Introduction

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When I was 20 … I had the first of 3 big leaps in my Christian maturity.  I’d moved to Melbourne for a 6-month placement … as part of my engineering degree.  So I was out on my own for the first time.  And about 3 months in … my car started blowing smoke … JUST before I needed to re-register it.  The mechanic said it would cost me $1,000 to get new rings put in.  Needless to say I didn’t have $1,000.  That was a LOT of money 30 years ago.  Well after several restless nights of stress and little sleep … I finally said ‘you know what God?  I’m sick of stressing over this.  So I’m handing this over to you’.  And by ‘this’ … I didn’t mean my car.  I meant ALL my finances.  I was sick of stressing over MONEY.  And so I said to God … ‘I’m giving ALL my finances over to you’.  Now what does that mean?

Well the FIRST thing that meant … was tithing properly.  IF God was going to be in charge of my finances … that meant following God’s word on money.  Up until that point … if I had a $20 note in my wallet come Sunday … God got lucky.  If not … he missed out that week.  Now as our regulars have heard me say plenty of times before … God’s word says he wants Christians giving at LEAST 10% of our weekly income to the church.  So that’s what I did.  THEN I sat back … and trusted GOD to sort the rest out’.  The following week … my car stopped blowing smoke … out of the blue.  And I was able to register my car for another year.  So since then … I give a minimum 10% of my income to the church.  Deb and I give away closer to 20% these days.  And I’ve been able to sit back and trust GOD to sort out the rest … even when things get tight.  That was my single BIGGEST leap in Christian maturity.

The SECOND big leap for me came when I was 40.  The third came last month … age 50.  And this THIRD big growth spurt came through the book of Jonah … which is about ANOTHER guy whom God brought to his knees … so as to transform his life.  Now as we saw last week … the prophet Jonah was running from God … LONG before he started physically running from God.  What we know about Jonah from 2 Kings 14:25 was he was a successful leader of a successful nation.  Israel GREW under his direct influence.  And what we know about Jonah from Jonah chapter 4 … spoiler alert for 2 weeks’ time … is that he DOESN’T want Nineveh to repent … because he KNOWS that will mean God will relent.  And if word got out in Israel that Jonah had helped their number 1 enemy … his reputation is shot.  And that is a bridge too far for Jonah.  So he ran from the Lord in Jonah chapter 1.

In Jonah chapter 3 … spoiler alert for next week … Jonah obeys the word of the Lord and goes to Nineveh.  So what it is that changes Jonah from being a runaway prophet in chapter 1 … to an obedient prophet in chapter 3?  Well the answer is obviously found in chapter 2.  And that answer is … Jonah sees God’s GRACE.  Jonah chapter 2 contains arguably the most important verse of the whole Bible.  If you’re new or visiting today … and you’re perhaps wondering ‘what’s this Christianity all about?’

Jonah 2:9b (NIV) ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’

Those 5 words sum up the message of the whole Bible.  Salvation is an undeserved gift … from the Lord.  And the degree to which we understand Jonah 2:9 … is the degree to which we can become an unstoppable force for good.  Take Martin Luther for example.  He was a professor of the Bible … not unlike Jonah.  Then in his mid-30s he understood God’s grace.  And it turned him into a lion.  He took on the whole world … at enormous personal cost.  Why?  Because his career … his reputation … his safety … his finances all became a tiny speck of nothing … compared to the vision of God’s grace he’d received.  And it’s the same with Jonah.  In chapter 3 … the transformed Jonah conquers an entire city for the Lord.

So if you and I want to be an unstoppable force for good … like Jonah or Martin Luther … then I have 3 points today to help us do so.  We’re going to begin by seeing how God had to bring Jonah to rock bottom … before he could change Jonah.  So I’ve titled this point (i) See Jonah on his knees.  We’ll THEN see Jonah come to his senses … and realise he’s been a fool.  To rectify this … (ii) Jonah looks to the temple … point 2.  We’ll then wrap up by seeing what it is that finally transforms Jonah into a lion … that conquers an entire city single handedly.  And I’ve titled this third point (iii) Jonah sees God’s grace.  So how about I pray … and we’ll dive on in.

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Prayer

 

Gracious God,

We thank you for the opportunity to learn from this life changing book.  So please help us this morning … as we turn to Jonah chapter 2 … to see you more clearly, love you more dearly, and follow you more nearly.  Transform us into lions we pray … in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

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See Jonah on his knees (1:17-2:7)

 

OK … our passage begins with these words:

Jonah 1:17-2:1 (NIV) Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.  2From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the LORD his God.

Now there are many scholars and sceptics out there who say this could NOT have happened … because it defies the laws of nature.  And I’m going to be honest with you … they’re right about the second part.  For Jonah to be 3 days and 3 nights inside a great fish … defies the laws of nature.  But that doesn’t mean miracles aren’t possible.  Let me explain using an analogy first presented by C. S. Lewis … I believe.  Lewis said imagine I go to London for 3 nights.  And on the first night I put £100 note in the top drawer of my hotel room.  Then on the SECOND night I do the same.  £100 note in the top drawer.  Then imagine when I open the top drawer on the THIRD night … there’s only a £50 note there.  Now what do I conclude?  Do I conclude that the laws of arithmetic have been broken … and that 100 + 100 now = 50?  OR … do I conclude that someone has interfered with my money?

You see to claim that miracles are not possible assumes that the universe is a closed system … like you would HOPE your hotel room is.  What I mean by closed system is … there can be no outside interference.  But that’s an a-priori assumption.  There is no evidence to support such an assumption … other than someone WANTING that to be the case … because they desperately don’t want there to be a God.  But if there IS a God … which even the great C. S. Lewis came to believe … though he was an ardent atheist in his youth … then he can interfere with his world whenever and however he wants.

And he does so with this wayward prophet … to wake him up.  As we saw last week … Jonah was running from God in basing his identity NOT on God … but on being a successful leader of a successful nation.  And that identity was DROWNING him.  It demanded that he NOT preach God’s word to his enemies … though they desperately needed God’s word.  So God sent a STORM into his life … a literal storm … to wake him up.  And because we humans are inherently stubborn creatures … God sometimes has to drag us to our knees … to wake us up.  And this is what Jonah’s prayer suggests happened for Jonah.  The first 7 verses are all about Jonah feeling he was knock … knock knocking on heaven’s door … if you know what I mean.

Jonah 2:3 (NIV) You hurled me into the depths

Jonah 2:3b (NIV) the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me.

Jonah 2:5 (NIV) The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head.

Jonah 2:7 (NIV) … my life was ebbing away,

It’s hard to get bleaker descriptions than these.  Yet what they’re describing is the storm God sent into Jonah’s life … to wake him up.  And as we saw last week … Jonah turned the corner when he realised running FROM God’s storm is what would lead him to drown … metaphorically speaking.  So he tells the sailors to throw him into the storm.  He says ‘even though it LOOKS like suicide … I need to jump into whatever storm God has sent me’.

Friends … there will be some here today … who are ALREADY on your knees.  Perhaps you have been for a while … because you’re too afraid to jump into God’s storm.  What do I mean?  The storm God sent ME when I was 20 was severe financial distress.  I NEEDED my car to get to my job.  Yet my car needed $1,000 in repairs … that I didn’t have.  Running FROM that storm … would have meant scrounging around for more money … perhaps even looking to illegal means.  Jumping INTO that storm meant giving more money AWAY.  It SOUNDED like suicide … to fix serious financial distress by giving money away.  But it was only when I jumped into that storm that God caught me.  And he’s held me ever since.  Financially speaking anyway.  I’ve been bought to my knees in plenty of other ways.

Now like I said last week … we can’t be certain why God brings suffering into our lives.  The Bible gives us a whole LIST of reasons for suffering.  But ONE of them … is to wake us up to how we might be running from God.  And like I said last week … the way out of suffering is through it.  You jump INTO the storm by taking on MORE of what is poisoning you … until it hurts you no more.  Friends … what keeps most people on their knees … sometimes for years … is that they’re too afraid to jump into God’s storms.

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Jonah looks to the temple (v. 4, 7)

 

So … Step 1 of getting off our knees is to jump INTO whatever it is that’s poisoning you.  Step TWO … is to trust that God will catch you.  What does that MEAN?  It means to trust that God will sort the details out FOR you … and just stop worrying.  And this is what happens with Jonah.  He has no reason whatsoever to think he is going to survive being thrown INTO the storm.  Yet on day 2 or 3 inside the fish … when you’ve got nothing else to do but to think … Jonah figures it out.

Jonah 2:2 (NIV) … [God] answered me.

Jonah 2:2 (NIV) … [God] listened to my cry.

Jonah 2:6 (NIV) … [God] brought my life up from the pit.

As Tim Keller says … WHEN we jump into God’s storm … there is love beneath the waves.  God will catch us.  And it’s this realisation … that it was GOD who miraculously sent a great fish to swallow Jonah for 3 days … that makes Jonah’s thoughts go to the temple.  He mentions the temple TWICE in this prayer.  Now why is that?

Well firstly … the Temple was where God met with his people under the OC.  So when Jonah says:

Jonah 2:4 (NIV) … yet I will look again toward your holy temple

… or

Jonah 2:7 (NIV) … my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple.

What he’s saying is … I’m so thankful that you’ve saved me … that I just want to be near you Lord.  SO I need to get near the Temple.

But the Temple served a second important function.  The Temple was where sacrifices were made.  While the Temple may have LOOKED impressive … it SMELT like an abattoir.  Dozens of sheep and goats and doves and bulls were ritually sacrificed there every day.  And the person BRINGING the sacrifice was involved in killing the animal.  There was no getting the butcher to cut it up for you out the back.  To worship the Lord under the OC meant getting blood on your hands regularly.  And the reason the Israelites got blood on their hands regularly … was as a reminder that sin required punishment.

You see Jonah KNEW God couldn’t just turn a blind eye to his sin.  A god who turns a blind eye to sin … and says ‘that sin doesn’t matter’ … is not a loving God.  In the movie ‘The General’s Daughter’ … a bright and beautiful young cadet named Elizabeth is sexually assaulted by a GROUP of fellow cadets during a training exercise.  Her father … General Campbell … believes that pursuing justice could put women in the military in jeopardy.  So he convinces his daughter to ‘forget’ the attack.  Those actions end up traumatising Elizabeth.  A god who turns a blind eye to sin is not loving.  He is traumatising.  So Jonah knows God cannot just ignore how he has been ‘running from God’ … ignoring God’s instructions.

And THAT’S why Jonah looks to the Temple.  The Temple is where Jonah’s sin is taken care of.  The purpose of the sacrifices was they acted as a substitute.  You see in Genesis chapter 2 … God told Adam and Eve that the punishment for sinning against God … ignoring God’s instructions … was death.  But God set up a system at the Temple in which the Israelites could kill and ANIMAL … which died as a substitute for the person who sinned.  And so WHILE Jonah trusted God to catch him in the PHYSICAL storm … looking to the temple means Jonah also trusted God to catch him in the spiritual storm of his sin.  THAT’S why Jonah looks to the Temple.

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Jonah sees God’s grace (v. 8-10)

 

So … Jonah’s stopped running from God … stopped basing his identity on being a successful leader of a successful nation.

He’s jumped INTO God’s storm … even though it looks like suicide.

And after seeing God catch him … in a miraculous way … he’s said ‘I just want to be near you now God.  I want to be at your Temple’.

And the reason he wants to be NEAR God … rather than run FROM Him … is because Jonah realises he doesn’t DESERVE to be caught by God.  He doesn’t DESERVE to be saved.  You see there are THREE different types of people in this world.  There are THREE different ways to live:

The first is the typical non-believer.  This person is very irreligious … wanting nothing to do with God or religion.  And this person typically thinks they don’t NEED saving.  They think ‘I haven’t done anything bad enough to warrant saving … so I’m good’.

The SECOND type of person is the deeply religious person.  And by religious … I mean they KNOW they’ve sinned.  And they KNOW something needs to be done about their sin before they meet their maker.  So what they do is they try to earn their own salvation.  They (i) go to church, (ii) they live a moral life, (iii) they give to charity.

The Bible says BOTH these ways are wrong.  And we see that in v. 9:

Jonah 2:9b (NIV) ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’

So to begin with … Jonah KNOWS he needs saving.  He KNOWS he’s placed something as of greater importance to God.  OK … the REASON Jonah rejected preaching God’s word to the Ninevites was to protect his reputation.  And Jonah knows that sin HAS to be dealt with.  But Jonah ALSO knows none of his sacrifices can make up for his Sin … pay for his Sin.  Even though he’s looking to the temple … looking to offer sacrifices … he declares:

Jonah 2:9b (NIV) ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’

And THIS is what transforms Jonah.  At the end of v. 9 … God deems Jonah ready to go to Nineveh.  He commands the fish to vomit him out the very next verse.  And the thing that has brought Jonah to a new level of spiritual maturity … is seeing God’s grace.

For those of you here a few weeks ago … you may remember I defined grace as ‘an undeserved gift given by an unobligated giver’.  An undeserved gift given by an unobligated giver’.  So imagine you have a work colleague … who is a nasty piece of work.  He’s always talking about people behind their back.  He’s always taking credit for other people’s work.  And he’s the FIRST to slack off … but also the first to call out anyone else who slacks off.  But then imagine this person gets really sick.  And one of his colleagues … who he’s been bad mouthing for years … takes a meal around to him … and picks up the slack at work so he can keep his job.  THAT’S grace.  An undeserved gift … given by an unobligated giver.

And THIS is what Jonah sees in God.  He has been GIVEN the gift of salvation … both physically AND spiritually … even though he deserved the opposite.  And God’s grace transforms Jonah into a lion.

Now those who live this side of the cross … can be transformed even MORE than Jonah.  The reason being we now know HOW our sin is forgiven.  You see while Jonah knew salvation came from the LORD … he didn’t know how.  Yet Christians do.  In Matthew 20:28 we read this:

Matthew 20:28 (NIV) … the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

So we KNOW God has to deal with sin … or else he’s a traumatising God.  Yet how does God deal with sin without traumatising the sinner?  The answer is … God pours out the punishment for our sin upon His only Son.  That’s what the cross is.  It’s God ensuring justice is DONE.  But he does so by offering his Son as the substitute.

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Conclusion

 

Final question.  HOW does seeing this transform a person?  Well ALL humans need to look somewhere for our identity.  We ALL want to know who we are as a person … AND that our identity is acceptable.  No one wants to be known as ‘a loser’, or ‘ugly’, or ‘a nasty piece of work’.  We’re ALL looking for an identity that others will gladly welcome.  And we can either find that identity in God … in being one of God’s beloved children … or in something else.  The problem with finding our identity in ANYTHING other than God … is it is framed by what we do.

1. Religious people will look to their religious works.  Their identity is being a good, moral, upstanding member of the community.

2. Irreligious people will look to secular standards.  Their identity is being a successful businessman, a wonderful parent, a popular influencer, etc.

Now the problem with BOTH those options … is if you can live up to those standards … you can be confident … but not humble.  You will look DOWN on those who don’t meet your standards.  If you DON’T live up to those standards … you can be humble … but not confident.  You will be an emotional wreck … thinking everyone else is looking down on you.

A person whose identity is framed by the CROSS however … has a psychological strength others do not.  Why?  Because they KNOW they’re loved.  Yet they know that love has nothing to do with what they’ve done.  This is what v. 8 is getting at.

Jonah 2:8 (NIV) “Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from [literally ‘forfeit’] God’s love for them.

If you’re already a Christian … then please remember … if a professional prophet … who received direct revelations from God … can be in the dark about God’s grace … then so can we.  So until we ALL … both Christian and non-Christian alike … understand the depths of God’s grace … then we’re locked up like Jonah.  We are a mere shadow of what we could be.

BUT … if we use God’s storms to reflect on God’s grace … on how he provided his own child as our substitute … then we receive an identity that can turn us into a lion.  And that identity … is being loved and received by the only person in the universe that matters.  So when God’s storms hit us … may we echo Jonah … who said:

Jonah 2:8-9 (NIV) “Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them. 9 But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’ ”