Jonah: Learning to Celebrate the Grace of God - A Heart of Worship

Jonah 1:17-2:10

I. Introduction

What does it mean to worship? What should the posture of our hearts and lives be when we enter into worship? Is it simply a time to come sing a few songs and listen to the preacher talk for 40 mins? Or is there something else to worship that we might be missing.

The Heart of Worship by Matt Redman

The song dates back to the late 1990s, born from a period of apathy within Matt’s home church, Soul Survivor, in Watford, England. “There was a dynamic missing, so the pastor did a pretty brave thing,” he recalls. “He decided to get rid of the sound system and band for a season, and we gathered together with just our voices. His point was that we’d lost our way in worship, and the way to get back to the heart would be to strip everything away.”

When the music fades, all is stripped away, and I simply come / Longing just to bring something that’s of worth that will bless your heart… / I’m coming back to the heart of worship, and it’s all about You, Jesus

As we will see here at the end of chapter 1 and through chapter 2, God is going to strip everything away for Jonah until all that Jonah has left is God Himself. And we are going to see a true heart of worship develop within Jonah because of what God is going to do in Him.

II. The Heart of Worship Recognizes Our Hopelessness Without God

Last we saw, Jonah was running away from God and he was ready to die in order to get out of doing what God had wanted him to do. Now we see this great fish coming as a tool of God to swallow him and to get Jonah to stop running. And now we hear Jonah singing this song of praise and worship to God.

a. We can never truly worship God if we think we can solve our own problems

i. Jonah wanted to run from God because he thought life apart from Him, even death, was better than having to obey Him

ii. Jonah thought he could escape His own problems until he was drowning in them

Once he realized he was getting more than he bargained for, he turned back to God calling out for His help. He realized only God could truly give him what he needed.

iii. Whatever it is that we think can solve our problems is what we truly worship:

1. Money

2. Health

3. Relationships

4. Jobs

5. Pleasure

6. Ourselves

b. Only when we recognize the hopelessness of our situation will we turn our hearts toward God

i. When Jonah was near death and truly far from God that he realized God is the life he truly wants

ii. Jonah realizes that he is in that position because God rightfully put him in that position. Because he was running from God, God let him have what he wanted, so his position was hopeless because God cast him into this position. But God cast him into this position because this was the position that Jonah was seeking as he ran from God.

iii. In God’s grace Jonah was awakened to the fact that the God he was running from was the God he truly wanted. Some people never wake up to that fact before the end.

iv. The first step of worship is calling out to God and trusting Him apart from all else this world has to offer.

v. We can sing our songs and listen to the sermon. But worship is more than those things. It includes those things, but the posture of the heart of worship is a heart that calls out to God realizing that He is our only hope and He is all we need.

vi. In fact, Jonah doesn’t know if he will survive this encounter with the fish. But even if he dies, we see in him a desire not to be apart from God. He is not asking now for an extended physical life. He just wanted to be back in God’s presence and that is what he is calling out for.

c. September 11, 2001 - We experienced an act of war on our homeland we had never experienced before. It struck everyone with a sense of fear and dread. We experienced for the first time in a long time a sense of hopelessness, something Americans had not known since probably the Great Depression and World War II. The result of this act had actually driven up church attendance for a few weeks. People were searching for something that would give them hope. For many people it was a passing trend. But many people during that time did find the God of Hope, Jesus Christ, and found that there was life and security in Him alone. And that came about because we all got thrown into a situation where we felt like we lost all hope.

III. The Heart of Worship is Thankful for What God Has Done (v.9)

a. Next, we see in Jonah a sense of thankfulness for what God has done.

b. He knows that God is the one who cast him into the sea, but notice how he also admits that it was God who brought him up from the pit. He acknowledges that when he called out to God his prayer came to Him in His holy temple.

c. Jonah is giving God credit for his rescue.

d. Notice the progression here. If we do not realize our hopelessness without God, we will not give Him thanks for all the ways He works in our lives. And worship does not exist without giving thanks. Or rather, we worship whatever it is we give our gratitude to.

e. Romans 1:21-23 – “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.”

f. Thanksgiving in this passage is directly tied to idolatry. We worship whatever it is we give thanks to. And we give thanks to whatever it is we think can give us hope. Jonah was placing his hope in himself, thinking he could run and outwit God and live life on his own terms. It wasn’t until he realized that God is who he needed that he turned to God and truly began to worship Him as he gave thanks to God for His grace and His second chance.

g. Do you live your life knowing that God alone deserves your thanksgiving? It is the recognition that only God is the source of our life and everything we have.

h. Some might say, I have what I have because of my own ability to work and earn my living. I’m a self-made man.

i. Paul would tell us this

i. Colossians 1:15 – “He (Christ) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

ii. Acts 17:24-25 – “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”

j. You might think you earn your own living or that you offer God your gifts. But you would have no strength to work or anything to give to Him if He didn’t first give you everything you have. So everything you own belongs to God and true worship recognizes that everything belongs to God and the only thing we can do is to thank Him for His grace.

k. But it is not just our life that we can give thanks to God for. In the ultimate sacrifice, God has saved us from the ultimate scenario of hopelessness, the hopelessness of sin. Even if God didn’t give anything else to us, He gave us Jesus, who came and offered His life as a ransom for many. The One who knew no sin so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. God, in His rescue of Jonah, was pointing forward to the ultimate rescue that God would perform for sinners through the death and resurrection of Christ. So though we have an infinite number of things to be grateful for, even if we can’t think of anything else, we have the gift of His Son to be thankful for.

Nothing can incline the heart to worship than beholding the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. If you want to develop a heart of thankfulness, look to Jesus!

l. The Greek word for thanks in Romans 1:21 is “eucharisteo.” Does that sound familiar? It is where we get our word for the Eucharist. In the Eucharist we are constantly reminded of the sacrifice Christ made for us on the cross and the redemption He bought for us with His blood as we wait for His return. It is an act of constantly giving thanks to God for His grace. The story of Jonah is constantly pointing us forward to God’s act of grace for us and our need to worship Him in thanksgiving.

IV. The Heart of Worship Commits to be a Living Sacrifice to God (v.9)

a. Sacrifices were offered as a sign of repentance

i. Jonah, out of his thankfulness, seeks to offer a sacrifice to the LORD.

ii. God’s kindness towards Jonah is leading him to repentance.

iii. When we truly see and experience the kindness and mercy of God we cannot help but turn back to Him.

b. We no longer offer sacrifices, but we ourselves become a living sacrifice to God

i. We do not offer sacrifices anymore because Christ is our perfect sacrifice for us. Again our thanksgiving flows out of the finished work of Christ for us.

ii. However, we are called to be a living sacrifice.

iii. Romans 12:1 – Therefore brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship.

iv. To be a living sacrifice is to live a life of repentance and seeking the life of sanctification and holiness that comes through the power of God’s Holy Spirit.

v. We cannot truly trust in and worship God if we are not living a life of repentance and seeking to be made holy.

c. Finally, being a living sacrifice means helping others know the salvation that we have experienced. “I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the LORD.”

i. Our first and primary purpose for existence is to bring glory to God, to live our lives in worship to Him.

ii. However, part of our love for God is a desire to see others invited into this lifestyle of worship.

iii. Jonah now says he will declare the salvation of the Lord.

iv. The church has been called into missions, that is to take the good news of Christ to all nations, making disciples and baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

v. But as John Piper writes, “Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t.”

vi. So if we, through God’s mercy, have come to love God and to worship Him, our desire will be to invite others into this same worshipful relationship with God as well. We long to see Him worshiped by others.

Ex. - Pictures of sunrises and sunsets on facebook. Why do people share those pictures? Because of the beauty they see in those pictures and when we see something beautiful, we want others to receive the same joy of beholding that beauty. When we behold the beauty of Christ and of His grace and mercy towards us, we should desire for others to see that same beauty.

So if our worship ends when we leave this place, then we have not really worshipped. Our worship of God should and will continue on past the singing and the preaching and into Monday through Saturday as we live our lives as living sacrifices before God seeking to invite others into this same relationship because of what Christ has done for us!

V. Conclusion

a. Like Jonah, we all are or have been in a hopeless situation because we are all sinners who are separated from our good, holy, and loving God. And God is the only hope for bringing us out of that situation of hopelessness. This hope we have in Christ should lead us to a constant attitude of thankfulness in His work on the cross and resurrection and as we reflect that He is coming back one day to bring us home to him. And this attitude of thankfulness should lead us to share His good news with those around us. Who is God leading you to this week to declare the salvation of the Lord? How is He calling you to continue your worship of Him this week?