast in it, Eph 2:9 says. You can pat yourself on the back. U can expect God to pony up when you stand before Him & you can wonder why others don’t do what you did. o HW, if He makes you alive, Eph 2:4. If He gives you the faith to believe, Eph 2:8. If He adopted you & redeemed you, Gal 4:5. If He did all that & a whole lot more than humility is just right before this gracious God who owns salvation, who salvation belongs to & who shared it with you. o Then, you realize your goodness is worthless to gain salvation. All rituals, all ceremonies are worthless to gain salvation. All sacraments are worthless to 6 Is the Gospel implied or explicit? Is this for their “circle”? How does this make them Jesus’ apprentice? gain salvation. All bargaining, all special deals you think you’ve worked out are as powerful to save as a spider’s web is to stop a falling boulder. o God does not give His salvation to anyone for any of that! He only gives it to those who have renounced their trust in anything & everything except Jesus. o You did nothing! That truth puts us on our knees in gratitude, worship & humility. He gets all the glory, all the gratitude, all the praise. None to us! o Your salvation does not depend on your power, but on His omnipotence. Not on your intellect, but on His omniscience. Not on your love, but His love. • A third application is seen in Jonah’s response to this truth in ch 3…R vv. 1-3a. o What did Jonah do? In response to God’s gracious rescue, he obeyed. o Remember the order, God saved the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and then, after the salvation, came the 10 Commandments. That order is critical. If God gave the 10 Commandments first & then saved them, it’d communicate that you, that I must earn my rescue, earn my salvation. o That’s not what happened. Obedience is another right response to grace when God gives the salvation that belongs to Him to sinners like you and me. o This is what it says in Titus 2:11-12, “the grace of God appeared, bringing salvation to all people, [this grace is] training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives.” o IOW, when God graciously gifts us the salvation that belongs to Him, it only makes sense that we’d live lives of obedience that are motivated by humility, gratitude & worship to the God that shared His salvation with us. • One final application, also seen in Jonah, to the truth that salvation belongs to the Lord is mission. Jonah went to Nineveh and gave them God’s msg & they were saved. o IOW, if the Lord has graciously gifted us the salvation that belongs to Him, then we should go to those who need it in our lives & give them God’s msg that He will gift salvation to them too if they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. o Since salv belongs to Him you don’t to carry the burden of saving your friends & family. You don’t own salv & you can’t pass it on to anyone. o HW, you do have to carry the burden of telling your friends & family. Think about it though. Go tell it on the mountain & rest in the truth that salv belongs to the Lord so tell it & let Him worry about the results, not you. CONCL: Before we finish, what is the opposite of this truth, that salvation belongs exclusively to the Lord? Do you know what the opposite of this truth is? 7 Is the Gospel implied or explicit? Is this for their “circle”? How does this make them Jesus’ apprentice? • If salvation belongs to the Lord, than damnation belongs to mankind. Jon, “Nobody talks like this anymore, even in church. Just talk about love & grace & salvation.” • Well, meek & mild, gentle Jesus with flowers in his hair & animals walking next to Him talked like that. Mt 10:28, “do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” • Mk 9:43, “if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.” • Mt 25:41, about judgment day – you mean there’s a judgment day for each of us? Yep! Jesus said there was – and here’s what He said, “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” • John 3:36, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” It’s already there • If all this talk of salv has left you hardened to this truth & even raging against such a powerful & perfect God, you will have no one to blame 4 your damnation but yourself. • When you stand before Him & He reminds you of this day, when the salvation that belongs to Him was offered to you & you rejected it, you will have no excuse. • U will live w/ the regret of your conscience that will torment you for eternity. You heard the truth. You felt God’s pressure, His conviction to give in, but you refused. • Please, consider. You have a soul. That soul will either be saved or it will be damned. • Which one is it going to be for you? You will either cry out for mercy now & be heard or you will cry out for mercy then & be ignored. Today, not tomorrow, today is the day of salv. Today, He is offering it to you. • Today, He is calling out to you, young man, to you old woman, to you fathers, to you mothers, to you in your old age. He is calling out to you. • Your prayer when you were 8 means nothing. Your baptism means nothing. Your confirmation means nothing. Your record of giving and service mean nothing. … • Like Jonah, you need rescuing. Today He holds out His hand in grace. Take it! Take it right now. If you know your need, believe in Jesus. Turn from your rebellion. • Turn from trust in yourself. Turn to Him. Trust in Him. Give your life to Him. … • CLOSE: Let’s pray! … As the worship team comes back up here… • Boxes are by the doors for your Conn. Cards & so you can worship God through giving 8 Is the Gospel implied or explicit? Is this for their “circle”? How does this make them Jesus’ apprentice? • If you’re a guest, if you take your Conn Card to our Guest Center a friendly person will exchange it for a gift to say ‘Thank you’ for being here. • Before u go, if you need prayer for any reason, people will be up here for you. Come! • Next week, before we get to the grace of God in Jonah ch 3, we need to have a firm grasp on what the Ninevites were being saved from. So, we’ll take a short break next week from Jonah to look at Psalm 9. This will give us some much needed background. • God bless you! Have a great rest of your Sunday! See you next week! 9