School of Fish

Jonah. Chapter two. You ready, let's go. 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. Chapter two, Verse one. Then Jonah prayed to

the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, saying,

I called out to the Lord out of my distress,

and he answered me. Out of the belly of Shiel,

I cried, and you heard my voice. For you cast

me into the deep, into the heart of the seas,

and the flood surrounded me. All your waves and your

billows passed over me. And then I said, I'm driven

away from your sight. Yet I shall again look upon

your holy temple. The waters closed in over me to

take my life. The deep surrounded me, weeds were wrapped

about my head. At the roots of the mountains, I

went down to the land whose ours close upon me forever.

Yet you brought up my life from the pit, O, Lord,

my God. When my life was fainting away, I remember

the Lord, and my prayer came to you into your

holy temple. Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake

their hope of steadfast love. But I with a voice

of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you what I have vowed,

I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord. And the

Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out

upon the dry land.

This is the word of the Lord.

Last week we already started learning from Jonah, the deeply flawed,

pretty ridiculous prophet whose name roughly translated means pigeon, as

in in the Bible, speaks of another another, another character

in the Bible. The Bible calls silly as a pigeon.

He's uh, he's deeply imperfect to this prophet. He was

last seen going over the gunwale of a ship into

the water as the storm calmed and the Pagan sailors

sailed away, now in reverent awe of the Living God

and worshiping him, while Jonah is swallowed by a fish.

And there after three days, it says, jumbled together across

three days, I'm supposing he finally lifts this prayer. And

as prayers from Scripture go, it's kind of a C minus.

What else would you expect.

From our kind of ridiculous prophet Jonah? What can we

learn from a C minus? I think we can learn

a lot.

You don't. It might be typical.

And if you're in a school, yeah, that's my play

on words, school of fish.

Yeah, it might be typical.

If you're in school, the teacher would pass out an

A plus essay as an example. Now you all have

an A plus essay on your desks, and let's go

through it, and let's talk about what's exemplary about this essay.

Everything in the here is perfect. Put check barks next

to everything that you note because it's awesome. There's another way, though,

teacher could pass out us C minus and you could

go through that essay sort of put in red xs

next to things that are quite imperfect, and then check

marks next to the things that are on target. And

that's kind of what we have with Jonah's prayer. And

I think probably that may suit us best. Given the

relative perfection of our prayers. This may be really helpful.

What can we learn. I'll tell you there is one overarching,

extraordinarily practical, guiding principle that we can learn from Jonah's

prayer that we should learn from Jonah's prayer that we

could put into practice immediately and need to.

We'll get to that, but.

Along the way, I think there are three profound lessons

that we should learn from Jonah's imperfect prayer. So let's

learn what we can from this imperfect prayer. Three lessons.

Then I'll conclude with that one overarching, very practical, guiding principle,

and we'll take the Lord's supper together.

How about it.

All?

Right?

Lesson one, Your imperfect prayer.

Maybe very late, but God.

Is always still perfectly in control. Your imperfect prayer maybe

very late, but God is always still perfectly in control.

You want to consider how late Jonah's prayer is, I mean.

Very yep? Okay, like, well we just cut five minutes.

There you go.

Very He starts with a direct command from God, moves

in the exact opposite direction. No repentance gets to Jappa,

No repentance gets on a ship. No repentance comes a storm,

No repentance just kill.

Me, now throw me over.

This is how Jiona responds, gets swallowed by a fish,

and over the course of three days, gets to this.

And he answered me, And he answered me, listen. That

is not to suggest you wait any longer to lift

your prayer. But this morning, if that prayer would be.

Very late, but the Lord is softening your heart to

lift it.

Then it's not too late. Don't wait any longer.

The greatest danger in delaying stubbornly your prayer is not

that God will eventually say, you know what, too late

for you, I'm closing my ears. The greatest danger is

that your once soft heart ready to pray, Hey, it

becomes so hard you won't.

But if your heart is soft enough to pray, now

do it. It may be late, but it's not too late.

You may be here this morning and you've never placed

your faith in Jesus Christ, you've never come to trust him.

But you're here, you're listening, you're soft, you're open, and

you would say, man, it's.

Late in the game for me.

But if you're here, there's a reason you're here. If

you're considering, there's a reason you're considering. If you're soft,

there's a reason you're soft. It's not too late, If

it's not too late, lift that prayer. But even though

the lateness of the prayer might be a big red

ax on this c minus prayer, the big red check

box the check mark from Jonah is that he seems

to grasp how completely in control God is to get

him to this place. Jonah seems to have a good

grasp on the sovereignty of God. I mean, the text

tells us for ourselves that God hurled this storm and

God appointed this fish. And Jonah seems to get it.

He says, in verse three, you cast me into the

deep your waves and your billows passed over me. In

verse six, yet you brought my life up from the pit.

And Jonah seems to be understanding that God's sovereignty isn't

just mechanical, it is intimate.

That God.

Is intimately in control of every gust, of every breeze,

of every movement of every leaf, every ache, every pain,

every place where we find that He has somehow immobilized us,

and we are so uncomfortable with it, and yet He's

using it to turn us to himself. God is in

complete control, and we will not find comfort in trying

to separate our hardships.

From God's sovereignty, but rather in meeting him in those hardships.

And that's what Jonah has done, not like he had

a lot of choice, And sometimes that's exactly what God

is doing in his discipline, not giving you a lot

of choice. And I can just see Jonah. He goes

over the boat. He's like, all right, well, God has

done with me. That's what I was hoping for.

Just kill me.

Now God has done with me. Oh, here comes a fish.

Now I know God has done with me.

Gulp. Yes, this is exactly why am I still alive.

And there he is.

I'm sure his arms are like pinned to his sides,

and he's like getting water boarded and passing out and

coming back to it. Says the weeds were wrapped about

my head, and I am sure that was the hardest party.

He's like, fuck, get off.

The floods surrounded me, the deep surrounded me. I went

down to the roots of the mountains. I went down

to the land whose barrs close upon me forever. And

what felt like prison turned out to be God's protection.

God is in complete control. He's in complete control, down

to the penny, down to the slightest winds. Talked to

somebody earlier this week who said, quite freely, it was

the worst thing in my life that God chose to use.

It was the thing I feared the most which came

to pass, that God most definitively used to turn me

to himself.

Some of us may be absolutely terrified.

To consider that God, in his total control, may be

after our hearts and is willing to use very pressing discipline.

It is right for us to fear God reverently as

the pagan sailors did, reverently turning their faces to him,

not slavishly fearing and running away from him. In One

of the ways that we succumb to slavish fear of God.

Terrified of God.

Is not because we know too much about his sovereignty,

but that we know too little about his character.

That he is.

Yeah as sharp and as forceful as he must be

with his children, but he is as gentle as he

can be. Your imperfect prayer may be very late, but

if your heart is soft enough to pray, it's not

too late. Lift it now, and God is in complete control.

What's the second lesson we can learn from Jonah's imperfect prayer?

I'd say this. Your imperfect prayer may have but God

is perfectly generous in his hearing. Your imperfect prayer may

have holes, it may lack a lot, but God is

perfectly generous in his hearing. Consider this prayer of Jonah,

which is amazingly poetic, isn't Isn't it strikingly poetic for

being inside a fish.

There's a reason for that. He's interacting with the psalms.

He's singing.

Almost every line of this prayer comes from psalms that

he has already learned. The opening line, I cried to

the Lord, and the closing line, salvation belongs to the Lord.

Both of these come from Psalm III two says all

your breakers and your waves have gone over me, and

also says I shall yet again praise him. Psalm eighty

eight says you have put me in the depths of

the pit, in the regions of dark and deep.

And I'm telling you, if it was.

Three days where I'm being waterboarded and trying to, you know,

like catch my breath, what else are you gonna do.

But sing the.

Songs of God and truth that you have learned since childhood.

And that's a separate lesson all by itself. Stalk your

mind full of lyrical truth. It will come back. I

remember when my grandmother was dying and we're all gathered

around her. She's wasting away, she's ninety eight, there's nothing

to do, and all these truth both came rushing back

to us as we gathered around her, and just sang

just saying the truth about God, saying it is well

with my soul.

And yet.

This is missing a lot, as one of the guys

in our preaching preparation team this week said, this prayer

has more blind spots than a U haul truck. I mean,

Jonah has been on the run in direct disobedience from

God for days, weeks. Maybe it's kind of a long trip.

He's running in the opposite direction. And the amount of

repentance that is recorded as his prayer boils down to

verse nine B what I have vowed I we'll pay

doesn't say anything about his direct dis obedience, doesn't say

anything about his stubborn delay. Just what I have vowed

I will repay. And yet verse one he answered me

full of holes, yet generous in his hearing. And verse ten,

and the Lord spoke to the fish and it vomited

Jonah out on the on the dry land. It's a

pretty fitting deliverance. I'm gonna deliver you man, But this

is kind of that's that's about where you're at.

Reminds me of a very imperfect prayer I lifted once.

I remember so clearly.

I was probably not even a Christian for a whole year.

By this point, probably hadn't been in Christ for more

than a year. And I got a phone call from

someone was very close to and they told me about

something wonderful that was happening in their life. And I

should have been happy for them, but instead, when I

hung up the phone, I thought about how they're in

a wonderful place and in a wonderful position to be

blessed in such a way. In my life is upside

down in a ditch, wheels still turning because of drugs

and alcohol and irresponsibility. And instead of being happy for

that person, I was dug in on self pity and

actual jealousy and envy. And I realized, I'm messed up,

like my life is messed.

Up, and I'm messed up on the inside. And I

walked out of.

That house and I walked into the outside. There was

nobody around it, and I just cried out to the Lord and.

A prayer that was.

Peppered with profanity, none of which I'll share here.

I just cried out, God, You've got to fix me.

That's not to suggest irreverence or profanity in anybody's prayer,

but to highlight the generosity with which God hears our genuine, repentant, desperate,

needy prayers. You can be confident of God's generosity in

hearing your prayers, because, imperfect as they are, as full

of holes as they may be, if you're in Christ,

you have a perfect intercessor. He is perfect in his

sympathy for you. He knows suffering. He's more acquainted with

your kind of suffering than even you are. He's more

acquainted with suffering than Jonah is. Christ's Three Days and

three Nights was in the grave itself. He knows your suffering.

And Christ knows your sins. He bore them himself on

the cross, he received the judgment. Do your sins you

think he doesn't know them? Intimately. He's the perfect intercessor.

He is perfect in all his prayers on your behalf.

There is no prayer so cold that he can't warm it.

There is no hole in your prayer so wide that

he can't fill it with his own. There's no prayer

so confused of yours that he can't bring perfect clarity.

He is the perfect intercessor. And if the Father's heart

is generous to hear, and the Savior's intercession is constant

over you, why would we hesitate to lift even our

most imperfect prayers. Your prayer may have holes, we have

every confidence God is generous in his hearing. Here's the

third lesson. The third lesson from Jonah's imperfect prayer is this,

Your imperfect prayer may lack perspective, but God is the

perfect owner of salvation. Your imperfect prayer may lack perspective,

but God is the perfect owner of salvation.

Check it out.

The last line of Jonah's prayer is so meta. He

says salvation belongs to the Lord. And Jonah is perfectly

right and so imperfectly aware. I mean, you get it.

He's arrived to the place where he realizes salvation belongs

to the Lord for me.

We're soon to see.

He doesn't recognize the fact that salvation belongs to.

The Lord for the Ninovites. He is missing it.

Man, if you've want to put a big red X

next to that part of his prayer, you can, because

he completely lacks perspective, even though he may have uttered

one of the most profound truths in the whole universe.

The late Edmund Clowney points to this line right here.

He says, doctor Clowney says, I believe that this line,

salvation belongs to the Lord, is the most central truth

in all the Bible.

Salvation belongs to the Lord. It belongs to the Lord.

It's his.

He can do with it as he sees fit, and

he does, and he does so mercifully, he does so graciously.

And we haven't earned it, and we don't own it.

He owns it. It belongs to him.

And that's a grace.

And Jonah gets it big red check, but he only

partly gets it big red X. And yet, and yet,

God does not keep Jonah immobilized in the gut of

this fish until he has learned every lesson.

He's not done.

He lets him go, He recommissions him, he sends him

to preach. There are more lessons to come. He's going

to appoint a plant, He's going to appoint the worm.

He continues his work on Jonah, and.

That's his prerogative. He is God.

Salvation belongs to him. He can do it however he wants.

I bet he's not done with you either. And we

can be pretty sure that our prayers lack as much

perspective as Jonah's.

But yet, salvation belongs to the Lord.

Not to the perfection of your prayers. And I think

it's pretty reasonable to assume that God has taught you

some pretty big lessons so far. It's also pretty reasonable

to assume He's not done with them. You got some

more coming, which brings us back around to lessons.

And this C minus prayer has some pretty big ones

for us.

Right there are a good handful of big red xes

and some big red check marks, and all together, as

I said, they point.

To this one extraordinarily practical piece of guidance. We get

from this.

Something that we have to learn, we must learn, we

can in fact put into practice immediately, and we need to.

And this is it. Lift your imperfect prayers to God.

Do it. Do it now.

Pray with what you've got. You may be very late,

it may be full of holes. I'm sure it lacks perspective.

But call out to the Lord, because salvation belongs to him.