When the walls close in

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, good morning, everyone.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Um, now.

[SPEAKER_00]: Vin led us through a message last Sunday on Jonah and the bonus part about today is that I'm also going to do a message on Jonah except it's going to be on the chapters that Vin didn't do because Vin did the chapters that I'm not doing so it's going to be great we're looking forward to it and the title of the message is when the walls close in.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, almost everyone knows what claustrophobia feels like.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't get claustrophobic, you would understand what claustrophobia is.

[SPEAKER_00]: For some people, it's elevators.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't get into it.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's just to include some people that's caves, caving, no way, never doing it, never going into a cave.

[SPEAKER_00]: For others, it can be something just the simply the thought.

[SPEAKER_00]: of being in a tight enclosed quiet space.

[SPEAKER_00]: It just that feeling that the walls are getting closer and closer and closer.

[SPEAKER_00]: And isn't there seasons in our life where our lives become unexpectedly small?

[SPEAKER_00]: where it feels like the wall's start to close in.

[SPEAKER_00]: Were the options that you thought that you had?

[SPEAKER_00]: I know longer there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you had big dreams in a certain area.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it feels like those dreams have just been dashed or you had a golden ticket to a really great experience in all of a sudden that ticket just evaporated or faded and went away.

[SPEAKER_00]: Options get narrow in the future that seemed open now and feels impossible.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know what it is?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's that, you know, that doctor's phone call, or the redundancy email, or the grief that settles into a home after the loss of a loved one.

[SPEAKER_00]: Anxiety that follows you to bed at night.

[SPEAKER_00]: The walls begin to close in and there's something sort of unsettling about confinement.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's something strange about it because I think we know as humans that we're designed for wide open places.

[SPEAKER_00]: the vistas that feel our hearts with inspiration and sometimes even with courage, are those ones where you're standing, looking out at an endless ocean, or you stand there at a fence line, looking out into an open pasture or plain.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're meant for those places.

[SPEAKER_00]: The wonder of being able to lie away can see stars at night, endless experience before us.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're made.

[SPEAKER_00]: For those kinds of experiences and yet our lives so often start to creep in and in and in and it feels like those walls are getting closer and closer and closer.

[SPEAKER_00]: One moment you wake up and you realize your world has become small.

[SPEAKER_00]: The freedoms you had, the future you imagined of all narrowed down.

[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes,

[SPEAKER_00]: When the walls close in around us, our prayers start to get really small too.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't they?

[SPEAKER_00]: You start to pray small prayers.

[SPEAKER_00]: Tiny prayers, little moments, and maybe it's where it's in those experiences of life that Jonah's story and that this passage of scripture becomes surprisingly relevant.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've almost stopped reading it, you know?

[SPEAKER_00]: We know, oh, yeah, it's this prophet who runs away from God, gets swallowed by a fish, gets spat out and then argues with God about a tree, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: And then we go, oh, that's done.

[SPEAKER_00]: The stories over, I've got it nailed it, close up the book, let's move to the next.

[SPEAKER_00]: But this is one of the darkest books in the Old Testament about rebellion, mercy, resentment, grace.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jonah spends most of the story resisting God, a God who he claims to serve.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yet we find one of the most beautiful prayers in all of Scripture right here, so we're gonna read it together.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it says this, Jonah prays to the Lord, his God from the belly of the fish, and we pick it up in verse two, saying, I called out to the Lord out of my distress, and he answered me.

[SPEAKER_00]: out of the belly of she-all, which is the Hebrew word for the grave, or the place of the dead, I cried, and you heard my voice, for you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the floods surrounded me.

[SPEAKER_00]: All of your breakers in your waves passed over me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then I said, I'm driven away from your sight.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yet I shall, again, look upon your holy temple.

[SPEAKER_00]: The water's closed in over me in order to take my life.

[SPEAKER_00]: The deep surrounded me, the weeds were wrapped about my head to the Mount Roots of the mountains.

[SPEAKER_00]: I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yet, you brought my life up from the pit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, Lord, my God.

[SPEAKER_00]: When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord and my prayer came to you into your holy temple.

[SPEAKER_00]: Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love, but I, with the voice of thanks, giving will sacrifice to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: What I have vowed, I will pay salvation belongs to the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Jonah is unlike every other prophet.

[SPEAKER_00]: Isaiah stands before the Lord and sees the glory of God and the angels singing holy, holy, holy, and what does Isaiah say to God's call?

[SPEAKER_00]: Here am I, send me.

[SPEAKER_00]: God speaks to Jeremiah and says, I've appointed you to be a prophet to the nations from the very womb I've called you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Jeremiah's like, oh, I think I'll go.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm young, but I think I'll go.

[SPEAKER_00]: And later on, he'll say his word is like a fire.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're stored up in my bones.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm weary of containing it.

[SPEAKER_00]: We hear prophet after prophet, going, yes, Lord, yes, Lord, yes, Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna go, but not Jonah.

[SPEAKER_00]: God says to Jonah, go to Nine over this place.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to preach against it for its wickedness to come up against me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Jonah says, absolutely not.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, I'm going to go in geographically the opposite direction.

[SPEAKER_00]: And not only did he buy a ticket on a boat, he bought the boat.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's how bad it was.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's how hard he was trying to get away.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was not making sure that that boat was not going to be late.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you pay for the boat, you can make sure it's on time.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he was going in the opposite direction until the storm comes and what is Jonah say to the sailors who are obviously more have more faith filled than him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jonah says throw me into the ocean and the storm will become calm.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is, I want you to kill me.

[SPEAKER_00]: No one back in the ancient Near-Easted Swimming lessons every Tuesday morning.

[SPEAKER_00]: There was no swimming between the flags.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you get thrown into the ocean, in the middle of a storm, guess what?

[SPEAKER_00]: You're a skeleton at the bottom.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're part of, you know, you're in David Jones's locker.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's game over for you, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: You are done.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yet, something miraculous happens.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord of Points of Fish, as well as Jonah Robb.

[SPEAKER_00]: And for three days, everything stops.

[SPEAKER_00]: no running, no escaping, no preaching, no distractions, just Jonah, just darkness, just silence and just God.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's two observations I wanna make about this text before we get into the points.

[SPEAKER_00]: The first one is this, that the fish is never judgment.

[SPEAKER_00]: in this passage, it's God's provision, which is interesting because the story book version of Jonah and the whale Jonah and the big fish is that Jonah is bad and so he gets swallowed by a fish and that's his punishment.

[SPEAKER_00]: You sit in stomach acid juices, you sit in silence because you've been bad, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: The observation here is not that Jonah that the fish is judgment but that the fish is provision.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord appointed a fish, we're told.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that word is used over and over and over again in Jonah.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord appoints a fish, the Lord appoints the plant, the Lord appoints the worm, and the Lord appoints the wind.

[SPEAKER_00]: Everything is under God's sovereignty, especially the fish.

[SPEAKER_00]: See what sometimes feels like imprisonment is actually provision.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes what feels like imprisonment is actually preservation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes those places that feel like God's absence is God's mercy wearing unfamiliar clothes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, how many times have you experienced this in hindsight?

[SPEAKER_00]: And you went up and you go, go up one morning and you're like, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this and my life's gonna look like this and I'm gonna move through these doors and then it happens, boom, boom, boom, doors closed, options shut, can't go that way, can't go that way, can't go that way, unexpected problem, this is wrong, this has gone bad and then you say to yourself, oh my gosh, the Lord must hate me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right, everything, nothing's worked out.

[SPEAKER_00]: Everything's gone bad.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then what happens?

[SPEAKER_00]: Two, three weeks later, two, three months later, two, three years later.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you realize, oh, he wasn't closing me out.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was protecting me.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was saving me from something that I didn't know was about to happen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Anyone?

[SPEAKER_00]: We only find it out in hindsight, but what good parent would give their children things that were going to destroy them.

[SPEAKER_00]: The fish feels like imprisonment, but it's actually preservation.

[SPEAKER_00]: God is being merciful to Jonah, it's just that he doesn't know it at the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: The season that felt barren, and we grew roots, we would have never developed in comfort.

[SPEAKER_00]: His mercies don't always arrive wrapped in relief.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes they're wrapped in inconvenience, disappointment, or waiting.

[SPEAKER_00]: Grace comes to us disguised in the very thing we would never choose for ourselves.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Guys, this is going to get good.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so just so hang in there, all right?

[SPEAKER_00]: There is good news that's coming.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll tell you what else is crazy about this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Is it in this entire passage?

[SPEAKER_00]: Jonah never asks to get out.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, I'll tell you the first thing I'm doing.

[SPEAKER_00]: I get swallowed by that fish and I'm like, Lord, give me out of here!

[SPEAKER_00]: Ah!

[SPEAKER_00]: Banging on the inside of a kind of mushy soft surface, making no sound.

[SPEAKER_00]: trying to get out and the one thing Jonah does is not us to get out.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, he's praise.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, he says he gives thanks.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, he offers worship.

[SPEAKER_00]: He does all of these things, but the one thing you will not find in this prayer is Lord, get me out of this fish.

[SPEAKER_00]: He remembers God, he praises God, he promises obedience, but he never says, get me out.

[SPEAKER_00]: Which is crazy because we think that this whole story is about Jonah getting out of the fish.

[SPEAKER_00]: What if this whole story is about God getting inside a Jonah?

[SPEAKER_00]: The transformation work of Jonah's life had already begun, because he was able to surrender to it.

[SPEAKER_00]: The deepest miracle of Jonah chapter 2 is not that a fish will eventually spit him out on to dry land.

Jonah 2 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_00]: The deepest miracle is that while the darkness remains the same, Jonah's heart does not eat changes.

[SPEAKER_00]: So before he changes Jonah's location, he changes Jonah's posture.

[SPEAKER_00]: Which I think is something beautiful for us to think about.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I wanna say to you, the big idea today is this guys, the deepest places of God's work in your life happens in places that you would never choose to be.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry, it's a hard one.

[SPEAKER_00]: No one says I meant to that because no one wants that to be true.

[SPEAKER_00]: No one wants it to be true.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want it to be true.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I know it's true because the most, the deepest places of God's work in my life have happened in places I would rather not be.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he's a master at using those situations to form Christ's likeness inside of us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Despite our yelling and carrying on, God's mercy continues to do its beautiful work in us.

[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't change our circumstances always.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes he changes us in the circumstances.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so in this place, when we were, we're saying, God, get us out of this fish.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's the fish that becomes God's workshop of grace, yeah?

[SPEAKER_00]: The way that He molds and shapes us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, if you're in this tight spot, now I know, this can happen in any season of life.

[SPEAKER_00]: You could be young, you could be older, you could be young in faith, you could be more mature in faith, and every single one is a universal human experience where you think, oh, well, that didn't work out.

[SPEAKER_00]: And now the walls are closing in and I don't feel like I've got any room to go.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've got no options, I can't go that way, I can't go that way, I can't go that way, I can't go that way I can't go that way I can't go that way I can't go that way I can't go that way I can't go that way I can't go that way I can't go that way I can't go that way I can't go that way I can't go that way I can't go that way I can't go that way I can't go that way I can't go that way I can't go that way I can't go that way I can't go that way I can't go that way I can't go that way I can't go that way I can't go that way I can't go that way I can't go that way I can't go that way I can't go that way I can't go that way I can't go that way I can't go that

[SPEAKER_00]: This is one of the most remarkable things about chapter two, about that prayer, that prayer we just read.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because if you've read any other parts of the Bible, if you've done a cursory reading across all of Scripture, what does Jonah chapter two look like?

[SPEAKER_00]: What does it remind you of?

[SPEAKER_00]: What other book or what other part of the Bible does it remind you of?

[SPEAKER_00]: It looks like a Psalm doesn't it?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like when you read it through, I called to the Lord in my distress, he answered me out of the belly of shale.

[SPEAKER_00]: It sounds like a Psalm doesn't it?

[SPEAKER_00]: Doesn't it?

[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to, just go to your Psalms now and have a look and do a little compare.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you'll be like, oh yeah, that looks pretty similar.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now tell you why, because it basically is one.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nearly every single line of Jonah's prayer is lifted from one of the Psalms.

[SPEAKER_00]: Goans check Psalm 18.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's an echo in Psalm 42.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's an echo in Psalm 69.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's an echo in Psalm 120.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's an echo in Psalm 130.

[SPEAKER_00]: And who's this?

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the obstinate prophet who's running away from God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now all of a sudden inside the belly of the fish sounds like Israel's greatest worship leader.

[SPEAKER_00]: He sounds like he's in there, he's gonna, like, lift up the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he's just been running from God this entire time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, what's happened here is that suffering has this strange way of revealing what's inside you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Think about it, you're like a sponge, and all of life is squeezing things out of you.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, suffering doesn't create theology, it just reveals theology.

[SPEAKER_00]: We find out what you believe by when you're going through it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there are things that happen to you and things that come out of you that only suffering will reveal.

[SPEAKER_00]: It can be our friend to show us what's actually going on.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so the beautiful thing here about Jonah is his field is heart before he needs it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so inside of that fish, when everything is getting squeezed, what comes out of him?

[SPEAKER_00]: Psalm 18, Psalm 42, Psalm 120, Psalm 130, Psalm 69.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what comes out of him.

[SPEAKER_00]: When a life starts to squeeze on you, what's gonna come out?

[SPEAKER_00]: Jonah has, here's the thing we think about this.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the coloring in book bedtime story version.

[SPEAKER_00]: We see Jonah sitting there inside the belly of the fish.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's got his Bible out.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's got his little lighter so he can read it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he's gonna study in the scriptures

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not what's happening.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's covered in fish.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's in a tight spot, and what comes out is scripture.

[SPEAKER_00]: So fill your heart before you need it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Before you need the moment to call out to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the time to call out to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Before you need it.

[SPEAKER_00]: In a church I grew up in those, it's old a guy, and it was very frustrating to talk to him because he would get every five minutes, he'd be standing, having conversation in the foil, like you're at that, eating chips, having coffee, and every couple of minutes, he'd look in his pocket into a little piece of paper and put it away.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so you just have any conversation, oh, all of a sudden, he's just like, just ignores you for a second, and he puts it like that, back like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: What is going on with this guy?

[SPEAKER_00]: 15, 20 times a day, he's pulling out a scripture, a Bible verse, that he's written down on a little piece of paper and he keeps it in his pocket, and he stares at it, looks at it and puts it away.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because if you do that 15, 20 times a day, guess what?

[SPEAKER_00]: tomorrow you're not doing it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because it's in your heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's uploaded to the hard drive.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've got it there forever, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's locked in.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's why scripture memorization has always been a really, a really key part of Christian discipleship, because you know the word in your heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: So then when tough times come, because they will.

[SPEAKER_00]: What gets squeezed out of you is the text.

[SPEAKER_00]: What gets squeezed out of you is God's word itself.

[SPEAKER_00]: So feel your heart before you need it.

[SPEAKER_00]: What comes out of you in life squeezes you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Is it anxiety?

[SPEAKER_00]: Is it anger?

[SPEAKER_00]: Is it social media posts?

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like, what comes out of you when life is starting to squeeze you?

[SPEAKER_00]: Or is it the promises of God?

[SPEAKER_00]: David said, I've hidden your word in my heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: So David said, so fill your heart before you need it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Secondly, is this gratitude changes the atmosphere before circumstances change?

[SPEAKER_00]: Now,

[SPEAKER_00]: Jonah composes a Psalm inside the belly of the fish.

[SPEAKER_00]: Psalms generally fall into two main categories.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are Psalms of thanksgiving, and there are Psalms of lament.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's two sort of big formats that the writers of the Psalms would fall into.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, you've run from God,

[SPEAKER_00]: You've run away from him.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've paid an exorbitant amount of money to get a boat.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've got trapped in a storm.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've told the sailors throw me overboard.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to die.

[SPEAKER_00]: They throw you overboard.

[SPEAKER_00]: And now you're in the fish's belly.

[SPEAKER_00]: What kind of summer you're going to compose?

[SPEAKER_00]: Not a trick question.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to be a summer of lament, isn't it?

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to be like, my life is the worst.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is really bad.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, this is probably, he would be thinking, this could even be worse than death.

[SPEAKER_00]: But this is so bad.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yet, that's not the Psalm that we have.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jonah chapter two is a Psalm of Thanksgiving.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is not sort of emotional avoidance.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you meet those people, and they could be like having the worst day of their life.

[SPEAKER_00]: But they go, yeah, I'm going great.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like every like the house has burned down.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, not awesome.

[SPEAKER_00]: Really good.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have problems.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just challenges and we'll get through this, you know?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, they're those people.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not what Jonah is doing.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, the seaweed is wrapped around my heads.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm at the root of the mountains.

[SPEAKER_00]: I either mountain goes down under the water and all the way to the ground and that's where I am.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then he says, yet will I look towards your holy temple?

[SPEAKER_00]: He finds a place to praise in the middle of the darkest moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: Gratitude changes the atmosphere before the circumstances change.

[SPEAKER_00]: You want the circumstances to change now so then you can be grateful.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not, gratitude starts first.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's why we worship, it's why we sing.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's one of the best ways to embody our gratitude is when we gather and God's people lift up Jesus' name.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's one of the best ways to embody that gratitude.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's why I tell all of our worship leaders, don't tell people when they come in.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's leave our problems at the door.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's, you know, leave the pressures of the week, at the door and then just, let's come and focus on Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, bring all your problems.

[SPEAKER_00]: Bring them in the door, bring them with you, lay them all at the feet of Jesus, and allow him to be God in the midst of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to avoid the bad stuff in order to follow Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: You bring all of those bad pieces and bring them to Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Gratitude changes the atmosphere before the circumstances change.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love what He says there yet will I look towards your holy temple.

[SPEAKER_00]: In Jewish faith, in ancient Israelite faith, the temple was so important.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was seen as the sort of a recreation of the garden in Eden.

[SPEAKER_00]: Where God would come down and the people would cut and God would walk with His people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Where heaven touches earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think about this, in the worst situation imaginable, Jonah invites God.

[SPEAKER_00]: into that space.

[SPEAKER_00]: The fish's belly becomes a temple.

[SPEAKER_00]: The fish's belly becomes a church.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now we think that's nice, except that I know that you and I have places in our lives where we think God doesn't go.

[SPEAKER_00]: We think, yeah, God's everywhere, but He's definitely not in the hospital room.

[SPEAKER_00]: We got everywhere, but He's definitely not in that prison cell.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, you're God.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're happy for him to be everywhere, but he's definitely not.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's not going to be present to me in that addiction.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's everywhere, but he's not going to be present in the depression.

[SPEAKER_00]: In this moment, gratitude says, I'm going to interpret God, not through the darkness, but I'm going to see God and I'm going to allow the darkness to be interpreted through him.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to see my circumstances in the light of who God is, not the other way around.

[SPEAKER_00]: some of us have sort of been like, don't really harsh hands of life.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then what that does is you've seen all your circumstances and you look through them all to God on the other side and God comes out looking like this sort of macabre, distant clock maker who's just out there tinkering away kind of having making an experiment of your life.

[SPEAKER_00]: but it's not true.

[SPEAKER_00]: We just read before.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor demons or any creator powers, nor nothing above the earth, on the earth, under the earth, will ever separate us from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus our Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: We just read that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And is that true?

[SPEAKER_00]: If that's true, then that means my entire outlook on my circumstances changes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because I see all of them through the light

[SPEAKER_00]: Not the other way around, and sometimes prayer and praise is just an active resistance.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's saying I'm not going to let the darkness win.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to let the doubt win.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to praise God through it all.

[SPEAKER_00]: Is this speaking to us this morning?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah?

[SPEAKER_00]: Come on, I'm excited about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's go.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, the last one.

[SPEAKER_00]: Salvation belongs to the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, think about this.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the other thing about this Psalm.

[SPEAKER_00]: We read lines, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're reading an English, you read a line and the line is dictated by however wide your pages.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to imagine we're reading Jonah and there's no, it's not on a page, but it's written around the room.

[SPEAKER_00]: So maybe we start with Jonah chapter one here and then we write in one singular line and it goes all the way along the back, maybe with the end of Jonah one here, we come all the way along, here's the end of Jonah two, starting chapter three and then it goes all the way along, there's the end of chapter three and then we come all the way around here and hide his holding Jonah chapter four, right at the end.

[SPEAKER_00]: Good job.

[SPEAKER_00]: The literary midpoint of Jonah, the book of Jonah, if you would go back and find the middle, not necessarily chapters and verses, but the middle of all of the words is that single phrase, salvation belongs to the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's as though the writer here is wanting us to grasp something,

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to show you something they're saying, and I'm going to place it right in the middle so you know what this entire book is about.

[SPEAKER_00]: Salvation belongs to a lot.

[SPEAKER_00]: Everything leads here.

[SPEAKER_00]: Everything flows from here.

[SPEAKER_00]: And for Jonah, this is important for him to say, salvation belongs to the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't belong to the fish.

[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't belong to the sailors.

[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't belong to Nineveh.

[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't belong to Israel.

[SPEAKER_00]: It belongs to God himself.

[SPEAKER_00]: Notice Jonah can't rescue himself, he's stuck.

[SPEAKER_00]: And God will often bring you to points in your life where you've got no more levers to pull, no more buttons to press, your out of ideas, no more tricks up your sleeve, that's just it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's in those moments, you have to kind of, you don't just throw your hands up and say, you lift your hands and say, God, if it's to be, it's gonna be through you.

[SPEAKER_00]: salvation belongs to the Lord, there's no other way, there's no other, there's no swimming he can do, no climbing he can do, no strategy he can do, no escape plan he can do, he's reached the end of his own resources and self-sufficiency is no longer there, but you know look, we've become so good, haven't we, it becoming our own saviors?

[SPEAKER_00]: We spend so much of our lives trying to save ourselves.

[SPEAKER_00]: We convince ourselves that if we just work harder, become better, earn more, achieve more, pray more, or finally get our lives together.

[SPEAKER_00]: That will find peace.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that'll all happen until we get to a diagnosis we can't fix.

[SPEAKER_00]: a relationship we can't repair, a grief we can't negotiate, a sin that we can't conquer, and in those moments we discover what Jonah discovered in the depths of the ocean, which is that salvation belongs to the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when you come to the end of yourself, that's it, we say, Lord, if this is gonna happen, it has to be you.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not the language of defeat.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's the language of freedom.

[SPEAKER_00]: How freeing is it to know that your own life and the outcome of your entire life doesn't rest on how smart you are.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it relies and rests on the faithfulness of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you might be saying to yourself, well, that's not good.

[SPEAKER_00]: That just means we sit around and do nothing all day.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll tell you, it doesn't.

[SPEAKER_00]: What it means is when you've encountered the grace of God, you position yourself in a place where you want to be the most useful that you can for him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because of all of what he's already done.

[SPEAKER_00]: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us, how much did you contribute to your own salvation?

[SPEAKER_00]: What did you offer?

[SPEAKER_00]: What did you bring to the table?

[SPEAKER_00]: While we were dead in transgressions and sins, Christ died for the young godly.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what it says.

[SPEAKER_00]: So how much do we contribute?

[SPEAKER_00]: I contribute my sinfulness.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a really a lot, Matt.

[SPEAKER_00]: Good job.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like, how good?

[SPEAKER_00]: Christ came to die and save sinners of which I am the chief, and you're pretty bad as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yet Christ has saved all of us because of his love.

[SPEAKER_00]: What did we contribute nothing?

[SPEAKER_00]: So that's why salvation belongs to the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jonah's stuck inside this fish.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing he can do except lay himself on God's mercy.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to encourage us to do that again today.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's the whole story of Scripture as God coming to save people who can't save themselves.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's Adam in the garden.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's Israel trapped in the Red Sea.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's Peter sinking as he's walking towards Jesus in the water.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's David saying God created me a clean heart in Psalm 51.

[SPEAKER_00]: God saves and we receive.

[SPEAKER_00]: Team, you can come and join me.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll bring this to a close.

[SPEAKER_00]: The last thing that I want to observe here is that the fish never changes.

[SPEAKER_00]: It'd be nice if in the middle of this story, all of a sudden the fish changed its shape or gave them a bit more room.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it doesn't.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there's this sort of latent hope here for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: In a lot of times, our hopes rest on a change of scenery.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to say to you today, church is lovingly and pastorally as I possibly can.

[SPEAKER_00]: As someone entrusted to lead and shepherd you through the text, is that sometimes you don't need a change of scenery.

[SPEAKER_00]: You need a change of heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't need a new thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: You need a new heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: and all of the bright beautiful things that capture your attention are.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it'll be great when dot dot dot.

[SPEAKER_00]: It'll be amazing when dot dot.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not where our salvation rests.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not where our hope rests.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our hope rests on the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth, who will not let your foot slip.

[SPEAKER_00]: Servation belongs to the Lord isn't just a statement of fact.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's worship, it's surrender, it's hope.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, I think we're done.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's stand.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh man, I love what God's doing amongst us.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love it.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're in the midst of great days, guys, incredible days.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, on final thing, in Matthew, in the Gospel of Matthew, and in the Gospel of Mark,

[SPEAKER_00]: There's one story that's recounted by both of them, which says this.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Jews came to Jesus and they asked him for a sign, now which is wild because he'd been doing many signs.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lots of miracles, demons coming out of people, people being healed, he's teaching them, telling them stories, telling them parables, the kingdom of heaven is coming to earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: and in that group of him that they get together and they say, we want to sign from you Jesus so that we know that it's, you know, that you're actually legit.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus does something crazy.

[SPEAKER_00]: He goes, no sign will be given you except the sign of Jonah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, this is Jesus with all of that Old Testament background.

[SPEAKER_00]: He picks one of the most obscure and smallest books and says, no sign is going to be given to you except for the sign of Jonah.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you can picture their mind going, what?

[SPEAKER_00]: And he goes, because, as Jonah was in the fish, three days.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it will be with the son of man.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Jesus accepts the fish, he accepts the cross, and then he's sped out onto dry land.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus goes through the fish, comes out the other side, and what happens.

[SPEAKER_00]: He brings the good news of God's gospel and his justice to an unrepentant unbelieving rebellious city and then the entire city come and turn their hearts to the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus says, that's gonna be the sign.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to give you that sign.

[SPEAKER_00]: The son of man is going to go into the ground.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's going to cut.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not going to be something that he asked for, but it's going to be something that happens.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in that place, God does his best work.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then I'm going to come out the other side, and I'm going to bring the gospel to an unbelieving world.

[SPEAKER_00]: And guess what?

[SPEAKER_00]: People are turning, turning, turning, turning, turning, turning.

[SPEAKER_00]: Turning their hearts to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the sign of Jonah.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so you and I can be encouraged that when you're in that tight, tight spot and the walls are closing in, God is doing some of his most significant work in you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't despise it, don't wish it away.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just lean towards not it, but what God is doing in you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because he's creating something beautiful and amazing out of situations that you didn't ask for.

[SPEAKER_00]: With us, the gospel of Jesus' salvation is on him and him alone.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Lord, we offer our hearts to you today.

[SPEAKER_00]: We thank you for all that you're doing in us.

[SPEAKER_00]: We want to thank you, Lord, God, for those seasons that we did not choose, but you used them to change and transform us.

[SPEAKER_00]: As so many of us are in those places right now, and I pray Lord God that we would know your presence, that every Wales belly would turn into a temple that every tight spot, every cave, every elevator, would turn into a place of worship, Lord God, and we would allow those walls to collect that we're closing in on us, to create worship, to create a hunger for you, a passion that we would see you do something significant, and that we would allow you,

[SPEAKER_00]: to spit us out onto the other side.

[SPEAKER_00]: We pray these things in Jesus' name.

[SPEAKER_00]: So come on church, let's sing this together.

[SPEAKER_00]: The work you did is finished.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's declare it this morning as we offer up our worship in our praise.