God's Will, Man's Way - Jonah 1

Amen.

As I mentioned, we're going to be in Jonah for a while, for a little while.

And Jonah is one of those Bible stories that maybe if you grew up in church, you uh heard often and were amazed by the story.

You were amazed that a man got swallowed by a giant fish and survived.

It's one of those stories that might sound or seem a little cartoonish, if you will.

But when you consider the biblical message of the book of Jonah, you will see that it is much more than a man surviving a fish.

In fact, that event is just a byproduct of the grand narrative surrounding the story of the whole book.

So again, for the next several weeks, we'll be taking a brief journey through the book of Jonah and look a little deeper into its message.

Now, I will say this: we're not going to get into every detail of the story as this series is meant to be more of an overview.

So we won't take the usual time that we do on the passages, but we will again note the main message.

As I was studying for this chapter, I realized there were multiple sermons here that we can give, but this is sort of a speed through through the book of Luke as we, I mean through the book of Jonah as we take our break from Luke.

Before we begin, let's take a moment to look at some of the background of the book.

First, the author of the book is never mentioned, although some believe it very well could have been written by Jonah himself.

The story is set somewhere between 793 and 753 BC during the reign of King Jeroboam II of Israel.

Jonah was a prophet during this time.

We know this because his name is mentioned in the biblical accounts of the kings of Israel and Judah.

Let me read for you a passage that is found in 2 Kings 14, verse 23.

2 Kings 14:23

In the 15th year of Amaziah, the son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel, began to reign in Samaria.

He reigned 41 years, and he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.

He did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, which he made Israel to sin.

He restored the border of Israel from Lebohhamoth as far as the sea of Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah, the son of Amati, the prophet, who was from Gathephere.

So you see, Jonah is mentioned in the historical narrative of the kings.

This story is set during a time when Israel has experienced great spiritual unfaithfulness.

The kings of Israel had led the people into committing acts of adultery and injustice and abandoning worshiping, worshiping the one true God.

If you've ever read the biblical accounts of the kings of Judah and Israel in 1 Kings and 2nd Chronicles, you will note that there is a repeated cycle of unfaithfulness and repentance.

Some kings led the people toward God, while other kings led the people away from God.

And the prophets were those who spoke on God's behalf.

They were the ones who were calling the king and the people of Israel to repent and showing them what would happen if they failed to repent.

Jonah was a prophet living during these times when Israel was trapped in this repeated cycle of apostasy and repentance before the exile of Israel into Assyria and Judah into Babylon.

If I can summarize the entire four chapters, the book is only four chapters long.

If I can summarize the entire four chapters of the book, it would be this way: The book of Jonah is a message about God's sovereign grace toward undeserving sinners and his determination to display his mercy among the nations, even when his own servants resist his purposes.

Chapter one, as we will see, sets the stage for the rest of the book.

And that's what we're going to be looking at together this morning.

As I titled this sermon, God's Will, Man's Way.

And as we look at these two ways, which we will see, we will look a little deeper and see which way is better, God's way or man's way.

As we walk through the chapter, I want to point out three differences between God and Jonah, Jonah who represents man in the chapter.

And they are these.

Number one, God's mission versus man's resistance.

Number two, God's pursuit versus man's rebellion.

And number three, God's sovereignty versus man's helplessness.

Let's look at that first point.

God's mission versus man's resistance.

Going back to verse one.

Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amadi, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come upon me before me.

But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

He went down the Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish.

So he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.

Let me stop there.

So the text tells us that the word of the Lord came to Jonah.

And as a prophet of God, he would have been used to receiving a word from the Lord and acting upon what he received.

Although this time he didn't agree with the word that he received.

He was told to go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it for their evil.

Now Nineveh during this time was an important city in Assyria.

Soon after Jonah's time, this city would become the capital of Assyria.

It was one of the largest cities in the ancient world, which is likely why God called it great, but it was a wicked and violent city.

In Nahum chapter 3, a woe is pronounced upon Nineveh for being, among other things, a bloody city.

Nahum 3 · chapter mention

They were known in the ancient world for their cruelty.

Archaeological findings confirm their brutality as they show that the Assyrians had a practice of tearing off the lips and hands of their victims.

Other findings tell us that they would burn their victims of live and make a pal out of their skulls.

So after hearing that, we might be tempted to sympathize with Jonah for not wanting to go there and call them out for their evil.

However, this is what God commanded Jonah to do.

But Jonah, as we are told in verse 3, instead arose and fled to Tarshus.

Now, this was a city west of the Mediterranean, likely somewhere around modern-day Spain.

In other words, it was a city that was in the opposite direction of Nineveh.

Jonah had no intention of doing what God commanded him to do.

In fact, he wanted to flee to a place where the Lord wasn't present.

What's interesting is that in Isaiah 66, 19, Tarshus is mentioned as one of the places that had yet to hear of the fame of the Lord.

So there were many places around in and around the region that had heard of the might and the great strength and power of the Lord, but Tarshish was apparently was this place that the Lord hadn't, the people hadn't heard of the Lord, the great God of Israel.

And this is where Jonah wanted to go.

Jonah just wanted to go to a place where the Lord wasn't known.

He wanted to go to a place where the Lord wasn't worshiped.

So he goes down to Joppah, an Israelite port, and finds a ship headed to this place, Tarshish.

Pays the fare, hops on the boat, sets sail, believing that he is fleeing from God's presence.

But as we know, that's impossible.

An omnipresent God is everywhere, and one can never flee from the presence of God.

And this is the first contrast I want to point out: God's mission versus man's resistance.

What was God's mission?

Well, for that we have to know the full story of Jonah.

And if we peek ahead at chapter three, we are told that the people of Nineveh eventually repented.

So God's mission wasn't one of merely declaring this judgment, it was one of calling the people to repent.

So here we get a glimpse of God's heart for the nations and the contrast between him and men.

God sees a wicked nation, one that is steeped in unrighteousness, performing these vile and wicked deeds.

And rather than saying, you know, that's enough, I'm gonna wipe them away and off the face of the earth.

He says, I'm gonna send them my messenger, and I'm gonna give them an opportunity to turn from their wickedness, and I'm gonna give them a chance to repent and live.

I'm gonna extend to them my mercy and I'm gonna offer them my grace.

Ezekiel 18, 23 says, I have, have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live.

This is God's way.

He takes no pleasure in that death of the wicked.

He he'd rather them turn and live.

And this is what Jonah resisted.

He resisted this wicked nation turning back to God.

The question is, why?

Why was he so afraid to go to this place?

Why was he so resistant or reluctant to go?

Again, we we could have just pointed back to the fear.

Or maybe he lacked the faith.

Maybe he didn't believe that if he went, anything good would be accomplished, that the trip would be in vain.

But chapter four gives us the main reason why he was reluctant.

It's because he knew that God would be merciful to them.

He knew the kind of God uh that he served, he knew God's heart, he knew that God would be gracious and slow to anger.

And and here's the problem with Jonah, he just couldn't accept that.

He knew the wickedness of Nineveh.

And if he had it his way, they would be destroyed instead of spared.

You know, one of the hardest things for us to grasp is the grace of God.

Grace just doesn't make sense to us.

We're all legalists at heart.

It makes sense to receive something that we deserve, but what doesn't make sense is receiving something that we don't deserve.

And that's what grace is.

It's undeserved favor.

It is receiving something from God that we don't deserve.

We don't deserve his love, we don't deserve his mercy, his kindness.

But he offers and grants it to us anyway.

That's God's character.

And it doesn't make sense to us because it's so much unlike our character.

We're not very loving and kind and merciful to people that we don't like.

We're barely that way to people we do like.

And when God, by his word, tells us to be these things, we say, yeah, okay, but only to those who I like.

But if I don't like them, then then I'm gonna run the opposite way.

When it comes to the mission of God and our participation in it, we we often want it to be clean.

We want it to be nice, we want it to be tidy.

We don't want it to be messy, we want to plant churches in the nice neighborhoods.

We will we we want to do outreaches in safe spaces.

We often have our preferences when it comes to the to work of God.

But what if God is calling us to places that we don't want to go?

What if he's calling us to bring the gospel to someone we don't want to bring it to?

To that neighbor that we can't get along with, to that coworker that gets on our last nerve, to that family member that we have so many differences with.

Or what about just to people who are not like us, who don't share the same interests that we do, or who are not in the same social economic status that we are, or don't who who don't share our ethnicity or our politics.

Do we view them as enemies rather than potential children of God?

See, that's what was what was Jonah's problem.

All he could see was who the people of Nineveh were, but he couldn't see who the people of Nineveh could become.

They were vile, wicked sinners far away from God, but they could become redeemed, loved children of God.

If only someone would bring them the gospel.

We are sometimes so distracted by the lack of the gospel in some places that we miss the potential of the gospel in some places, whether that be a city or a neighborhood or a family, or maybe even our own heart.

What if God is wanting to bring you closer to him?

What if you are are the ones like Nineveh far away from God, or maybe drifting from God, like the people of Nineveh?

Will you resist the word of the Lord like Jonah did?

God always has a mission, whether that's to bring those who you like to himself, or those who you don't like to himself, or to bring you to himself.

Where are the people that won't resist his mission?

Let's look at number two.

God's pursuit versus man's rebellion, verse four.

But the Lord, the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up.

Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his God, and they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them.

But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship, and had lain down and was fast asleep.

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

Arise, call out to your God.

Perhaps the God will give us a thought to us, so that we may not perish.

And they said to one another, Come, let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.

So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.

Then they said to him, Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us?

What is your occupation?

And where do you come from?

What is your country?

And of what people are you?

And he said to them, I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea in the dry land.

And the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, What is this that you have done?

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

Stop there.

So after Jonah gets into the boat, the Lord brings this great storm that causes a ship to start to tear apart.

This starts to frighten as expected.

This frightens the seamen on board.

So they start praying to their gods.

They were doing everything they could to keep the ship upright, tossing over cargo and trying to keep the ship afloat.

And during all of this, Jonah was in the inner part of the ship taking a nap.

Must have been a Sunday afternoon.

So they go and awake him, telling him, get up, pray to your God.

Maybe his God, maybe Jonah's God might spare their lives.

As the storm continued, they decide to cast these lots to see whose evil had brought the storm upon them.

That's interesting, right?

They knew that someone had to be behind this storm.

Romans 1 tells us about how God's divine nature and power can be clearly perceived, meaning that nature itself tells us that there is a God.

We get a glimpse of this here with the sailors.

They knew that this storm didn't just appear out of nowhere.

They knew that there was a God behind this storm.

Their problem is they just didn't know which God.

And the one who did know was fast asleep.

But when the lot fell on Jonah, they knew he was the one to blame for the storm.

So they asked him, Why has this evil come upon us?

What is your occupation?

Where do you come from?

What is your people?

So he tells them who he is.

He's a Hebrew who fears the Lord.

This brought the men the men to great fear because they knew that Jonah angered the true God.

Jonah was fleeing from this God.

Here we see two plans.

And they're continuing to unfold as the story goes on.

Jonah's resistance here now starts to turn into outright rebellion.

He didn't just go refuse to go and do what God told him to do.

Now he's he's outright reacting against God.

Imagine telling a child turn off the TV and go to bed, but instead that child stays up watching TV a little longer.

That's resistance, right?

Now imagine telling that same child, turn off the TV and go to bed, but instead that child grabs the remote and turns the TV up full blast.

That's rebellion.

You know, I think we've all been out somewhere in public, maybe at a grocery store or at a park, and we've witnessed a battle of wills between a parent and a rebellious child, right?

The child wants one thing, but the parent doesn't want to give it to them.

You know, sometimes you might witness the child act out and fuss so much so that the parent gives in to the child's will.

It's a battle of wills, right?

And the parent just gives in because they can't control the child and they're embarrassed, and they they just give in to what the child wants.

That public act of rebellion got the child what they wanted.

So the child's will won out.

But other times you might witness the opposite, right?

That the child acts out and the parent refuses to give in.

And you you might even see the parent discipline the child right in front of everyone.

Maybe not these days because they might call the police on you, but it used to be that way.

There, the will of the parent went out.

Well, God is much like the latter.

As we see in the story, Jonah acted out in rebellion, but God was not going to let Jonah get away with it.

So he sends this storm.

God said, You want to rebel against me in front of other people?

Well, I'm going to correct you in front of other people.

But here's the thing this storm, though violent and dangerous and scary, was actually an act of God's love.

Going back to the parent-child analyde analogy, some people might see a parent discipline their child in public and an a parent not uh giving in and think that's harsh.

And some people might say, well, it's it would be loving to give the child what they wanted.

But that's not loving.

All that is is allowing the child to continue on a path that is going to ruin him or her.

That rebellious child is one day going to turn into a rebellious grown man or grown woman.

And then the consequences of his or her rebellion are going to be much worse.

So you see, this storm was an act of God not letting Jonah continue down the path that he was on, because he was drifting further and further away from the Lord.

So God sends this storm to correct him, which is a way of God pursuing him.

Hebrews 12:5 tells us, and have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

Hebrews 12:5

My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him.

For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives.

It is for discipline that you have to endure.

God is treating you as sons.

For what son is is there whom his father does not discipline?

If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

You know, storms and trials and tribulations and hardships.

These things will come in our lives.

Everyone will go through these.

Send a storm in the Christian's life to wake them up from their slumber.

Sometimes in the course of the Christian life, we can be like Jonah beneath the docks, spiritually asleep.

Think about how far Jonah transitioned.

He went from a man of God speaking on God's behalf to disobeying God to running away from his presence to dwelling among pagans, yet having enough peace to sleep through all of that.

He was in complete rebellion, yet he can sleep in his rebellion.

That's a dangerous place to be in.

To be in a place where you're no longer bothered by your sin.

You know, sometimes I'll counsel people and talk to people, and you know, they'll they'll shamefully confess their sins and they'll feel this deep regret and sorrow over what they've done.

And what I often like to say is that this is not the worst place you can be in.

I know you feel bad over your sin, but the fact that you feel bad is a good sign.

Better to feel bad over your sin than to feel nothing at all.

And that's the sad thing.

There are some people who can get there because there are some people whose conscience is so seared that they feel no regret and no remorse and no desire for repentance when they sin.

In fact, they find themselves at perfect peace in their sin.

And they're comfortable just taking a nap through it all.

And people often get there the way, the same way Jonah did.

It starts by a little disobedience.

It starts by saying, you know what, I'm not gonna obey God here.

And then that disobedience becomes a greater disobedience that starts to grow, and then it grows into outright rebellion, and then they have no desire to be around the things of God.

So, like Jonah, what they want to do is they want to just get away from it all.

They want to flee from the presence of God.

So that they'll stay away from church and they'll stay away from other Christians.

And in fact, like Jonah, they'll find themselves more comfortable around unbelievers.

Until the trajectory is away from God and it gets so far that they find themselves at peace where they're at.

But God, whose kindness is everlasting, will often send a storm to disrupt that peace.

Yes, the thunder and the lightning and the wind and the waves are meant to bring you fear, but it's a healthy fear.

Better to fear God now and find mercy than to fear God on judgment day and find none.

If you are in disobedience or if you find yourself in a place far away from God, and if there's a storm and a trial and a hardship in your life, think of that as a blessing and as of God's way of pursuing you, and he's trying to wake you up from your spiritual sleep and slumber.

Next, our third final point: God's sovereignty versus man's helplessness.

Verse 11.

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

For the sea grew more and more tempestus.

And he said to them, Pick me up and hurl me into the sea, then the sea will quiet down for you.

For I know it is because of me that this great temptest has come upon you.

Nevertheless, the men rode hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more temptest against them.

Therefore they called out to the Lord, O Lord, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not on us innocent blood for you.

O Lord, have done as it pleased you.

You have done as it pleased you.

So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea seized from its raging.

And the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.

And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

So after the men knew that it was Jonah who caused this violent storm, they asked him what they should do.

And here we get a glimpse of Jonah in a vulnerable moment of helplessness.

He knew there was nothing more he can do.

And the only thing to be done now was to get him thrown into the sea.

The man tried to try to spare his life, but after seeing that the storm wasn't dying down, but instead of getting stronger, they knew what they had to do.

So they asked God to show them mercy for what was about to happen.

And they grabbed Jonah, cast him off the boat and into the sea.

Now, remember, these were pagan men.

These were men who worshiped false gods, other gods.

They didn't know or serve the one true God until now.

This great display of God's power left them with no doubt who the true God was.

Notice how they offered a sacrifice to the Lord.

They made vows to him.

Jonah probably thought this was the end for him.

His life was barely spared inside the boat.

Surely he wouldn't survive being cast into the sea.

But of course, man's ways are not always God's ways.

And God determines when the end is.

And apparently, here he decided it wasn't Jonah's time.

So he points this, he appoints this great fish to swallow up Jonah, and there he remained for three days and three nights.

Again, so much has been made of this part of the story, right?

There's always speculation of what kind of fish this was.

Was it a giant whale, or was it a great white shark?

Or maybe it was some giant fish that is now extinct.

Well, it could it could have been either.

Some fish are known to retain food in their stomach for hours and even days.

In 1845, sailors aboard the USS Saratoga caught a shark and discovered human remains inside of it.

The remains were identified as belonging to a sailor who had fallen overboard days earlier.

But of course, Jonah remained alive.

Some of you have may have seen, maybe you're too young to see it, but some of you may have seen uh the old Jaws movies.

You remember when they found some of those great white sharks, they opened them up and they found like a license plate in them.

So the shark had still not digested some things, right?

So fish are known to keep things without digesting them in their ski in their stomach for a while.

You know, and skeptics have tried to discredit this story as fiction or allegory.

But remember, Jesus mentions this as historical fact.

In Matthew chapter 12, verse 40, Jesus says, For just 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.

Matthew 12:40

Jesus didn't think of this story as allegory.

This was historical.

And I think what skeptics miss is God's hand in the miracle.

I mean, we could talk about a fish's ability to keep things in their stomach all day long, but there is no natural explanation for Jonah remaining alive in the belly of the fish.

This is a complete act of God's supernatural providence.

The question that we have to ask is why?

Why did God send the fish?

Why did God keep Jonah alive?

Because let's be honest, the fish kept him alive, not Jonah would have drowned.

The fish had to come to swallow up Jonah to keep him from drowning.

Why didn't God allow him to drown?

Why didn't God allow him to die?

Didn't Jonah deserve this fate?

Shouldn't he have died at sea for pun as punishment for his rebellion?

I think the answer is most likely yes, right?

The wages of sin is death, the Bible tells us.

God had a mission, and by his sovereign power, he was going to make sure that this mission was accomplished, that this mission was complete.

And no man, not even a man in his stubbornness and in his rebellion was going to stand in the way of that.

Man always thinks that he can get in the way of God.

But when God decrees something, there is nothing that man can do to stop it.

Because the truth is, man is just too small and God is just too big.

Man is just too helpless, and God is just too sovereign.

Jonah found all this out the hard way.

The question is, will you?

Will you resist the plan of God for your life?

And I'm not talking about, you know, some secret, you know, plan and some secret thing that God has for you.

I mean his revealed plan for your life.

In churches, you'll always hear preachers talk about God's plan for your life, and that is whatever you think of your heart in your heart.

God's plan for me is to do this, and God's plan for me is to do that.

I'm not talking about any of that.

He might have some secret plan for you that you don't know and that he's gonna unfold for you one day.

But I'm talking about his plan and his revealed word.

That's where we see his plan clearly.

Will you resist that plan?

Will you resist the word of the Lord like Jonah did?

God's word has come to each and every one of us.

It has come to us in and through the scriptures.

The Bible.

And the scriptures are what mankind resists and rebels against every single day.

Like Jonah, we don't like what we hear.

God says one thing and we say, I don't like that, God.

Or we're afraid of walking it out.

God says one thing and we're saying, I don't know about that.

I don't know if I can trust that way.

I think my way might be better.

But look, God isn't going to compromise with anyone.

He's not going to say, Oh, I'm sorry you don't like it my way.

Go ahead and do it your way, and it'll be okay.

Or he's not going to say, you know, I know you're afraid of trusting my word.

So go ahead and do it your way and do which way you think is safe and comfortable.

It's either God's way or no way.

It's either God's way or the harder way.

And I think the first God's way or no way is for the unbeliever, right?

The unbeliever tries to come to God their own way when Christ said no one comes to the Father except through Him.

Second way is for the Christian, you know.

It's either God's way or the hard way.

God's going to get it done in our lives.

The question is, are we going to resist?

Are we making things harder on ourselves than they have to be?

Are we running away from God?

Are we running away from his word?

Are we running away from what he has called us to do, to live for him, and to do his work and to accomplish his mission?

Because let's face it, he has a work destined for each and every one of us.

We don't get to opt out, right?

We don't get to say, yeah, we're the Christian who doesn't do God's work.

Or we're the Christian who doesn't obey.

Ephesians 2.10 says, For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

God has already prepared the work that he has for you, Christian.

And as Job 42, 2 says, no purpose of his can be thwarted, which means he's going to have it his way with you one way or another.

The only question is, are you gonna have to go through a violent storm and the belly of a fish to get there?

God's will is not always man's way.

And look, that's a good thing.

That's a good thing.

Adam had it his way.

Adam followed his own way, which led him to be disobedient, which led him to rebel against God, which led him to sin.

That was his way.

But what was God's will?

God's will was that Adam would not perish, and that his posterity would have hope, and that through the promise, seed of the woman would one day come him who would crush the head of the serpent.

Rather than being allowed to perish in his sin, God's will was to send a second Adam to rescue him.

And just like Jonah, that second Adam was in the grave for three days and three nights.

But he rose again from the dead to bring all those who died in Adam to new life.

So we should thank the Lord.

We should thank him that man's way doesn't always succeed.

Jonah's plans failed.

But praise the Lord.

Praise God.

That God's way succeeded and God's will succeed.

We should thank the Lord that man's way doesn't always succeed, but we should thank him even more that his will always does.

Amen.

Let us pray.