God is Never Done with Us!

Jonah – No One is Out of Reach

“I may not like Jonah, but I like his God”

Text: Jonah 2

• Focus: God persists so his mercy and love can overcome our sin.

Welcome & Intro

 Today, we continue in our series in the Book of Jonah.

• Last week, Pastor Mike took us through chapter 1, where…
  • God has a message of judgment and salvation for the Assyrians, who are an enemy nation of Israel.
  • God calls Jonah, a prophet, to go and confront the Assyrians, so that they will repent, turn to God and receive his gift of salvation.
  • But Jonah’s hyper-nationalism and racism fuels a hatred against his enemies that drives Jonah in the opposite direction of Nineveh.
  • Jonah wants nothing to do with God’s plan and purposes if it means interacting with and helping his enemies.
  • So Jonah hops on a ship to get away from God, and in a violent storm, ends up being tossed overboard by a pagan crew (who then turn to God and worship God)
• Chapter 1 ends with Jonah’s hatred so consuming him, that he chooses death by drowning over being a part of God’s plan and calling for him to intervene and potentially save his enemies.

Friends, Jonah is a person that we need to wrestle with.

• This is not a fairy-tale like story with a happy ending.
• Jonah is not aligned with God’s heart … and yet God calls him to be the spokesperson in what will be one of the greatest mass-conversion accounts in all of the OT.
• One commentator says that Jonah is much more like the scene of 4” inches of snow covering a garbage dump … it looks attractive, until you begin to dig under the surface.

• So, what do we do with a person/story that God has chosen to preserve in Scripture for all generations, and yet, it may repel us rather than attract us to sit and learn from it?

• In my estimation, Jonah is that discipleship-conundrum.

God is the Main Character/focus

 So, let’s pick up the story where Pastor Mike left off…

• Turn with me in your Bible or on your device to Jonah 1:17.
• Jonah has just finished telling the ship’s crew that he’s the reason the storm is about to destroy the boat … God is punishing Jonah for his outright disobedience…
• And Jonah says, I’m guilty, throw me overboard.
  • He doesn’t repent, he doesn’t promise to obey if God calms the storm and saves him…
  • He is merciful to the pagan sailors by not having them die with him
  • But ultimately, he’s not going to Nineveh … so he chooses to go overboard; fully knowing that death awaits when you go overboard in a violent storm.
• God, however, has a more benevolent plan…

When there’s a story about a fish eating a man who survives in the belly of that fish for 3 days… you would think that the main focus of the story is the man or the fish.

• But earlier I said that this scene in Jonah’s life isn’t necessarily what I’d recommend modeling your life after…
  • Remember, Jonah is a hyper-nationalist/racist Jew who wants all other nations destroyed … and defies God to the extreme when asked to go to one of those nations.
  • So Jonah is not our primary model in this story.
• As for the fish, we know nothing about the fish, other than it was large and obedient to God’s command.
• So the primary focus in the book, is not the imagination-capturing fish, and it’s not even the author/prophet Jonah.
• The focus is actually God, who persistently moves towards love and redemption, even when people think he’s wrong to do so.
• And we see this God counter-woven between the lines of Jonah’s prayer.

Jonah’s Prayer

 As we read what flows out of Jonah’s heart, we see a self-focused prayer of desperation and preservation.

• Inside the fish, Jonah begins his prayer by recounting the distress of what just happened to him … his experience of drowning as he sank to the bottom of the ocean.
  • He even uses language to suggest that God caused his drowning, when actually he made that choice.
• Earlier I said that Jonah would have taken death over repentance… but when actually faced with that reality, his humanity kicks in/change of heart and he cries out to God.
• God is merciful and saves him via the belly of a fish.

And Jonah gives thanks and continues his prayer, but notice that we don’t read that Jonah repents from his disobedience and hatred.

• Jonah’s heart responds with thanks/worship from a place of “what-have-you-done-for-me-lately” God.
  • “I know I can cry out to you God, and you will hear my cry.”
  • “I know this because mercifully, you just saved me from impending death.”
• What Jonah doesn’t do, is make the connection with God’s heart for him… God is pursuing Jonah with a “no-strings-attached” loving and eternal perspective and plan.

Even in the face of death, we see that the condition of Jonah’s heart doesn’t change at its core.

• Jonah is a man driven by the OT Law and sacrificial system … he is not motivated by God’s love and grace.
• His relationship with God centres on the Temple and the OT Laws that govern relationship with a Holy God.
  • We see this in vv.4 & 7 … and in vv.8-9, where he distinguishes himself from pagan, non-Israelites.
  • The language is not that of a child to “Abba, Father” … but rather very contractual in tone, “God, we agreed to this, so I am reminding you of what we agreed to.”

• Ann voskamp says, “Grace flies in the face of logic and wraps us in arms of unexpected love.”
  • Jonah wants nothing to do with that kind of foolishness.
  • He is fully entrenched in a legalistic relationship with God and other people, which includes very clear lines of who is in and who is out.

We will see in the next chapter, that Jonah does obey and go to Nineveh, as God commands…

• But we will also see that after he’s back on dry land, God has to again order him to go and preach in Nineveh.
• In other words, while in the fish, Jonah’s engagement with God does not transform his heart to mirror God’s heart.
• Rather, Jonah obeys God because of 2 cognitions:
  1. He can’t outrun God and he doesn’t want to die trying
  2. God saved his life, so he should listen
• So Jonah doesn’t change much after 3 days in a fish…

But thankfully, God doesn’t change at all during that time!

• His love and mercy will accomplish his redemptive purposes…
• …which is what other Biblical writers/Psalmists understood.
• Jonah’s prayer is very similar to the OT Psalms in wording and syntax…
  • A sign that Jonah knows his OT framework/system, well.
• Where Jonah diverges from the OT psalmists, is that the focus of his prayer is primarily on himself, rather than on God’s ways and purposes.
• Jonah’s tone is not toward vulnerability and repentance … seeking God’s love, mercy and grace, which is what we find in the Psalms.
  • And we see this in vv. 7-9, where Jonah says that by praying to God, he has done the right thing … unlike the pagans on the ship, and definitely unlike the Assyrian’s in Nineveh … “remember how good I am, God”

• After which, we read in v.10, God in his mercy returns Jonah to the land of the living…

• But even hear, I don’t think that God’s action of putting Jonah back on land is a direct response to Jonah’s prayer.
• I believe that God is seeing a bigger picture than what the text reveals… and that God is not working with Jonah from a “what have you done for me lately” mindset.
  • God’s plan is always to get Jonah to Nineveh.
  • God’s plan is for Jonah to become merciful and loving.
• But after the fish spits him up, we will see at the start of Chapter 3 and then again, in chapter 4 that Jonah’s heart stays unchanged towards his enemies.
• And in fact, his heart hardens even more so towards God…
• …which is why I believe that God in his mercy is playing a long-game in Jonah’s life that we aren’t privy to in the book.

And what does God’s long game look like?

• What is God’s heart for the Assyrians, the pagan sailors, for Jonah … and ultimately for anyone who reads this story, especially you and I, today?
• Within and between the lines of Jonah’s prayer, we’re drawn to God, and his heart for all of sinful humanity.
• And God’s heart for us looks like this:
  • No matter who you are, God hears your cry for help.
  • God, loving and merciful, answers, despite human guilt.
  • God answers in spite of deserved judgment.
  • God is willing to rescue us from impossible conditions, both externally and internally.
  • God’s ways are not ours … he does not base his ways on our comfort or perspective.
  • God perseveres with us despite our sin and rebellion.
  • God engages us to win our gratefulness and loyalty.
  • But ultimately, God engages with us, so that we will become merciful and loving like He is.

Friends, Jonah’s prayer is not recorded in history for us as a model to emulate.

• Rather, we have it today, first, to signal our human condition…
  • self-centred, rebellious, sinful/falling short of God, prone to moving away from God.
    • Jonah, to his credit, doesn’t just move away from God… he re-engages, disengages, re-engages (and I’ll come back to that in a minute).

• Second, most importantly, we have this prayer/story recorded, to remind us of who God is!
  • At no point is God ever done with Jonah … not even once … not even after a prayer that misses the mark!
  • God, in his mercy, endures and perseveres with Jonah so that Jonah can come to know God’s heart.
  • A heart that says, no one is beyond my/God’s merciful and loving reach.

God and Jonah are in an all-to-familiar spiritual back-and-forth.

• God is playing a long-game that is based in his love, mercy and redemptive plan.
• Jonah, like most of us, is fighting God, struggling to align his heart with God’s heart; his will with God’s calling.

• Friends, what can we do when we are like Jonah?
  • Don’t run … pray.
  • Engage God … wrestle with him, talk to him, be candid, vulnerable/honest with your thoughts, emotions, words!

• Don’t determine in your heart that you are done with God and have nothing left to say to him…

• because friends, God, in his limitless love and grace, is never done pursuing and shaping you.

Jonah is preserved in Scripture to remind us of this God … a merciful, loving, gracious God who wasn’t done with Jonah and is never done with us.