Untitled Sermon

INTRO

I remember as a kid going out deep sea fishing with my dad and looking over the edge of the boat and seeing that deep water

Now because the ocean floor and all the sand is so far down, the water is actually really clear, you can actually see pretty far down

But especially through my eyes as a child you realize it’s basically black and you get this impression of the abyss, the depths of the ocean

As kids my brother and I would regularly get seasick from the big waves and my dad would say “just get the water and it’ll make you feel better”

I can tell you that even though I couldn’t see anything and hadn’t watched Jaws yet there was still a sense of fear of the deep

As we continue the story of Jonah today that’s where we are going, into the deep

SET UP TEXT

Before we go there let’s do a quick recap on what has happened so far in Jonah

God tells Jonah, an Israelite prophet, to go declare judgement on the people of Ninevah

Jonah decides that he doesn’t want to do that and pays his way onto a large boat headed in the literal opposite direction

God, not fooled by this bold move, sends a storm to basically attack this one ship

When the storm hits, Jonah is enjoying a deep, blissfully ignorant nap below deck as chaos ensues among the sailors

The sailors are praying to anyone and everyone and throwing things overboard before they finally discover Jonah is to root cause of this thing

Per Jonah’s own suggestion, they toss him overboard, into the deep, black, storm-tossed ocean

And now we pick up the story in Jonah, chapter 1 verse 17

TEXT

- A Great Fish Swallows Jonah

[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.

- Jonah's Prayer

[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.

[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

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.

[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. (ESV)

PRAYER

CONTEXT + BARRIERS

So what happened in what we just read

Here’s the basic summary

God sends a fish to swallow Jonah

Jonah is miraculously kept alive inside this fish for 3 days and nights

Sometime in there he prays

God tells the fish to return Jonah to dry land

But there’s something else that if you grew up hearing this story in church or somewhere else, you and I are probably missing

Growing up I was always taught or just assumed that the fish immediately swallowed Jonah

Like there’s a this giant fish just waiting beneath the surface and when he hits the water BOOM there’s a fish to gulp him up

But reading this and studying this that’s clearly not what happened

In Jonah’s prayer it’s clear that he was sinking

He wasn’t treading water, he wasn’t keeping his head out, he wasn’t doggy paddling, and he wasn’t immediately swallowed

There is a delay before the arrival of the fish that is essential to understanding Jonah’s response

So the correct sequence of events is actually

Jonah thrown into the sea

Jonah sinking...sinking…sinking to the point of almost death

And in that moment God sends a fish to save his life

So we need to be wary of what we think we already know about this story

THE DISNEY BIAS

We tend to package things in the prettiest almost romanticized way but we’re not always careful about keeping the focus in the correct places

But we also need to be wary of our tendency to disbelieve

I came upon a plethora of different theories trying to explain how this event could actually happen

My favorite was one that states that Jonah was shipwrecked and spend 3 days recovering at an inn called “The Fish”

Come on! That is putting in some really creative energy to avoid accepting that the God of the universe, the God who spoke life into existence

Even labeling the fish a whale can actually be an attempt to make this easier to understand but it reduces the weight of the miracle

Remember in week 1 Justin said this: “If we can believe in the miracle of resurrection, the fact that God could send the fish to swallow a man is kind of small potatoes.”

What’s tragic is that the fish is actually the least important character in the story and yet we’ve given it all the attention so much that its probably the first image you see when you even hear Jonah’s name

With those things in mind let’s walk through this text and see 3 things?

Jonah didn’t SURVIVE inside the fish

Jonah was KEPT ALIVE BY GOD inside the fish

MAIN POINTS

God will orchestrate some crazy things in order to get our attention.

In Jonah’s world, God sent a storm that almost killed him and a fish that ended up saving him

God appointed the fish to swallow him and commanded it to spit him back out

God was the one controlling EVERYTHING in Jonah’s story and he controls EVERYTHING in our story

Jonah didn’t SURVIVE inside the fish, he was KEPT ALIVE by God inside the fish

Evidence of God’s sovereign deployment of crazy things to fulfill his purpose

VERSE 17: “And the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah.”

VERSE 3: “You cast me into the deep” and “All your waves and your billows passed over me”

The sovereignty of God is emphasized here

It’s not the sailors who threw Jonah down

VERSE 10: “And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

We live in the most distracted time in history

We have convenient access to anything we want to keep us from thinking about God or things that he’d have us do

Most of the things are neutral - they aren’t intrinsically bad things

But we can numb ourselves easily from any outside voice especially the voice of God

What’s your ship? What ticket do you regularly cash in to get away from God?

We see that Jonah was in the fish for 3 days and nights.

Can you imagine what that was like?

He very well likely thought he was dead at first

Despite more of our Disney bias he probably wasn’t sitting legs crossed roasting fish with a stick on a fire

I don’t see any evidence that God altered the anatomy of the fish and no reason to believe God created a singular fish with nice accomodations inside of itself just for Jonah

He was most likely lodged uncomfortably in the fish’s intestines

This is solitary confinement

AKA “The Hole” or “The Cooler”

In prison it’s been shown that solitary confinement alters or is meant to alter the way you think about what you’ve done

This fish is God’s attempt to change the way Jonah is thinking

To get him to realize that he has a plan and it’s better than his own

Personal story

Many of you know that my brother died two years ago from injuries he sustained in a car accident

The most severe of the injuries was the one to his head

It’s called a Traumatic Brain Injury and they happen quite often especially in car accidents

What resulted from this injury was that my brother couldn’t communicate, he was plunged into what would be an almost yearlong darkness and isolation

His physical body was sitting right in front of us but was in complete isolation from real interaction with us and the outside world

Before his accident my brother always struggled to believe that he was loved by people or by God

My family regularly said that God was the only one that could get to him in that isolated space and it brought us great comfort to believe maybe part of his purpose in that for my brother was so he could meet him in that quiet place to tell him that he loved him

Something that is interested about this text is we have record of what God was saying to Jonah

And although he may have been speaking, I think there’s a good chance he didn’t need to

He had already told Jonah what he was to do and the isolation was more about Jonah getting to a a place to receive it than him telling him something new

We see this also in the story of Paul who was previously Saul

In , we read about Saul as Justin mentioned in week 1 as a Christian-hating and possible-murdering all around enemy of God

But God wanted his attention and so he confronted him on the road to Damascus and took away his sight

And guess what? It was for 3 days.

The 3 days are significant and we’ll see that in a few minutes

But this is how God works

He deserves our attention and He does whatever is necessary to get it

What has God been telling you that you are ignoring?

Has he been trying to get your attention and you’ve been pushing him further and further away?

Wouldn’t you rather hear from God and connect with God on the land than inside of the intestines of a fish?

What would it look like to make the space in your life to hear him?

Turn off the notifications

Or even crazier: leave your phone behind

Get up 30 minutes earlier

Say no to something or someone so you can say yes to God

Our best attempts to save ourselves will ultimately get us killed.

Jonah might have been motivated by fear when he ignored God and went the other way

He knew the Ninevites were dangerous and didn’t want to risk his own life

So he thought the way to survive, the way to live his best life, was to take the matter into his own hands

But then we see he gets on the ship, the storm comes, and he ends up in the sea

And this is how he describes his situation

Starting in Verse 2: “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. [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 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,

When we try to use something or someone other than God as the means to our salvation, it’s called idolatry

Jonah after having his near death experience has this to say:

Verse 8: Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.

That word VAIN it means foolish, worthless, useless

For Jonah, his religion was an idol

He thought he had God figured out

But his impressive knowledge of God’s character or so he thought even to the point that he was willing to tell God that he knew better than him is completely and utterly useless when he’s drowning

NEED STORY OF HOW STUBBORNNESS ALMOST GETS US KILLED

Again the picture here is not Jonah just floundering on the surface

He’s soaking wet, he’s feeling defeated by his decisions, he’s running out of oxygen, the light is fading away

The result of us trying to be our own god, the manager of our own lives is ALWAYS going to be pain, struggle, and ultimately death

Prodigal Sons

If we remember the parable of the Prodigal Son we see two different approaches to finding fulfillment and life

The younger son takes his inheritance, says “ I don’t need you, Dad” and tries to find comfort in pleasure until it leaves him starving with nothing

The older son does all the right things all the while not ever acknowledging what he has, taking it for granted, and revealing the same heart of entitlement that the younger brother showed at the beginning

Life was inside of the house with the father who gave generously to where they’d always have MORE than they needed, life to the fullest

We don’t know if the older brother entered the house again

His self-righteousness might have looked different than the reckless disregard of his younger brother

But trying to earn favor with good behavior is still not enough

Jesus drowned so you could be on dry land.

Understanding Sheol / death

“I called out to the LORD, out of my distress, and he answered me;

out of the belly of Sheol I cried,

Later Jonah says that he was in “the pit”

Put these together and this is “the pit of hell”

This is the point of no return, the place of the dead

But it not just a physical place that Jonah is speaking of

“It is not annihilation in death that Jonah fears here, but rather the prospect of being abandoned in Sheol, and consequently separated thereafter from God.” Wiseman, D. J., Alexander, T. D., & Waltke, B. K. (1988). Obadiah, Jonah and Micah: an introduction and commentary (Vol. 26, p. 125). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

Strong parallel to Jesus being forsaken / separated from God on our behalf so we never had to be

Jonah recognized that the worst part of death was the physical act of not being alive but rather being separated from God

He says in Verse 4: “I am driven away from your sight yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.”

The holy temple would have been where Jonah received his words from the Lord as a prophet

He associates this physical space with the presence of God and so he’s saying he will once again be reconnected with God

How can this be true of us? How when we are completely death, driven away because of the decisions that we have made can we once again find connection and communion with the one who loves us?

It’s because of Jesus

: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

For Jonah, God provided a fish

For us, God has provided his only son and THE means of salvation

: But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled.

If all of the prophets foretold the suffering of Jesus, then that’s the point of this text

That we we see the significance of Jonah’s salvation as significant to our own

Salvation belongs to the Lord but aren’t we so glad that he didn’t keep it to himself

He gives salvation as a free gift because of His love for us

: Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. 46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Apostles Creed

We believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and buried. He descended to hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended to heaven and sits on the right hand of the Father almighty, from whence he shall come to judge the living and the dead.

This is the gospel:

That every one of us is destined for death - no matter how good or bad we are - and yet God, motivated with such an overwhelming love for us, offers a rescue plan at the greatest cost to himself.

No we can’t save ourselves but yes we can be saved

3 Days

These three days are significant especially for the Ninevites as we’ll see in weeks ahead

The three days in Saul’s conversion are significant because Paul would go on to become one of the great builders in the kingdom of God

But the most significant 3 days?

Jesus in the tomb

The death of Jesus and what happened at the end of those 3 days?

It literally changed the roadmap of the whole trajectory of human history

There was NO way back to God and so Jesus PAVED the way

And what’s greater about Jesus is that he didn’t need a whale to spit him out

He didn’t need an external force

He himself was the force that punched a hole through the walls of death

He descended further than the depths that Jonah would go so that he could prove that he alone had the power when he came surging back to life

The ultimate build up of this text and maybe even the whole book of Jonah and maybe even the whole of scripture is this statement that Jonah makes at the end:

SALVATION BELONGS TO THE LORD

No one else has discovered or ever could discover a different salvation solution

No one and no thing can take it from his hands or wrestle it from his control

No person has authority, power, or the behavior to force him to give it away

It’s because of HIS character that he takes what is his alone to give and he places it upon us

This is the picture we’re supposed to see in Jonah being saved

Not the greatness of the fish, not the miracle of a man’s survival, not the eloquence of Jonah’s poetry or his redemption moment

No we are supposed to see front and center the heart of God for you and for me

If you only see yourself as struggling on the surface, then all you’re looking for is a life raft

But if you see the reality of where you are, the true depths of your decision making and the consequences of what you’ve done, you’re looking for a deep sea rescue

And God is offering that to you today if you’ll cry out to him and receive His son as the one, true Savior

And when we see past all of the other minor characters and elements of this story to see Jesus high and lifted up as the only one who can and does save us, we are moved into motion

TAKEAWAYS

I want us to quickly see 3 things that we can take away from this passage and apply to our lives

First: Re-evaluate your situation

Where are your plans for your life taking you?

What part of the timeline are you at personally?

Are you on the ship sleeping?

Are you in the sea sinking?

Second: Receive salvation

Open your heart and open your arms to allow Jesus to save you

Acknowledge that he’s already done it, he’s already paid for whatever debt you think you’re paying off

Let go of whatever salvation plan you’ve put together

And even more maybe you let him save you before today but you’ve been slowly building something in your own power that you think can do it better going forward

Blow that thing up, destroy it

Third: Resolve to worship & obey

: But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay.

Jonah worshipped

He raised his voice in gratitude of the salvation he’d received and offered the sacrifice of his praise

Sacrifice in that it takes our time, it takes our prioritization, it takes often saying no to other things and other priorities

And the second part of this resolution is to keep your vow

Determine consciously that when God speaks to you, because He has proven that He loves You through His son, You will listen and obey

CLOSING

I’ve asked the band to come and play in the background

Going back to that place of constant distraction, I want to give you time right now to sit with God and let him speak

We’ve planned this as a dedicated moment of focused time with you and God

We are going to stay in our seats, no movement in the room, and the band is going to play instrumentally for a few minutes and I want to challenge you to pray

Ask God to speak

Confess

Praise him

And after that time Rick will come and tell us what to do next