09.29.2013 Jonah - God Rescues us from our Troubles - Sometimes Using the Troubles!

2013.09.29 - Jonah - God Rescues us from our Troubles - Sometimes Using the Troubles! from Grace Summit on Vimeo.

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Thank you for Your love for us – You are a king and our king died for us. You took on flesh – You became a person, a man, that You might know us intimately. The only way to do that was by You becoming a man and dying on the cross and in three days, the resurrection happened. And because of that, we have life with You. As we look at Jonah and his life, may we be reminded of the life of Christ. You brought us into Your family and we are glad to be there.
As we look at Jonah – the story becomes so familiar that there is one aspect that we can forget – and it might be one of the most important aspects of the story. Jonah – his experience foreshadows – looks forward to the death and resurrection of Christ. This is the sign that is given – the sign of Jonah being in the belly of the fish 3 days and 3 nights. This is a picture of the resurrection. I will focus on this. But we need to step back and see that the Old Testament is always pointing to Jesus – setting up what Jesus is going to do on Good Friday. It is through His death and resurrection that we have life. He took on this body – God, who is Spirit – had a body - and it is in the person of Jesus Christ – so that He might be able to pay the penalty for our sins. Ultimately, that is what this story is about.
With that in mind –
Jonah 2
2 1 [a]From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. 2 He said:
“In my distress I called to the Lord,
and he answered me.
From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help,
and you listened to my cry.
3 You hurled me into the depths,
into the very heart of the seas,
and the currents swirled about me;
all your waves and breakers
swept over me.
4 I said, ‘I have been banished
from your sight;
yet I will look again
toward your holy temple.’
5 The engulfing waters threatened me,[b]
the deep surrounded me;
seaweed was wrapped around my head.
6 To the roots of the mountains I sank down;
the earth beneath barred me in forever.
But you, Lord my God,
brought my life up from the pit.
7 “When my life was ebbing away,
I remembered you, Lord,
and my prayer rose to you,
to your holy temple.
8 “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.’”
10 And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.
When you hear the content of the prayer – what do you hear? Thanksgiving, praise, and salvation. You would think this would be prayed AFTER the fish spit him out. I think Jonah understood that the fish was his salvation – not a place of punishment, but a place of rescue. I think this was Jonah’s second prayer – he references the first prayer in his second prayer – He cried out – and the water was about to kill and destroy Jonah – and the great sea monster comes up to swallow Jonah and rescues him. He sees it as his salvation – and then, the fish spits him out.
God had to get him to the point to see that God was saving him in his trouble. We see the trouble – the great fish that swallows us – as out to destroy us, and God is saying – I’m using this event to rescue you – and so often, we have events like this that we want to run from – and it is in that very event that God has chosen to deliver us.
This prayer – many lines come directly from the Book of Psalms. This tells us – Psalms, as the prayer book of the Old Testament, after the exile – songs and psalms and prayers – these were the prayers of the church – the songs and prayers of the church. Jesus prayed the psalms – My God, My God, Psalm 22.
He used this prayer book of God. Do you pray the Psalms? I urge you – even one time a day – it is not hard, just open it up – and if it is a long psalm – just pray 10-12 lines. Out loud. With thought. It is a simple discipline/exercise that has been done by people of faith for millennia! Close to 3000 years! It was done by our savior. It is something we need to learn to do ourselves. To pray through 12 lines thoughtfully may take you 4-5 minutes a day. Sometimes – you have a quiet time, and you get nothing out of it. But as you pray back God’s word thoughtfully, eventually, certain ones begin to zero in on your life. “This is all about me!” It feels like God wrote this for you to express back to Him. At some point – a specific psalm will come to you at exactly the right time – Like Psalm 22 for Jesus on the cross. There are words in this book that we are unable to express on our own.
The number one type of psalm – Lament. Laments are how to pray in trouble. I talked about that a month or two ago. Guess why the largest group of prayers are laments in times of trouble? We find ourselves in trouble a lot. Whether it be health, relationship, political – whatever type of trouble – they have experienced it.
The Psalms give us prayers that match our condition. Times of distress/Times of well-being – there are psalms of praise where we are experiencing God’s blessing – and some psalms show us how to express ourselves.
“You brought me up from the pit” – God is delivering him from the trouble. God gets him out of the pit. He helps us to live above the trouble. He leads me to a rock that is higher than I! He sets me on this place that is above my own ability – we still go through the difficulty, but God lifts us up. He plucks us out of the miry clay and makes our footsteps firm! Even though much of life is trouble, God sets us on the rock in the storm.
For Jonah – it was in the belly of the fish – in the depths of the sea. It took him all the way to the bottom – and this is how God wants us to see our relationship with Him. As you pray through God’s word – the prayers of the Bible – you will connect what type of relationship God wants to have with you.
Last challenge – once/day – pray through a psalm. I think it will make a significant difference in your relationship with God.
This kind of discipline requires solitude. Jonah had problems – issues with God – and stuck him inside of that fish for 3 days. Not a lot of people there! No distractions! NO TV, radio, or Internet! I urge you – even if it is 15 minutes a day – get alone – and cry out to God. You see, if you can’t cry out to God, you are not in solitude! It might be in a closet, your bedroom, or your car, but there has to be a place where it can all come out to God.
In Jonah’s prayer, there are two things missing. Think – what might be missing?
The first is this: Jonah never confesses or repents. He has walked away from God and there is never confession and never repentance. The second one – there is never intercession. I think that is a problem. The reason he doesn’t confess (we know the end of the story) – Jonah believes that he is right! And that God is wrong! And he never turns from that way of thinking. It ends with a question – but that is next week. The reason it ends with a question – that is the point – is he ever going to get it? Are we ever going to get the point of the story – or will we be like Jonah – who doesn’t get it. Jonah believes that in his way of thinking – his understanding – he has committed a small sin. He has run away from God’s direct command to preach – and to Jonah, that is a small sin. And he believes that if God is really God he ought to judge the city of Nineveh. Jonah has received his punishment – got what he deserved for his small sin - but Nineveh’s sin is so great, that they deserve to be destroyed! I had this difficult time – that was my punishment – and I am rescued – and that is the right thing for God to do. God should always dole out justice properly (according to Jonah)! Small sin – small punishment. Nineveh’s sin? Destruction.
Jonah’s sin? Not from running – but that he misunderstands God’s character. Last week we went back to Adam and Eve – He failed to understand God’s extravagant grace.
The prodigal son? The story of the sin of the younger son – AND the older son. The older son is left hanging just like Jonah. The older son and Jonah are very similar. The younger son goes off not understanding the father’s love. The older son: I don’t like this at all! I have served you all these years and the younger son is not getting the punishment he deserves! Father: It is all yours – nothing I have that does not belong to you! And the son is left like Jonah.
Will we see the extravagant grace, or will we say, they deserve punishment.
After he is spit upon the land...
Jonah 3:1
It appears Jonah is obeying – but I think it is like Dick’s story – the child who was standing on the outside, but sitting on the inside. He was preaching on the outside, but not on the inside. He didn’t want Nineveh to repent – He didn’t want God to forgive them. God is concerned about the inside. Jesus made that clear.
IF the bowl is nice and clean, but the inside is dirty, you don’t want to put food in it. Jesus made it clear that is how religious people get. They focus on the outside. This whole book is written to religious people who have become comfortable in their spirituality. We need to go on the inside to see where the corruption is.
Jonah 3:4
As a side note. Jonah – you get this picture that he does the minimum. But the people believe God.
Ministry – if we wish to do ministry in any way, shape, or form, we must enter the city. You cannot minister until you enter the city.
Jesus had to minister in Samaria, a place no good Jew would go. We all have those places. But we have to enter in. Proclamation is not enough. Proclaiming the message must be done, but Jonah failed to engage. We need to be salt, and light, and leaven. The leaven has to be placed in the dough for it to work its magic, its power. And God has to take us and place us into our world – and mix us in to that world. That is what all those parables are about.
Jesus talked about the weeds growing up among the grain – don’t pull them both up – we find ourselves all mixed in together – and we want to separate, isolate, pull away, and God says, let it grow together. Yes, we need to be cautious – we are to be in the world but not of it – we need to act differently.
Jonah 3:6-9
The second thing that was missing – Intercession. A prophet – one of their primary responsibilities is to intercede for the people – to pray for the people who are under judgment. Jonah never prays; A heathen king intercedes – stepping in where Jonah should have. It is through that that God saves these people.
Jonah still uses his bare obedience – his just doing it on the outside – to save and to rescue and to forgive this great city – and THESE people immediately respond. There is no hesitation. It just seems so often to be the case that the people who know better – don’t. and those who are brand new to it - often just respond. We get too comfortable in our way of doing Christianity – that we need to go back to the beginning. When you first understood grace and salvation and forgiveness – our hearts were like, what do you want us to do for You? I am Yours. God wants us at that point.
Lord, thank You for this story – how so much of it is real for us – how it speaks into who we are – we are like Jonah – it is the way we are. Thank You, Lord, that You still rescue and save and use and bear fruit through us. Even in our failure to You – You remain faithful even when we are faithless. If that were not the case, none would survive. We need your faithfulness even in our faithfulness