Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Our dear Heavenly Father, out of the riches of your grace, you have spoken to us through the prophets.
[00:00:13] I pray this morning that your spirit would give us understanding in your call to prayer through the prophet Jonah.
[00:00:28] I pray that prayer would not be an incidental in our life, but it would be a daily habit.
[00:00:38] We would turn to you again and again and find hope and grace in Christ's name. Amen.
[00:00:48] We're studying through the prophet Jonah.
[00:00:55] Jonah was a prophet who lived in.
[00:01:05] About 800 years before Christ.
[00:01:10] And he had been a faithful prophet until one day the word of the Lord came to him and said, I want you to go to Nineveh, and I want you to tell the people of Nineveh if they don't repent, ah, it won't go well with them.
[00:01:32] Remember, Nineveh was the superpower in the world at the time, and they were an enemy of the Israelites.
[00:01:40] And for the first time in his life, Jonah said to God, no, not going.
[00:01:50] And he went to the port city of Joppa and bought a ticket to try to flee from the presence of the Lord.
[00:02:01] But God's ability to block Jonah was greater than Jonah's ability to run.
[00:02:09] And a great storm arose on the Mediterranean, and the ship couldn't make it forward. The sailors were frightened.
[00:02:21] They cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.
[00:02:25] And they said, what should we do with you? And he said, I'm too dangerous to be around. You got to throw me into the sea.
[00:02:33] Well, the sailors didn't want to do that, and they tried harder and harder to get the land, but they couldn't.
[00:02:40] So eventually they picked him up and threw him over.
[00:02:47] And then God, in his creative wonder, captured Jonah in the strangest vehicle that ever existed.
[00:03:07] And Jonah was swallowed by a sea creature.
[00:03:13] If some of you have trouble believing that if he can create the sea, surely he can create a creature.
[00:03:22] And if he can't create a creature, then I'm not so sure he created the whole sea.
[00:03:28] So this creature, like a giant bass, jumped out of the water, gobbled Jonah down.
[00:03:37] And that's where we pick the story up this week.
[00:03:42] Then Jonah prayed to the Lord, his God, out of the belly of the sea creature.
[00:03:49] This is a line that's easy to read over, but it's in contrast to everything that happened in chapter one.
[00:03:58] Before Jonah fled from the presence of the Lord, he didn't pray.
[00:04:02] When the sailors were frightened and praying their guts out, he didn't pray. He was sleeping in the boat.
[00:04:10] When the captain woke him up and rebuked him, Jonah still didn't pray.
[00:04:18] Even though he was a prophet, he did not pray.
[00:04:23] There's not a word of prayer. When the sailors picked him up and hurled him into the sea, Jonah was living a prayerless life.
[00:04:33] And a prayerless life is a spiritually unhealthy life.
[00:04:39] It wasn't until God separated him from everything else around him that Jonah began to pray.
[00:04:52] Ah.
[00:04:54] Could I ask you this morning, what is your prayer life like?
[00:05:01] Ah.
[00:05:03] In your daily routines for life, is prayer part of that routine?
[00:05:12] Ah.
[00:05:14] Will you risk getting up tomorrow and getting ready and going to work without whispering a prayer?
[00:05:25] Will you find that it's possible to work your whole day tomorrow and never once whisper a prayer to God?
[00:05:40] Will you be busy when you get home?
[00:05:44] Will some TV show hold your attention?
[00:05:48] And then you'll climb into bed having not whispered a single sentence of conversation with God?
[00:06:03] And then the same thing will happen Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and you'll find that you've fallen into a prayerless life.
[00:06:17] Church we cannot be spiritually healthy people and be prayerless.
[00:06:29] We just can't.
[00:06:31] A prayerless life will lead to spiritual weakness and failure.
[00:06:39] Ah.
[00:06:44] It was a pretty drastic thing that Jonah had to go through to get started praying again.
[00:06:54] What might God have to do in your life to get you started praying again?
[00:07:01] What. What.
[00:07:02] What event might trigger you becoming consistent again in your daily prayer life?
[00:07:16] Church.
[00:07:18] Now, some of you've had times in your life where you prayed earnestly and desperately.
[00:07:26] Somebody got a diagnosis that scared you.
[00:07:29] Ah, something happened at work that put your economic life at risk.
[00:07:36] Ah, there was a failure in your life of some sort, and you felt the desperate need to pray.
[00:07:50] But then the edge wore off that, and you didn't feel afraid anymore, or you didn't feel needy anymore, or you didn't feel anxious anymore.
[00:08:08] And because there was nothing frightening in your life, you found it easy to let prayer evaporate.
[00:08:20] Church.
[00:08:23] I don't want God to have to startle me awake to a healthy prayer life.
[00:08:30] I want to do it the easy way. I don't want to do it the Jonah way.
[00:08:35] I don't want to be living in a giant bath before I'm ready to start saying to God, I want to talk to you today.
[00:08:46] Ah.
[00:08:48] And then.
[00:08:50] And then Jonah said, I called out to the Lord in my distress, and he answered me out of the belly of sheol.
[00:09:02] I cried and you heard my voice.
[00:09:06] The word is called, translated called out. It literally means to shout.
[00:09:13] Ah.
[00:09:15] When he was isolated and separated from everything else around him, Jonah didn't feel content to whisper a prayer to God.
[00:09:30] He felt an earnestness and an energy that left him shouting to God. God.
[00:09:39] Ah.
[00:09:42] Ah.
[00:09:44] I see people very comfortable at sporting events screaming their lungs out, right?
[00:09:54] I. I see them pounding on the walls and, and.
[00:09:59] And hopping around and yelling at the top of their lungs.
[00:10:05] Ah.
[00:10:09] To win three games a year.
[00:10:17] I mean, if we're going to the super bowl, that'd be different.
[00:10:22] Ah.
[00:10:25] Ah.
[00:10:28] Is there anything in you that would cause you to lift up your voice and shout to the Lord?
[00:10:42] This shouting to the Lord shows up commonly in the Bible. It shows up in the Psalms a lot.
[00:10:52] It's the idea that you have an enthusiastic reaction to God.
[00:10:59] And in the very same way people shout for their team, you feel the impulse to put energy and effort into lifting up your voice in prayer church.
[00:11:13] Ah.
[00:11:15] Ah.
[00:11:19] Jonah found himself in an unpleasant spot, but there was still a spiritual connection open between him and the Lord.
[00:11:30] And in that moment, he felt the impulse to shout to the Lord.
[00:11:37] Ah.
[00:11:38] To lift up his voice.
[00:11:42] Ah.
[00:11:44] And the Lord heard Jonah shouting even in the unusual prayer room that he was in.
[00:11:53] Ah.
[00:11:57] There. It's translated the belly of Sheol.
[00:12:03] And Sheol is the Hebrew word for the grave.
[00:12:08] Ah.
[00:12:10] Ah. Ah.
[00:12:12] This is a.
[00:12:14] This is a poetic image.
[00:12:17] Uh, Jonah said, I felt like I was in my grave.
[00:12:26] I didn't see how I would ever survive the condition I was in.
[00:12:32] I felt like I was in.
[00:12:34] In. In the belly of my tomb.
[00:12:38] And in that unpleasant spot, Jonah shouted to the Lord, I'm telling you, we have to pray wherever we are.
[00:12:51] There's no magic prayer spot. Do you get this?
[00:12:54] It's not like if you go somewhere holy in the world, your prayers are more heard.
[00:13:01] I've been to the Wailing Wall. I've laid my hand on those ancient stones, and I've called on the name of the Lord.
[00:13:09] But I didn't feel any closer to God there than I do praying to God in my backyard in Medina Church.
[00:13:22] God's ear is not a deaf. He can hear your prayers when you pray anywhere.
[00:13:33] In fact, what Jonah is teaching us is every life failure, and every life distress is a call to prayer.
[00:13:45] Jonah had failed. He was in great distress.
[00:13:49] And what did he do with that distress and that failure? He turned it into prayer.
[00:13:55] Every time you fail in life, every time you feel anxiety, every time the stresses of life rise up and make you uncomfortable, that is a little light flashing on the dashboard of your soul saying, pray, pray.
[00:14:15] Call upon the name of the Lord.
[00:14:18] Ah.
[00:14:20] Ah. And then Jonah wrote the Lord heard his voice.
[00:14:28] This is really important.
[00:14:30] When we pray, we need an awareness that somebody is listening.
[00:14:39] I've had people say to me, doc, it's hard for me to pray because I just start feeling like I'm just talking to myself.
[00:14:47] Ah.
[00:14:49] And that's part of the problem.
[00:14:52] Has this ever happened to you?
[00:14:57] You thought your spouse was in the same room you were in, and you started talking to them and they weren't there, and you're just chatting away only to realize that they're not even in the room.
[00:15:12] Kind of an odd feeling, isn't it?
[00:15:16] We mustn't let that be. Be our feeling in prayer.
[00:15:21] In prayer, it's really not what we say nearly so much as it is that our soul experiences the reality that God is alive and he's paying attention. And that when I speak to him, He. He's listening.
[00:15:45] Church the essence of prayer is the awareness, the sense, the reality that the God of all the universe is paying attention to something that's happening in my soul. Church. That's the essence of prayer.
[00:16:06] Ah.
[00:16:09] Something of the divine character rubs off on me when I pray.
[00:16:16] Prayer doesn't change God. It changes me.
[00:16:19] He doesn't need to change.
[00:16:22] I need to change.
[00:16:24] It wasn't God who was off track in the Mediterranean. It was Jonah.
[00:16:32] And in prayer, God began to subtly work on Jonah's heart.
[00:16:41] Ah.
[00:16:43] And then Jonah wrote, for you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the sea, and the flood surrounded me, and all your breakers and waves passed over me.
[00:17:00] Then I said, I am driven away from your sight, yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.
[00:17:12] Now something has happened in Jonah, and his sense of anxiety has gone down, and he begins to speak to us in a poetic image.
[00:17:23] We have to use our imagination for this.
[00:17:27] Ah.
[00:17:30] Ah.
[00:17:32] Have you ever been on a boat where all you can see is water around your. Your. Your. You can't see any of the shores. All you see is water.
[00:17:44] Ah.
[00:17:47] Now, Jonah said not only was I was water all around me, water was over me and under me.
[00:17:59] I felt myself to be in the heart of the seas.
[00:18:07] Ah.
[00:18:10] Ah.
[00:18:11] Here's your imagination.
[00:18:13] Ah. I was as deep as a submarine could go, but I didn't have a submarine around me.
[00:18:22] You hear the poetry of that?
[00:18:25] Jonah's saying I was in the most precarious place that I've ever been in.
[00:18:38] He said, on top of that, when I dreamed of getting to the surface, your breakers and waves passed over me.
[00:18:49] He said, when I imagined escaping where I am and getting to the surface, I found no comfort in that because I just imagined huge waves blowing across the ocean.
[00:19:04] He's saying, I had no place of security.
[00:19:07] I. I couldn't get out of the bad place I was in, and I had nowhere to go.
[00:19:15] Ah.
[00:19:18] He's using poetry to identify his sense of loss.
[00:19:30] I'm lost.
[00:19:33] There's no way out of this.
[00:19:39] And then he said, not only am I lost in the sea, Ah, this sea is driving me farther and farther away from you.
[00:19:57] Then I said, I am driven from your sight.
[00:20:02] Jonah was saying, as the water separated him from. From all the other life around him, so he felt separated from the Lord.
[00:20:13] And he was a bit confused when he said, I'm driven.
[00:20:18] Do you remember Jonah 1:3?
[00:20:21] But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. And he went down to Joppa and found a ship to go to Tarshish.
[00:20:30] So he paid the fare and went down into it and to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord. Jonah wasn't driven.
[00:20:39] He fled.
[00:20:41] He wasn't in the condition he was in because of God. He was in the condition that he was in because of Him.
[00:20:49] All right, now, we're not here to criticize Jonah. We're here to learn from him.
[00:20:55] Some of you are in difficult places this morning.
[00:20:59] You come with.
[00:21:01] You come with levels of discomfort.
[00:21:06] You come with the anxieties of life.
[00:21:11] You come feeling real pressure.
[00:21:17] And sometimes you feel the impulse to say to God, why are you doing this to me? Me?
[00:21:26] I've had many people in my office who are going through hard things, and they said to me, doc, why is God doing this to me?
[00:21:36] Ah.
[00:21:38] I want to say in the most gentle way I can, God isn't doing it to you, Church.
[00:21:47] Sometimes it's just the reality of living in a broken world.
[00:21:54] A person I love very much has just recently been diagnosed with cancer. God did not give her cancer.
[00:22:04] Living in the broken world did.
[00:22:07] God is not to blame.
[00:22:10] He is to help.
[00:22:14] Whatever you're going through, wherever you are, wherever you find your soul this morning, don't see God as the source of your problem.
[00:22:26] See him as the source of your answer, your solution.
[00:22:32] He is the one who's going to get you out of the condition you're in. He's not the one who got you there.
[00:22:44] Jonah vacillated in his relationship with God, but God never vacillated in his relationship to Jonah.
[00:22:53] Ah, we move, but God remains steadfast.
[00:23:00] I want to say, regardless of your present condition, the Lord is With you, he is faithful. He will never leave you or forsake you.
[00:23:10] Can you hear me, Church?
[00:23:13] Whatever condition you're in this morning, whatever issues you bring with you, whatever burdens the Lord says to you, I will never leave you or forsake you.
[00:23:29] The Holy Spirit says this morning, look at Jonah.
[00:23:33] He was as, ah.
[00:23:37] He was in as desperate condition as any human being ever was.
[00:23:42] But he wasn't there alone.
[00:23:45] The Lord was there with him.
[00:23:48] Can you hear me?
[00:23:50] Ah.
[00:23:54] Jonah remembered the sight of the Lord and it sparked his faith.
[00:24:02] This is what he says.
[00:24:03] Yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.
[00:24:08] Jonah said, I'm lost in the sea.
[00:24:14] I can't fake, I can't make.
[00:24:17] There's no way of escape.
[00:24:19] He said, even if I could escape, the waves are so big, I would just be pushed under again.
[00:24:25] Jonah said, I. I'm at the point of despairing.
[00:24:29] But then he remembered that the Lord was watching.
[00:24:36] And he said, I have faith.
[00:24:40] I don't know how I can get out of here, but I believe that I will again look on the Holy Temple.
[00:24:48] The Holy Temple was considered the place where God was most accessible. Jonah saying, I don't know how to get out of here. I can't find my way forward. But in my heart there's a spark of faith that says, I'm going to see the goodness of God in the land of the living.
[00:25:07] Church, I'm calling on you this morning to say, even if the waves are overwhelming you, even if you're. Even if you feel washed under, if you can't see your way forward, you don't know how to escape.
[00:25:23] I'm telling you the Lord is with you.
[00:25:27] And if you will simply trust, if you call upon his name, if you will hope in the Lord, you will see the blessings of God again in the land of the living.
[00:25:41] I want you to see this word yet.
[00:25:43] There are two holy yet in this verse.
[00:25:47] The first holy yet is here.
[00:25:49] I'm in a mess. I'm in a terrible condition. I can't find my way forward.
[00:25:55] Yet.
[00:25:57] Yet God is with me and I'm going to see him in the land of the living. The blessings are ahead of me.
[00:26:17] I need to say a prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, I pray for focus.
[00:26:22] I pray for your spirit to do what only you can do. I pray that I could speak about these matters in ways that capture the human soul and draw people closer to Jesus Christ.
[00:26:35] I am dependent on you for this good work. In Jesus name, amen.
[00:26:40] Full of distress and fear, certain that he's about to drown seaweed wrapped around his face.
[00:26:49] No idea of how to escape.
[00:26:53] Jonah looked beyond his circumstances and remembered the presence of God.
[00:26:59] Church, Sometimes we have to look beyond our circumstances. And. And we have to see with the eyes of faith what we can't see with our own two eyes.
[00:27:09] Can you hear this, Church?
[00:27:11] Sometimes I have to lift my vision above the problem.
[00:27:15] Sometimes I have to lift my vision above the sorrow. Sometimes I have to lift my vision above the disappointment. And I have to embrace the idea that there is an awesome and gentle and gracious and caring Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:27:33] And that no matter how overwhelmed I am, his eye is on me. And he knows where the green pastures are. He knows where the still water is. He knows how to get me on the path of righteousness for his name's sake. Church, lift up your head and with eyes of faith, look beyond your present condition.
[00:28:00] Look onto Jesus, the originator and perfecter of your faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Church, can you hear this?
[00:28:18] In your hardest times, in your biggest challenges, when things are the most difficult, look beyond the issue and look for the face of the originator and the perfecter of your faith.
[00:28:34] He knows what it's like. He endured the cross and despised the shame.
[00:28:40] That's what he's willing to do to rescue you.
[00:28:45] And then Jonah continued his poem.
[00:28:49] And the waters closed in over me to take my life and the deep surrounded me.
[00:28:57] Weeds were wrapped around my head to the roots of the mountains I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever. Here it is again. Yet you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord, my God, Where it says, the waters closed over me.
[00:29:24] The Septuagint reading is, the waters poured around me.
[00:29:31] The water.
[00:29:33] Everywhere I look, water was pouring around me. Ah.
[00:29:38] Ah.
[00:29:39] He expected to drown.
[00:29:42] Look what he says.
[00:29:43] The waters closed in over me to take my life and the deep surrounded me. He said, I'm not going to survive this.
[00:29:55] He couldn't see how he could possibly survive.
[00:30:01] And then there's this beautiful piece of poetry.
[00:30:06] And if things aren't bad enough, I got stinking, slimy seaweed wrapped around my face.
[00:30:14] I mean, if. If this isn't miserable enough, I got slimy seaweed on my face and I can't wipe it off.
[00:30:23] Can you hear Jonah?
[00:30:26] All right.
[00:30:29] And then if you think it can't get any worse than this, then Jonah said, I have this terrible feeling that this sea creature is Swimming deeper and deeper to the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever. He said, if it isn't bad enough, I have the feeling that this sea creature is swimming deeper and deeper.
[00:30:58] Ah.
[00:31:00] Ah. And then we get the next Holy. Yet.
[00:31:03] Yet.
[00:31:06] He said, I thought it was as bad as it could get.
[00:31:10] And then I was certain I was gonna drown.
[00:31:15] I had seaweed wrapped around my face. I was miserable.
[00:31:19] And if that's not bad enough, I had this terrible feeling that the sea creature was swimming deeper and deeper.
[00:31:28] Then we get the Holy Yet. Yet.
[00:31:31] In spite of all of that, he says, you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord, my God.
[00:31:40] By faith, Jonah trusted in the Lord as his God.
[00:31:45] Can I remember? Can I remind you that the word Lord here is Yahweh? And we talked about this several times. The name Yahweh means the God of ever present being.
[00:31:58] The God of ever present being. Jonah said, I can't imagine it being any worse than it was.
[00:32:06] Yet.
[00:32:07] Yet the God of ever present being was with me.
[00:32:11] Can you hear this, church?
[00:32:14] Do you believe in a God who is ever present?
[00:32:19] And he's with you.
[00:32:22] Do you believe in a God who cares for you and pays attention to your life?
[00:32:28] You believe in a God who knows the challenges and the difficulties and the sorrows you face?
[00:32:37] Do you believe in a God who will never lose track of you? Even if you are as lost as Jonah, he'll never lose track of you.
[00:32:49] Jonah plunged himself into trouble and distress.
[00:32:52] He felt danger when he fled from the presence of the Lord. But the Lord brought up his life from the pit.
[00:33:00] Wherever you are right now, Christ is ready to save you.
[00:33:06] Open your heart to me. Church.
[00:33:08] Wherever you are right now, whatever's happening in your heart, whatever memories you have about life, whatever ugly thing you know you've done, Christ is ready to save you.
[00:33:28] There is no obstacle.
[00:33:31] There is no depth.
[00:33:34] There's no mistake. There's no failure that is too great for Christ to embrace and forgive and set you free.
[00:33:45] Church.
[00:33:47] Ah.
[00:33:48] In Hebrews, chapter four, verse 14, that's just an amen. We don't mind that at all.
[00:34:00] Children bother you?
[00:34:02] Lighten up.
[00:34:05] I'd rather have kid screaming in church than not be in church at all. Can anybody say Amen?
[00:34:21] Listen at Hebrews 4 and think about Jesus Christ.
[00:34:26] Listen to Hebrews 4 and think about Christ.
[00:34:29] Since then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens. Jesus, the Son of God.
[00:34:37] Let us hold fast our confession, for we do not have a High Priest who's unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect was tempted as we are, yet without sin.
[00:34:53] Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
[00:35:04] Do you hear this? Who is it that I'm looking for help to? I'm looking for someone who has the deepest sympathy for my soul that is able for anyone to have.
[00:35:16] I'm not looking to a harsh judge. I'm not looking to someone who is angry. I'm not looking to someone who is resentful. That's not our great High Priest.
[00:35:26] He is able to sympathize with us in all our life difficulties because he lived a life too. And he knows the challenges you're facing.
[00:35:36] And when you approach him, even from the bottom of your greatest failure, what you touch in God is his sympathetic soul.
[00:35:49] Dan Ortland wrote a book called Gentle and Lowly.
[00:35:54] And I and I recommend this for anybody to read. It's not hard to read. It's. It's a fascinating book. And listen what he wrote in his book.
[00:36:03] Look to Christ.
[00:36:05] He deals gently with you.
[00:36:08] It is the only way he knows how to be.
[00:36:13] As long as you fix your attention on your sin, you will fail to see how you can ever be safe.
[00:36:22] But as long as you look to Christ the High Priest, you will fail to see how you can be in danger.
[00:36:31] Listen what Ortland is saying.
[00:36:34] The heart of our Lord Jesus Christ is infinite in sympathy.
[00:36:44] When you are in Jonah's place, when you feel overwhelmed and you touch the heart of God in prayer, he's not going to respond to you scolding and saying, well, look what you did yourself. I tried to help you and you didn't listen.
[00:37:05] That's not the heart of God.
[00:37:08] When you touch the heart of God, you touch the richest source of sympathy that the human soul is able to comprehend.
[00:37:19] Do you hear this?
[00:37:21] In your sorrow, in your difficulty, in your challenges, in your disappointment.
[00:37:28] When you lift your head up and you look unto Jesus, the originator and the perfecter of faith, he's looking back at you and he's looking back with a sympathetic heart.
[00:37:43] Christ cares for you more than you can imagine.
[00:37:49] Whatever creature has swallowed you, wherever you are, the sympathetic heart of our Lord Jesus Christ is looking at you right now and he's saying this.
[00:38:01] Come to me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
[00:38:08] He's not shunning you. He's calling you to his gracious heart.
[00:38:14] And I'm saying church.
[00:38:16] Our natural response should be a heart that cannot help itself but to call upon the name of the Lord, our dear Heavenly Father.
[00:38:28] Thank you for this example from Jonah.
[00:38:31] I pray that you would.
[00:38:34] Pray that you would be gracious to us.
[00:38:37] And wherever we find ourselves this morning, I pray that there would be an impulse in our heart to call upon your name.
[00:38:44] I pray that we would turn to you in faith, hope and love.
[00:38:49] I pray that we would seek you with all our hearts.
[00:38:52] And then I pray that by the grace of God and through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, we might sense the riches of your sympathetic grace. In Christ's name, amen.
