Jonah 1:16-2:1

We are in Jonah still.

We're actually almost done with chapter one.

We'll finish that up today.

Um, I don't know.

I just I was thinking about Jonah and I just thought of this.

Uh I've I don't know if you guys have ever watched the show This Is Us.

And it's it came out like I don't know five or ten years ago.

I I really don't know.

And at first, when I watched, when I were watching this, my wife and I were like, yeah, we're into this, this show.

And and I'm sorry if you like this show, This Is Us.

But I couldn't get through like the first season because I just got so sick of like drama being shoved down my throat.

Like every episode, somebody was dying, or they unrevealed some gigantic secret about somebody.

And to me, I was just like, This isn't us.

This is not real life.

Real life is like years and years of just mundane thing after mundane thing after mundane thing.

It's not me finding out that my dad is someone else and my mom is someone else, and then it this isn't how life works.

And I just couldn't, I no longer could accept the drama being shoved down my throat.

And then I read like through the book of Jonah, and I'm like, wow, this is kind of how Jonah's life was for at least a season.

He this book is dramatic.

There is like one big dramatic event after another happening, and we are almost through chapter one.

Uh today we will read chapter one, verse 16, through or 17 through verse one of chapter two.

So to get us caught up on the drama of Jonah, we uh we have seen that God has given Jonah a command to go to Nineveh.

We have seen Jonah refuse that command and turn the opposite way and go to Tarshus.

We then see God send a great storm to stop the boat from making it to Tarshus.

Then we see that storm so big and powerful that it scared the mariners to the point where they went to Jonah and said, What are you doing?

What do we need to do to calm this storm?

To which Jonah answers, Throw me overboard, hurl me into the sea.

Uh the mariners try to fight the storm a little bit, and they're like, Okay, this isn't getting us anywhere.

And they throw Jonah into the sea, and the sea is calmed immediately.

And this leaves the mariners, rightfully so, fearing the Lord exceedingly.

And it leaves Jonah in the middle of the sea with no help.

And that's where we are today.

We are in Jonah chapter 1, verse 17, and I'm going to read through chapter 1 of verse 2.

Jonah 1:17

It says, 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.

Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish.

Uh when we when we consider what the mariners in this in the book of Jonah just went through, and what Jonah just went through, and then when I read those two verses that I just read, to me that leaves this gigantic question, this really big question.

And I think if I could, if we could use our imaginations a little bit, the mariners had to be asking this question.

And I think probably even to one another.

They were probably talking about this, and it's a question that today I think a lot of us grapple with.

Sometimes in a good way, sometimes we ask this in a good way, sometimes we ask this in a very doubting way.

And the question is this Who is this God?

Like, look, look what just happened in this book.

Who is this God that would use a self-centered, sinful man to tell wicked people to repent and turn to him?

Who is this God so gracious to save evil people?

Who is this God so powerful enough that he holds a storm in his hand?

Who is this God that allows a man like Jonah to call him his God?

It says that in verse in chapter uh two, verse one, that he called out to it or he prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish.

Who is this God that allows that?

Who is this God that tells a fish where to go and what to eat and when to eat it?

And who is this God that can hear the prayers of a sinful man from the belly of a fish in the middle of the ocean?

That's the question.

Who is he?

Who is this?

This is the biggest, heaviest, most daunting question of all time.

It's it's bigger than who am I gonna marry and where am I gonna live and what am I gonna do with my life?

What job am I gonna take?

Who is God?

That is the biggest, most important question in all of the world.

And how you answer it says the most about you.

It is the most important thing about you, how you answer the question, who is this God?

How do you how do you even begin to answer this?

Where does this answer even begin?

As we think about this this morning, I want I want you to think about that.

How you answer that in your mind?

Who is this God?

Where does that start in your mind?

When you when you ponder that, who is God?

Where does your mind turn to?

What what does it what does it start with?

Is he is he the big guy upstairs?

Is is he the guy that was so bored, just twiddling his thumbs, and he's like, you know, I'm gonna create some people so that I can watch them and see how awesome that they become, and then I'm gonna try to keep them in check.

Uh if your answer to who God is starts with you, uh that's that's a problem.

That's that's a big problem.

If your answer to who God is starts with your own experiences, and then you try to form and mold God around your own experiences, that's a problem.

I'll give you an example of that.

Uh many people, this is just one example.

Many people have thought that homosexuality is is a sin that goes against the design for humanity, and therefore it is sinful.

It's it goes against God's design for humanity, so it's sinful.

And then someone that they care deeply about, um they they confess that they have same-sex attraction and they are now uh homosexual.

And this person, wanting to uh fit God into their experience, now changes their view on who they thought God was because they think there's no way that this God could be condemning this person because they're really nice.

And so I'm instead of forming my opinions about who God is based on the Bible, I'm going to form it on my experience of what just happened to me.

The same could be said about many other examples.

Uh, maybe you had a dad that was overly aggressive or disengaged or uh a dictator, and you go about thinking that your heavenly father operates the same way that your earthly father operated, that he is a dictator, that he just uh rules with an iron fist.

You may be walking around thinking uh holding on to views that you have of God that are based on something that you were taught as a child.

And while it was very poor theology or bad teaching, it is just stuck.

For some reason, it's just stuck with you, and you're walking about with that.

I I this is a funny story uh that my father-in-law always tells.

He was in the timber business, and they would go and give, you know, they would walk people's woods and they would say, This is about how much you're gonna get if we cut the timber.

And him and his cousin were cutting this one woods, and they found out that somehow that the guy that they were doing the work for was a Christian.

And my father-in-law's cousin was not a Christian.

But in the effort to try to make conversation and maybe impress the guy a little bit, he wanted to flex some knowledge that he had about the Bible, except he didn't have any knowledge on the Bible.

So he told the homeowner, he's like, Yeah, I know uh there in the Bible that it says that God messed up on the shin bone.

And in his effort to like impress, he tells this guy that God actually messed up when creating the shin bone.

Like of all things, God, you know, you got down to the shin and he's like, rats, but it's too late.

I've already unveiled it.

Uh, but no, this is this is what we do.

We walk around with these inaccurate views on God, dictated by our personal circumstance, our experiences, or just our own thoughts on what God should be like.

Our thoughts on God must be formed by Scripture.

Who is God?

Dig into the word and find out.

Get to know him for yourself.

The God of the Bible must be formed by what the Bible says about him.

So the first thing, when we come to Jonah chapter 17, and we see these mariners, and they, the mariners, and even Jonah himself and us thinking, who is this God?

The first thing that we must establish to get our view of God aligned properly is that God is holy.

We just sang that.

Holy, holy, holy.

He is perfectly, righteously holy.

And that has a therefore attached to it.

Therefore, he hates sin.

Sinners are enemies of God.

Those that have not put on the righteousness of Jesus and stand before God as unjustified sinners are hated by God.

Psalm 11.5 says this the Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.

Psalm 5.5, the boastful shall not stand before your eyes.

You hate all evildoers.

Proverbs 8, 13, the fear of the Lord is hatred of evil.

Pride and arrogance in the way of evil and perverted speech I hate.

One thing that we often believe about God that we walk around believing is that he loves the sinner but hates the sin.

I'm yes, God hates the sin and loves the sinner.

But that's not true.

God hates sinners.

And I know that sounds shocking.

I know that sounds shocking, but scripture backs that up.

I just read three of many verses.

God hates sinners.

Why do you think salvation is so great?

God sought out filthy sinners dripping in arrogance and violence and pride and every imaginable, disgusting thing.

They never thought of God.

You never thought of God, much like these mariners in the book of Jonah, much like the Ninevites that He's sending His mercy for.

And He slayed His Son on a cross so that sinners that were His enemies could put on the righteousness of His Son Jesus and be reconciled to Him.

God hates sin.

Ephesians 2 Ephesians 2 says that outside of Christ you are dead in your sins.

God's holiness will condemn sinners to an eternity in hell, separated from him, because he is so holy and cannot allow sin into his presence.

That's how much he hates sin.

Who is this God?

This God is fiercely holy.

He is holy.

And God puts his perfection, his perfectly divine holiness on display through his creation.

And we can see that.

We see that God is holy because we look at how amazing his creation is.

We can see his holiness through his power.

Who is this God?

This God is infinitely powerful.

Powerful enough to control a fish.

We just read uh Jonah 1.17, and the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah.

He can appoint fish.

Some of us have fish tanks, and God is appointing fish.

That's how much bigger and better than us that He is.

So, what were these views that these sailors in the book of Jonah held about God?

It seems like their view at the beginning of chapter one would be very similar to what much of the world would hold on to today.

Because we see in verse 5 that it says that the mariners were afraid and each cried out to his God.

Most people in our culture today, they don't think about any form of religion until they are afraid.

Then they reach back in that old file and they pull out that God that they remember hearing about as a kid and they cry out to him.

They look for something to go to in a time of crisis, but often it isn't even the true and living God, much like these mariners.

It's not the true and living God.

It's just each one cries out to their own God.

And often that's the God that they have formed in their minds, the God that they've been walking around with bad theology about, the God that they heard somebody say something weird about one time.

It's not the true and living God.

So you can see the sailors' desperation because in verse 6 the captain tells Jonah to get up and call out to his God because maybe he would give a thought to them and they wouldn't die.

So he's just he's pulling out all the stops.

Like I'll try anything.

Call out to your God, I'll call out to my God, you call out to your God.

So we see something of these mariners' view of God based on what is written here.

They thought if there was a God, and we don't know which one is doing all of this storm stuff, but if there is one, he's disengaged with us.

So let's try to just get him to pity us enough to just let us live.

Not change our lives, not change anything we're doing, but just let us continue to live the life that we want to live, and then you know, leave us alone.

Just leave us alone after that, and then when we're in trouble, we'll get back to you.

That's very much the world that we live in, the air that we breathe, that we breathe.

They they're thinking, these mariners are thinking of a very impersonal, disengaged God that didn't have much to offer humanity, that didn't have any real plan for just a simple mortal like us.

But what they were met with, what these mariners are met with is the God of the Bible.

A God powerful enough to throw a storm and gentle enough to calm the sea and have mercy on people that have never even spoken to him.

They've never even spoken about him, they don't even know him at all.

I love to imagine, I like to use my imagination a little bit, and I like to imagine when they threw Jonah overboard that the sea is calmed instantly, because it says it was.

I don't even have to really imagine that.

But then there's Jonah like treading water.

I don't know if Jonah treaded water or if he just like went down to the bottom because he was like, Yeah, I'm done with this.

I don't know how that happened, but I like to envision like the sailors like looking over the edge, like, what's gonna happen?

He hits the water, it's calm, and then they see this giant fish or whale or whatever come up and swallow him.

I just that's gotta be like that, would definitely be on one of your reels as you're flipping through Instagram.

Like someone would capture that, and they then they would just blow up, like, oh my word, what just happened?

And they have to be thinking at that point, you just calm the sea because we threw this guy overboard, and then this fish came along and ate him.

Who is this God?

What is happening right now?

This God's holiness is displayed through his power.

Romans 120 says this for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, so his power and his holiness, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world, and the things that have been made, so they are without excuse.

We know that God is holy because of the goodness and his creation.

A corrupt God could not make a creation so perfect.

And God has complete power and control over that creation.

It's unbelievable.

And really, as I'm reading, I read, you know, you you try to form your message in Jonah, and then you read some commentaries to see if you've missed anything.

And I find it amusing in a lot of these commentaries, and sometimes pretty stupid, that people have written at great length on whether or not Jonah is literal.

Like, is this really happened or is this just a story?

And what they always go to is verse 17 that says, 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.

And they say, This can't be literal because Jonah survived inside of a fish for three days.

And I just I can't believe that this is even a discussion.

So you're telling me that you can accept that God created everything.

He just went, yeah.

Yep, yep, uh-huh.

He created everything.

He just he thought it and it was created.

He has power over everything that he created.

He died and then personally decided to not be dead anymore.

Like, he did all of that, but there's no way.

No way someone could live in a fish for three days.

It's just scientifically not possible.

It's that just it's just so stupid to me.

So if if you have any doubt that that this is real or if you even care or not, and you're questioning God's power because maybe Jonah was not literal, uh, turn with me to the book of Job if you want to follow along, and we will get a glance at God's power.

And I love these passages.

These passages in Job, um, for me personally, they always invoke like a sense of awe and wonder and worship and just reverence to a God that is this big and powerful.

And it's a good reminder when we feel like we're we've been treated unfairly or when we forget uh who this God is that we are confessing belief in, these verses are a good reminder for us.

I'm gonna read verses uh four through eleven in Job chapter 38.

Job 38 · chapter mention

It says this Where were you when I laid this is by the way, this is God speaking to Job, where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?

Tell me if you have understanding.

Who determined its measurements?

Surely you know.

Or who stretched the line upon it?

On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone?

When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy, or who shut in the sea with doors, when it burst out from the womb?

When I made clouds its garments, and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed limits for it, and set bars and doors, and said, Thus far shall you come and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed.

And then I'm gonna read uh verses twenty-two through thirty.

It says this Have you entered the storehouses of the snow?

Or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, which I have reserved for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war?

What is the way to the place where the light is distributed, or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth?

Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain and a way for the thunderbolt, to bring rain on a land where no man is, on the desert in which there is no man, to satisfy the waste and desolate land, and to make the ground sprout with grass?

Has the rain a father, or has or who has begotten the drops of dew?

From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the frost of heaven?

The waters become hard like stone, and the face of the deep is frozen.

And now I'm gonna skip to verse 34.

Can you lift up your voice to the clouds that a flood of waters may come may cover you?

Can you send forth lightnings that they may go and say to you, Here are we?

God has complete control over weather and everything.

These are just the things that I read are just the things that we see in the book of Jonah.

We see these storms arise on the sea, we see the sea shut in by stone doors, and then we read that out of Job.

That's just his power that's on display in the book of Jonah, which hasn't depleted him of any remaining power that he has.

God is not a crossfitter, he's not pumping out as many reps as he can, saying, I'm gonna get so many lightning bolts, and then he burns out and he's like, Okay, that's it for that rep.

No, he never tires, he never flinches, he never almost quits.

Nothing is too hard for him.

His holiness is displayed in his infinite power.

He does what he wants when he wants to.

Who is this God?

This God is all powerful.

He is all powerful.

And God's power, the power that God distributes and puts out, puts on display, is governed by his justice.

God will act justly, he will never act in a way that is not fair.

Uh, we just read part of God's answer to Job.

When Job was basically accusing God of mistreating him or treating him unfairly, God answers Job with uh with all of you could read through that.

It's unbelievable.

Also, there's a song called Where Were You by Ghost Ship.

If you've never heard that song, I would recommend listening to it.

It is God's answer to Job.

God says, Look, the one who is all holy and all powerful.

And knows everything and how everything works.

You, Job, are a created creature.

You're not seeing all of this.

God does not wield his power in a way that is wild or in the book of Jonah.

So we know that the storm that he sends to the in the book of Jonah, the throwing of Jonah overboard, this is all just.

This is acts of justice.

Psalm 37, verse 28 says, For the Lord loves justice.

Psalms 37:28

He will not forsake his saints, they are preserved forever.

But the children of the wicked shall be cut off.

When I think about God's justice, people often think, how can a just and good and right God send people to hell?

And that's not even the right question to ask.

Really, the most appropriate question to ask is how can a just God allow filthy sinners into his presence?

How does he do that?

How can he still be just and not kill all of the Ninevehes?

Remember when we read about how wicked Nineveh was?

They murdered people, there so much injustice.

How does a just God not just wipe them off the face of the earth?

How can he be just and not punish my sin for all of eternity?

How can he do that?

And it's beautiful, it's a beautiful thing.

And it's the last point here.

God's is on display, is satisfied by his mercy.

God's holiness is on display.

It's put on display by his power.

His power is governed or it's controlled by his justice, and his justice is stayed or it's satisfied by his infinite mercy.

God sending a sinner to tell fish to swallow up Jonah, that is mercy.

God sending a sinner to tell sinners to repent is mercy.

God allowing the sea to be calm for these mariners is mercy.

We have an infinitely merciful God that loves to show mercy.

But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

Psalm 89, 14, righteousness and justice are the foundations of your throne.

Steadfast love and faithfulness go before you.

Micah 7, 18 and 19, who is good, who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance?

He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love.

He will again have compassion on us.

He will tread our iniquities underfoot.

You will cast all of our sins into the depths of the sea.

God shows mercy throughout all of Scripture.

It is God's mercy that clothed Adam and Eve when they sinned against God in the garden.

It is God's mercy that led the children of Israel out of Egypt.

It is God's mercy that used people like Saul and David and Solomon to lead his people.

His mercy is all over the pages in the book of Jonah.

It's all over the book of Jonah.

And it is God's mercy that sent his son Jesus to satisfy his justice on the cross of Calvary.

Our sin demands a penalty before a holy God.

He cannot tolerate it.

He will not tolerate it.

It will be punished.

His divine power sent Jesus to take that punishment for us because his justice could not just allow sin to be overlooked.

So Jesus came, took on the wrath and the hell for those who would believe that his blood covers our sin.

It is his righteousness, it is his righteousness that we use as our plea before a holy God.

He is enough.

God is infinitely merciful.

It is his infinite mercy that has provided a way to satisfy his justice so that we can stand before God holy, not because of anything that we've done, but because of the blood of Jesus.

And I'm going to read about that in Romans chapter 3, verse 21 through 26.

Romans 3:21–26

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law.

Although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forth as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.

This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

What we see in these in these two verses in Jonah is that a powerful God that could have wiped everyone in the story out showed mercy to the sailors.

And when they threw Jonah overboard, he yet again showed mercy to Jonah by providing, by appointing a fish through his own power to swallow up Jonah so that he could make his way to a people that God wanted to show mercy to.

We see a God so powerful and so merciful that he hears the prayers of a disobedient sinner from the belly until fish and the depths of the sea.

You can cry out to him for mercy.

So what do we do?

Like, what do we do with this information?

That's like when we come here and you listen to the preaching, it's like, okay, so what?

Like, what do we do with this?

What are we supposed to do?

And and to be honest with you, I'm not super big on telling you how you should feel about the message that I just preached.

I feel like the Holy Spirit can do that for the most part.

But I would love for all of us to grow and know more of this great God.

When we consider who God is, it should cause us to worship.

And I think that's really what I would love to just impart and pass on today.

This should cause, we should be in awe of a God this big.

God is better than us.

He knows more, he is more worthy in every way.

That should cause our hearts to worship him.

We should be moved by the greatness of God.

We should consider a force that considerable at all times.

It should dictate everything that we do.

First, this is 1 Chronicles 16, 23 through 31.

And I'm using a lot of scripture, and it's because the scripture just says it better than I can type it up.

So, 1 Chronicles 16, 23 through 31.

Sing to the Lord all the earth, deeds of his salvation day after day.

Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among the peoples.

For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise.

He is to be feared above all gods, for all the gods of the nations are idols.

But the Lord made the heavens.

Splendor and majesty are before him, strength and joy are in his dwelling place.

Ascribe to the Lord all you families of nations, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength, ascribe to the Lord the glory, do his name.

Bring an offering and come before him.

Worship the Lord and the splendor of his holiness.

Tremble before him all the earth.

The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved.

Let the heavens from the earth be glad.

Let them say among the nation, the Lord reigns.

From that text alone, we can see that we should do the following.

We should sing to God.

We should declare his glory to other people.

We should talk about God.

We should fear God.

We should give God credit.

We should bring offerings to God.

These texts lay it out here.

I don't have to sit up here and break down what it looks like for us to worship God.

It's right here.

Dig into the word and get to know a God like this.

It's all right here.

A God of this magnitude should consume your life.

If what you are offering to Him is right here, sitting here and listening to me, it's not enough.

A God of this magnitude should consume everything, your work, your play, everything that you do should be consumed by who God is.

We should be in awe of him.

In all that he made a way for sinners to spend eternity with him who is holy.

That should be everything.

Don't go about unchanged by a God that you assumed in your head, that you drummed up and drew in your head.

Who is this God?

This is the God of the Bible that we're talking about.

That's who he is.

He is great, he is infinitely holy, he is all powerful, he is infinitely just and he is infinitely merciful.

Call out to him today.

Where beg you?

Where you are.

If it's in the belly of a fish, if it's God of the Bible, this call out to him today.

He will hear you.

That is the God of the Bible.

This is the God that we're worshiping.

This is not some weak, watered-down version that we have created, that America has fed us, that our culture has told us who God is.

This is God, the God of Jonah the ship.

If that could Moses, Jesus Christ, God Almighty, this is who we worship.

If that has not changed you, your heart is not changed.

If that does not move you, then you are unmoved.

You are saved.

Don't pretend like you are.

Do something about that.

Move toward God.

If anything beg you, I would plead with you.

I would walk 10 miles on my knees if it did anything to move you toward God.

Do not walk about unchanged by who you think God is.

Allow him to consume your life.

A God this great has to change.

He has to change, and you cannot be unchanged.

He is infinitely holy, all-powerful, infinitely just, and infinitely merciful.

Let's pray.

God, we we come before you as the creation.

We are but created dust.

Would you move in our midst this three things and help us to grasp and understand that you are a God deserving of everything?

And we are the creator that uh we are the creation that deserves nothing.

But you have moved and you have spoken, you have sent your son Jesus to die on a cross for the sins of your people, that you they may be reconciled back to you.

God, I pray that if there's someone in here that is living life unchanged by that truth, that you would wreck them.

I pray you would help them to lose sleep.

I pray you would make them not be able to carry on without crying out to you to save them.

God, would you do a work in our hearts?

And I pray for those of us that have confessed our sins, that are placing our faith and trust in Jesus' blood.

May we I pray that you would help us to be changed one degree of glory at a time.

May we leave here in all and in wonder of who you are, and that bleed into our everyday so that we sing to you and we pray to you and we talk to you and we tell other people about you and how good you are.

We love may you receive the credit and the glory for for anything good that we possess.

We love you.

We thank you for what you've done and who you are.

Thank you for being our God.

We pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.