Power of Prayer: God's Sovereinty

Prayer Life Gone Bad

The Comiss Fish

Prayer Part I:

God saves us, but we don’t realize what we need to be saved from!

God

He is saved from drowning, but he’s still stuck in a pickle!

Happiest in the Fish

Need for Total Healing

saves us from a problem but then stuck in sin.

Thank you for saving me… But he’s not saved yet! Still a lot of saving to go. Ongoing sanctification.

Criticizes those whom God used to save him

Caution in

God is the God of Salvation, as long as it’s Israel

Prayer Life Gone Bad

Thankful for the Wrong things?

Introduction:

Introduction:

Prayer Life Gone Bad

Jonah is a prophet, he seems to say some good things in this prayer, but I’m going to just suggest to you at the beginning that this prayer is filled with:

backhanded compliments,

selfish and self-righteous pros.

“Your kids are so beautiful, your husband must be really good looking.”

“Your kids are so beautiful, your husband must be really good looking.”

“Your kids are so beautiful, your husband must be really good looking.”

“I hate to exaggerate, but I must say, you look fairly presentable.”

Context:

Jonah- more than a reluctant prophet. Seems to be everything God wouldn’t want in a prophet.

Scene 1: God calls him to Nineveh, but he leaves to Tarshish (Show map)

Scene #2: He sleeps during a storm God hurls at the boat and is eventually tossed over the side.

Foreigners fight for his life while Jonah tries to preserve it, but at the end of the day Jonah knows what’s going on and is tossed overboard.

Chapter 1 ends with the Foreign sailers worshipping God and giving their lives over to the one true God. Remarkable instance of foreign conversion…

And then Jonah drowns… OR DOES HE?

Dramatic turn of event, a whale swoops in and gobbles him up like the Millenium Falcon swoops into to save Luke from flying into outer space in the Empire Strikes Back.

There’s hope!

READ PRAYER

1. Prayer Pronouns Matter

I prayed and you answered me

2. Self-Centered Prayer

‘I’, ‘me’, or ‘mine’ is used 26 times in 8 verses.

Pronouns teach us something about the nature of the prayer

Pronouns teach us something about the nature of the prayer

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

Lord’s Prayer:

Those who are part and parcel of your plan (those who saved me), please withhold hope in your love.

Hallowed be thy name!

Your kingdom come.

Paint picture of Sailers worshipping the LORD! Offering sacrifice and made a confession of faith right there on the boat!

Your will be done.

Jesus teaches us how to pray this way for a reason:

Keep prayers Theocentric or Christocentric: Big words that keeps our focus on God.

You don’t know how the Lord works in other people! You don’t know how the Lord will show His sovereignty will work for you!

Give Jonah a little credit! He’s in a whale, so perhaps we don’t need to be too critical of his prayer yet? How orthodox would your prayers be if you were squished between two massive gills?

2. Prayer Verbs Matter

Vs. 3: Look what you did to me!

You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, flood surrounded me. Your waves and Your billows.

Jonah’s like: Your ocean and all it’s wildness, you sent me down, your waves pummeled me. Your billows blew me down!

Vs. 2, 4: Look what I’ve been doing: Not just about pronouns, it’s about the verbs too!

Into the heart of the seas

I called out

I called out

I cried

I cried

I am driven away

I shall again look upon your holy temple

Vs. 5-6

Doubles down at how he’s doing.

Vs. 7: When I was fainting away, I remembered the Lord. My prayer came to you into your holy temple.”

Though the Lord commissioned the fish, Jonah takes credit for it!

I called out!

I looked to you!

I remembered you!

Remember grace!

Take time in your prayer thanking the Lord for your position and God’s grace!

We are sinners, in need of grace.

Who am I? Who are you?

Humbly approach the throne of grace.

3. Avoid Holy Roller Prayers

3. Holy Roller Prayers Stink

One of the greatest ironies in the prayer are verse 8-9

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

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

Those who are part and parcel of your plan (those who saved me), please withhold hope in your love.

Those who are part and parcel of your plan (those who saved me), please withhold hope in your love.

Paint picture of Sailers worshipping the LORD! Offering sacrifice and made a confession of faith right there on the boat!

You don’t know how the Lord works in other people! You don’t know how the Lord will show His sovereignty will work for you!

Paint picture of Sailers worshipping the LORD!

4. Saving vs. Resurrection

Sacrifice and vows

Chapter 1

Verse 9: But I… will sacrifice, I have vowed I will pay

You don’t know how the Lord works in other people! You don’t know how the Lord will show His sovereignty will work for you!

“Salvation belongs to the Lord”

Fish vomits Jonah out. Word used as a sign of disgust!

Three kids throwing vomiting at the same time.

Clay, gut reaction!

God is sending out Jonah to help foreigners repent. That’s his job, and they are doing just that on the boat and they will be doing that in Nineveh, and yet he doesn’t see how God is using him! All he sees is his own faith!

PLAY VIDEO!

Open your eyes to the people you are called to bless!

You may have made a difference yesterday, but you’re still so focused on your own journey that you may have just missed it!

4. Know the Difference Between Saving vs. Resurrection

verse 1: I called out from the Womb of Sheol

Jonah is describing a resurrection of sorts

REBIRTH!

Old Testament Gospel Truths:

He is going down and God rises him back up!

BUT, God physically saving him didn’t actually produce spiritual resurrection!

God saved him physically- death, darkness, stuck in the place of death. But just his body was there, not his heart. Not his mind.

As broken as Jonah’s prayer is, without realizing it, Jonah becomes THE SIGN that we need today.

Jonah experienced a resuscitation of sorts, not actual resurrection. He experienced a rebirth without the heart transplant.

Is that you!?

You experience weekly resuscitations? Go to church, go through the motions. Listen to Christian music. But have you experience a resurrection life?

You love people, you pay your taxes. You’re not a bad person but have you you experience resurrection life?

Conclusion:

Sign of Jonah!

Sign of Jonah!

‘Womb’ of

verse 1: I called out from the Womb of Sheol

:  When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, “This generation is an evil generation. It seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.

What is that sign?

Jesus death and resurrection. Jesus likens himself to this selfish, self-centered, self-righteouss, egotistical prophet, and says that the only sign we need is the sign of Jonah!

And as the Sign of Jonah, Jesus takes our selfish, self-centered, self-righteousness, egotistical lives days in a grave.

Jonah was just a sign, but Resurrection Life is more than just what Jonah experienced! He needed more than a second-chance at life, he needed a complete heart-transplant!

29 When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, “This generation is an evil generation. It seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. 30 For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.

Jonah was just a sign, but Resurrection Life is more than just what Jonah experienced! He needed more than a second-chance at life, he needed a complete heart-transplant!