Well, good morning again, and I hope you're having a great 4th of July weekend with your
family and your friends.
Over the next four weeks, throughout the month of July, we are going to be looking at the
story of Jonah, which is a prophet story in the Old Testament.
And I'm really excited to be looking at this story, to be looking at this book, for a number
of reasons.
It's an amazing story.
It's a story that perhaps many of us may or may not be familiar with us, we may or may
not be familiar with.
But it's an amazing story for a lot of reasons, not only because of the plot and the characters
and what happens in the story, but the scholars who have studied this over the years are aware
of how sophisticated a story it is in terms of its form, in terms of its structure, in
terms of its style.
Even though it's an incredibly short story, it only takes up about three pages in my Bible.
Even though it's a short story, scholars understand that it is a masterful work of Hebrew narrative,
of Hebrew language.
There's irony, there's satire, there's humor, and parallelism and symmetry, and so it's
this really amazing story.
And I also love this story because Jonah touches on some of the great themes of the entire Bible.
It touches on some of the most important themes of all of Scripture, things like the core doctrines of sin and grace.
What does the Bible teach about what sin is?
What does the Bible teach about what grace is?
Jonah gets right at that.
It touches on God's character.
It touches on how his justice and his mercy, his holiness and his love and compassion come together.
Jonah is about the power and the centrality of God's Word and our response to God through his Word.
Jonah is about mission.
It's about our calling to make disciples of all nations and to take the gospel to the whole world.
Jonah is also about the sins of racism and nationalism and ethnocentrism and the human tendency to feel superior to other people and other cultures.
Jonah is also about cities.
Jonah is about the importance of cities, not only to humanity, but also to God.
So Jonah is about all these amazing themes.
And another reason why I love this story and I'm excited to look at it is that even though it's an old story,
even though it's an ancient story, millennia old, it addresses modern questions.
And therefore, it's a really modern story.
It addresses questions like how do we live in a society that has deep differences?
It addresses questions like how do we become the kind of people who cannot just tolerate but love and live at peace with those who are different from us?
How do spiritual change and social change go together?
How can a city and a society experience both spiritual renewal and cultural renewal?
And so it's an old story, but it's a modern story because it addresses a lot of our modern problems and questions.
And so for all those reasons, I love this story.
I'm excited to look at it.
But before we dive into it, there's at least a couple things, one thing in particular, that we have to unlearn before we study this book.
And one of the things that we have to unlearn as we come to study Jonah is that Jonah is just a children's story.
That it's just a kid's story about Jonah and the fish.
I think it's common for a lot of people to think about it this way.
Perhaps that's because of the success of VeggieTales.
I was telling Deborah about that this morning.
Or perhaps because of the experience in church that we grew up in, that it tends to be a story that kids like.
And so it tends to be a story that we associate with just telling our children.
But for a lot of reasons, for those we already named, it's literary sophistication.
It's all the great themes that it touches on.
It's actually way more of an adult story.
It's way more of an adult story than a children's story.
Although, the beauty of Jonah is that kids, it's a story that kids love too.
It's a story that kids and adults can read together and love.
And so that's something that we have to unlearn as we come to this story together.
The last thing that I'll say, one final thing I'll say, by means of introduction and orientation to this book,
is a word about history.
So because of the nature of the story, because of some of the fantastic or even miraculous things that happen in it,
many people are going to read this as just an allegory or as a parable,
as just a symbolic story that reveals a bigger truth about God.
That whether or not it happened in history doesn't actually matter.
What matters is the bigger spiritual truth.
And so that's a question we have to think about.
Is Jonah just a symbolic story?
Is it just an allegory?
Or did it actually happen?
And that's an important question.
And I do want to address that.
But for the sake of time, we're actually going to leave that for next week.
We're going to leave that for week two.
Just for the sake of time.
But I do want to address it because it's an important question.
And it's probably a question that many of you all have as you think about the book of Jonah.
So we'll touch on that next week.
So let's dive in and let's look at Jonah chapter one.
In the first chapter, in the beginning of this story, we're going to see a couple things.
We're going to see Jonah's flight from God and God's grace in the storm.
Jonah's flight from God and God's grace in the storm.
So first of all, Jonah's flight from God.
So what do we know about Jonah?
Well, the Bible actually doesn't give us a ton of background information about him except for 2 Kings chapter 14.
And in 2 Kings chapter 14, we learn that Jonah was a prophet who lived in the northern kingdom of Israel in around the 8th century BC.
And we learn in that passage that God had given Jonah a prophecy.
He'd given Jonah a prophecy that Israel was going to reclaim land.
It was going to restore its national borders from land that it had previously lost in previous generations to other powers in the region.
And in 2 Kings chapter 14, we learn that this prophecy comes to pass under King Jeroboam II through various military campaigns.
And the northern borders of Israel are expanded and restored.
And the reason why that matters, the reason why that context matters, is because it means that the early days of Jonah's ministry as a prophet were actually a time of national pride for the people of the northern kingdom of Israel.
Despite the fact that Jeroboam II was a bit of a mixed bag and a pretty terrible spiritual leader, God had nonetheless showed favor on his people in this way.
The national borders of Israel were expanded to a place that had only been matched in the days of King Solomon.
And if you know the story of Israel, you know that the days of King Solomon were the glory days of Israel.
They were the glory days of wealth and prosperity and learning and peace.
And so you can imagine the kind of pride, the kind of honor that Jonah must have felt as a prophet during this time.
His ministry could be mentioned in the same sentence as King Solomon.
He was God's prophet.
And he got to preach a message of expansion and glory and victory and success.
And he also got to see it come true.
And maybe that meant that in Jonah's days, maybe that meant that the glory days were on their way back.
That the glory days of King Solomon were rolling back.
Jonah may have thought to himself, you know, being a prophet in Israel, this is a pretty great gig, you know.
I wonder what message of glory, what message of victory, what message of success is God going to ask me to preach next.
But then we see Jonah chapter 1, verse 1.
Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it.
For their evil has come up before me.
Now given everything that we had just said about the early days of Jonah's ministry, this was not the assignment that Jonah had in mind.
This would have come as a great shock to him for a number of reasons.
The Lord had never in history before called a prophet from Israel to go to another nation, to go to a Gentile nation.
He had only sent prophets to Israel and Judah.
And so this was completely unprecedented.
This would have been completely off the radar for Jonah.
And not only was it a Gentile nation that God had called Jonah to go to, but it was the city of Nineveh.
It was the city of Nineveh.
Now what do we know about Nineveh?
Nineveh was the capital city of the Assyrian Empire, that great and powerful, fearful nation to the north.
A generation earlier, the Assyrians had forced Israel's king, Jehu, to pay tribute, to pay lots of money and gold.
In order to pay tribute to them.
They were a people known for their violence and cruelty.
They were an economic rival in the region.
They were a constant military threat.
They were constantly trying to expand their own borders.
And they had this reputation of being a violent people, of being a cruel people.
Both on the military front and in their own society.
But above all, Nineveh represented a society that was a pagan nation, that worshipped pagan gods.
That worshipped false gods.
And so Nineveh was a city that embodied everything that Israel was against.
Everything that Israel feared.
And everything that Israel hated.
Needless to say, Nineveh was not on Jonah's summer vacation destination list.
Nineveh was not on Jonah's bucket list.
It was the last place that he would ever want to go.
But God told Jonah, that is exactly where I want you to go.
And so what does Jonah do?
He jumps in the car and he heads to Nineveh straight away.
No.
What does he do?
He runs in the complete opposite direction.
Nineveh is to the northeast.
And he goes west.
Or rather, northeast for you and west over here.
And he finds, he goes to a town on the west coast of Israel called Joppa.
And he finds a ship headed to Tarshish.
A place that was across the Mediterranean Sea to the west.
Jonah goes as far away from Nineveh as he could go in direct disobedience to God's word.
Direct disobedience to God's word.
And so what do we learn from the first part of this story?
What do we learn from the opening of the story of Jonah?
Well, we learn that there is more than one way to run from God.
That there's more than one way to run from God.
If you're here this morning and maybe you would consider yourself more of a secular person,
you wouldn't consider yourself a Christian,
you wouldn't consider yourself very religious,
chances are that when you hear somebody like me,
some pastor or a person in a collar,
when you hear a person like me talk about running from God,
chances are you imagine them to talk about living a life of immorality and sin
and self-indulgence, perhaps a life of hedonistic pleasure,
apart from church, apart from religion.
And of course, that is for sure one way to run from God,
but it's not the only way.
And it's not, in fact, the way that Jonah runs from God here in this story.
Jonah's not abandoning his faith.
He's not pursuing a life of hedonistic, sinful pleasure and autonomy.
So why is he running?
Why is Jonah running?
Well, we're going to have to wait for the story to unfold to get a fuller answer to that question.
Jonah gives us a more specific answer to why he runs in Jonah chapter 3,
but for now, we get a preview of that answer here in chapter 1
by thinking about Jonah as a prophet.
As a prophet.
What would it have meant for a prophet from Israel to go to a city like Nineveh?
Well, of course, it would have meant that he would have had to go
and confront one of Israel's national enemies in the flesh.
He would have had to go and confront his cultural enemies,
people that he feared and hated.
But it also meant the possibility that the people in Nineveh
would hear a message from God.
Prophets were people who spoke God's word to people.
They revealed the truth about who God was.
And so if Jonah was going to go and preach a message to the people of Nineveh,
it meant that they could hear a message about the truth of God.
And if they could hear a message from God,
then it also meant that they could respond to that message.
It meant that they could hear the message
and that they could also respond to it in ways that involved repentance,
in ways that involved change,
in ways that involved turning from sin,
turning from their wickedness and their evil
and their violent ways that they were known for.
It meant the possibility, not the guarantee,
but it meant the possibility that those people,
those Assyrians,
would potentially receive the same mercy
and the same compassion from God
that Jonah had experienced
and that all of Israel had experienced.
Jonah runs perhaps partially because of fear,
but he runs primarily
because of his own national and cultural and religious pride.
He's not running because he's immoral
or because he's deconstructed his faith.
He's running because he cannot imagine
those people
having the same relationship with God
that he has based on grace.
And the Bible teaches that this is the default operating system
of every human heart.
The human condition
is that we all run from God.
That we all run from God
in disobedience to his word.
That's what sin is.
That's sin in a nutshell.
All of us run from God.
And some people run from God
in ways that look more immoral, irreligious.
But others of us run from God
in ways that look very moral, very religious.
It looks like we're actually being a good person
and doing good things.
There's a character in one of Flannery O'Connor's novels.
Flannery O'Connor wrote a novel called Wise Blood.
And, um,
and one of Flannery O'Connor's characters
is a man named Hazel Motes
in her novel Wise Blood.
And, uh,
as we read the story,
we learn that Hazel,
Hazel Motes learns,
uh,
he learns,
he says,
that the way to avoid Jesus
was to avoid sin.
That the way to avoid Jesus
was to avoid sin.
In other words,
if we're a moral person,
if we're a good religious person,
if we've fulfilled our religious obligations,
then we've paid our dues.
And if we've paid our dues, uh,
to God,
then, uh,
he is obligated to bless us.
He's obligated to answer our prayers.
Um,
he's obligated to do things for us
on the basis of our own,
uh,
good works.
The way to avoid Jesus
was to avoid sin.
But this is in direct contradiction
to what Christianity teaches.
It's, uh,
at the heart of our faith,
uh,
we believe that our relationship with God
is based on something called grace.
It's not based on our own culture,
it's not based on our own morality
or good works,
but it's based on an undeserved gift.
A gift that he initiates,
a gift that he freely offers us,
and a gift that he purchases
and earns for us.
And so even though Jonah is God's prophet,
even though he's a religious person,
even though he speaks for God
for his job,
he has a deficient understanding
of God's grace.
He has a deficient understanding
of God's grace.
At his core,
he's still,
at this point in the story,
he still basically believes
that it's his culture,
it's his morality
that allows him
to receive God's blessing
and approval,
and that's why he runs.
Because it's that,
it's that belief,
it's that orientation to the world
that makes him,
uh,
fearful,
it makes him say,
I can't imagine
that those people might
experience the same relationship
with God that I have.
And so whether you would consider yourself
a secular person
or whether you would say
that you've been a Christian
your whole life,
um,
wherever you're at
on that spectrum,
like Jonah,
all of us
are blind in some way
to God's grace.
We're all blind in some way
to God's grace.
We all have blind spots.
Even if your theology
of justification
is impeccable.
Even if you can explain
justification
clearly and articulately,
all of us have blind spots
to God's grace.
If Jonah had blind spots,
if a prophet from Israel
had blind spots,
then we all have blind spots
about God's grace.
Um,
we might be blind
to,
like Hazel Motes,
we might be blind
to ways that we
see our own spiritual life
as a way of paying our dues
and getting God to bless us
and answer our prayers.
Uh,
we might be blind
to our,
our own patterns of sin,
uh,
to our own unhealthy ways
of relating with other people.
Uh,
but like Jonah,
we might also,
uh,
be blind to ways
that deep town
we actually feel superior
to other people.
Um,
hardly anybody
thinks to themselves,
hardly anybody
says out loud,
you know,
I'm really better
than those people.
I'm just so great,
I'm so superior,
I'm really better
than those people.
But if you've ever thought
or if you've ever said,
uh,
things like this,
you know,
I,
I can't believe
that those people
or that that person
would think about
politics that way.
I can't believe
that he or she
would see the issues
that way,
would see the world
that way.
I can't believe
that they would vote
for this person
or that person.
I can't believe
that they would send
their kids to that school.
I can't believe
that they would live
in that part of the city
or live in that neighborhood.
I can't believe
they would live
in the suburbs.
If you've ever
said something like that
or thought about
something like that
in your heart,
that's the,
that's the seed
of superiority.
It's the seed
of pride.
And that's a blind spot.
That's a blind spot
that shows
a deficient understanding
of God's grace.
And one of the secrets
of the Christian life,
one of the secrets
of living as a Christian,
as a disciple of Jesus,
is learning
how to discover
your own blind spots.
And none of us
can do that
by ourselves.
But we,
whoops,
sorry,
we all need to discover
our own blind spots
in ways that are
particular to us,
particular to our own
temperament,
our own personality,
our own temptations,
our own story.
And we do that,
we absolutely need
other people
to help us do that.
We need community,
we need friendships,
we need other people
in our life
to help point out
blind spots
that we have.
We also need
spiritual disciplines,
the regular means
of grace,
prayer,
study of God's word,
silence,
solitude,
and fasting.
We need all of these things
to help us discover
our own blind spots.
And unless you're
actively doing that,
unless you're actively
uncovering
your own blind spots
about God's grace,
our hearts will start
to wander.
We'll start believing
things that aren't
true about God
and our hearts
will start to wander
away from the reality
of a relationship
with God
based on grace.
And if we let our hearts
wander for too long,
if we let our hearts
wander long enough
and hard enough,
we'll find ourselves
running away from God,
not running towards Him
and His purposes
and His call
on our lives,
but like Jonah,
running in the complete
opposite direction
and direct disobedience.
And that is where
Jonah found himself.
Even though he was
a prophet of Israel,
he found himself
running from God
in direct disobedience
to Him.
But how does God respond?
How does God respond
to Jonah's flight,
to his disobedience,
to him running?
Well, second of all,
we see God's grace
in the storm.
We see God's grace
in the storm.
Jonah goes to Joppa
and he boards a ship
that heads out
across the Mediterranean Sea
and the ship gets out there
in the middle of the sea
and suddenly,
this violent storm
breaks out.
And it threatens the lives
of everybody on board
the ship.
The sailors,
the captain,
and panic starts to set in.
And the sailors
become desperate.
They start throwing
and heaving stuff overboard,
supplies overboard
in order to make the ship lighter,
to make it more buoyant.
And they start praying
and they start crying out
to their gods.
They start crying out
to their pagan gods
to save them
and rescue them.
And meanwhile,
what is Jonah doing?
He's sleeping.
And the captain says to Jonah,
Jonah,
what are you doing?
Get up.
We are all calling
on our gods.
You need to wake up
and call upon your God.
We're about to go down.
We need all the help
that we can get.
And then verse seven,
the sailors said to one another,
come,
let us cast lots
that we may know
on whose account
this evil
has come upon us.
And they cast lots
and the lot
fell to Jonah.
Now,
without explaining
the logistics
of how lots work,
Jonah,
as God's prophet,
would have been familiar
with Proverbs 16.33,
which says,
the lot is cast
into the lap,
but it's every decision
is from the Lord.
Jonah knew.
The lot fell to him.
Jonah knows
he's the reason.
Jonah knows
even without the lot
being cast to him.
Jonah knows
the reason
why the storm has come
is because of him.
He's the reason.
And the sailors say to him,
who are you?
Where are you from?
Why is all this happening to us?
What have you done?
Verse nine,
and he said to them,
I am a Hebrew
and I fear the Lord,
the God of heaven,
who made the sea
and the dry land.
And then the men
were exceedingly afraid
and said to him,
what is this
that you have done?
And you can't help
but notice
the incredible irony
that's going on
in this moment.
You can't help
but notice
the incredible irony
that is happening
in this scene.
Jonah's a prophet.
He's the one
who's supposed
to reveal
the truth about God.
He's the one
who's supposed
to preach God's word.
He's the one
who's supposed
to tell other people
about the truth
of who God is.
But who is it
that's actually
revealing the truth
about who God is
in this situation?
It's the pagan sailors.
The pagan sailors
are actually revealing
the truth about God.
The pagan sailors
are more in touch with,
they're more consistent
with Jonah's theology
than Jonah is.
Jonah says,
I worship the Lord
and yet he runs
from him.
Jonah says,
I worship the God
who made all things,
the God who made
the earth and the sea.
And the sailors
say to Jonah,
Jonah,
if you worship
the God
who made the sea,
then how could you
run from him
and try to escape
from him
in the sea?
If your God
made the sea,
how could you
possibly run from God
and get away from him
in the sea?
It's an incredible irony
and it shows
that it was an illusion
for Jonah
to think
that he could escape
from Yahweh,
from the one
who had made
all things.
And the storm
and the sailors
were showing Jonah
that that was
an illusion
and that illusion
was starting to fade.
And friends,
here is a
hard
but beautiful truth
from the book
of Jonah
that sometimes
the most loving
and gracious thing
that God can do
when we are running
from him
is to send a storm
into our lives,
to send difficult
circumstances
that make us aware
that we are fragile,
that we're dependent
upon him,
where the illusion
that we are in control
is wiped away.
And perhaps
even when our rebellion
and our
disobedience
is unmasked.
A few years ago,
I was living in Charlottesville,
I was working
at the University of Virginia
and one afternoon
I was driving home
from campus
and I was stopped
at a light,
I was stopped
at an intersection
and the car
in front of me
was about to make
a left-hand turn
and the light
turned green
and over to my left
there was
a man
with his son
who was about
six or seven years old
and his son
was on a bike
and when the crosswalk
sign changed,
the son started
to pedal his bike
across the intersection.
Only the car
in front of me
did not see
that this was happening
and the car
started to turn left
and the boy
started to pedal
his bike
across the intersection
and the father
saw what was happening
and he saw
the ongoing terror
that was about
to happen
and with his
best dad reflexes,
he ran after him,
he jumped out
in the middle
of the intersection
between his son
and between the car
and he grabs his son
and he grabs his bike
and he violently,
quickly pulls him back
to the sidewalk
out of safety.
The father
in that moment
caused
a mini storm
in that kid's life.
He was thrown
off balance,
he was jostled around,
he was prevented
from going
in the direction
that he wanted to go.
You can imagine
that even for the
first few seconds
he was angry
that his dad
was pulling him back,
that he was preventing
him from going
where he wanted to go.
He didn't understand
what was happening,
he couldn't see,
he had blind spots.
But the father saw
that the mini storm
that he created
in his son's life
was ultimately
for his good.
It was ultimately
out of love
and it saved him
from experiencing
a much bigger storm.
And sometimes,
like with Jonah,
that is what God
does in our lives.
Now let's be
crystal clear on this,
not every situation
of difficulty
in our lives
is related to us
running from God.
But sometimes it is.
Sometimes it is.
The Bible is clear,
difficult circumstances
happen all the time
to people
who haven't done
anything to deserve it.
It's not because
of their sin.
But the difficult
circumstances have happened
just because we live
in a fallen world.
And that's what happens
to people who live
in a fallen world.
We know from Scripture
that people who love
and trust
and worship
and obey God
can suffer greatly.
And it has absolutely
nothing to do
with their sin.
It has absolutely
nothing to do
with their disobedience.
But sometimes,
storms in our lives
do happen
because we are running
from God.
And rather than
allowing us
to experience
the ultimate storm
of death
and separation
from Him,
God sends a mini-storm
in our life.
He sends a kindness,
a mercy,
in order to wake us up
and to help us see
our need for Him.
And the reason
why we know that
is because that is
exactly what happened
to Jonah.
Verse 11,
Then they said to Him,
What shall we do to you
that the sea
may quiet down for us?
For the sea grew
more and more tempestuous.
Nothing that they were doing
was working.
And it's at this moment
that Jonah decides
to stop running.
He realizes
he is the reason
for the storm.
He realizes
he cannot outrun God.
And he realizes
that his decisions
have had consequences,
that they've put
the lives of others
in dangers.
And he says
to the sailors,
Pick me up
and throw me
into the sea.
I'm the one
to blame.
I'm the one
who deserves
God's judgment.
I'll take on
the wrath of the storm
so you don't have to.
I'll die
so that you can live.
I'm the one
to blame.
Jonah understands
that his running
from God
wasn't just a momentary
lapse in judgment
but that it was
rebellion against
the king of heaven
and earth
and that what he deserved
was death.
And so the sailors
pick him up
and they throw him
overboard
into the sea.
And the sea
grows calm.
And Jonah goes down
to the bottom
of the sea.
Only
Jonah doesn't
die.
He's
rescued.
The Lord provides
a great fish
to swallow
Jonah.
Was it
a whale?
Was it some other
great fish?
Was it some other
marine creature?
We don't know.
But what we do know
is that the great fish,
the large fish
was a refuge
amidst a raging storm.
It was in the very
center of the storm
that God revealed
his grace,
that he revealed
his mercy.
The same God
who caused the wind
and the waves
to stir up
also called the wind
and the waves
to calm down.
The same God
who brought
the storm
also brought
the fish.
The same God
who brought judgment
also brought
salvation.
And this is a shadow
of what would happen
centuries later
through another prophet
from Israel.
In Matthew chapter 12,
Jesus is talking
to people
who wanted him
to perform
a miraculous sign.
And in the gospel
reading we read
in Matthew 12,
Jesus says,
no sign will be given
to this generation
except the sign
of Jonah.
For as Jonah
was three days
and three nights
in the belly
of a huge fish,
so the Son of Man
will be three days
and three nights
in the heart
of the earth.
What is the story
of Jonah about?
Well, as we looked
at earlier,
Jonah is about
a number of things.
It's about lots
of great themes.
But it's mainly
about Jesus.
It's mainly
about Jesus.
Jesus Christ
is the true
and better Jonah.
Though we have
all run from God,
though we have
all directly
disobeyed his word,
though we have
all rebelled
against his calling
on our lives,
though we all
have blind spots
to God's grace,
though we all
deserve the storm
of God's judgment
for sin on the cross,
Jesus Christ
hurled himself
into the depths
of that storm
for you
so that you
can experience
only the peaceful
calm of God's love
and his grace.
of God's grace.
The storm
that Jonah's face
was because
of his sin,
but the storm
that Jesus Christ
faced on the cross
was because
of our sin.
Just as Jonah
was buried
beneath the heart
of the sea
for three days
and three nights,
so Jesus Christ
was buried beneath
the infinite weight
of death
and hell
and evil
itself.
And just as Jonah
was resurrected
symbolically
after three days
by being
put back
onto the dry land,
so Jesus Christ
was resurrected
literally
in power
and victory
over death.
And the difference
that makes
is that all
who take refuge
in him,
all who take refuge
in Jesus Christ
in the same way
that Jonah took refuge
in the belly
of the fish,
all who take refuge
in him,
can face
any storm.
When you see
that Jesus Christ
faced the ultimate
storm of God's wrath
and judgment
for you,
when you see that,
you can know
that not only
is every storm
in your life
not that ultimate storm,
it's not that storm,
Jesus Christ already
faced it for you,
but you can also know
that every difficult
circumstance
within your life
is within his
sovereign control.
It's within his
sovereign care
and concern
for you
and can even
be a means
of experiencing
greater depths
of God's love,
of his grace,
of his presence.
And it can even
be a means
of how God
wants to work
through you
in your life
in the world.
And so friends,
we,
the human condition
is that we can
run from God
and we can run
from him
in a thousand
different ways.
Some of those ways
look quite moral
and look quite religious.
But the beauty
of the gospel,
according to Jonah,
is that though
we run from God,
God never stops
running after us.
in pursuing
the areas
of our lives,
pursuing the areas
of our hearts
that are blind
to his grace.
And the rest
of that story,
the rest of Jonah
chapters two
through four
is about
that reality,
the reality
of God's grace
sinking deep down
into Jonah's heart
and extending
out into Jonah's
life,
into the world.
Jonah's experience
of God's grace
in the middle
of the storm
takes him
on both
an inward journey
and an outward journey.
An inward journey
and an outward journey.
Chapter two,
which we'll look at
next week,
is about the inward journey.
Chapter two
is a prayer
that Jonah prays
from the belly
of the fish
and we see how
Jonah's experience
of grace
changes him
from the inside out.
It shows him
where his blind spots are.
It humbles him.
It brings about
repentance
and spiritual renewal.
It leads him
to greater love
for God
and greater worship
of God.
And then chapters
three and four
are about how
that inward transformation
works its way out
in Jonah's life.
It's about the outward journey
that Jonah goes on.
We learn how
Jonah's experience
of grace
sends Jonah back out
on mission
to obey God's calling
on his life
and to learn more
about God's heart
for the world,
to learn about
how God's mercy
and his compassion
extend
even to those people.
And so Jonah's
experience of grace
in the middle of the storm
takes him on this
deep inward journey
and it takes him
on this outward journey
to the world.
And if we let him,
he promises
to do the same for us.
But sometimes
it takes a storm.
But we don't have
to fear the storm.
And we don't have
to fear the storm
because the same God
who brings the wind
and the waves
also brings
the fish.
The same God
who brings the storm
also brings
the cross.
A place of refuge
infinitely better
than the refuge
that Jonah found.
Let's pray.
Our God and Father,
we thank you
for ways
that you
run after us
even when we run
from you.
Lord, help us
to see
our own blind spots.
Help us
to experience
your grace
at a deep level
in ways that
change us deep down.
Lord, help us
to know
that you're with us
in the midst
of the storm
because of what
Jesus Christ did
for us
who faced
the storm
for us.
And it's
in his name
we pray.
Amen.