What happens when we run from God? | Jonah 1.3-16 | Pastor Dave Hentschel

Turn with me in your Bibles now to Jonah chapter one as we continue in this series running from Mercy.

And as you're turning there in your own copy of the word, allow me to just start with this question.

Has anybody in here like me ignored your GPS?

You're in the car, you got your phone or your device, or maybe you still have one of those actual GPS devices, and you're thinking about obeying what that GPS is saying, but you're like, no, I know a I know a better way.

Has anybody ever done this?

I'm not the only one, right?

So when you do that, if you have a device like me, what does your device say when you get off track?

Redirecting, redirecting, recalculating, something like that, right?

So uh recalculating, you're going, and then you continue to disobey.

What what happens again?

It repeats itself, right?

Recalculating.

It will continue to do this to the point where it kind of starts to feel a little bit annoying if you're like me.

And as I'm thinking about this device and whether or not I want to listen to it, uh, I realize wait a minute, this this device, my phone, is not trying to punish me.

Uh this device is not angry with me.

Uh it's saying recalculating because it is trying to get me where I said I wanted to go.

And I want to ask you a hard question related to that.

Have you ever done that with God?

Have you ever avoided what you knew God wanted you to do in your life?

Have you ever known what God wanted and willingly, intentionally chose another route?

I know I have.

There was a time in my late teenage years that I did not want to go in God's direction at all.

But I also know that really everything I love about my life right now is a result of me first resisting those plans that God had for my life, wanting to do my own plan instead, and God in his grace interrupting me, God in his grace disrupting me and completely redirecting me.

And that recalculation, that redirection is something I thought at first.

But it led me eventually to the marriage I now enjoy with my wife, to the children and family that we built together, the Bible college I went to, it led me to the seminary I went to, it led me to go into full-time ministry.

And as I look back now about that resistance, and I think about that time, I think, wow, I had this idea of what my life was supposed to be.

I had maybe this vision for my life, and I realized my vision was too small.

God had a completely different vision for my life, but his mercy was greater than my resistance.

And I am eternally grateful for that recalculation, that redirection.

And now I get to be a part of what he's doing.

And I'm thankful he kept driving.

I say that because I know that this sermon today is true, not because I read it in the Bible.

I know that today's sermon is true because I have lived this sermon in my own life.

And so I wonder if anybody in here can relate to that, can relate to perhaps me and the story that I just told.

Because Jonah chapter one is about that kind of story.

It's about a guy who heard from God, and that same guy said, Nope, I got another route.

That's what we're gonna talk about today.

So, Jonah chapter one really is answering a question.

And the question it's answering is, What happens when we run from God?

What happens when we run from God?

And I think really obviously what you're gonna see in this text is we learn three really important timeless principles.

What happens when we run from God is that God disrupts our rebellion.

What happens when we run from God is that God exposes what we're trying to hide.

And what happens when we run from God is God calls us to surrender.

So that's what we're gonna look at in our text today.

If you have your Bible, uh, why don't we go ahead and read that text in full together, and then we will pray and look at the details.

So if you're able, would you stand just in honor of God's word as we read this text in full, and then get the gist of it, and then we will come back and pick up the details together.

Jonah chapter one, and I will be reading out of the ESV.

Hear the word of the Lord.

Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Emetai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.

But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish.

So he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.

But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up.

Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his God.

And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them.

But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship, and had lain down and was fast asleep.

So the captain came and said to him, What do you mean, you sleeper?

Arise, call out to your God.

Perhaps the God will give a thought to us that we may not perish.

And they said to one another, Come, let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.

So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.

Then they said to him, Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us, what is your occupation, and where do you come from?

What is your country, and of what people are you?

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.

Then the men were exceedingly afraid, and said to him, What is this that you have done?

For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.

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.

He said to them, Pick me up and hurl me into the sea, then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.

Nevertheless the men rode hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them.

Therefore they called out to the Lord, O Lord, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not on us innocent blood.

For you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you.

So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea.

And the sea ceased from its raging.

Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.

And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah.

And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

The word of the Lord.

Father, thank you that you're a God who speaks, that you do not leave us to wander on our own, that you call us and lead us and invite us into your mission.

As we open your word today, I would ask that you'd quiet distractions, soften our hearts, give us ears to hear what your spirit wants to say to your people.

And Lord, if there's any place in our lives right now where we're resisting you, avoiding you, delaying obedience to you, or running in another direction altogether, would you please lovingly reveal that to us?

Give us humility to receive your correction and give us courage to surrender and trust you again.

Remind us all that your discipline is not your abandonment of us, but it is your mercy.

You pursue your people because you love your people.

So speak clearly through your word and magnify your son, the Lord Jesus Christ, so that he might change us through his spirit to walk in obedience with you.

For we pray it all in his name.

And everyone said, Amen.

You may be seated.

The structure of the book of Jonah really falls into two major scenes, which are completely parallel, scene one and scene two.

Really, they are almost identical.

Right now we're in scene one, and we will get to scene two at another week.

But you see here that there are two stories that are meant to be read side by side with one another.

We are right now in scene one.

Two weeks ago, Pastor Bob did a great job kicking things off, and we were introduced for a moment to the main character of the book of Jonah, the person of Jonah.

And we learn that Jonah received a word from God.

Just to remind you of what verses one and three, one through three said, I'll put it up on the screen here.

Notice verse one begins with that phrase: the word of the Lord came to Jonah.

We have a God who speaks.

We have a God who is not silent.

We have a God who breaks the sound barrier.

We have a God who spoke to Jonah.

And brothers and sisters, we have a God who is still speaking today.

Not necessarily through new direct revelation on the level of scripture, but we do have a God who still guides and who speaks by his spirit and who works personally in our lives through his word and through his people to direct us and to guide our hearts.

And when he speaks, often it is about God wanting us to join him on his mission.

Because really, God is the first missionary, and we are called to join him on that mission.

So let me ask you a question.

How many of you in here would like to hear from God in your life?

Just a quick show of hands.

Okay, that's probably most of us.

You can put your hands down.

I want to warn you a lot of times we want to hear from God, but when he speaks, he will often tell us something that we do not want to do.

So be careful what you wish for.

A lot of times we want to hear from God, and it feels to us like a major interruption.

But that's the kind of life we have if we are following this God.

It's like certain positions and certain careers out there that lend themselves to interruptions.

Like if you're a physician or you're a doctor, let's say you're an OBGYN, your career is pretty much you signing up to get interrupted in your life.

You don't know when that baby's gonna come, and so you're gonna get a call, you're on call, you have chosen a career, you have accepted a life that is gonna be a life of always being on call.

In a little bit of a way like that, to be a Christian is to accept a life where you are always on call, where God has permission to interrupt you anytime, anywhere.

Even if it feels like an interruption, this is God's privilege.

So the word of the Lord came to Jonah.

And in a similar way, at one point in your life or another, the word of the Lord may come to you.

And when it comes, it might not be to do something that you want to do.

Notice also in verse 2, just a review here, God says, Arise and go.

In verse 3, it does say that Jonah arose, or he rose, it's the same Hebrew construction there, but he arises not to obey, he arises to flee.

And so Jonah intentionally goes the opposite direction to Tarshish, as far away from Nineveh as he could possibly get.

Jonah finds a ship, Jonah pays the fare, Jonah leaves, which leads to a very interesting point.

Pastor Craig Groschel said it well.

He said this if you want to run from God, the devil will always offer you a ride.

If you want to run from God, you can always find some people sailing in the wrong direction.

There will always be people who aren't following God.

There will always be a boat waiting at the harbor for you.

There will be people there going, hey, we were hoping you would come.

You can tag right along with us.

Watch out for that.

Do not get in their boat.

Now Jonah is disobeying God right here.

And the reason why he's able to do that is he, like you and me, is rationalizing his sin.

What does it mean to rationalize sin?

When we rationalize sin, what that means is our mind is making an excuse for something our spirit knows is wrong.

That's what rationalization really is.

The reality is many of us do this.

We rationalize our sin.

We're prompted by God to serve somewhere or to be part of his effort or his mission, and we think, eh, I want to kind of get around that, or maybe I'll get to that some other time.

And we delay obedience.

Now there is another term for delayed obedience.

Do you know what it is?

It's disobedience.

That's what that is.

It is really just rationalizing my disobedience.

Sometimes I say that because we make light of this and we don't think of it like it's so intentional.

And sometimes even the way we talk about sin is almost like it happens on accident.

Oh, that person fell into sin.

Like they were walking down the road and there was a pothole and they accidentally fell into the pothole.

But that's not really what sin is according to the scripture.

Sin is much more intentional than that.

Sin is like walking down the street and eyes wide open, jumping into the pothole, because I want to jump into the pothole.

Sin is definitely intentional.

And Jonah is definitely intentionally rejecting God right here.

He is running from God.

Now, do you think after he ran from God, his life got better or worse?

Come on, talk to me, guys.

So you're at the 11 o'clock service, you're awake.

So better or worse?

Okay, very good.

When you run from God, do you think your life is gonna get better or worse?

You're right, it's worse.

Pastor Bob pointed this out, but I want to remind you again of a wordplay happening in the Hebrew.

In chapter one, there's this word down.

That word down gets repeated several times in the beginning of the book of Jonah on purpose.

First, Jonah goes down to Joppa in verse 3, then he goes down into the inner part of the ship.

We'll see that later on.

And later on, when we get to chapter 2 next week, you're gonna see he goes all the way down to the bottom of the sea.

Jonah, at the beginning of the book, is being called by God to go up, yet Jonah is running from God, and when he's running from God, his life is going down, down, down.

That's what happens when you run from God.

Your life goes down, down, down.

Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about.

You've been there.

You get called by God and you disobey thinking you can figure out a better plan than the omnipotent, omniscient, all-wise God of the universe.

Thinking you can figure out a better plan than the omnipotent, omniscient, all wise God of the universe.

I emphasize that because sin is at its heart so irrational.

Sin is the height of foolishness.

Someone once said it this way: all sin is temporary insanity.

It doesn't make sense.

This guy thinks he can get on a ship to flee from God.

You can't do that.

Sin doesn't really make mental cognitive sense.

That's the foolishness of us in our rebellion.

Sin is me thinking, I know better than God.

Jonah wants to play hide and seek with the omnipresent God of the universe.

But Psalm 139 says, Where can I flee from your presence?

Answer.

I can't.

But yet, this is what Jonah is going to try to do.

When I was a younger dad, my kids used to love to play hide and seek.

And so I was the seeker, and when they were really young, it was super easy.

They were terrible hiders.

And so I had to kind of pretend just to make the game last a little longer.

You count to 20 and 19, 20, ready or not, here I come.

I come out, and like you're behind the curtain, your leg is sticking out from the dining room curtain.

How can I even make this fun, right?

So you kind of have to pretend you don't see them, and it's ridiculous.

And like that, when I run and hide from God, this is yet how I appear to him.

It's kind of ridiculous.

I mean, Adam and Eve, they hid behind a bush.

This is what we do as human beings.

It doesn't make sense.

Sin is insanity.

So this is where Jonah is, hiding behind the dining room curtain with his leg sticking out.

That's where we find him, which leads us to where we are today.

So that was review.

Point one when we run from God, God disrupts our rebellion.

That's where we're going to pick it up this morning.

Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to get a little choppy.

There's some spiritual turbulence up ahead.

Verse 4.

It says, But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea.

Again, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up.

Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his God.

And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them.

But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had laid down and was fast asleep.

Notice a couple things in this passage on the screen.

Notice here's these pagans who do not believe in Yahweh God.

They are crying out to their own God, small g, because they are scared.

And sometimes when we are scared, when we are frightened, we start to get a little spiritual.

There's that saying there's no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole.

That's these guys right here.

It's a big storm, they're scared, so they start all praying to their own individual God.

Now they're in a crisis, but this crisis is not a crisis of their own making.

This crisis is something they're finding themselves in because of someone else.

Now I want to say this just briefly, but as an aside, sometimes you can face certain storms in your life, and it's not because of you, it's because you got the wrong person in your boat.

Some of you ladies, you're in a relationship with Jonah right now, and you think that you're gonna be the one to conform this guy, but I'm telling you, you need to throw that boy off your boat.

Some of us, we continue to invite people into our lives that pull us away from God, and we think it's compassion, but it's really compromise.

Or some of you, you have Jonah on your social media feed, and you're interacting with Jonah all the time.

You're around people or you're following people all day that are far from God and they're taking you down, down, down.

See, 1 Corinthians 15 says, bad company corrupts good character.

And your life is too short to waste it around company that you shouldn't be keeping that are taking you down.

And the reason is because all sin is costly.

I understand that God's grace is real, but this decision still costs Jonah.

It cost him his money for the fare, it cost him his time, it's gonna about to cost him his safety, and it really is about to cost him his life as he's gonna get thrown off this ship in just a second.

All sin is costly.

Now, God forgives and God is merciful and God is gracious and God is loving, and all of that is true.

Yes and amen.

And also, sin is costly.

It might cost you wasted time, wasted years that you can't get back, decisions you can't undo, things you wish you could go back, change, rearrange, do all over again, but you can't.

Sin costs you.

It could cost you your character, could cost you your reputation, could cost you your good name.

There's that old expression, sin always takes you farther than you want to go, always keeps you longer than you want to stay, and always costs you more than you want to pay.

Sin is costly.

And then notice there's also a cost to others.

I emphasize that because you never sin in a vacuum.

We never sin in a vacuum.

These sailors, these mariners, they were innocent.

They hadn't done anything wrong.

And they're stuck in this storm, not because of their own rebellion, they're stuck in this storm because of Jonah's rebellion.

And it cost them.

It cost them their cargo, they already chucked that off the side.

It's costing them their ship that's getting broken apart.

You see that right here?

These sailors are suffering, not because of their own sin, but because of the rebellion of someone else in their boat.

I mean, think about that.

We never sin in a vacuum.

Our sin costs ourselves and it costs others.

How many little kids have paid the cost because of mommy's sin or daddy's sin?

Sin always has a price, not just for you, for those around you.

If we're rejecting God's mission, there's also the cost of others not hearing about God's grace because we're refusing to participate in his mission.

Sin is always costly.

Notice the other thing here.

Jonah is running from God, he's disobeying, but where is he?

He is asleep in the bottom of this ship.

Now, in the bottom of a ship in the middle of a storm is not a place that's typically conducive toward having a good Sunday afternoon nap.

And yet here he is.

And that is really interesting because it tells us something about where this guy is spiritually, emotionally, physically.

He has gotten really, really comfortable.

That's a profoundly important point because you can get to the point where you're running from God and you're totally comfortable with that.

You don't even realize how bad it's gotten.

You've gotten totally complacent.

You've become comfortable with compromise.

This is where Jonah is.

He doesn't even realize that he's going down, down, and down.

Here's the good news, though.

If you're a follower of God, if you love the Lord Jesus Christ, God will not allow you to remain comfortable in your rebellion against him.

Following God is never comfortable.

And so we have a God that will disrupt your comfortable plans.

Notice it says in verse 4 that God sent a storm, it literally hurled a great wind.

Look in your Own copy of the Bible, what does your Bible say?

Does your Bible say that God allowed a wind?

No.

Does it say that God permitted a wind?

No, it says that God sent this storm, doesn't it?

Now, this is about to mess up some of your theology.

Because right here, I need to tell you that not every bad thing in your life is there because Satan sent it your way.

Right here, what we're learning in the scriptures is that some storms are there because God actually sent them.

Sometimes God sends the storm, sometimes God allows the storm, and sometimes you actually bring the storm on yourself.

I emphasize that because a lot of Christians that I know, whenever they face a trial in their life, they blame it on the devil.

The enemy is attacking me.

The devil took my job.

No, you lost your job because you're late every day.

The devil got me into debt.

No, that was you and your credit card that got you into debt all by yourself.

Yes, the devil is real, but he does not bring every storm.

Sometimes we bring these storms on ourselves.

This is Jonah.

So God sends this storm, not like Thor with a lightning bolt, to destroy people with a sense of vindictiveness.

This storm is actually a kindness of God to disrupt Jonah to get him back on track.

So God comes in, disrupts his rebellion, and that can be something we experience in our lives.

Sometimes we can experience this disruption, this interruption, and at the moment, perhaps in the moment, it might feel like God is abandoning you, but that disruption is actually not God's abandonment at all.

It is God and his sovereign grace and his power and his love pursuing you, chasing you down, exposing your disobedience or your spiritual drift.

Is there anything in your life right now that feels like a disruption from God but might have a deeper spiritual purpose?

That's point one.

When we run from God, he disrupts our rebellion.

Number two, when we run from God, God exposes what we were trying to hide.

Jonah's down in the lower part of the boat, remember, she's sleeping.

But now Jonah's secret rebellion, which nobody knows about at this point, is about to be exposed and it's about to be public.

So they're all in this storm and they're crying out to their gods, and then one guy, the captain, goes looking for Jonah to find him.

Verse 6.

So the captain came and said to him, What do you mean, you sleeper?

Arise, call out to your God.

Perhaps the God will give a thought to us that we may not perish.

And they said to one another, Come, let us cast lots that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.

So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.

The lot fell on Jonah.

Casting lots is an Old Testament concept that might seem kind of random.

It was like rolling dice or like drawing straws.

Jonah gets the short straw here.

It might seem like happenstance, but yet the scripture is very clear that God is even in control of that.

In your margin, just jot down Proverbs 16, 33.

It says, the lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.

And so back in the Old Testament, this is the practice that they would sometimes engage in, and God Himself would show that He's completely sovereign and reigning over even the casting of the lot.

And here, God exposes what Jonah was trying to hide.

God's discipline often uncovers and exposes before it can ever restore.

I think about the story of Chuck Coulson, who was engaged with President Nixon in the Watergate scandal, and how he was arrested and sent to prison and exposed for his illegal behavior.

And it was there, after that exposure in prison, that Coulson was born again and he woke up to the good news of the gospel, and then God birthed in him the vision for breakpoint ministry and the Coulson Center for Christian Worldview and everything that it became.

It all started because of that first exposure, which I'm sure was not very comfortable at the time, but yet this is what God had planned.

Listen to this quote from Matt Chandler.

He says this quote It is not cruel, unjust, or wicked of God to wound you in such a way that it knocks out from under you the props of self-reliance and puts your reliance completely on him.

He goes on to say, It is not cruel of God at all to take from you what might lead into an eternity of sorrow, to give you sorrow now that leads to an eternity of ever-increasing joy.

This is what our God is like.

And so Jonah's being exposed, he's being found out, and the other mariners, the other sailors are not very happy with him at this point because he's got them involved with this whole fiasco.

So let's continue the text with verse 8.

It says this.

Interesting.

If you're a WNBA fan, this meme has gone viral all week.

This is basically the same energy that the sailors have right here.

They're just immediately pointing.

There's no committee, there's no investigation, no follow-up questions, just it's you.

And Jonah's like, all right, fair.

But there's actually something sobering going on underneath of this little humorous meme here.

Jonah's secret disobedience is not private anymore.

Verse 9 continues the text and says, And he said to them, I am a Hebrew.

I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.

He's in control of all this.

Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, What is this that you have done?

For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord because he had told them.

It is the question that comes up in the scriptures where God is exposing his children after they have committed a sin.

What is this that you have done?

The second thing I want you to notice here is the interesting interplay with the concept of fear in this passage.

First, you'll see in verse 10 that Jonah said, that the sailors say they're exceedingly afraid.

But you notice back in verse 9, Jonah ironically also refers to the same concept of fear, claiming that he actually fears the Lord.

The text is clear that that's the God Yahweh right there.

So you have two instances of the same concept of fear, but they're different from each other.

On the one hand, Jonah is confessing sound theology, but he's got his doctrinal statement all lined up in his mind, which is completely contradicting his actions in real life.

The sailors, however, ironically, they actually have a true and certain fear of the Lord.

And here in this text, it's the pagans that are rebuking God's prophet with the appropriate kind of fear.

This is kind of like that story in the New Testament where the Roman centurion has faith and he ends up having more faith than the people of Israel who are supposed to have faith in the first place.

Here's Jonah saying he fears the Lord, but really it's the sailors who are actually appropriately fearing God.

Jonah is claiming to fear and worship God, yet he's disobeying that same God.

There's a gap.

There's a gap in between his theological confession and his practical obedience.

Do you see the gap there?

That can happen.

That can happen today.

That can happen to me.

I can say I worship Jesus, I can confess the right theology.

I could come to church, you could come to church on Sunday morning and confess all the right stuff.

And yet your life Monday through Saturday doesn't line up with that confession at all.

There's a gap between what's being confessed and what's actually being lived out.

Every few years we we read a headline that exposes that gap.

There's a celebrity that thanks God at some award show, and we're like, oh wow, cool.

They're calling themselves a Christian, but then we find out publicly they're also celebrating things that Jesus explicitly rejects, and there's this gap.

We all notice the inconsistency when it's out there.

Jonah is not written so that we might look at the inconsistency out there.

Jonah is written not to be a window, but to be a mirror.

Jonah was written to expose the people of God in Israel and how they had failed and rejected God and his mission for them.

And Jonah is a microcosm of the entire nation.

And so Jonah was written to be a mirror for the people of God to see themselves and how they were and expose the gap in their lives.

And that's how we need to read it today.

So can I ask you that question?

Where is there a gap in your life between your confession and your actions?

Some people think embracing the gospel of Jesus Christ is like getting life insurance.

Hey, I'm covered, I signed the paper, now I can kind of like do whatever I want in my life, right?

That's not the mindset of a true follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus wants every area.

He said, Why do you call me Lord, Lord, but don't do what I say?

So maybe you say Jesus is Lord, but then every major decision that you make is made around your comfort or your money or your status or your convenience.

Or maybe you say, I trust God, but yet your anxiety reveals that you're really trying to control everything yourself.

Or maybe you say, hey, God's word is my authority, but when Scripture confronts something that you want, something suddenly you think, well, I'm the exception to that.

That's the question being asked of Jonah and us here.

What do you say you believe, and does my life really move in the same direction as my confession?

If there's a gap, God in his mercy, though it's uncomfortable, will expose that gap.

Is there anything right now in your life that God is wanting to expose?

That's point two.

When we run from God, God disrupts our rebellion.

When we run from God, God exposes what we're trying to hide.

And third, when we run from God, God calls us to surrender.

Let's continue, but let me just warn you: this next section is really sad.

Look at 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, and he said to them, Pick me up and hurl me into the sea, then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.

This is so, so heavy.

Here's Jonah, a prophet, someone who is called by the God of heaven to serve him and to be on his mission, and yet here he is, and he doesn't care if he lives or if he dies in this moment.

There may be somebody here today, God called you, and at one point you said yes.

But then at some point you started running from that and you started doing your own thing, and you find yourself in a storm, and you got there to a place where you're ignoring God, and you end up in this terrible, terrible place.

It's hopeless, you don't see a way out, you start looking to blame other people, maybe even blame God, but you know deep down it's your own fault.

This is Jonah.

The word of the Lord came to Jonah, verse one, but he went his own way.

And now he's in utter despair.

So sad.

Back to the story, verse 13 continues and tells us, nevertheless, the men rode hard to get back to dry land, but they could not.

For the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them.

Therefore they called out to the, what's that word?

Lord, that is a change, that is a shift.

They have now moved to a direction of looking to Jonah's God, Yahweh, the God of Israel.

That's an intentional movement in Jonah chapter one.

Don't miss it.

Therefore they called out to Yahweh, O Lord, let us not perish for this man's life and lay not on us innocent blood.

For you, O Lord, Yahweh, have done as it pleased you.

These sailors are trying to do the right thing.

But nothing that they have been trying is working.

And so suddenly in verse 14, instead of them all crying out to their own gods, they start crying out to the one true God, Yahweh, the covenant-keeping God of Jonah.

Their plea here reflects a shift in their spirit of pursuing a generic deity to now recognizing the specific God who had revealed himself to Jonah, the God of Israel.

The sailors' acknowledgement of Yahweh here marks a significant moment of faith amidst their crisis, and they decide right here, they're gonna choose to surrender to Yahweh and do his will.

And what do they do?

Verse 15.

So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging.

Whoa.

Here we have this terrible storm, threatening to break the whole boat apart, crushing wind.

It's pouring rain.

And as soon as Jonah's hurled off, instantaneously the sea is as calm as glass.

I wonder what these sailors were thinking in this moment.

I wonder what was the reaction to this.

Did you guys just see what I saw?

Verse 16 tells us.

Then the men feared the Lord Yahweh exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to Yahweh and made vows.

Their reaction is astonishing.

Look carefully at it.

Their reaction here is fear.

Remember back in verse 10, they had feared the storm exceedingly.

What's amazing to me here is that their reaction afterward is quite ironic because God stilling the storm does not alleviate their fears.

It actually intensifies their fears.

Because a storm is one thing.

They had seen a storm before.

They're mariners, they're sailors.

What they had never seen before is that they are now in the presence of a God who's actually greater than the storm.

They are now in the presence of a God who can command the storm and it obeys.

Everything in the book of Jonah obeys when it hears the word of the Lord.

The storm obeys, the fish is gonna obey, this worm obeys.

Every inanimate object in the book of Jonah hears the word of Yahweh and obeys immediately, except Jonah.

God says, You will go do this, you will go do that to the fish, to the storm, to the worm, everywhere.

And then God tells humankind to do something, and humankind goes, No.

We are the only part of his creation that rebels when we hear his word.

And yet these sailors are now getting a glimpse of the kind of authority that this Yahweh God has, and they are getting a glimpse that they had never seen before.

These sailors are now having an encounter.

Are you catching this?

This moment of calm is spectacular.

We have an amazing God, and these sailors just step back and go, any God that can do this is the God we want to know.

Any God that can do this is the God we want to surrender our lives to.

This is our God.

Friends, if you don't know him, I want to tell you about this God because that's the whole reason why I'm here.

That's why we're here to proclaim this God.

The Bible says, our God is a refuge and strength, a very present help in times of trouble.

The Bible says, our God is a his name is a strong tower.

The righteous run into it and they're safe.

The Bible says, our God is the God who gives strength to the weary and uplifts the power of the weak.

The Bible says our God is compassionate and gracious, abounding in steadfast love, who heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

Our God is a generous God who meets all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.

Our God says, I will never leave you and I will never forsake you.

A God like this is a God we want to know.

A God like this is a God that we want to worship.

A God like this is a good God, a God that we can trust, a God that we can obey, a God that's worthy of our love and our time and our worship and our fear and yes, our obedience.

So the sailors have their moment and they bow their knee.

And God uses even Jonah's rebellion to turn this group of mariners over to him.

And this is the time when they get to know the one true God.

But what about Jonah?

Look at verse 17.

And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah.

Notice again the sovereignty of this God.

Who sent the fish?

God sent the fish.

Remind me again, who oversees the casting of the lot?

God, yeah.

And remind me again, who sent that storm in verse 4?

Yeah, God.

God is completely sovereign.

And God is the one who sends this fish.

Now, is this fish God's justice?

Or is this fish God's mercy?

It's his mercy.

Why?

Because our God is not just concerned about his mission, he's also concerned about his missionary.

And so God goes to get him there.

And God doesn't do this to harm Jonah.

This is not an angry God, but this is a gracious and compassionate and merciful God that we just sang about earlier, whose goodness is running after you all the days of your life.

This fish is not a punishment.

This fish is a rescue.

God is disciplining Jonah because Jonah belongs to him.

Hebrews chapter 12 says, if you're a true child of God, your heavenly father, the Lord disciplines the ones he loves.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

Friends, God's discipline is aimed at our repentance and our renewed obedience.

But restoration begins when we stop negotiating with him and we start yielding to him.

Discipline is God's grace.

The great Tim Keller said it so well.

I don't even want to change a word.

I just want you to see this quote.

Take this in.

Grace is pursuing and intercepting self-destructive behavior.

Grace is fierce love, dogged love, determined love, and it won't stop until it hurts you just enough to wake you up.

That's the grace of our fierce, loving God.

The whole reason we even talk about Jonah today is because of this grace.

We talk about Jonah, not because Jonah sinned against God, but because God disciplined him and Jonah eventually turned back to him and surrendered to his grace.

God pursued Jonah so that he would hear the call once again.

And Jonah's story is not over.

And if you've been running from God, neither is your story.

That raises an even bigger question, right?

How?

Jonah's rebellious.

Jonah has sinned against the Lord.

How can a just and holy God discipline out of mercy instead of destroying his rebellious subjects in his justice?

How is that even possible for God to be able to do this?

See, the truth is Jonah was guilty.

Jonah deserved to be thrown into the sea of God's judgment, so to speak.

And just like that, I too have rebelled against the word of the Lord.

I too deserve to be thrown into the sea of God's judgment.

But instead of justice, even though I've run from God, we have a God who's able to send mercy, not destruction, because that's what God's discipline is it is mercy, not destruction.

And the reason that's possible is because of the one that we call the true and greater Jonah.

The true and greater Jonah is, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The whole reason the Lord Jesus Christ came is because he was sent by his Father on mission.

But unlike Jonah, he obeyed.

And unlike Jonah, he didn't deserve to be cast into the sea of God's judgment.

But the good news of the gospel is that the Lord Jesus Christ, the true and greater Jonah, threw himself willingly into the sea on Your behalf, into the storm of God's wrath, so that you and me, like these sailors, could be spared.

And he would cast himself into the storm of the very wrath of God on our behalf.

Jonah was disciplined for his own rebellion, but Jesus Christ did not enter judgment for his rebellion.

It was for my rebellion and your rebellion.

And because Jesus Christ willingly paid the price of God's justice on my behalf, on your behalf, now he is able to extend to us his mercy, not destruction.

That is what God does.

For these sailors, they were spared.

For you and me, we can be spared as well.

If you're someone who has never known God, like these sailors, I urge you, like them, to turn to him, to seek him, to cry out to him.

This whole sermon series is about how we're supposed to be on mission for God, but before we can be on mission for God, if you haven't heard the gospel before, I need to tell you first this mission is first for you.

I urge you to say yes to this God and surrender control to him.

Jesus told a story about a prodigal son who also ran away from his father and spent all of the inheritance in loose and wild living.

But then when he was sleeping with the pigs and eating with the pigs and eating the very pods that the pigs eat, one day it says that he came to his senses.

And he came to his senses and said, I'll go back to my father's house and I'll be a slave in my father's house, and I'll ask my father to take me back as a servant.

And the son gets up and starts going on his way back home.

But before he can even get in, he sees his father running to him on the road.

The father grabs him and hugs him and kisses him.

It says, My son was lost and now he's found he was dead, but he's alive, and he puts a ring on his finger and a robe on his back and welcomes the boy home and says, Slay the fattened calf.

My son is now back with us in the family.

That's the kind of God that we have: a God who welcomes the prodigal back home.

This is Jonah's story.

This is my story.

Is it your story?

When we run from God, God does three things.

He exposes what we're trying to hide, and he calls us to surrender.

If you've strayed from God, I urge you to turn back to him.

He is ready to receive you with open arms.

The big idea of Jonah chapter one is this God lovingly disciplines his disobedient servants in order to bring them back to himself and put them back on mission.

I'd like to invite the worship team to come, and as they do, let's ask ourselves some applicational questions about chapter one today.

Is there anywhere in your life where the GPS says recalculating because you're choosing to not follow God's direction?

Is there anywhere where you're resisting God and the mission that He sent you on?

Is there any storms in your life that might be exposing something rather than trying to destroy you?

What might that be that God's trying to expose?

And what would surrendering to God's mission look like in your life?

Maybe you're here today and you've been running, and I want to say this message is for you.

Here's what you need to do: stop fighting God.

Stop running from Him and surrender your life to Him.

Amen.

Can we spend a few moments in prayer before we respond in worship together?

Would you just bow your heads and close your eyes with me?

Oh Heavenly Father, thank you for your word.

Thank you that even when I run, you pursue.

Even when we run away, you pursue.

Thank you that you're patient with us and merciful toward us.

And you're going to commit to complete the work that you once began in us.

And Lord, if there's anybody in here, a brother or sister of mine, who maybe feels like Jonah today, caught in a storm but tired of resisting and maybe weary from carrying their own plans, I pray today that today would be a moment of surrender.

With every head bowed, every eye closed, would you just be willing to pray silently in your own heart, something like, God, would you show me any area where I'm rationalizing sin or running from you?

Would you just take a moment in the quietness of your own heart and just ask God to show you any area where you might be running from him?

Just go ahead and do that right now, just between you and the Lord.

If there's some area where you're getting defensive and you want to push back, that's probably the area God wants to speak to you about.

Just ask him to show you.

God, would you show us where we're delaying obedience?

Would you show us what we're trying to hide that's not pleasing to you?

And then would you also remind us of the gospel?

Remind us of the greater Jonah, where Jesus obeyed even though we failed, where he entered judgment so that we could receive mercy.

Remind us of the good news, and then give us grace to trust you again, to follow you again, to say yes to whatever you call us to.

Send us as a people who are no longer running, but walking with you and joining on your mission.

Lord, we need you.

Every hour we need you.

We pray it in the strong name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And everyone said,