Finding God in the Depths | Jonah's Prayer from the Fish | Jonah 2:1-10

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I live in Shelby, Michigan.

Oh yeah, that's right, you used to live in I

used to live.

In Clinton Township. But thank you for that. I never

lived in Sterling.

Sterling Heights is where the church is, I know, I know.

Thank you for that, Jeff, Thanks Dad. But how many

miles were was your own house from the church for miles?

And that was Clinton Township?

Huh so yeah? And now two miles away and I'm

in Shelby Township a gun.

Yeah, so anyway, and I live in Troy, Michigan.

And which is how many miles Chris? I mean people

are dying to know.

Oh g wish, I don't even know. I would say

five miles, five and a half. Yeah, yeah, I probably shall.

So anyway, we are here in a podcast studio and

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We got we're on episode where are we now? On

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Yeah for sure, that's so funny.

Yeah, well he today Desiree has put together a segment

that I've never heard of before.

It's a brand news segment.

I haven't either.

I appreciate the vigor and the creative creativity. She said.

Let's ask chat GPT. We're now in the Book of

Jonah and I walk through the Old Testament. For today's segment,

Let's ask chat GPT funny questions that revolve around the

story of Jonah.

Take a minute and share some of your favorite ones.

Okay, So here's what I did is I typed into

chat GPT suggest funny questions that revolve around the story jooning,

which is exactly what she told us to say. Yes,

and here are the questions that generated. If you were

swallowed by a giant fish, what would be your first

Yelp review.

That's pretty good, that's pretty good.

That's funny, and it suggested cozy interior or service was

a little fishy. Oh, that's fretty well, it would be

your first Yelp review.

I don't recommend it.

Yeah, I'd be like this place thinks there. Yeah, let

me see keep going. What do you think Jonah did

the past the time inside the fish?

Well, he talked to God as we're about to find out.

Yeah, yeah, he does talk to God in here. Yeah.

This one suggested maybe practicing as well, calls.

Oh wow, Yeah, what's do it?

If Jonah had a playlist while inside the fish? What

songs a be on it?

Uh? We all live in a yo.

This one suggested under the sea, under this sea, that's

a given? Yeah.

Uh.

What's the other one? What's what's the go say? I

forgot anyways? Living on a prayer?

Save no take me?

Yeah, that'd be a funny one too. Uh. When when

Jonah finally got to ninevah, do you think that people

were more shocked by his message or by his smell?

That's a good one because he is going to be

covered in fish vomit.

What would you have done differently if you were Jonah? Besides,

you know, actually going to Nina for the first time.

That's so funny. That's really good. That's a funny question.

Yeah, that was a good one. Uh. If you could

ask Jonah one question, what would it be?

Uh? Did you did you? Did you really learn the lesson?

Yeah? Did you at least get frequent swimmer miles?

Oh?

There you go, that's what it says. Jonah ran This

ted GPT says Jonah went ran away from God. But

where did he think he was going to hide? Like,

God doesn't have find my profit.

Find my prophet. That's pretty good.

Yeah, I got to find my phone. You ever used

to find my phone?

Oh?

Every day, all the time, every day, every day.

So right now I knew that my daughter Tory was home.

I just checked it in between podcast shoots.

Uh, are you do? You have all your family and

find my friends phone?

Yeah? Some of them?

So there they are right there. And my daughter down

in Florida, there she is.

You can't get away from your dad, right, Hey? I

ran in your daughter, daughter and her husband at the airport.

Oh. Look, and she's at home.

Remember what's that the other day?

Yeah?

She was actually uh, she was actually heading back from

her visit and you were heading out of the country.

That's right, you guys ran in each other.

If Jonah had brought a friend along, do you think

the fish would have been willing to do it too?

For one special But I'm.

Yeah, okay, I think I think you've exhausted that.

I think I think the funny ones are gone, Yeah

for sure. Okay, Well, there we go and talking about

the funny ones being gone. Jonah is not telling any

jokes in this next Okay, that's not funny.

It makes sense.

It's not funny.

It's terrible, terrible transition. So that qualifies jeff Ah.

That's our goal. Our goal is the worst transitions ever. Yeah,

we're becoming masters at them.

You know what, you always remember last week I did

every transition, remember, yeah, but you always remember that there

needs to be a transition before I remember, So you

always say, like, speaking of it.

I was like, oh, yeah, that's a transition. Yeah, I

always forget. I'm sure. I'm still wrapped up into the

Jonah story.

So Jonah two, verse one says, then Jonah prayed to

the Lord. Remember yesterday he got We talked about how

he got swallowed by fish for three days and three nights. Correct,

that's all it says, right, And it says, then Jonah

prayed to the Lord, his God from inside the fish. Wow.

And he said, I cried out to the Lord in

my great trouble, and he answered me, I called to

you from the land of the dead, and Lord you

heard me. You threw me into the ocean depths, and

I sank down to the heart of the sea. The

mighty waters engulfed me, and I was buried beneath your

wild and stormy ways. And I said, oh, Lord, you

have driven me from your presence. Yet I will look

once more towards your holy temple. I sank beneath the waves,

and the waters closed over me, and see weed wrapped

itself around my head. I sank down to the very

roots of the mountains. I was imprisoned in the earth,

whose gates lock shut forever. But you, o Lord, my God,

snatched me from the jaws of death. As my life

was slipping away. I remember the Lord. My earnest prayer

went out to you in your holy temple. Those who

worship false gods turn their backs on all God's mercies.

But I will offer sacrifices to you with songs of praise,

and I will fulfill all my vows from my salvation

comes from the Lord alone. Then the Lord ordered the

fish to spit Jonah out on the beach. Yeah, King

James says, to vomit. Yeah, yeah, that was one of

my favorite verses death as a kid.

Yeah, vomiting amount into the lot.

It's so much worse than spit.

Yes, yes, well, you know, regurgitated doesn't necessarily mean it

comes out with you know, fish stomach acid, but it

probably did and all and all.

The things that the fish ate. By the way, yes,

so gross.

Yeah, if it's going around scooping up profits, it probably

got a lot of you know, if it was, and

I think I think Pinocchio there was like a fire

in there.

Yeah, Pinocchio actually built a fire inside the whale.

So if he could do it, yeah, sure, easily easily.

Uh the what was I gonna say about about this?

So Jonah's in the belly for three days and three

nights and the fish swam, But we do know that

the fish uh spinning back up on to the shore.

And really the only shore that makes sense would be

on the shore where Japa is right, because anywhere else

is further away from ninevah. So most college would have

to believe that he started out right where he left right.

So so whatever, whatever whatever progress.

He made on the boat was taken away because the

fish swam all the way back. And by the way,

if this was a fish big enough to hold a

human with air, right, we're assuming that's the case, because God.

Could do whatever he wants to do. But you know,

he probably he probably used science.

So that means that this massive fish or whale like

creature got close enough to the shore, because it says

he split spin him up onto dry land. Yeah, right,

so that that that thing came in on the beach

just right to the shore, and then and then just

somehow made itself out.

We appreciate the sound effects, Chris, that's great.

Yeah, so he's covering fish vomit and then he has

to make the track for six hundred miles. It's like

five hundred and ninety miles ish north east.

And by the way, I was as you were reading this.

I actually looked at the notes and the Life Application

Study Bible and actually quoted verse number seven where it

says Jonah said, quote as my life was slipping away,

I remember the Lord. Verse seven, it says often we

act the same way when life is going well. We

have a tendency to take God for granted, but when

we lose hope, we cry out to him. This kind

of relationship with God can result only in an inconsistent

up and down spiritual life. A consistent daily commitment to

God promotes a solid relationship with him. Look to God

for both the good and the bad. Times and you

will have a stronger spiritual life. Yeah, and that's that's

a good lesson.

That is good.

Yeah.

You know, we get tempted just to shout out when

we need help, Hey I got this when it's good, right,

and it's just when we need help.

But yeah, whenever we give the gospel, and we usually

give the gospel almost every week at our church, so

we'll give the you know, the Plan of Salvation, and

we'll tell people that Jesus died for their sins and

that if they wanted to, today could be the day

where they put their faith in trust in Christ for

the first time. And it's almost every Sunday that we

do this. And I would say that whenever I do that,

I am almost always thinking of the person who number

one doesn't know God obviously, but number two, their life

is going great. Yeah, And I don't necessarily think of

the person who is ripe, right, because those people, you know,

it's like, hey, that's that's great. Hopefully they'll pray the prayer,

Hopefully they'll cross over the line of faith.

Hopefully they'll you know, make the decision.

But it's the people that need to be convinced that, like,

why do I need God because life's going great, right,

and to which I would just say this, if that's

you today, and you're a skeptic and you're an agnostic,

or you're a person that doesn't necessarily consider themselves a Christian,

but you're curious enough to explore what God's word says,

which is why you're listening to the podcast, I would

just say life is better with God because everybody spends

eternity somewhere, right, yes, and so and so you know

the stakes are too high for you to.

Just say I don't need God because my life is

going great.

Yeah, you're right, that's good. Do you know what I've

always thought is the weirdest thing about this chapter.

The fact that he's in the belly of a fish.

No what, the fact that he recognizes that the belly

of the fish was God rescuing him. Oh well, so

this whole chapter is a prayer is It's not a

prayer for deliverance, it's thanking God for the fact that

God rescued.

Him well, because because he knows, He knows. We'll think

about it.

I don't know if getting eaten by a big fish

makes me go Because he thinks he's going to.

Drive to do a general push back here, a general pushback,

which is this. It's because oftentimes when we read things

as facts, we don't go through the emotional journey, right,

Like the emotional journeys, you know how sometimes a movie

will stretch out to bring you on an emotional.

Journey, you know, like a puff of bun, you know whatever.

Yeah, So anyway, the emotional journey is throw me over word,

I'm gonna srifice my life.

I'm gonna die.

Yeah, I'm gonna die.

And then they throw them overboard. Guess what there goes.

I'm watching the boat right.

And you're thinking, okay, God, I can't swim very much longer,

and who knows, by the way, he could have literally

been treading water for hours. And then he's like, okay,

that's it. I'm dead, and he's accepted.

The fact that it says in verse three, I sank

down to the heart of the sea. There it is,

the mighty waters engulfed me. I was buried beneath your

wild and stormy waves.

There it is.

He thinks he's going to die. There it is, he

thinks he's dying.

So he is literally resolved, you know, or sort of

surrendered to the fact that he has sacrificed his life.

He's going to die, and all of a sudden, it's

not by coincidence that not only did this fish grab him,

but then also he's able to breathe and survive in

the middle of this probably a whale, right, and so

why wouldn't he consider that God's hand?

Yeah, the terror of it. I sank beneath the waves,

the water closed over me, seaweed wrapped itself around my head.

Oh that's terrifying, right, that's not fun. I I was

imprisoned in the earth whose gates locked shut forever. That's hopelessness. Now, yes, right,

I'm just surrendering to this moment. I'm dying. Yes, but you,

oh Lord, my God snatched me from the jaws of death.

It's in that moment of sinking and dying because.

The odds, it's like, it's like, it's like what I

would have never prediculed a million years.

And I love the snatched word because that's how fish

eat Fish don't just come up and go go right right,

So literally snatched me from the And then he says,

as my life was slipping away, I remembered the Lord

and my earnest prayer went out to you in your

holy temple. Yeah, right, he said I was dying. So

you know, when you read this and you think, oh,

he's miserable and he's asking God, he's not. There's not

one moment where he's asking God to rescue him.

Right.

He says, I called out to you in my trouble.

You answered me, right. And the whole thing is it's

a thanks This chapter is a thanksgiving prayer. It doesn't

record his desperation.

He's already acknowledged his sin on the boat like he knew.

Like he's sort of like, oh, I get what I deserve, right,

God told me directly, and I mean he literally told

me a direct command and I literally disobeyed it.

And so he ends it with my salvation comes from

the Lord alone, Yeah, which is such a great phrase.

There's no other place, there's nowhere else we can be delivered.

There's nobody else that can rescue us in life. It's God.

My salvation comes from the Lord.

So you know what he has to be forced to think, Like,

think about this. If you're a Jonah, here's what you think. Immediately,

God obviously wants me to go to Nineveh. He told

me what to do. I ran, I disobeyed. I thought

I was going to die because of my sin. And

then all of a sudden, God sends this whale. What's

holy calm in the belly of a whale? I'm breathing right,

or a giant fish. It doesn't say whale, but it's

probably a whale. And then all of a sudden, you're

thinking yourself, okay, the whales swimming. I can feel it

right right, like the whale's moving, which means God's not

through with me yet. And if God was through with me,

I would be dead.

Yeah, you know it's funny. Oh wait, talking about the

differ between an optimist and a pessimist, right, a pessimist

would have been like, oh no, how bad is this?

At first I was sleeping comfortably and they woke me

up in the middle of a storm. How bad is

this going to get? Then they rolled dice and they realized, Hey,

I'm the one. I realized, I admit it. Throw me overboard.

They throw me into this horrible storm. Life can't get

any worse. Then I'm drowning. I'm getting covered in seaweed.

Life can't get any worse then? A big fish scoops

him up, eats him, and now he's like, wsh. That's

an optimist, right, right, Ooh, I almost died. He's inside

of a fish and he almost he almost died. But

he's like, thank God, God rescued me. The optimists would

have the pessimist. It's getting worse, right, But at this

point he didn't have any reason. He couldn't bargain with God.

There's no debate. He's not asking to be ready. He

believes God rescued him, but he hasn't been spit out

on dry land yet. There's no indication to God communicated

to him that he's gonna rescue him. But he's already

believing God's going to rescue him in that moment. And

I think there's a lesson there about your outlook, about

your perspective, right that the things happen in your life,

if God's allowing these things in your life, God's in control.

And I think that, I mean, what are the chances,

what are the chances of being alive after having been

swallowed by a big fish and he's conscious. During the

tent where he was going unconscious, he said, I was dying.

I was being buried. Yeah, and then he's conscious inside

this fish, so his perspective is, Okay, God's still This

is a crazy moment. But I think I don't think

God's done with me yet. I think, okay, God, thank you.

And then he says, I'm going to offer sacrifices to

you with songs that prayer. Well, you couldn't offer any

other kinds of sacrifices. So you want to know what

he was doing. Chat GPT asked us what was he doing?

He was singing, That's what it says. He was singing,

and I will fulfill all my vows. There's some optimism.

How's he going to fulfill all the vows of the

he'd made to God as a prophet unless God let

him come out? And he says, because my salvation comes

from the Lord. And then the Lord ordered the fish

to spit Jonah out onto the beach.

And another sermon that we can find in Jonah chapter

two is that God is a god of second chances.

Yeah, so Jonah disobey.

I think that's the big idea.

Yeah, Jonah disobeys, and God sends him a fish, and

God reminds him.

That he's going to still use him.

And you know what, you may be out there thinking

I have made horrific mistakes. I have made decisions that

have destroyed my family. I hear this from people who

are in alcoholics anonymous, or narcotics anonymous or selvary recovery,

and they say, I have made decisions that have just

destroyed family and they've destroyed relationships, and you know, but

yet still they have a lot of life to live,

and so they think, you know, I can't, I can't

ever recover from my mistakes. But guess what God is

in the habit of using broken people for great things.

And He always has been by the way and he

always will be.

And so if you're out there and you think that

you've made mistakes that are beyond repair, I mean, listen,

I don't know your circumstances. I mean, there are definitely

mistakes that have earthly consequences, and we pay for those

earthly consequences. And sometimes it means, you know, things that

we can't reverse. But the one thing that can be

reversed is repentance and communion with God, favor with God,

blessings of God, forgiveness of God. God gives to us

un unending forgiveness, if we recognize our sins, if we

repent of our sins, we recognize that the sacrifice of

Jesus Christ was enough to pay.

For everything bad.

And so you know, there are people out there that

really truly think of themselves as unworthy and listen, yeah, sure,

big mistakes, big mistakes will humble us. Big mistakes should

humble us, and we should live a life in humility.

But to feel like we're unworthy to be used by

God not true, right, I mean, there are people in

the Bible who do incredibly bad things and yet God.

I mean, look at Manassa, right, I mean, he's the

worst king.

In the history of all kings. It says he did

he did more.

You know, we haven't we haven't really read that story,

not yet.

But he did worse things than any other king in

the history of the world. But what does he do.

He repents like no other. And then what God does.

What does is God restores him because because you know,

and here's the same kind of perspective that God wants

Jonah to have for the people of Ninevah. Jonah doesn't

know if the Ninavits are going to repent.

He has no idea very well.

Could be that he's going to show up and he's

going to say, here's the word of the Lord. God says,

repent Earl's face judgment, here's your chance. And it very

well could be that the people of Ninevah will not

recognize his authority, they will not repent. But God doesn't

want Jonah to think that way, obviously, because you know,

he rebukes that thinking. And and uh and and partis

is Jonah for thinking that way. But it's not Jonah's

job to condemn them. It's Jonah's job to say they

deserve a second chance, because Jonah himself then experiences that

God is the god of second chances.

That's a big part of this, I think, is Jonah's

awareness of God's doing for me what he wants to

do for Ninevah. Yeah, right's kind of this. Yeah yeah,

even then he's not happy about it. We'll find that

out in a minute, but you know, another day or two.

But so he he uh. I don't think God always

stops people from making bad choices. It was a bad choice.

It was a tragedy that God had to use in

order to get Jonah to turn background and go the

right direction. But a greater tragedy would have been if

God had letting Jonah keep going right, right, if Jonah,

if God let Jonah keep going there Ninevah was the

largest city in the world at the time and as

far as we know, one hundred and twenty thousand people.

And you know, so God uses tragedy sometimes for a

greater purpose, right, and we have to accept that part

of it. And I think that's why he was able

to sing a song of praise, That's why he was

able to pray a prayer of thanksgiving. Was you know,

even all of this, these tragic things, God apparently's not

done with me. I'm still conscious, I'm still breathing air.

So that's why I say all the time, if you're

still breathing air, God's not done with you yet, right, right.

And so then he finally says, okay, God, I'll go.

And you know, I think about it. What if when

God is telling you to do something, go share the

Gospel with your coworker. What if that's the last time

I've had people tell me before I really felt like

God wanted me to share the Gospel with somebody, and

I didn't for weeks or months, and then they died

or they moved away, and I never talked to him again. Right,

I don't know how to get out of touch with

him anymore. And that guilt, that struggle, you know, I

felt God wanted me to and I didn't and I

missed my chance. Right. So God doesn't always stop you

from running. He stopped Jonah in this moment. He's trying

to rescue one hundred and twenty thousand Ninovites. But God

doesn't always stop us from running. The Bible is full

of people who just ran and ran and ran and

ran and ran and ran and ran, and then finally God,

you know, had to bring that judgment. And so I

would say, Man, if God is putting on your heart

to share the gospel somebody, to try to lead them

to Jesus. If God's telling you that you have family

members or friends that don't know Jesus yet, man get

the skills, develop the ability to learn how to share

the gospel with them, and don't run from it, because

you know, God doesn't always do a Jonah moment. One.

You don't want to to be swallowed by a big fish.

There's that. You don't want a big storm. There's that.

But the other part of it is God doesn't always

intervene like this is why it's included in the Bible.

It's because it's such a miraculous moment. He doesn't always

do that, and we don't want to miss our opportunity

with the people that so desperately need to hear the gospel.

That's good.

The good news is that that kid who moved away,

if that's a real person, we can just uh, we

were just resting the fact that God is bigger than

your assignment and that God's going to reach that person

to another person.

The tragedy is you didn't get to be.

A part of it, that's right, right, But that doesn't

mean that God is you were that person's only hope.

Yeah. So with that one, the ones where people the

ones where people die, I mean, and that was God there.

That kind of sits on your shoulders a little bit. Yeah,

Ezekiel talks about how we'll be people with bloody hands,

right yeah.

Yeah, yeah, and that so yeah yeah, yeah, no, they

you get that right, Okay, Well, hey, that is our

time for chapter two and we're going to pick up

the chapter three tomorrow, so hopefully we'll see you then.

On the Bibble guys right