Running into a storm

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Morning, CCW.

Morning.

Amen.

Turn your Bibles to Jonah.

Second part of our study.

We got kicked off last week in the Relentless Series.

And so turn your Bibles to Jonah chapter 1.

Jonah 1 · chapter mention

We only made it through three verses.

We're going to try to pick up some speed this week.

And before we do, I have to say something.

I have to say that my son is in the third row here.

His name is Wyatt.

Wyatt is passionate and persistent and tenderhearted.

And today Wyatt is 14 years old.

Happy birthday, son.

All right.

Let's jump into the scripture in Jonah chapter 1 here.

Jonah 1 · chapter mention

Look down at verse 3 and 4.

Jonah arose to flee to Tarshus from the presence of the Lord.

He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshus, so he paid the fare.

And he went down into it to go with them to Tarshus from the presence of the Lord.

And that's where we stopped last week.

But the Lord sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship was about to be broken up.

Running into the storm.

Let me ask a question to you this morning.

Anyone here say, Pastor, I'm in a storm right now.

Let's be honest.

I'm in a storm right now.

There's stuff going on right now, and it feels like I've run into a storm.

Well, when I was 16 for the third year in a row, I got to go.

No, I wasn't 16 for the third year in a row.

But for the third year in a row, I'm 16 at this time, start at 14.

Me and my friend and his family went to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

And as a 16-year-old, we were driving his Buick Cutlass.

We called it the boat.

And uh we did not know that we were driving the boat into a storm.

We got to Myrtle Beach, and I've got a picture I want you to see of a shot of Hurricane Bonnie.

Okay, this was Hurricane Bonnie coming in.

And Hurricane Bonnie came.

We had been at the beach for two days.

It struck.

They told, you want to see mass chaos, 120,000 people that are on a beach, they tell you to evacuate.

And so we get in our cars, we pack up our stuff, and we start traveling to get inland about 14 miles to the closest high school.

And it takes us four and a half hours to drive 14 miles with 120,000 people.

And we show up to the parking lot of this high school, and we go to get into the high school for protection and safety, and it's wall-to-wall people.

There's no more space.

We were allowed to come in to get some meals, but there was no space.

And so we stayed two teenagers for 48 hours in my friend's Buick Cutlass.

Now I don't know if you've ever smelled two 16-year-old boys showerless for 48 hours.

I don't know if you've been around two teenage boys that have absolutely nothing to do for 48 hours.

I don't know if you've been around two teenage boys who are rationing food and have very little to eat.

But let me tell you, it was not a fun time.

And it was a scary time.

We were out in his car and the hurricane was going and the rain was hitting and the wind was blowing his boat back and forth, and we sat there and we were hungry, we were scared, we were bored.

At one point, we got so to the point where we had lost it enough.

We got out in it.

We were playing soccer.

The funnest thing you ever see is a 16-year-old is kick a soccer ball and see where the wind is gonna take it.

And so, but I remember that time very clearly, the storm that we ran into, and we were able to go back to the beach.

This is the funny part of the story.

We were able to go back at the beach.

We still had a few days at the end of vacation.

We got back for like one full day, and we get back out there, and I'm about half a day.

Meanwhile, back at the Wright Ranch in Delaware, there's no cell phones.

I haven't thought once to call my mother.

About half a day, I'm I'm all over the beach, and I'm like, oh man.

And I call mom and she is beside herself.

Oh my baby.

But I made it all better because I bought her this shirt.

Y'all see this picture.

This is very important.

All right, they got they got a picture of what I bought her.

See that?

I found this on the air.

This is the exact shirt.

I survived Hurricane Bonnie.

And so, anyways, I made up for it, right, moms?

Right.

So, but I remember running into that storm.

Well, Jonah here in chapter 1, verse 3 and 4, what we see, the first thing is the trip to the ship.

He takes a trip to the ship.

I want you to think about the walk that he takes from where he is to board the boat.

The walk, whether it was in his hometown of Gather or in Samaria.

Some consider where he was ministering to be in Samaria at the time, serving King Jeroboam II.

But this walk had to be significant.

The trip that he took, I said last week that it's called Rebellion Road.

It's a road that takes people out of where they're supposed to be.

It's a road that will take people out of church.

Listen to me, Rebellion Road will.

People experience hurt at church or they've been let down at home or sin numbs them.

And things look, I get it, they may seem overwhelming.

So they just take off a week and they go down rebellion road.

Well, a week turns into two weeks, and two weeks turns into a month, and before long, it's just really easy to live in Rebellion Road.

And all of a sudden, on Rebellion Road, it cuts out my time in this book.

And on Rebellion Road, it cuts out the worship that I'm doing.

And it's a lonely, fearful place.

And just last week I said maybe Jonah thought he could go secretly the other way and get away from God.

Listen, Jonah knew, I said it in jest, he knew, and he was trying, it says in the scripture, to flee from the presence of God.

He was given an assignment and he didn't like it.

Anyone ever felt like that?

So he did what he thought he should do and he fled.

He tried to flee from God.

Let me tell you something, church.

You can ignore something that's there, but it doesn't take it away because you ignore it.

Look at verse 2 again.

Verse 2, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city.

Here's the problem.

Cry out for their wickedness has come up before me.

And so the problem is there, but Jonah wants to ignore the problem.

God gave him an assignment.

He said, There's great wickedness.

You're a prophet.

I want you to go speak against it.

And Jonah tries to ignore it.

Rebellion happens when we stop doing what we know is right.

Rebellion happens when we refuse correction.

Informationally, Jonah knew.

He knew what he was getting into.

He ran into a storm.

A prophet who knew the word of God.

He was a prophet who saw the miracles.

He is a prophet who believed.

Let me tell you something today, church.

You can believe and still take a trip to the ship.

You can believe and still walk right into a storm.

The Bible says, whom God loves, that he chastens.

God corrects.

I believed from age five to ten that as a part of my evening ritual, it was say your prayers, take a bath, and get your spanking.

I needed a lot of correction.

I was telling my family who was just with recounting this story, one of the worst ones.

I couldn't take it.

I sit in church like these good kids sit in church.

And they didn't have junior church when I was growing up.

There wasn't an extra church for kids, right?

There was just church.

And you came to church.

Didn't matter your age, right?

I think there was nursery.

Okay.

But anyway, from the time I was two old anyway, I'm sitting there in church and I'd had enough.

I'd seen that offering plate one too many times past me, and I wanted what was in it.

And so it came by, and I grabbed my hand in there, and my mom said, Oh, my dad grabbed the cross, and I didn't know it was coming, so I threw everything that was in my hand.

There was cash, there was change, all of it fluttering behind me.

And they took me out right then.

I'm getting drugged out of church.

And you guess what?

I got chastened.

I got spanked.

And I got spanked a lot of weeks at church.

Okay.

I'm telling you, I know what it means to be chastened.

I had to have correction.

Jonah thought he could hide from the presence of God.

Well, why is that so?

Letter A this morning.

Jonah was conflicted.

He had a real conflict.

Jonah's conflict was this.

Jonah was conflicted about his feelings and God's voice.

God, who he'd been following and his own feelings.

I don't feel like I want to take the gospel or God's message of mercy to these Ninevehes who I don't like.

My feelings and God's voice are having a fight.

And let me tell you something today, church.

There's a false philosophy that's arisen that says this.

Once I have peace, listen to me, once I have peace, I'll go wherever God wants me to go.

And let me clarify: it's not that I don't believe in seeking God for an internal drive towards a direction.

My issue is how we now are defining peace.

What do you mean, Pastor Rick?

Well, turn over to Acts chapter 20 for a second.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

See, I think we've got a definition of peace that's sort of messing up the philosophy here.

Look at Acts chapter 20.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

I want you to go down to verse 22.

How are we defining peace?

Paul says in Acts chapter 20, verse 22 through 24, and see now I go bound in the Spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that chains and tribulations await me.

Acts 20:22–24

Sounds like peace, right?

No.

But none of these things move me, nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy and the ministry which I receive from the Lord Jesus Christ to testify of the gospel of God's grace.

I'm not sure I like this idea, is what Paul said.

I'm not sure that I like what God has told me, but God's moving me in this direction, so I must do it regardless of my feelings.

Now, does it sound like Paul used peace or did he use conviction to make his decision?

He didn't need supernatural peace for the decision, he needed conviction.

It said there, I am bound by the Spirit to go.

And where I go, I'm probably gonna get beat up.

I'm probably gonna face tribulation, but I'm bound.

You see, peace has become this for our culture.

When I feel at ease or at comfort about a decision, then I know that it must be right from God.

Let me tell you, church, some of the godliest decisions that you may ever make will be riddled with questions, riddled with uncertainty, feelings of insecurity will overwhelm you and not peace.

Peace has become an excuse for inactivity, or worse, like Jonah, wrong activity.

Before all other things, we think this, but it's conviction.

You see, it says here in this scripture what happened to Jonah in verse 1, it was the word of the Lord to bring conviction.

You know what happens when we ignore the word of the Lord?

He said, Go to Nineveh.

He didn't say pray, he didn't say seek counsel, he said go.

And Jonah hated Nineveh.

He had a conflict of how he felt and what he was being told.

You ever had a conflict before?

When Heather and I first started um dating, and as we got along closer to marriage, Heather said to me one interesting phrase.

She said, I'll do anything in the world with you.

Anything.

I'll do anything for God except be a pastor's wife.

It's interesting how God works.

And you see, I didn't start out wanting to go in ministry.

So she was good, and I was good, and we were good.

But all of a sudden, God started changing my heart and direction, and I remember the conflict.

But here's the thing beyond the conflict was this her heart was surrendered to what God would have.

And when your heart is surrendered to what God has, you're willing to change.

Even if your feelings don't want to go along with you, you're willing to change.

And I'm so thankful for the surrender.

I'm so thankful for what God has done.

That we didn't look at a conflict and trust our feelings.

You see, Jonah was conflicted, but secondly, letter B Jonah was complacent.

The word complacent means to be self-satisfied, satisfied with my current place.

Listen to me.

The Bible says, Poor is he who works with a slack hand, the hand of the diligent will prosper.

That's Proverbs 10:4.

Proverbs 10:4

Proverbs 132 says, the complacency of fools will destroy them.

Jonah gotten complacent.

You're complacent when you're no longer striving to do better than what you're doing.

You cannot, church, listen to me, you cannot continue operating off of an old playbook.

Because it worked 10 years ago really well doesn't mean it's still 10 years ago.

And so we have to continue growing.

Y'all remember computer class?

Maybe somebody from, you know, you're born in the 67.

You remember computer class?

I had computer class in 1998, and it was typing.

And that's it.

That's all we did.

Y'all kids with computer class now, it's not anything like that.

If we type 45 words per minute, I could get an A.

That was computer class.

And I still don't know the home row keys, but I got an A.

Because I can get it.

I can get it like this.

I didn't do it the way the teacher wanted, but I got me an A still.

But computer class has changed a lot.

If we were living off a computer class from back then, right?

We can't live off of the glory days.

We have to keep growing.

We get complacent.

We get static.

We have to keep growing and learning.

We have to keep worshiping.

Man, the problem sometimes with church on Sunday is this like it should be a continuation of what you've been doing all week.

Your worship should be growing to this point a crescendo, but instead we're trying to raise the dead up in here on Sundays.

We got to continue and grow.

This is one day, one moment.

You see, Jonah couldn't quite get a grasp of how amazing the testimony would be when he went to his merciless enemies and proclaimed the mercy of Jesus Christ before them.

How great that testimony was going to be, how captivating it would be, bigger than all of his previous revival meetings.

You see, he was stuck thinking, I just want to keep doing what I'm doing.

I just want to stay right here.

I want to stay.

I'm very comfortable in my feelings, right where I'm at.

Let me tell you something, church, in the work of the Almighty, man, he'll call you to something sometimes that's really exciting.

He'll call you to get all in.

That's what happened for Heather and myself and our calling here.

God said, Go.

We knew that.

She knew it instantaneously.

It took me a little while longer.

But I can tell you this: we were not searching our soul for what was gonna be ease or comfort.

We had probably a lot more comfort with what we were doing.

I didn't come to Chelsea with peace in my circumstances.

I really didn't.

I I had very we cried for seven to ten days leaving the town that we had grown, all of our adult relationships.

I'm telling you, it was it was a snot fest trying to get out of that town.

Like, please don't show up one more day.

Just let us just cry it out alone, right?

And so it was not peace.

I had no idea how the living situation was gonna be.

We were to move in with the Wilsons.

We have been adults for 10 years, never lived with another human being.

I'm gonna walk around with people in their house, with my kids, that are gonna keep you up and disturb everything.

This is God's way of giving us peace.

Man, I wasn't peace.

New schools, my kids had no friends.

New church people, will they accept you?

I knew this.

We knew this.

God said, Go.

Praise the Lord.

Listen, it was another thing, my home.

We knew it wouldn't sell.

We were in a bad market, we bought at a bad time, everything was bad.

I'm telling you, 1884, the house was built.

Everything was bad.

Don't if you want to get Heather on something, look, let's talk about our old house.

But everything was bad.

I knew it wouldn't sell.

We do, I you shouldn't know things like that.

You just trust God and say, God, you're gonna do it.

But instead, I said, God, I know it can't sell.

And I was too right.

And so for two years, we had a house that didn't sell, and God was working things out.

I'll praise the Lord.

I am still excited when I open up Facebook and it reminds me that my household.

I'm like, yes!

It's been like five years now.

I'm like, yes, God, you did it.

It was the biggest miracle.

But listen, we this is one thing that the position that God allowed us to be in, everything that we had had to that point in our life, and this is God, this is not me, but everything that we had had to our that point in our life, everything that we had saved, it took everything we had to get out of our house.

And so here I am in this whole new life, and everything as an adult that I had was gone.

And this is what I can look my kids in the eyes and say, I don't know how, I don't know why, I don't know what, but this is what I do know, kids.

I trust him.

I know who, I know who can do it, I know who can guide you, I know who.

I want you to look at your neighbor and say, I know who.

You see, Jonah had a trust issue.

Go to a terrorist nation?

Now look, that's tough.

When you say that I trust God, what's it really mean to you?

You cannot be complacent and be surrendered.

It doesn't work together.

The second thing this morning is this the travail from the gale.

Look at verse 4 and 5.

It says again, The Lord, the Lord sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship was about to be broken up.

Then the mariners were afraid, and every man cried out to his God and threw the cargo that was in the ship in the sea, the light, and the low.

But Jonah had gone down the lowest part of the ship, and had laid down and was fast asleep.

The gale, the travail from the gale.

It says here that the Lord sent out a storm.

The Greek word is the word hurl.

I remember the first time I heard this word.

I was young, and it was in reference to Nolan Ryan throwing his seventh no-hitter.

It says he hurled a no-hitter.

It means to throw something with great speed or with violence.

God, whose size and depth is immeasurable, hurls something at Jonah.

Now that's travail, church.

And I love it in scripture.

I don't know about you.

I love it when God involves weather, leaves no room for anybody to debate who was in control.

In Psalms 147 8, it says he doesn't need a weather forecast.

God created rain to flood the earth.

In Genesis.

In 1 Kings 8, it says he withheld that same reign as a punishment over the earth.

It says the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because they've sinned against us.

In Joshua 10, 11, it says, God introduces hail.

He throws hailstones at the Amorite army, killing soldiers.

God involves weather.

What about in the recent history in this century?

What about that, Pastor?

Have you ever read up on Washington crossing the Delaware River?

It's Christmas 1776.

And there's one reason that this revolutionary war continued and his forces were able to surprise and defeat the enemy.

Do you know that reason?

It was snow.

Snow kept them.

And then later on, they're in a place where the enemy could have attacked, and God sent fog over the river so they couldn't be seen.

God got a hold of the weather.

And God started shaking that ship.

And it's interesting.

The ship is saying, and we see the mariners here, they're scared.

But what's it say Jonah did?

Jonah got down to the bottom of the ship and Jonah went to sleep.

Now I don't, it doesn't say this, but it seems to me like Jonah's depressed.

Didn't like the assignment.

He boarded the ship and he was just going to get away.

So he went in, trying to get away, emotional, and tried to sleep.

Look at what it says in verse 6.

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

Arise, call on your God.

Perhaps your God will consider us so that we may not perish.

I think church, sometimes when the trial is so strong and so much, people get down, they get depressed.

You ever felt like that?

Oh, you just you just want to go to sleep?

You ever felt like that?

The day has been hard.

I just want to sleep.

The week has been riddled with storms.

I just want to go to sleep.

It's too hard to face the reality of things.

I just want to sleep.

Jonah very possibly wanted to take his life.

It says that later on.

We'll get to that around chapter 4.

Jonah was just down.

He could not with his feelings grasp that this is what God had called, and he was dealing from his feelings instead of conviction.

He might have wanted to be dead.

And this Jonah knew God can't use the dead.

He wanted Jonah to wake up.

When you go 2,500 miles away from God, you can expect bad weather.

It's not that surprising to have travail.

The Bible says that we reap what we sow.

Listen to me, God might have to wake us up.

Sometimes a storm is to wake us up.

Well, the gale was surprising, let it be.

The gale was strong.

In verse 1, it says that the word of the Lord came to Jonah.

In verse 5, it's no longer the word of the Lord, but the work of the Lord.

He sends a work.

He's no longer speaking to and through Jonah.

He sends a work so that Jonah would see God.

This is a work of a Lord God who's omnipresent.

His size can't be measured.

And it says he put a storm in his hand.

Remember singing a song as a little kid?

He's got the whole world in his hands.

And so he takes a storm, it says, and he hurls it to the ship.

And it says that the ship was threatened to break.

Look down at verse 8 through 10.

I want you to see what's going on on the ship.

Then they said to him, Please tell us, for whose cause is this trouble upon us?

Who is what is your occupation and where do you come from?

What is your country?

And of what people are you from?

So he said to them, I am a Hebrew.

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

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

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

And so they say, Who are you?

What is this?

Why is this?

Where have you come from?

Why are we in the middle of this storm?

Let me tell you something.

Not only is your storm affecting you, but there's some innocent bystanders that could be affected by the storm you go through.

And these men are at the mercy of a God who is angry at Jonah running from his call.

He said, I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made interesting, the sea.

Now it says the men were very afraid.

And I want you to understand what I think God is doing right here.

God is showing out of nothing he can start a strong storm.

I want you to look over at Mark chapter 4 for a second.

Mark 4 · chapter mention

Look at Mark chapter 4, verse 35.

Mark 4:35

This is a similar story, but contrast some of the points.

In Jonah's story, God starts a storm out of nothing, and it begins to beat and break on this boat.

Mark chapter 4, verse 35, it says, On the same day when evening had come, he said to them, Let us cross to the other side.

Mark 4:35

Now when they had left the multitude, they took him along in the boat as he was in other little boats.

And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat so that it was already filling.

But he was in the stern, asleep on a pillow.

And they awoke him and said to him, Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?

Then he arose, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, Peace be still.

And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.

But he said to them, Why are you so fearful?

How is it that you have no faith?

And they feared exceeding and said one to another, Who can this be?

That even the wind and the sea obeys him.

So in Mark, a storm arises, it's beating the boat, gets in the boat.

The disciples were flailing, falling, fearful.

They run to Jesus, and he is asleep.

And Jesus gets up and goes like this.

Shh.

Walks over to the wind.

That'll be enough.

Stop.

And so we see with Jonah, he can send a storm out of nothing.

And we see in Mark that he can stop a storm out of nothing.

And so God is in charge of the storm.

Jonah walked into a storm that God was in charge of.

Well, I'm glad that it doesn't stop with just that.

I want you to turn down to verse 15 through 17.

Let's look at the assist from a fish.

Verse 15 through 17 it says, So they picked up Jonah and they threw him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging.

Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly and offered a sacrifice to the Lord and took vows.

Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah.

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

You know, there was a little girl talking about the story of Jonah, and she was talking to her teacher about whales, and she said, teacher said, It is physically impossible for a whale to swallow a grown man, even though a whale has a very large throat that it's too small to swallow a man.

The little girl said, But Jonah was swallowed by a whale.

The teacher reiterated, a whale could not swallow a man.

It's impossible.

The little girl said, When I get to heaven, I will ask Jonah.

And the teacher said, Well, what if Jonah didn't go to heaven?

The little girl said, Then you'll have to ask him.

Is it just a nursery rhyme?

Is it just Mother Goose story?

Or is this book the literal word of God?

If it is, it's all true.

Josephus, the historian, reiterates the details of Jonah.

Interesting to note, he put in that booklet where the lost city of Nineveh was rediscovered, it was found.

Listen to this, buried beneath a pair of mounds in the vicinity of Masul.

This is modern day Iraq.

And these mounds, also known by its local name, is Naba Yunus.

Okay, in modern day Iraq, where they found Nineveh, which happens to be Arabic.

Naba Yunus happens to be Arabic for this, the prophet Jonah.

Still today, continuing on.

And so we see, is this just Mother Goose?

Skeptics scoff at the miracles that are described in Jonah as if there were no mechanism which such events could occur.

But as Christians, we're inclined to believe that there is one, listen to me, who is capable of manipulating natural phenomena in supernatural ways.

We believe that the creator of the universe is not detained by the laws within it.

We believe that God sent Jonah to Nineveh, and in the process, he was swallowed by a great fish.

There's a lady named Grace Kellogg in her book, called The Bible Today, it identifies two sea creatures that could swallow a man.

There's the blue whale and the whale shark.

Neither of these creatures has any teeth, and they feed by opening their large mouth and swooping down, and their jaw drops, and they go rapidly towards a creature or towards feeding, taking sustenance.

If you're depending on logic, Christianity might not be for you.

We believe that three people make up one person called the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Is that logical?

We believe that a virgin gave birth.

Is that logical?

Christianity might not be for you if you're looking for logic from man.

It's not far-fetched to believe that a great God could make a great fish that could swallow a little tiny man.

Could have been a great giraffe, could have been a great grasshopper.

What's harder to believe is the logic of people today than the things that they're swallowed up with.

You probably turned on your TV yesterday, and there were people in the freezing cold with letters painted on their naked chest.

Watching people throw a piece of leather and they were chanting, go! Oh, they're swallowed up with something.

It's probably harder to believe the countless hours that people spend scrolling mindless things.

Hours.

If you check your hours for the week, you might go, oh man, people are swallowed up with something.

We try to use man's logic.

Give me a break.

Well, more importantly, what did Jesus have to say about the matter?

Well, I'm glad that you asked.

Turn your Bibles to Matthew chapter 12.

Matthew 12 · chapter mention

What did Jesus have to say about the story of Jonah?

Matthew chapter 12, verse 39 and 40.

Matthew 12:39

Scribes and Pharisees are seeking for a sign from Jesus.

Verse 39, but he answered and said to them, An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it, except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

For as Jonah, words of Jesus, written and read in my Bible, for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

And so Jesus references the story of Jonah to reference that soon he's gonna die on a cross, and soon he's gonna go into a grave.

But soon, much like Jonah, he's gonna be in that grave, but he's gonna be out of that grave too.

And so he was referencing this story of Jonah.

By the way, maybe you just like to study and go through some things.

Uh, looking through this in February of 1891, stories surfaced of a man, very, very lot of controversy on it, but you can look it up.

A man by the name of James Bartlett went on a whaling expedition, and his friends nearby said he was thrown from the ship, and that eyewitness believed he was to be seen falling in the mouth of a whale.

Spent three days, and the story shows that his friends were able to uh they captured the whale and they began to cut him free from it, and his skin was said to never be the same after this.

Story of James Barlow.

On his tombstone to this day are etched the words the modern day Jonah.

Well, in 2000 and I think it was 20 or 21, I've got a photo.

I want you to see a picture of Michael Packard.

This is Michael Packard.

He's at the hospital.

Um, he's a lobster diver, and his story was that he was swallowed by a humpback whale.

Now he wasn't in it three days.

He was swallowed and he was in the humpback whale for about a minute's time and came back up and he's living fine.

You can look up this story now.

Here's the question: Is this book literal?

It's not nursery rhyme.

But what was the purpose of the fish?

I'm glad that you want to know that.

The fish's purpose was this letter A.

It was an assist for preservation.

For preservation.

Look at verse 11 and 12.

Then they said to him, What shall we do to you so that the sea may calm for us?

For the sea was growing more tempestuous.

And he said, Then pick me up and throw me into the sea.

Then the sea will become calm for you.

I know this, that the great tempest is because of me.

Jonah said, Here's this word again used here, hurl me into the sea.

Hurl me.

Again, I think Jonah maybe just wanted to die.

Verse 15 says, So they hurled Jonah.

Once they got rid of Jonah, guess what?

The storm receded.

Listen to me, church.

Once you get rid of the root of the problem, the situation can have a solution.

Once you get rid of infection, the sickness will go away.

1 John 1 9 says, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.

You see, God's mercy is best seen in the midst of Jonah's storm.

God wanted to use his mercy.

He wanted to use it on Jonah.

That's why this great fish wanted to use it on Jonah so that Jonah would have a story of mercy when he reached his enemy.

God did not want Jonah to die without a second chance.

God did not want the Ninevites to die without a second chance.

And church, God did not want you and me to die and leave this earth without another chance.

He loves us.

Psalms 138, verse 7 says, Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life.

Psalms 138:7

Let me ask you a question.

How better equipped is a man to take the gospel to a merciless nation than a man who has now faced a great storm and experience the mercy of God?

Who can help an alcoholic but an alcoholic?

Who can help somebody who's been through divorce, like someone who's been through divorce?

Who can help somebody through their burden?

You're going through a burden, but it's not without a purpose, church.

God wants to use your burden and your storm, and he wants to show his self to you through it so you can be a help.

Jonah hated the Nineveh.

Think about the last time that you needed help.

Imagine Jonah tossed into the sea, thinks maybe he's going to die, has given up.

And next thing you know, the ride got bouncy.

I don't know what it looks like to get thrown into the belly of a great fish, but at minimal, it sounds exciting.

And so he's bouncing around thinking this is it.

Just toss.

Everything's so depressing with him.

Just it's me.

Just throw me over.

Just toss me out.

I know it's me.

Go ahead.

The storm will recede.

Just get rid of me.

I'm the problem.

And next thing you know, he's sliding down this tongue into this belly.

And he needs help.

All of a sudden, he's not trying to sleep on a bed.

All of a sudden, he's not trying to forget it.

He's in the middle of a storm that's God of his attention.

And when you're in the middle of the storm, what do you think?

All of life around you stops, right?

When the storm is so real, your kid begins to choke on something right there.

You don't think about the music that's on, anything that's happening later, your counsel, all plans, because right there in front of you is a great storm that needs all of your undivided attention.

And so Jonah, all of his attention is going down in the belly of a fish, and in his mind he goes, I need help.

Church, I want you to understand there's three kinds of storms that come.

There's storms of perfecting, there's storms of protecting, and there's storms of correcting.

Perfecting storms are storms like Job received.

If you want to read about perfecting, just read the book of Job.

It's kind of depressing too, but it ends well.

And so Job, God begins to test his servant and begins to test him to see where he's at, and he tests him and he tests him.

And he's trying to chisel down pieces of him that might not be perfected, and he chisels and chisels and chisels.

And at the end of his story, he's a better man for it.

And God will use storms in your life to keep you from getting complacent.

God will throw storms in your life to test you.

Well, then there's storms of protection, which is like what the disciples went through.

They're in the middle of the boat and they're calling out for Jesus.

They just need Jesus.

And so God will send a storm so that you'll be reminded that He can help you.

And then there's storms of correcting, and that's what Jonah's walking through.

He was wrong, dead wrong, looking to his feelings.

Listen to me, looking to his feelings instead of his conviction.

Well, how do I feel about that?

Listen to me.

That's the wrong question.

How does God feel about what he said?

What is God telling you to do?

And so there is a storm coming, church.

One of those storms is always coming.

And I've heard pastors say you're either in it, going through it, or it's coming.

God had prepared, though, a life preserver like no other.

And if you ever had to have a raft thrown out to you, I have.

I've been, I had a lifeguard save my life.

I had some boys save, right?

I never had a whale.

And Jonah, here comes the life preserver that God uses.

The assist letter B is for passage.

Look at verse 17.

Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah.

That word prepared is important there.

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

That word, the beginning phrase, the Lord had prepared the word man now, it's Greek word for appointed.

God appointed that great fish.

It was the appointed fish for the anointed prophet, and that's what God did.

And no sooner the mariner said, one, two, three, he.

God said, Shamu! And in came, caught him alive Jonah.

Jonah got the undersea Uber, right?

Three days and three nights special under the sea.

This was better than Atlantis.

Listen, there's a lot of debate about where the fish spat Jonah up, and we'll look at that more in detail later.

But this we know, he traveled three days and three nights on the undersea Uber, somewhere.

Why is that so?

God was taking him where he wanted to take him.

God was using the storm in his life.

Come on, someone, listen to me.

God was using.

Using the storm to get him somewhere.

Have you ever been in a storm and on the other side of it, you look back and went, huh?

That's what God was doing.

He was using the storm to get him somewhere.

He needed to be in a different place.

What about you?

He needed a reset.

He needed to get his head cleared.

Well, he had three days and three nights.

If it had not been, listen to me, for the great fish, Jonah on his own would have died.

Which is what Jonah probably wanted.

But it wasn't what God wanted.

Aren't you thankful so many times for the thing that God sent instead of the thing that you wanted?

Aren't you thankful for God and his omniscience knowing Jonah would have died?

How long can you hold your breath?

Navy SEAL is the best in the world.

They practice for two to three minutes.

That's their practice drilling.

A lot of them can go five to six minutes underwater.

None of them three days.

Listen to me, church.

Every breath, God decided you would have it.

Every moment that you're without disease, every time that you don't die, it's in God's protective control.

God sent the storm, but he also sent the fish.

God's mercy for Nineveh was great, but his love for them was greater.

And God's mercy for Jonah in this scenario, he was relentless.

He wouldn't give up on him.

Jonah said, Toss me in the sea.

He wouldn't even allow him the thing that would free him.

God instead read a plan to use him.

He sent a three-day storm.

Listen to me.

Hear this.

He sent a storm to Jonah as an act of mercy.

Y'all hear me.

Sometimes you're missing that the thing that's troubling you so badly is God.

And he's sending you a storm as an act of mercy because he's got a plan for the other side of it.

If you will surrender, he wants to use you.

Don't miss the weight of what I just said.

Sometimes God in his mercy sends a storm so we can get safe passage somewhere further down the shore, somewhere closer to the road of rehabilitation instead of the road of rebellion.

God sends us through the storm who is light years ahead of you and has a better plan than you could ever imagine.

And he knows what the end road is.

And if you don't get on board, listen to me.

You can get swallowed up.

You can get swallowed up.

Church, listen today, won't you trust in him?

He has a flawless resume.

He's so good.

Remember in the Old Testament when his people were caught up in slavery in Egypt?

God rescued them.

And then he parted the sea, and then God delivered their enemies to them.

And then God provided water from a rock for them.

And then God provided manna from heaven.

And then God brought down the walls of Jericho.

And then God froze the sun for a day while they were battling.

And then God toppled giants with tiny stones.

And then God brought fire from heaven.

And he shut the mouths of lions.

And listen to me, he's fed thousands with a few loaves.

And he gives the weak strength.

And he's made the blind to see, the deaf to hear, he's made the mute to speak and the lame to walk.

And he's overcome evil.

And God's made a way through death for you so that you, through the blood of his son, could live forever and ever and ever.

If he can do all that, of course, he sent a storm because of Jonah's lack of mercy.

And of course, he could preserve him in the belly of a fish.

And of course, listen to me and I'm done.

If you're in a storm today, of course, he's still there.

Some of you earlier, you raised your hand, you said, I'm in a storm right there.

Of course, he's there with his loving mercy like a father.

Psalm says, Pityeth his children, so he knows our frame.

He loves you, but he wants you to get past your feelings and follow him.

So a couple of quick things.

So what do you do when you run into a storm?

Pastor, help me practically.

Couple of quick things, and we'll have invitation.

Number one, if you run into a real life storm, number one, remind yourself of God's promises over and over.

Remind yourself of his promises and his truth.

Number two, listen to me.

Somebody going through something, you can handle what you can handle.

Take one day at a time.

Take one day at a time.

Listen to me, church.

Number three, if sin is withholding you from following God, confess.

You've got to verbalize your sin to shed it.

Number four, don't be like Jonah here.

Number four, refuse to give up.

Refuse to give up.

Don't give Satan one inch of you in that way.

You refuse it.

And number five, be sure that you are fully and totally surrendered.

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