Jonah's Prayer

Good morning everyone, I am so glad to see you all. I love getting up here every Sunday morning and getting to look into the happy faces that I see here! I love that we have a space that we can come to weekly to learn and grow in our relationship with the Lord and also in our relationship with each other.

I know that we have people joining us online, and I want to thank you for joining us and choosing to worship with us in this way. I am very honored and excited to see more and more people returning to in person worship. It is so great to know that so many people are so comfortable with worshiping together and see that need to see each other face to face. It is such a blessing and a privilege that I know we will not always have. If this last year taught us anything its that things can change in an instant and we can lose the things that we have taken for granted for so long. That is why as long as we have the opportunity to be together we need to be focused on being together, Amen...

Ok, so this morning we have alot to get to and so I will try and talk as fast as I can for you, but there is just some really interesting truths that we can learn through this passage today, and I am really hoping to be able to share those things, so just bear with me a little bit…Ok…

To start off with, I want to tell you about a situation that I have experienced in the past. Maybe some of you will be able to relate to what I am going to share with you. I can remember being involved in some Bible studies and being involved in a church that looked really really good. I mean this particular church would host Bible studies, and would have Bible Schools and would even help other churches have Bible schools by sharing resources. Sometimes those resources were financial and sometimes those resources were people, but they would make sure that others were able to have Bible studies and provide and experience that would be a blessing to everyone. Man, this church did so many wonderful things that many people would praise what they were doing.There was however a problem…You see, while this church from the outside looked really good, once you got to know the people involved you began to see something different. You would see that there was fighting about how to help, you would see that there was some saying that they were the reason for any success, you would see that people were so focused on making sure that the various ministries with within their schedule and not being willing to just serve, even though that is what they pretended while they were service. You see, once you got inside you really noticed the ugliness of the real people that were serving in various capacities, not because of a desire to see God move, but out of some other more selfish desires…it really was kind of gross to witness to be honest.

Ok, well I told you about that becuase it is so important that our hearts are truly involved int he ministry that we are participating in. Whether that ministry in teaching in a kids class, serving coffee, or opening the doors and greeting people as they enter the building, every single ministry that exists here at LRBC exists for a purpose and as you serve, you should be serving in such a way to bring honor and glory to the Lord, and the Lord alone. I say that as we are looking to strengthen some of the ministries in the church and so I want to ask you to think about where you should be serving, whether you are currently serving or not, I want you to begin to think about what God is calling you to do....then, don’t do what Jonah did in the first chapter of this story, no, don’t run away, instead run toward what God is calling you to do as a servant of God. Otherwise you might end up like Jonah when ...

Jonah gets swallowed...

Go ahead and turn over with me to the end of Jonah chapter 1. We saw last week that God called Jonah and instead of following God, Jonah ran the opposite direction and ultimately told some sailers to kill him by throwing him over into the violent sea in order to save their own lives. Jonah made a choice that he would rather die, than to do what God has called him to do. Man, I hope none of us ever experience that reaction as a response to God… Anyway, let’s take a look at how God responded to Jonah.

Jonah 1:17 (ESV)

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.

Ok, well that is a fantastic reaction to rejecting God’s call…I am so happy that I was not close to the water the times that I rejected what God was calling me to do. I don’t think I would enjoy being swallowed by a giant fish of some sort.

Now we looked a couple of weeks ago at the possibility of being swallowed by a great fish and surviving and we did find a few people that had been swallowed and survived. We have never found an account quite like Jonah, but we do know that this is a plausible story. Of coarse we already know that becuase God is a powerful God and right here it says that God appointed a big fish. So, if God appointed a big fish to swallow Jonah and he was in the fish for three days and nights, then what was Jonah doing while he was in the fish. That is really what we get to look at this morning because that is pretty much all of chapter two for us.

Remember that little story I told you earlier? Well, I told you about serving in ministries here at LRBC, but I also told you that story becuase the reality is that sometimes things look really good from the outside, but when you get into the details you begin to see that it is not what you thought it was. Remember that as we look at Jonah’s prayer this morning. You see, maybe it is a beautiful prayer that will really shows Jonah’s heart of repentance and how God made an impact on Jonah’s heart…or maybe we are going to see something different this morning. This morning as we look at Jonah’s prayer it is going to look beautiful on the outside, but when we look at it a bit closer we will see a different reality. Let’s go ahead and take a look at...

Jonah’s Prayer

Jonah 2:1–10 (ESV)

Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, 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. 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. Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.’ The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped about my head 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. When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple. Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord!” And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

Isn’t that a beautiful prayer? As a matter of fact, when I think about prayers and how to pray and the importance of prayer I can think about this prayer of Jonah and how Jonah spent the first half of the prayer acknowledging God’s sovereignty and the last half of the prayer submitting to God’s sovereignty, right?

Verse 1: We see that Jonah is inside a big fish, and that he is praying.

Verse 2-6: We see that when Jonah is in trouble, he called to God

Verse 7: Tells us that just before Jonah dies, he remembers God. (this is really good)

Verse 8-9: Jonah promises that if God saves him, he will make sacrifices to God. and finally

Verse 10: We see that God caused the fish to vomit Jonah up onto dry land. Apparently God did listen to Jonah and apparently God granted Jonah’s request.

You see, from Jonah we can learn a pattern of recognizing your trouble and calling out to God, even if it is the last minutes and God will respond to your prayer…This is really good stuff here. This is the type of thing that is so encouraging to anyone that is struggling with some situation that maybe you just don’t have the faith or haven’t made the right vow or promise of sacrifice so that God will respond to you. I’ll tell you what, maybe if you will sew a seed of faith into LRBC and a sacrifice of $1,000 God will see your faith and your sacrifice and then he will respond to your prayer, amen....

Well, no, not really....You see that is the type of false teaching that actually happens all over. That is the type of thing that a motivational speaker, not a pastor, will use to persuade a person to do what they want, not necessarily what God wants. This is also the type of prayer that really does look great when you read the prayer alone, out of context with the story of Jonah. However, that is not the appropriate way to read a prayer, is it? I mean, you can’t take a prayer that I prayed over my family last week and simply incorporate it into your family without knowing or understanding the context of what I am praying about. Even if the words seem right, without the context we can’t really know what is happening.

No, we have to read the story of Jonah and we have to read this prayer in the context of this story, which means that we need to remember what happened last week in chapter one. The really big thing that we saw in chapter one is that Jonah was worshiping a false god. Do you remember that Jonah was actually worshiping himself and what he wanted…he was focused on pride. Well, if that is the heart of Jonah going into this situation, don’t you think that might inform what we are reading in this prayer? I sure think so…So, let’s go back and look at

Jonah’s Prayer in Context

Verse 1: Jonah is praying inside a big fish.

Ok, so this is the same thing that we saw before, however I want to point something out to you this morning. You see, while they were on the boat everyone else was praying to their gods, and nothing was happening. Could Jonah have prayed to the real God at that time? Absolutely, however he didn’t and I think that tells us something about the condition of Jonah’s heart. You see, Jonah is in rebellion against God and I can tell you from experience that when you are in rebellion against God, the last thing you want to do is go to God in prayer?

As a matter of fact, let me tell you about a story. This was a few years ago, and I may have told you already, but it is really a perfect picture of what I am talking about here. I was in church in Lafayette and I got a phone call. the results of that phone call were not what I wanted to happen. As a matter of fact, I would go so far as to say that they results of that phone call were also the results of a sinful person on the other end of the line. Well, I know how to respond to a person like that from a Biblical perspective, and God was calling me to respond Biblically and walk this person through some things. However, I didn’t really want to do things the way God was calling me to do them…No, I just wanted to yell. I literally spent 10 minutes walking around an empty church stomping my feet and yelling about this other person. Bethany was with me that day and she asked if I wanted to stop and pray about the situation. Well, do you know what I said…No I don’t…You see, I knew what to do, but I was rebelling against what God was calling me to, and so the last thing I wanted to do was go to the God that I am rebelling against…That must be how Jonah was feeling...

It’s hard enough to get into the cycle of praying, so when you add disobedience to the mix it becomes increasingly difficult. However, Jonah is now turning to God in prayer, so thats a good thing. Maybe Jonah has realized his idol worship and is turning to God for repentance. Let’s take a look at his prayer and see if that is whats happening.

Verses 2-6: Jonah cries out to the Lord

OK, so this is a great start. it looks like Jonah is really opening up and getting ready to return his focus to God, and he is excited becuase even though he said he wanted to die previously, he didn’t actually want to die. Jonah describes being down in the belly of Sheol, which is simply the place of the dead in Hebrew. You see, Jonah has been living in disobedience to the Lord and now he has realized that he doesn’t want to die while actively rebelling against the Lord, so he is relieved that the Lord has saved his life. Jonah recognizes that it is God that put him in the sea and that the Lord’s discipline swept over him in every way.

Jonah was expressing his feeling of being in the deepest part of the ocean, as far removed from the world of human habitation as it was possible to conceive. Any help or hope was completely out of reach.—Billy Smith

Then, Jonah recognizes that his relationship with the Lord is broken. It’s one thing to be disobedient or to run from God I guess, but now…Jonah finally sees what he actions have caused. So now, he will finally look back to the Lord. when he is on the verge of death. This is why Jonah is praying…He is praying for his life to be saved, and then... His life has been spared and he is thankful for that, as he should be. Maybe, now Jonah will recognize his own selfishness and repent of his pride and move forward as God has commanded him…or…maybe not

Verse 7: Jonah remembers…himself

Ok, so this is amazing if you are paying attention. Just when we really thought that Jonah was going to repent of his own pride and selfishness, what does he do? Jonah is focused on himself again! Look at Jonah’s prayer here…Jonah says that as his life was fading away, he remembered the Lord and prayed…Jonah is essentially saying that his prayer is what saved him. If he had not prayed the prayer that he just prayed then he would have died…Jonah remembers his moment of near death and how he called out to the Lord, and therefore he is still here today. Jonah is still focusing here on himself and his prayer, rather than on God and what God is doing.

Verse 8-9: Jonah contrast himself with the sailors

Ok, look at this for a moment…Jonah is comparing himself and his prayer with the worthless prayer of the sailors who were praying to false gods. This is crazy…Basically Jonah is sitting in a self-righteous judgement that he is essentially making fun of the sailors that he put in danger. He is calling the sailors stupid and worthless in their prayers while Jonah is the good one that knows how to pray to the real God…Ok, really, but I have a big question for Jonah here…Jonah, who are are really worshiping here?

Jonah, where is your focus...on yourself or on the Lord?

Look at this with me. Jonah is really quick to condemn the idolatry of these sailors. However, Jonah failed to recognize that his disobedience was as offensive to God as the idolatry of these heathens. But what really is the case? The heathen prayed, Jonah did not. The heathen was eager to uncover sin; Jonah was not. The heathen wanted to practice their religion; Jonah did not. The heathen had compassion on Jonah, yet Jonah showed none toward them. by virtually any standard, the Gentile sailors proved to be superior to Jonah from all that we have read in the first chapter, and yet Jonah can unabashedly tell God that he is somehow superior to these heathens.

You see, not only does Jonah feel disdain for the gentile sailors, but it seems that he might also be looking at what God wants Jonah to do: go and preach to the people of Nineveh. It is as if he is saying “God, look, they’re idolaters too. They might turn and they might not, but even if they do, they will just go back to their idols.We know this becuase we have seen it happen God. You don’t understand them like I do God. They’re a hopeless cause.”

Ok, Im going to be honest with you for a moment…Things might get a little rough. Are there people that you view as hopeless? Are there those whom you think God will never be able to get through too? Is this the feeling we sometimes have toward our unsaved neighbors or the people we work with? Do we feel superior to them because we are Christians and they are not? Let’s be honest…that is a horrible attitude and a horrible witness! It is a horrible attitude because the only reason we are Christians is because God saved us. It has nothing to do with anything that we have done. We are going to heaven only because God was gracious to us. It is a horrible witness because it turns off others to the Gospel. If you treat others as if they were trash, why would they want to know the God you claim to worship? People are watching you even if you don’t realize it…

I read about a scenario that plays out every day all across the country, which means it plays out all across this county as well. Wendy and Tom worked at a restaurant years ago, and do you want to know who the worst customers were? The worst customers were Christians. Every time the waiters saw one of their tables praying over their meals or someone at their table wearing a Christian T-shirt, they groaned. Tom groaned also. You want to know why? Christians were some of the most demanding, rude, messy, and arrogant people that came into that restaurant. Not only that, but they gave the worst tips.

So, are you a person that causes trouble complains at work? Are you lazy and irresponsible? Do you judge and condemn your co-workers for being immoral, even quietly? People are watching, and people notice. How you live and what you say to non-Christians can determine whether or not they will ever be interested in coming to church with you or listening to you share the gospel. Watch what you say and what you do, and what attitudes you have. They matter more than you know…You are Christ representatives here in Ogle County.

That’s not all though becuase as Jonah continues to condemn these sailors about their sacrifices and vows, he claims he will make sacrifices and vows that matter. Jonah is hinting here that their sacrifices were worthless because they did not know God well enough. He is also saying that although they made vows, they will not keep them, but Jonah will. And look what Jonah vows…Does he vow to obey God and go to Nineveh, no, he vows to go the temple in Jerusalem and make a sacrifice to God.

I mean come on Jonah…this all happened becuase you would not commit to doing what the Lord has sent you to do, and now you still refuse to make that commitment…This is crazy. Jonah is a prophet and that means he should know the Scripture, but he seems to have forgotten something…Look over at

1 Samuel 15:22 ESV

And Samuel said, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.

Jonah may not be sacrificing to idols, but he sure didn’t obey God, and the thing is that God wants obedience more than anything else.

John 14:15 ESV

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

This is what matters most, not some fake worship, but obedient worship.

And now we look at Gods response to this long prayer from Jonah

Verse 10: God responds to Jonah’s prayer

The end of this prayer is very interesting becuase God does not respond to Jonah. No, God simply gives this fish instructions about what to do. The fish vomits Jonah out of his mouth onto dry land. Now, I can remember that as a kid I heard this story and I pictured a very nice moment where the fish essentially spit Jonah up onto the land just becuase he had to get out of the fishes mouth. Like, I envisioned something like a very nice toss onto sure. However, I do not believe that is what happened. You see, the Biblical authors were very particular about their word choices and there is a connection to another word that appears in

Revelation 3:16 ESV

So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.

The more accurate translation would be I will vomit or spew you from my mouth. The fish vomited or spued out Jonah from his mouth as Jonah neither humble nor obedient. No, Jonah is still focused on himself even through these events where God clearly revealed his power to Jonah, Jonah chooses to focus on himself. Jonah is spiritually superficial…I mean he is saying the right things, but with his own life, when it comes down to it, he is not living out his faith in the Lord, even now.

Look, the reality is that in our current culture we are more and more experiencing a superficial spirituality, even here at LRBC there are some that are not engaged in a deep relationship with the Lord, but you can play the part whenever you need to. Frankly, there are times in my own life where this is true as well. But is that what we want? Is that what our goal is? No, our goal is found in

2 Corinthians 5:9 ESV

So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.

Our goal as a believer is to be pleasing to God

Real quick let’s take a look at a better response for Jonah…just bear with me here...

We read in Ephesians that we are to put off all ungodliness and to put on our new life in Christ. Actually, let’s just take a look real quick here at

Ephesians 4:20–24 (ESV)

But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

So, for Jonah, a better response would have been to repent of what he was doing, and then remove that sin from his life and replace it with some action that is glorifying to God. Let’s play that out...

Jonah repents, then he stops running from God and instead he submits to God. Did we see that anywhere in his prayer? No, we didn’t. What we saw was, oops, I got caught, so Im going to do what I need to in order to survive. My question as we close this morning is…how many times have you done that exact same thing? How many times have you prayed and cried out to God to save you from some particular sin, and then turned right around and continued living like you did before, with no real change? How many times have you looked at something you shouldn’t have and then felt sickened and cried out to God and then returned to your sin. How many times have you purchased something over budget and then felt guilty and cried out to God to help you with your finances and then found yourself right back to where you started. Listen, I know that every single person in this room struggles with something…maybe it is lying, maybe it is lust, maybe it is some form of theft, or anger…I know that you experience this temptation, then you fall to this temptation, and you cry out to God and then you return to your sin…

Proverbs 26:11 ESV

Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who repeats his folly.

Jonah is acting as a fool at this point in his story. He has been proud and worships himself. He experienced fear and cried out to God and then relied on his prayer to save him and not the power of God, thus returning to his own pride. Listen as we close this morning I want to encourage you not to act as a fool. Whatever it is that you are struggling with, don’t rely on a superficial spirituality as Jonah did. Rely on the Lord. This week we see that God saved Jonah through a big fish…that is not the way Jonah expected to be saved. Many times we have prayed for miracles, and those miracles show up in ways that we didn’t expect, and many times in ways that we don’t enjoy…But this big fish is a miracle none the less. Jonah would have chosen fanfare to rescue him, but instead he was swallowed by a fish and sat there for three days and nights.

So today, I want to encourage you as we move into a time of communion with

Two final things:

1: Focus on true repentance first...

2: Replace sin with holiness...

Listen if either of those two things is a challenge to you, then I want to encourage you to reach out to me and let’s set up a time to talk through what it looks like for you to focus on repentance and remove sin from your life...

—Prayer—

Now at this time I will ask for the Elders to come up and begin to pass out communion. A they are coming up, and as they are passing out I want to briefly remind us of what we are doing here. As we saw a couple of weeks ago there are 6 things to focus on while when we participate in the ordinance of communion. Those 6 things are to look within, look .back, look up, look around, look outward, and look forward. This morning I would like to ask that we all focus together and look up. Listen as we look at refocusing our own life in order to reflect Christ and to be pleasing to God we need to acknowledge that we cannot do that away from the reality of being joined with Christ. Therefore, I would like to ask us to each reflect on the fact that we are literally joined with Christ through his death, burial, and resurrection which makes everything that we believe to be true, possible. ..

Let’s pray (Elder pray) (thankful prayer)

Now, as we consider the words that Paul wrote to the church in Corinth we will first focus on the bread.

1 Corinthians 11:23–24 ESV

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

Prayer (elder pray) (thankful prayer)

Then Christ moved to the drink

1 Corinthians 11:25–26 ESV

In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

pray to close and move to closing song (thankful prayer)