Jonah - The Rescue - Jonah 2

Welcome to South Sub Church. We are so glad that you've decided to worship with us today. Whether you're in the room right now or watching from home, wherever it is, we're just so glad that we get to spend this time together and worship the Lord together as one. Here at South Sub Church, we believe we are one church with two expressions of worship, but we have one mission to bring people to Jesus Christ and together become passionate followers of him. Another way that we worship is through our tithes and offerings. And here at Southsub Church, we believe that we give the Lord back what he gives us. And there's a couple ways that I want to invite you to do that this morning. One is giving online at southub.urch/g. Another way is by texting the number that's on the screen right now. Or there's an envelope in your seat back pocket. And here's what I want to invite you to do. No matter what gift you give, big or small, we believe that whatever we give, the Lord multiplies that and we are able to be the hands and feet of Jesus here where we are right now. If you're new, we invite you to fill out a connect card. We would love to get to know you, pray for you, and find a way for you to get more connected with our church. And if you're watching us online, make sure you leave a comment wherever you are. Maybe you're going to the mountains, maybe you have a soccer game to go to. Whatever it is, we're just so glad that you've decided to join us for worship. You picked a great week to be here. Let's jump into God's word together. Let's worship him today.

Heat.

Heat.

That makes you want to get your popcorn and coke and get ready for the movie, doesn't it? Listen, if you're joining us here today um for the first time in a few weeks, we began a brand new series and um it's over the book of Jonah in the Old Testament. And the book of Jonah in the Old Testament is an interesting story because most kids when they're this little learn about it and for some reason once we get older, we kind of leave in the Old Testament and we never pick it back up. In fact, I was talking to one of our members this past week and she said, "Keith," she said, "When I was a child, I learned Jonah. We read the story." story. She goes, "But I bet I haven't read the story for 50 years." And so over the next few weeks, we are diving deep into Jonah. And here's why we're doing it. For one thing, we just want to rediscover just kind of that that wideeyed wonder of the story. Kind of experience like you did when you were four or five years old and you hear the story about Jonah being thrown over the ship and the whale picking him up. And we just want to take that childlike faith. In fact, I started to do this when you came in today. I started to hand everybody a can of tuna. And by the time we get into reading the scripture, everybody open the can of the tuna and it would smell like the Jonah story in there. But hopefully we can do it without the smell of Jonah. But I really want us to rediscover the wideeyed wonder of the story. Someone asked me last week, Keith, do you really believe that a big fish swallowed a man and he lived in his belly for three days and three nights? And my answer is absolutely yes. Okay. If I can't believe that, how will I ever believe the story of Jesus being crucified and being in the grave for three days and raising again three days later? So, I believe this is an actual real story. In fact, here's one of the reasons we want to get this wideeyed wonder because in the New Testament, Jesus said this, "Unless we have the understanding and the faith of a child, we will never experience heaven." And so really sometimes when we revert back to our childhood faith, we think we're becoming less mature. We may actually be becoming more mature in our faith. And so we're studying this book of Jonah, the wideeyed wonder. But there's another reason I want us to study together, too. And that is this to be reminded of the truth of the story that says this, that God will always, no matter how much we run from him, he will always pursue us. You see, we think the story of Jonah and so many times we say Jonah and the whale. Actually, scripture never refers to the fish as a well. It's just a big fish. But somehow we make the central figure, the central character of the story Jonah. But the central most important person in the story is not Jonah and it's not the fish, but it's God. And regardless of where we are in our life, regardless how young or how old we are in our life, that simple fact will always remain. No matter how far we run, no matter how fast we run, no matter where we run, God of the story will always pursue us in our own story. And that's what we're trying to discover in this story. So, if you missed last week, let me just kind of catch you up. We went through chapter one, and here's what happens in chapter 1. There was that moment that God came to Jonah. He was one of his prophets, one of the spokespersons for the word. And he said, "Jonah, I need you to take a message." He said, "I want you to take a message to the Ninevites." Now you have to understand the Nvites were from another nation over and they were the least god-fearing. They were the most God pushing out of their lives. They had no idea, no respect, no no even intentions of worshiping and following the God that Jonah followed, the same God that you and I follow. And he said, "I want you to take my message to the Ninevites." And Jonah hears this and going, "God, I do not want to go to the Ninevites. They are some brutal people. They are some cruel people. They're so far away from you." And rather than following God and doing what he told him to and going towards and speaking to the Ninevites, the Bible says this in chapter one that Jonah actually ran the other way. He went as far away from Nineveh as he could. He went to a place called Tarsus. And to get there, he had to board a boat. And so he gets on this boat, this ship, and they take off across the ocean. And while they're in the middle of the ocean, a big storm comes up. And the whole crew of the ship thinks they're about to lose their life. And it was the belief back in those days of men of the sea, sailors, that if a big storm came up, it was not just happen stance. It wasn't because of nature. It was because God was trying to tell them something. And so all these men on the ship determined that God must be after somebody on the ship. And they went from person to person to person. They all said, "Not me. Not me." And they finally got to Jonah. And Jonah goes, "Guys, it's me. I'm running from God. That's why this big storm is here. It's all my fault. You're about to all die because of me. And if you want to save your life, then here's what you have to do. You have to throw me out into the ocean. Throw me out of the ship and that will satisfy God because I'm disobeying him. I'm running from him. And at first the sailor's like, "We can't kill you. We can't I mean, you're going to drown. You're going to die. We can't do that." But the storm kept on and kept on and finally they said, "We have no choice but to do this." And so they picked up Jonah and they threw him into the ocean. Now, if I stopped the story right there and took a time out and I asked you or asked one of our four-year-olds that went downstairs, what happened next? Everybody would say, "And the whale swallowed Jonah." Which is true. The fish is going to swallow him. But there's a part of the story that most people forget about. From the moment that Jonah was thrown into the water until the fish swallowed him up, there was a moment, moments, minutes of Jonah's life that he was lost at sea. The storm was going on. He was sinking in the water. In fact, there was that moment in there before the fish ever swallowed him up that Jonah thought he was going to die. Have you ever been in the middle of the ocean just swimming around? Maybe not the middle of the ocean. Have you ever jumped into the deep end of some place and kind of got nervous because all that was around you? Or maybe you got nervous because you didn't know what was around you? I used to like to water ski until one day something touched my leg and I didn't know what that something was until a few minutes later I saw a snake just swiggling just swimming in the water. I retired from water skiing at that moment. So, can you imagine being thrown in the middle of the ocean? In fact, one oceanographer um described probably what Jonah experienced when he was thrown into the ocean before the fish ever swallowed him up. And so, here's what the oceanographer said. The moment he Jonah hit the water, the impact would have knocked the breath from his lungs. And before he could orient himself, a wave would have broken over his head and forced him under. And for a brief instant, he could tell which way was up. He could not tell which way was up. And the storm that had roared around him just moments before was now a distant muffled thunder as the water closed in, spinning him, disorienting him, and robbing him of the air he fought again and again to grab hold of. He probably surfaced only long enough to gasp another wave until another wave overtook him. And salt water would have filled his mouth as he coughed and as he choked, struggling for breath. Each attempt to rise was met with another surge, pushing him back down. And the current seemed to take hold of him, pulling and turning him, carrying him further from safety. And then panic would have set in as his strength began to give way. And gradually his fight would begin to fade. His movements would have slowed. he would become weaker, less effective as he felt himself sinking deeper and deeper and deeper into the ocean. The chaos above gave way to dimming stillness below. The light would have grown faint, the pressure increased, and strands of seaweed drifted past him, brushing against him as he descended into the depths. The surface, once within reach, now felt impossibly distant. And in that moment, a sobering realization would have taken hold. He was running out of time, sinking deeper, darker, deeper and darker. And just as his strength was nearly gone, just as the darkness seemed ready to overtake him completely, something else reached him in the depths. Now, we have no idea how long physically that that that Jonah would have been in the water before the fish would have swallowed him up. Maybe a minute, maybe two minutes, maybe five minutes. But can you feel the anguish? Can you feel the fear? Can you feel just the hopelessness that he would have been thrashing in this water? But then something else happened in verse 17 of chapter 1. And now the Lord had arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was inside the fish for three days and three nights. End of chapter 1. Then chapter 2 starts this way. Then while he's in the fish, then Jonah prayed to the Lord for his God from inside the fish. You see, when you've got nothing but time on your hand for three days and three nights, maybe you've been there before. Maybe laying in a hospital bed or maybe home and nobody's there and you don't know what to do with yourself. But when you have nothing but time on your hand for three days and three nights, you have lots of time to ponder life, don't you? And you have time to ponder, which leads you to often to pray for three days and three nights. And so I want to read for you Jonah's prayer that he prayed while he was inside the fish's belly. And you may pause there for a second going, "Hold on. Jonah's inside the well. He had no life preserver. He had no no safety vest, but he had time to grab a pen and paper and write a prayer down." Remember, the whole story of Jonah is is not in real lifetime. It is Jonah thinking back on what took place in his life during this season. And so this is the prayer that Jonah would later jot down that he remembered praying while he was in the belly of the fish for these three days and three nights. And here's what it says starting in verse two. He said, "I cried out to the Lord in my great trouble and he answered me. I called to you from the land of the dead and Lord, you heard me. You threw me into the ocean depths and I sank to the heart of the sea. The mighty waters engulf me. I was buried beneath your wild and stormy waves. And then I said, "Oh Lord, you have driven me from your presence. Yet I will look once more toward your holy temple." In verse 5, I sank beneath the waves and the waters closed over me and seaweed wrapped itself around my head and I sank down to the very roots of the mountain. I was imprisoned on in the earth whose gates locked shut forever. But you, oh Lord, my God, you snatched me from the jaws of death. As my life was slipping away, I remembered the Lord and my earnest prayer went out to you in the holy temple. And those who worship false gods turn their back on all of God's mercies. But I will offer sacrifices to you with songs of praise. And I will fulfill all my vows. For my salvation comes from the Lord alone. And it's easy to listen to a prayer and analyze the person praying. Listen to that prayer and an and and analyze him praying. But but here's what I want us to do. I want us to take the next few minutes not to analyze the person praying, but I want us to think about the one he's praying to. Because remember, the hero of this story is not Jonah. The main character is not Jonah. The main character is God. And I think from that short prayer that Jonah scripted down that he prayed while he was inside the belly of the fish for those three days and three nights, it tells us something about the same very God. And so I want us to dig a little bit deeper. I started to say dive a little bit deeper. See, I knew you wouldn't get it. I want us to go a little bit deeper in this this this prayer and learn some things about God. And if you're taking notes, here's the first thing you can write down. First thing what we can learn about God from Jonah's prayer is that God listens to imperfect prayers. God listens to imperfect prayers. So many times people don't think they can pray. Oh, I don't have the words to say. It is not unusual for somebody to come up to me going, "Pastor, can you pray for me for this?" I'm like, "I'll be happy to pray for you, but you can pray." Oh, pastor, I don't have the words like you have. You always have the right words to say. I don't have the right words to say because there's no such thing as a perfect prayer. I mean, look back for a second at Jonah's prayer. In his prayer that he was praying to God while he was in the belly of the fish. He used overexaggeration. Look at verse six again. He says, "I sank down to the very roots of the mountains. I was imprisoned in the earth whose gates are locked shut forever." He sank down to the very roots of the mountains. The average depth of the ocean is 2 and a half miles deep. I really don't think Jonah, while you might have been sinking in the water, I don't think you sank two and a half miles deep. In fact, actually, when he used the verbiage, I sank down to the roots of the mountain. If he would have um sunk down to the very trenches, that's seven and a half miles deep. Are you with my thinking here? Jonah's praying, but in his prayer, there's just a little bit a lot of overexaggeration. He He did more when he prayed than just overexaggerate. He had hints of self-righteousness. Remember how the story go? God said, "Jonah, will you take my message to the Ninevites?" And what did Jonah do? No, God. I'm going the opposite way. He was disobeying God. He was disobeying God because he didn't want to take God's message to a group of people who were disobeying God. Yet look at verse 8 and N Jonah's prayer. Those who worship, he's talking about the Ninevites. Those who worship false gods, they turn their back on God's mercies. But I will sacrifice to you. Jonah, are you praying about what you want to do or what you should have did? He was busy pointing his fingers at the Ninevites and not looking at the mirror who he should be pointing his finger to. A little bit of self-righteousness there. But his prayer didn't stop there. In Jonah's prayer to God, saying, "God, would you save me?" He never ever ever admitted he was wrong. And he never ever repented of his wrongdoing. Look at verse four. He said, ' Then I said, 'Oh Lord, you have driven me from your presence. It doesn't take a seminary professor to recognize, hold on a second, Jonah. God didn't drive you from his presence. He's not the one that said, "Hey, sailors, throw him overboard." Who was the one said, "Throw me overboard." Who's the one that chose to go the opposite way? And he never repented. He never apologized. He never even said, "Oops, God, I might have made a small mistake." So, here's Jonah's prayer. There's recording. But what we can learn from this prayer is that God still listened to the prayer. As imperfect, as wrong, and as just miscued as it was, God didn't say, "Hold on, Joseph. Before I listen to you, you need to choose better words." God never said, "Hold on, Joseph. before I listen to you, you need to redefine what you're saying because I think you're out of kind of the scope of what we're trying to do here. It's Jonah. No, God still heard his prayers because yet and Jonah prayed all that wrongness when it comes to prayers. Look at verse two. But Jonah said, I cried out to the Lord in my great trouble and he answered me. Do you see the picture of God that we want to see? The very person who's running for God, God said, "No, Jonah, you may run from me, but I will still pursue you." Even when it was all Jonah's fault, God pursued him. Here's what we need to understand when it comes to God in prayer. God is never impressed with a refined prayer. He's always looking for a real person to be praying the prayer.

Jonah's like, "God, I need you. I don't have all the details right. I'm not even going to repeat my circumstances correctly, but God, I need you cuz I'm drowning." And God responded to him. And if you're here today and you're in a place in a season of disobedience, and if you're not today, we'll be there tomorrow, right? Because we've all go through these seasons of running from God. That we all go through seasons and moments of disobedience to God. But in the season of running from God, he is not up in heaven going, "When you get your prayer good, give me a call. When you get your facts straight, give me a call." He is simply waiting for the real person to say, "God, I need you." So, the first thing we can learn about God from Jonah's prayer is that he does listen to imperfect prayers. Here, here's the second thing. God is with you even when your situation is your fault. Now, let that one sink in for a second because that one goes so much against not of what God's word says. It goes to so much what the world tries to paint a picture about God. That God is with you even when your situation is your fault. I mean, think about this. This whole story of Jonah, we could have had 65 books in the Bible instead of 66 books in the Bible if Jonah had just gone to Nineve in the first place. Because if Jonah had listened to God and obeyed him and then went the direction he told him to go, there would be no fish. And why would we ever tell the story? I mean, I could time out right here going, "Hey, tell me what happens in chapter 3 and chapter 4." And most of us can't remember because we learn the story. We just know learn the story of Joseph being Jonah being called by God, got Jonah going the wrong way and the fish swallowing up. That's most of the story that we remember. And have Jonah followed God, done what God told him to, and obeyed God, then guess what? None of this story would have taken place. Can we all agree the story of Jonah hinges on Jonah being 100% responsible for what takes place? Anybody want to disagree with that? No. It's all his fault. Anybody ever been there before where the situation you find yourself is 100% your fault? It's because the choice you made. Maybe your marriage ends because of regrettable decisions you made out of emotion or even lust and you have to own it. Maybe the situation is your career was derailed because you lacked focus, not because you had a mean boss. It's because you just didn't focus like you should. 100% your fault. Maybe family rel relationships are hurt and sometimes destroyed. Why? Because of your choice of misplacing the right priorities. your fault or the financial difficulties you find yourself in. It's not because the price of gas keeps going up. It's because you made previous unwise financial decisions that put you in the place that you can't afford another dollar for gas. Are you with me? We've all made choices and we've all made choices that have we have been in the wrong and it has placed us in a bad place. But here's what we need to understand today. That even when we make choices that we get to take the blame for, God is still with us. God is not looking down from heaven going, "I'm only going to chase after the ones that make good choices. God will chase after the good choice people and he will chase after the bad choice people. And let's all be real here. There's no such thing as a 100% all the time good choice people because we all make bad choices at times. We all make poor decisions. We all choose to go our way and not God's way. We all choose to disobey at some point.

But the hero of the story of Jonah is the same hero in the story of our lives. And that's God. And God is with us even when it's our fault that we find ourselves in the situation we're in.

Sometimes our choices leave us sidetracked. Sometimes our choices leave us rock bottom. I would say Jonah, he found himself in rock bottom, sinking deeper and deeper and deeper. But the psalmist reminds Jonah just like he reminds us that God is always with us. In fact, it says in Psalms 139, "Is there any place I can go to avoid your spirit?" Talking about God's spirit. to be out of your sight. If I climb to the sky, you're there. If I go underground, you're there. If I flew on morning wings to the far western horizon, you'd find you would find me. In a minute, you're already there waiting. And then I said to myself, "Oh, he even sees me in the dark. At night, I'm immersed in the light, God's light. It's a fact. Darkness isn't dark to you, oh God. Night and day, darkness and light, they are all the same to you.

The fact is God is with you. God is with me. God is with us. Even when the situation is our fault, there's no place we can go that he can't find us. In fact, reality, if you listen to the psalmist, there's nowhere we can go that he's not already there waiting for you. because he knows you're going there even when it's our fault. Let me give you the third and last one. Third and last one that we can learn from from this prayer about God. God rescues you for something more than from something. God rescues us for something more than he rescues us from something. When Jonah was rescued by this fish, he was drowning. But he wasn't just drowning in the sea. Jonah was drowning in his disobedience. That's what was taking him under. Not just the water crashing on his head. It was his running away from God. his disobedient disobeying God. You see, God didn't just rescue him from water. He rescued him from going the wrong direction in his life.

Someone has said this about Jonah. Jonah was not just saved from his circumstances. Jonah was saved so he could be sent. Now, so many times when we think of the story, we think of Jonah, Jonah and the big fish. The fish was the problem. The fish was what Jonah needed help from. I mean, he's in there three days, three nights. I got to get him out. No, no. The fish was what rescued him. The prayer showed us that Jose Jonah, what he was dying from, what he was sinking from, what he was sinking in was the ocean. If he didn't get rescued out of the ocean, he was going to die. And so Jonah never needed to be rescued from the belly of a fish. The belly of the fish is what rescued him. And so the belly was sent by God, used by God, not just to save him from his circumstances. It saved him so he could live. And what we're going to find out is what does the whale end up doing? The fish end up doing spits him out on the dry land. Why? Because God still had plans for Jonah. Verse 10. And then the Lord ordered the fish to spit Jonah onto the beach. He was saved and rescued from the sea into the belly of the fish. The fish spit him out three days, three nights later. Why? So he could be sent to what God wanted him to do. When God rescues us, it is not for our comfort. It is for our calling. Let me say that one again and let it sink in. When God rescues us, it is not from our for our from our it's not for our comfort. It is for our calling. The fish was the turning point in the story. And that when the fish spit him back up on dry land, that was the moment that Jonah was redirected towards a purpose in his life. That was the moment that his eyes kind of opened going, "Wow, God made me for something." That's why we say the point for this one. God rescues you for something, not from something. That God takes over and he's going, I'm not just trying to save you. I'm trying to send you. I'm not just trying to change your circumstances. What I want to do is redirect and refocus your purpose.

Yet, we spend most of our prayers going, "God, save me. God, save me. Get me out of this mess. I made a fool of myself. I can't do this. God, what do I do? What I do? Save me. Save me. Save me. And most of us would be satisfied if he just rescued us. Now, watch this. If Jonah would have been just satisfied by being rescued, where would he have spent the rest of his life? In the belly of a fish. because that was the rescuing. Now, the belly of a wish of a fish when you can breathe and survive for three days and three nights is a whole lot better and and more more just it's better than dying in the middle of the ocean. Anybody want to spend the rest of your life in the middle of a stinky fish's belly? But watch this. When God rescues us and we only get rescued from something, but we never determine our purpose while we're rescued to be sent out. We basically live our lives in the belly of a stinky fish.

You follow me? That we're just a step better from dying. We're just existing. But here's the good news about God. For every single person listening to my words, for every single person that we read the scripture of Jonah, the same story of Jonah is our story. God didn't just rescue you from something. He rescued you for something.

And so, here's my question this morning as we wrap up. You with me? If somebody's next to you asleep, would you elbow them? Because this is where it lands right here. Who's your Nineveh?

When you think about the purpose of your life, why God rescued you, why God saved you, why he gave you his salvation, who is your Nineveh, who is it that God wants you to share Jesus's love to that person.

Maybe it's a who. Here's the question. What is your Nineveh? Or a better way to put that, where is your Nineveh? That doesn't mean God's calling every one of us to move to go to some other country where they're brutalities going on and and they're not loving God. Sometimes the person next door is our Nineveh.

Sometimes it's that broken relationship that you need to restore. Not because the person deserves it, because God gave you grace. So you need to give them grace.

Sometimes your Nineveh is simply going to work instead of blending into who and what the people are. You have the light of Jesus in your life at work. That may be your Nineveh. But God has not saved us from something. He has saved us for something.

And remember this. We said we wanted to study Jonah so we could rediscover the wideeyed wonder of the story. But we also are studying Jonah so we can what? Understand the God who pursues us no matter where we go.

And so who is your Nineveh?

I close with this last thing. So, there may be some in here that are not in the belly of the whale. You're in the depths of the ocean. And you have never had the opportunity where God stepped in and saved not just your circumstances, but he saved your soul.

Now, Keith, what does that mean for God to save your soul? Here here's here's the truth about Jesus and God. They want a relationship with us. Without a relationship with the heavenly father through Jesus, the Bible says this, we are all doomed for death. Both physical death and spiritual death. But God in his great desire of pursuing you even in your physical and spiritual death, he sent his son Jesus to rescue us, to save us. And the Bible says this, to be rescued, you simply just have to pray this prayer. Not these words, but this heart of a prayer. Jesus, I'm a sinner. In my sin, I disobeyed you. I am running from you, God. I believe you're the son of God. Jesus, would you come and forgive my sins and rescue me? And the Bible says a prayer like that. God is pursuing you and will reach up and grab you and you will become a son, a daughter, a child of God. And so we're going to sing now. If you've never prayed that prayer before, today could be your day of salvation. the day you're rescued. Remember Jonah didn't have it all right, but God still rescued him. Will you pray with me? Father, we come before you now and thank you for those of us in here that you have rescued us. You have saved our souls, Jesus. We all confess that while you saved us, we still try to go our own way. And so today, I pray that you would send us to our Nineveh

that we may live and love Jesus like you do. And Jesus, I pray now for that person who's never prayed that simple prayer. Jesus, I believe in you. Save me. I pray today's that day. And oh God, would you wrap your arms around them and rescue them? And we pray this in your holy name, Jesus. Amen.

Would you stand as we sing to the God