Into the Deep

Thank you for reading this sermon from Christ Fellowship. I hope and pray that this sermon will be a blessing of grace and truth to you. With that said, let me encourage you not to use this sermon as a replacement for your local church. Christ Jesus did not establish his Church simply for us to consume content. Instead, He calls us to be part of a real, covenant family.

Okay, well, we’re in between sermon series this week, so we just finished 1 Peter last week. Exciting announcement. We’re starting Romans next week. Go through Romans this fall, so that will be great.

Get excited for that. But yeah, we have this week in between, and uh Mike said I could preach on anything I wanted in the Bible. Uh yeah, limited meal bit, you know. Um that’s hard. I mean, he’s got the whole Bible, so it’s kind of daunting to choose from. Um God helped me decide if I had to take a Hebrew class this past summer on Jonah. Um, and I thought I would be like an expert at Jonah after this class, and I realized I’m not, and uh I still don’t understand some of what’s going on. Um it’s kind of a complicated book, but uh I think as we go into it, we’ll just really see God’s heart for Jonah, and I think we’ll be able to identify with Jonah as well. Um, Jonah, like I said, kind of this uh satirical book, it’s kind of a parody on what a normal prophet should be. Um you’re probably familiar with this story of Jonah. Um if you’re not, God tells Jonah to go preach uh repentance to Nineveh, this evil city. Um Jonah being prophet, like his job is to go proclaim the word of the Lord.

Uh he doesn’t do that. Instead, he sails in the opposite direction of Nineveh on board with um some sailors, and God sends this great storm on them because Jonah’s running away. Jonah’s like, it’s my fault. So he gets thrown into the sea, um, swallowed by this great fish, uh, which is kind of what we’re gonna talk about today. And then he eventually makes it back to Nineveh, proclaims God’s word to them.

Nineveh repents, and Jonah is angry that they repent. And so he’s really kind of just the opposite of what a prophet should be. He doesn’t proclaim God’s word when he should. But then when he does, and people accept God’s word, he’s angry that they accepted it.

Uh so he’s kind of you know this ironic, complicated figure. Uh, we’re gonna spend some time looking at his prayer at these ends, the belly of this great fish. We’ll be in uh we’ll start in Jonah 117, if you want to turn there, and we’ll go to 21. I think this will be helpful for us to understand Jonah. Uh, because really the only part of the story that you get this really clear look into how Jonah is communicating with God, other than chapter 4.

But he really really shares his heart, he shares his relief in this prayer. And so I want us to learn from Jonah, kind of see what he’s thinking. But more than that, I really want us to focus on the gracious action of God in this story of Jonah. Look at Jonah, see how he’s wrestling, see yourself in that wrestling, but more than that, see how God’s grace just reaches down and grabs Jonah. That’s why I’m excited about the phrase that really sums up the whole book of Jonah is in our text that salvation belongs to the Lord. And that’s gonna be our lens as we go through this prayer. We’re gonna ground everything in this truth that salvation belongs to the Lord. So let’s go into the text.

We’ll start in 117. And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

And so, little refresher again, right? Jonah is running away. He’s on this on this ship full of sailors who are they don’t worship God. Um And God sends God sends this great storm on the ship, and Jonah says, Hey, you know, this is my fault, God, my God is sending the storm. So they throw him into the sea. Uh and he’s about to drown when this great fish comes and swallows them that we just read that God appointed this great fish to swallow them. Uh some, you know, a lot of people kind of hear it describe as a whale. It could be the Hebrew word just means like great fish.

Uh I read one series. This is like an actual interpretation that people hold that when Jonah was thrown into the sea, he wasn’t swallowed by actual fish, but he washed up on shore and stayed three days and three nights at an end called the great fish, like the great fish hotel or something. So I don’t hold that interpretation.

It’s not what I would go with. This actual fish, I think that God sent to swallow Jonah. And that’s important, because as I said, the main phrase that we have going through this psalm or going through this prayer is that salvation belongs to the Lord. And so you see that right away, that God himself appoints this fish to come and swallow Jonah. And so as we go through this text, we’ll see that Jonah is using Hebrew poetry here.

So just kind of a note on Hebrew poetry. It’s meant to be reflected on. You’re supposed to kind of slow down and dwell on it. Think about what he’s saying as we read through it. So really what we’re going to try and do as we go through this is just put ourselves in the shoes of Jonah and experience what he’s experiencing, kind of wrestle with his thought process, going to apply it along the way. So yeah, put your poetry hats on, and we’ll try to get into Jonah’s shoes.

Let’s go ahead and start with this prayer. Chapter 2, verse 1 and 2. Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, saying, I call out to the Lord out of my distress, and he answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol, I cried, and you heard my voice. So if you slow down and read through that, it’s almost like Jonah can’t really believe what had just happened.

He’s just like amazed that God was able to save him from this death. So he says he’s in the belly of Sheol. The Hebrew people, they’ve got a shiol as this place where the dead go. And he says, I’m in the belly of Sheol.

So I’m in the deepest recesses of where the land of the dead is. And yet still God answers him. So he basically says the same thing twice in verse 2. He says, I cried out and God heard me. I was in the belly of sheep. I was like so far gone that seemed impossible, and yet God rescued me.

So he’s just amazed. So I was trying to think, you know, the illustration for this of you know how would we kind of experience it. And uh, you can’t really get a better illustration than the text. Like imagine, imagine that you are in the ocean, you’re in the sea, and you’re drowning, and you get to a point where you just mentally accept it, like I’m not making out of this.

I am going to drown here. And yet God hears and he answers. Because salvation belongs to the Lord. So if we go through this psalm, like I said, I want us to apply it to reflect on it. I think really the message that we’re getting at here, no matter how far down you feel like you’re sinking, no matter how bleak it looks, salvation belongs to the Lord, and so he will answer when you call upon him.

Let’s keep going. Look at verse 3 and 4. For you cast me into the deep, into the art of the sea, and the flood surrounded me. All your ways and your billows passed over me.

Then I’ve said, I am driven away from your sight, yet I shall again look upon your holy temple. This is almost uh kind of like funny, other than the fact that he was drowning. Like Jonah starts by saying, God, you answered me in my in my uh distress, you answered my call. I thought drowning in the sea. But then right after that, he says, God, you’re the one that threw me into the sea.

Like you put me there. It’s 100 % God’s intention to throw Jonah into the sea. Do you see this when you just look at verse 3? You cast me into the deep. It’s your ways, your billows that passed over me. He’s quoting from Psalm 42 here. He says, Be called to deep at the roar of your waterfalls, all your breakers and your ways have gone over me. I used to read that verse. Uh it’s kind of like a nice little nature walk. If you’re in the rainforest and deep call to be, you like see these waterfalls, like the mist is kind of washing over you. Um that’s not always happening.

This is like a 30 foot wave crashing down on top of your head. This is like God’s wrath coming down on Jonah. God is punishing Jonah here. His wrath is coming down on him. And yet, despite this, despite this great punishment, this great wrath that God’s bringing down on Jonah, he still hopes to look upon God. And Jonah’s not a great example throughout the book, but he actually does something right here. He cries out to God, even though he knows God is sending this distress on him. This is like visual language in verse 4. He says, I’m driven away from your sight. Yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.

And so, in human terms, in general, you know, if I can see you, and if you can see me, then we’re present, right? Like we’re all here together because we can see each other. And so he’s more so talking about God’s presence here. He’s driven away from God’s presence, that God himself is driving him away from his presence. But yet, Jonah hopes to look upon God again. He hopes to be returned to God’s presence. Why? Because salvation belongs to the Lord. Even when his hand is against you, he is the one that is going to rescue you. So let’s place ourselves in Jonah’s experience again.

What does it feel like when you are drowning? When it feels like God has left you when it feels like God Himself is actually driving you away from his presence. When you know you’re in sin and life is crashing down around you, and it feels like God’s hand is against you. What do we do with that? What does Jonah do? He cries out to God. Even though it’s God Himself, that’s in control of everything happening to him. He cries out to God. And we’re called to do the same. Maybe it does feel like God’s presence isn’t as tangible to us. Maybe it feels like we’re in a period of drowning and distress. And we’re questioning God, why are you making this happen?

And that’s a fair question to ask. But more than that, Jonah teaches us to run to God in the midst of that. To call out to him, ask for his deliverance. Because salvation belongs to him. And God will answer you. And maybe right now you’re feeling like you’re feeling like God, I have been crying out to you. Like I am in this distress. I am going through difficult things. I’m battling my own sin. I feel far from your presence. I’ve been crying out to you, God. Like, where is your answer for me? When are you going to respond and rescue me?

Maybe that’s what you’re asking. And yet we have this promise that God does answer us, even in the deepest distress. We’ll keep reading and we’ll see his answer. Start back in verse 5 and verse 6. The waters closed in over me to take my life. The deep surrounded me. Weeds were wrapped around my head at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever.

Yet you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord, my God. back to the poetry, if you look at the imagery here in 5 and 6, It’s really severe. Jonah is actually describing the process of death. If you look at it closely, he says in verse 5, the waters closing over me to take my life. The Hebrew, there’s literally the water were rising up above my throat. So it’s this terrifying image of being stuck in water just slowly rising up as you’re drowning. And he says, the deep surrounded me, so if water is rising, well, then it’s on top of them. He’s engulfed in it. There’s no escape. Then he gives like some interesting detail here. The weeds were wrapped around my head at the roots of the mountains.

This is actually an image of burial. The weeds being wrapped around Jonah represent these garments that you would wrap a body in before it’s buried. The Hebrews thought of the mountains here, reaching to the depths of the sea and being where Sheol was. And he says, these bars are closed upon me forever. So he’s he’s dying, he’s dead, he’s buried, he’s trapped in the land of the dead forever. So it’s a complete picture of inescapable death.

And yet, God still answers him. He brings them up from the pit. And God answers our cries the same way he answers Jonah here. He brings us back from death. He answers our call when there is no hope. Think about how God rescued Jonah. This is why it says the great fish was so important at the beginning. If you look back at 117, says that the fish swallowed Jonah. He was in there three days and three nights. Both of these images are death images. That being swallowed up. Every time that word is used, that I’m swallowed up.

It’s this image of your life being consumed. Like in numbers, God opens up the earth and has swallows those who are in rebellion to him. And so being swallowed up is this picture of death. Well then three days and three nights. in the ancient Near East, They understood the trip to Sheol, the trip to death to take three days and three nights. If you’re dying, you’re going to shield, then it’s going to take three days, three nights. And so this fish even is this great picture of death.

And Jonah is Jonah, he’s dying, he’s rescued by this picture of death. And we’re saved in the same way. We’re saved from death by death that gives us life. Jesus alludes to this clearly here that it’s about him. In Matthew 12, Jesus, he’s talking with the scribes and Pharisees, and they ask Jesus to say, Hey, give me a sign that you’re the Messiah. Give me a sign that you are God’s answer to our crying out. Here’s what Jesus says. An evil and adulterous generation seeker a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

Here it is in verse 40. 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. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it. For they repented of the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. So how do we know that God answers us in our distress? We looked at Jesus. We looked at his death on our behalf, his life that he imparts to us.

The death that we’re scared of, the distress and the fear of being abandoned by God, of losing his presence. God answers all of those in Christ. He says, Christ has died this death for you so that you can have this life. Jesus, he brings you into the presence of God by Himself being cast out of God’s presence. Jesus, he’s this greater Jonah, because Jonah, he ran away from God’s call and is saved from death. Jesus, he answers God’s call, and he undergoes death himself. All so that we can have life found in him. The salvation belongs to the Lord, and he gives it to us in Christ. So in your distress, in your sin, call on him. Because God has answered you. He’s answered you in Christ.

So And so how do we respond to this great salvation that does belong to the Lord? How do we respond to it? And if I’m honest, this is kind of what has bothered me about Jonah and a lot of my studies over this semester. Something I can’t really wrap around in my mind is that Jonah never really seems sorry for his sins. There’s no signs of repentance. There’s no like sorrow over his sin. Even in his prayer, right after God delivers him, there’s no sign of him being sorry. Later we see that his heart still isn’t repentant when Nineveh answers God’s uh God’s calling and they repent.

Jonah’s frustrated, he’s angry that God shows them grace. He doesn’t seem to get that God just showed him grace and saved him. So what do we do with that? Let’s read through the rest of this prayer, and we’ll kind of see how Jonah processes it. We’ll see where his heart’s at. Let’s start back in verse 10. Or sorry, verse 7. When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you into your holy temple. Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.

But I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. Well, I have vowed, I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord. The Lord spoke to the fish and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land. So Jonah, he has the right response here. But if you look at it, it’s also all about Jonah right from the get go. He says, I remembered God, my prayer came to you. What I have vowed, I will pay. It’s all about him. Even compares or he contrasts himself to those who worship false idols, false idols, to worship vain idols.

He says, I’m not like them, right? I’m steadfast, I’m faithful. And the funny thing is he’s probably referencing the sailors that he was just with, the sailors who didn’t worship God. And the funny thing is, after Jonah is thrown overboard, these pagan sailors began to worship God, the true God, and sacrifice to him, while Jonah is in the sea because of this because of his disobedience. But then the last detail of this story is funny as well. That right after Jonah promises disobedience to God, the fish vomits him out. This might be weird, but I think my favorite part of studying it this past semester was doing a word study on the Hebrew word for vomit in the Old Testament.

It’s like, is there someone vomiting? I’m gonna go study it and look at it. And that was that word, every time it’s used, it’s in reference to someone being idolatrous, someone being rejected because of their idolatry. In Leviticus 18, it says that the land vomits out its inhabitants who have fallen into idolatry. And so it’s this picture that God’s creation itself can’t stand how disgusting idolatry is that. It just reflectively has to push it out. And that’s what the fish does.

Right after Jonah says, Hey, I don’t fall into idolatry. I’m not like these guys. It vomits him out. He comes out covered in fish vomit. And I think it’s just a sign that there’s still a lot of work to do in his heart. That after God has accomplished this great salvation for him, after God’s answered him, there’s still sin that resides there that needs to be driven out.

It’s That’s true of us as well. We think about Jonah, that we have this great salvation found in Christ. And yet, how quick are we after this salvation to turn to our own obedience, to turn to our faithfulness, to exalt ourselves, rather than exalt God’s grace. The salvation should humble us, it shouldn’t exalt us. It should make us lowly and repentant, not proud and arrogant. Like I said, we’re starting Romans this fall. One of my favorite verses in Romans comes from Romans 5. It says, God shows his love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Another favorite verse in Ephesians, but God being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. To Jonah, he was dead in the ocean. That’s how he describes himself. Maybe not literally, but that’s how he describes this. Wrapped like a mummy, you know, locked in the gates, a shield, and God makes them alive. The same is true for us, that we are dead in our trespasses, that we we are hopeless, that there’s nothing we did to bring ourselves to God.

Like Jonah, we were actively rebelling against God. We were still enemies with God when he sent his son to die for us, to show this great act of love. If And so if we think that any part of us has brought ourselves to God as merit in his favor, we are gravely mistaken. Because God himself has reached down into the pit and brought us up out of his grace by giving Christ to be our life. So the salvation, it’s a humbling salvation, one that actually caused us to be repentant, to be lowly, hope in Christ alone.

Because salvation belongs to the Lord. It does not belong to us. And yet, because salvation does belong to the Lord, we belong to Him. He gives us this salvation. So And so it’s a humbling salvation, and yet it’s also the most assuring, most freeing, most joyful salvation you can have. Because God gives it freely to you. That nothing you did earned it, but nothing you can do will forsake it.

He holds you in his hand. I think Jonah was genuinely thankful here that God delivered him. No, he didn’t get how sinful he was. There’s still a lot of work to do in his heart. I think he’s thankful because he knows that he still belongs to God. And God is patient with him. God walks with him. He does the same for us. God saves us. He continues to redeem us by exposing our sin, exposing our need for him.

We’re still messy. Think about that fish moment on Jonah. We’re still messy. We’re still sinful. And yet we’re still deeply loved by God. God sees you right now for who you truly are. He sees the deepest parts of you that you don’t want anyone to see. He sees your struggles, your circumstances. And he says, You still belong to me because you are in Christ. And so I encourage you to cry out to him over and over again. If you haven’t cried out yet, do it. Run to God. His grace is enough for you. If you’ve known Christ, known God for a long time, cry out to him again because we’re still messy. We still need his grace.

He will answer us. He says, You still belong to me. Salvation belongs to the Lord, and we belong to him.