Restoring Grace | Jonah 2
I woke up out of a dead sleep, in the middle of the night, unable to breathe. I had no idea what was going on. My lungs were moving. But every time I’d inhale, I’d hear this raspy gurgling kind of noise… and as I was sitting up in the bed trying to get oxygen into my lungs with my wife sitting up beside me with her hand on my back…I remember just the briefest of flashes running through my mind, thinking “This is it! If I can’t breathe, I’m gone!”
And after what seemed like forever, although I’m sure in real time it was only a few moments, my airways cleared up, and I was able to get oxygen again, and all I could do was just sit there and gather myself…. And I was so shaken up by that experience that I was afraid to go back to sleep…
And instead, I went online… because, as you know, consulting Dr. Google is always a wonderful and encouraging experience… because you’re going to end up with every disease in the book.
But I discovered, and it was confirmed by a doctor, that it was simply an acid reflux issue, and it wasn’t all that serious. But let me tell you something…you bolt up out of a dead sleep at 2am… unable to breathe… and nothing in the world seems as serious as that. There are few things as terrifying as the inability to breathe.
Some of you have been through that and the sheer sense of helplessness and fragility that it brings… and you also know the sense of relief and gratitude that comes when… you’re able to get that breath you were looking for.
That is something like what happened to Jonah, but MUCH worse. Jonah was drowning. And in a moment of terrified helplessness, he was certain this was the end.
But how did we get here? You may not even remember, as it’s been a few weeks since we’ve been in Jonah… I don’t know about you, but when I’m watching a TV show… even if just a week goes by, I’ve forgotten the plot, so I really appreciate those quick recaps a show gives to help the viewer get their head back into the story… And so I think I need to provide something like that for you here…and so…
Previously…. In Jonah…
Jonah was a Hebrew prophet who received a divine order to go to Nineveh and warn them of God’s judgment for their great evil… but Jonah refused… He was repulsed by the Ninevites, who were evil, cruel, murderous barbarians and a threat to his own people, Israel…and so Jonah hated the Ninevites… he did not want to warn them of God’s judgment because he did not want them to receive God’s mercy.
He was scandalized by this idea of grace for rotten people like that… And so he runs. He tries to flee from the presence of the Lord. Better to not have God and get what I want… than to deny myself and trust God’s plan and wisdom.
And so he finds a boat headed to Tarshish, which is as far from Nineveh as he can get… we’re talking about Spain! But God pursues him with a storm, and the pagan sailors are terrified.
But Jonah would rather die than repent…. and he tells the sailors to cast him into the ocean, and as soon as Jonah hits the water, the sea is calm, and the boat is saved…and the pagan sailors embrace and worship the one true God.
And from their perspective, Jonah is a dead man beneath the waves. Maybe they even held a memorial service for Jonah as they witnessed what amounted to a burial at sea. And Jonah is indeed about to be buried….buried alive….for the next three days.
Jonah thought that life away from God would be just fine. But as he’s sinking down into the depths….and the last bit of oxygen is passing out of his lungs and bloodstream, he realizes to his terror that he has just made a terrible mistake.
In his sin, he has abandoned the living God. And Jonah’s story is all over. Or so it seems.
But God…. God has been pursuing Jonah…. not to harm him but to show grace…and so Jonah is swallowed by this great fish…which John Calvin calls a hospital of sorts where Jonah receives spiritual healing. And in Jonah’s terrifying experience, we learn at least 4 things about grace and how He deals with spiritual runaways…
First…
God shows His grace through His merciful wrath.
Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish,
(Jonah 2:1)
This is not a prayer for rescue. It's a prayer thanking God for a rescue that has already happened. The fish is not an instrument of punishment, but of God’s saving grace. And Jonah’s prayer is a flashback of sorts as he looks back and describes his experience to us…
“I called 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.
(Jonah 2:2)
Sheol is the realm of the dead. Jonah’s essentially saying that in that moment, under the waves, he was as good as dead.
For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me;
(Jonah 2:3)
Now…. according to what we read in chapter 1, who cast Jonah into the waters? The sailors! At Jonah’s request!
But Jonah here says YOU God, cast me into the deep. Jonah rightly recognizes the Lord’s sovereign hand in this. The sailors who cast him into the sea were merely agents…unknowingly doing what God had sovereignly deemed should happen to Jonah. This is all the Lord’s doing.
…all your waves and your billows passed over me.
(v. 3)
Again, Jonah recognizes that God is doing this. He says YOUR waves and YOUR billows passed over me. Jonah sees himself as being crushed under the heavy hand of God for his disobedience.
And he realizes that his terrifying experience was none other than God's painful discipline. It's God’s “merciful wrath.” A phrase coined by Martin Luther. He contrasted it with God’s wrath of severity. God’s wrath of severity is poured out on the unbeliever as ultimate judgment for sin, finally and fully expressed in Hell.
But His wrath of mercy is God’s tough discipline on his child…not for the purpose of destruction, but restoration… for bringing the wayward spiritual runaway who was on the road to ruin, back into the safety of God’s loving arms.
As one preacher said,
There are times when a Christian can wander so far from the path of faithfulness to God…when the virus of rebellion has spread so vigorously through our spiritual system, that nothing but merciful wrath…wounding medicine…can effect the cure…
- David Strain
Sometimes God must bring us to the end of ourselves before we’re ready to turn back to Him. Some of you know what that’s like…. You’ve wandered from God…you ignored the pleas of other Christians telling you to repent…and the warnings in God’s word telling you to change course…
You just kept hitting the spiritual snooze button, and the only thing that woke you up was God permitting calamity in your life. Something very hard and painful… maybe a sickness… or a spouse threatening to leave…or a car accident after a night of drinking…
Could’ve been a whole host of things. But the purpose of God allowing you to hit rock bottom was not out of meanness. It was out of kindness. Because He knew that only when you hit the bottom would you actually look up and turn to Him, because there was nowhere else to go.
This doesn’t mean that every calamity is a direct result of God’s discipline for sin…but sometimes it is… and
That’s God’s mercy. An expression of His grace. I’m reminded of Jesus’ story of the young man who desired to get away from the presence of his father because he thought life would be better on his own.
And after using up his money and wasting his life on worldly pursuits, he finds himself in the pig pen begging for scraps to survive…. It’s only after he’s fallen so far and felt so much pain that he comes to his senses and realizes the foolishness of his choice. He goes back to his father, who receives him with grace and joy…
If you’re Christian, but for some reason…in some way…you’re on the run from God… God has sent me into your life today to tell you to stop running and return to God. Turn away from the things that are destroying you. Because if you don’t, God will come upon you with a merciful wrath…. With tough discipline…because He loves you…
… he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
(Hebrews 12:10–11)
And Jonah needed discipline.
He wanted a life apart from God and his Word. That path seemed good and right in the moment,
But Proverbs 14:12 says
There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.
(Proverbs 14:12)
To abandon God is like cutting yourself off from oxygen. from life itself… time and again God calls us to follow Him in obedience, and time and again we do not trust Him because we think we know better. We try to find life in things outside of God, and it’s futile.
It's no better than drowning in the middle of the ocean.
It’s like what Jesus said… trying to build a house on sand. It never works. The life that you’re trying to build outside of God’s will is a house of cards that eventually collapses. And the only place you’ll find peace and security and final safety is by building your life on the solid foundation of God’s Word…on the things that He has said.
And thanks be to God that He will never let His children fully and finally fall away…Charles Spurgeon said that God will not allow his child to sin successfully. He will intervene with discipline. So turn back to God now. Lest you find yourself sinking into the deep, hitting rock bottom.
Now in the Scriptures, the sea, the oceans…the waves… often are signs of God’s judgment. The Bible says it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. And as those waves close over his head, Jonah is experiencing something of what it means to be out of fellowship with the Lord.
And as his life is ebbing away in the belly of Sheol, he learns something very important.
Jonah thought that the worst thing in the world was not getting what he wanted. You see, Jonah had an idea of what his life should be like. He created in his mind an alternate life plan different from what God had for him. A life away from Israel… away from the people of God… a life in Spain…maybe sitting on the beach with one of those umbrella drinks…and retirement from prophetic ministry.
Jonah thinks that life without God is better. And to not get what he wanted would be the worst thing that could happen. But as the waters of God’s judgment close in over his head, he panics and realizes what the worst thing in the world is…. and it isn’t drowning…
The worst thing in the world is what he says in v. 4,
I am driven away from your sight;
(Jonah 2:4)
That kind of language is used in Genesis 3, where Adam, after his rebellion, is driven away from paradise… exiled from the presence of God. Which means to be cut off from the enjoyment, the peace, the satisfaction, the comfort, the stability, the security that comes from being in right relationship with God…
Don’t miss the irony here that Jonah, who has tried so hard to get away from the presence of the Lord… now longs for God again. And that’s a good thing…
yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.
(Jonah 2:4)
Now the temple in Jerusalem is where the presence of God was most fully manifest…
So on the one hand, he feels banished from God… on the other hand, he desperately and eagerly anticipates a time when he will enjoy fellowship and communion with the Lord again. Which is incredible.
Whatever criticisms we might have of Jonah… in this verse we find an amazing declaration of faith in a God who Jonah knows will show grace and mercy to any sinner who calls out to Him.
Now remember this is precisely why Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh… because Jonah knew God’s tender and merciful heart… that God would not deny the cry of a penitent sinner… and he was offended at the notion of grace being given to Nineveh.
But isn’t it interesting that right now…in this moment… as he’s sinking down…. Jonah isn’t offended in the least by the idea of God’s mercy to the unworthy…He’s banking all His hopes on it… and in this horrifying experience of sinking deeper into the ocean depths,
We are learning with Jonah that the worst thing in the world isn’t drowning… or being denied the things you think you want… instead, the very worst thing is not having God in your life.
Which means that if having God in your life means being denied other things that you may want…. It’s actually a good deal.
This is what Jesus was getting at when he said that the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field that a man finds and, in his joy, sells everything he has to get that treasure. That’s how valuable having God is!
In running from God, Jonah had been neglecting treasure and chasing trinkets.
But as he’s sinking down, he doesn’t care about the trinkets anymore…and he longs for the treasure… but he feels driven away from God’s presence and that treasure slipping through his fingers.
And so Jonah finds himself feeling more lost and hopeless than ever, because nothing is worse than banishment from God. nothing is worse than being turned over to your sinful desires…that’s a foretaste of Hell…this is a Hell-like experience for Jonah.
So Jonah continues to sink…and in verses 5 and 6, he is as low as he can go…
The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped about my head at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever…
(Jonah 2:5-6)
There is a sense of finality here. He’s on the ocean floor. His body was almost being mummified…this seaweed wrapped around his head. He has reached the heart of the belly of Sheol, and the poetry here is pretty powerful… where the gates of the realm of the dead are closing with an echoing clang…and the lock is turned into place. And there is no way out. It is all over.
But… end of v. 6…
yet you brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God.
(Jonah 2:6)
And so God shows His grace.
Through a spectacular rescue
When my life was fainting away, I remembered the LORD, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple.
(Jonah 2:7)
Sometimes in our stubborn rebellion, it takes nothing less than God’s painful discipline for us to finally call on the Lord. God mercifully allowed Jonah to go to the very edge of death because only in his helpless extremity did Jonah finally remember God.
Proud, arrogant Jonah had to realize his helplessness… his futile life apart from God. And at the bottom of the ocean, his spiritual eyes were opened, and he became aware of his dreadful condition, his inability to rescue himself, and his need for nothing other than God’s grace to deliver him.
And that’s how every Christian in this room was saved. We recognized our helpless condition apart from God… and we called on his name to be saved from sin and the judgment we deserve.
Jonah had run far… and sunk low… but friends, God’s ear is not deaf to those who call on Him for mercy… and there’s nowhere you can run where He is not…
God’s arm is not short…No matter what you’ve done…no matter how far you’ve sunk… He can reach you with His grace wherever you are… even right now…
As the Psalmist says,
Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
(Psalm 139:7–10 ESV)
At the end of chapter 1, we’re told that the Lord had appointed a fish to swallow Jonah… that’s interesting… when Jonah cried out for help, God wasn’t scrambling around trying to figure out a solution… “Oh my! How am I going to get Jonah out of this mess!”
Even before Jonah had prayed, God had already appointed the means of rescue. Even while Jonah was in the height of his rebellion, sleeping in the boat, that fish was out there standing by, ready to do what God had appointed it to do.
We see here God as the planner and initiator of Jonah’s salvation… again, more grace… it reminds me of the gospel, which says that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
God wasn’t waiting for us to get our act together before He prepared the deliverance…He prepared the deliverance and then worked in our lives in such a way that when we hit the bottom and called on the name of the Lord…. The appointed salvation, the appointed provision, had already come.
Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.
(Jonah 2:8)
Jonah’s experience has stirred up within him an increased sense of the value of God vs. the worthlessness of idols. “Steadfast love” is the Hebrew word “hesed,” which refers to God’s covenant faithfulness to His people…
And Jonah’s rebuke seems not so much to pagan Gentiles but to Israel…his own people… a nation that, while looking down with prejudice on the Gentiles, had themselves gone astray and largely followed after other gods.
They were trying to find their hope…their identity… their life in other things… and Jonah is admitting that, apart from the true worship of God, it doesn’t matter who you belong to…what your religious pedigree is… if you turn away from God, you are rejecting His Hesed…His covenant love…His grace… you’re forsaking that for something that you think is better…
That’s what Israel did…that’s what Jonah did! And Jonah confesses that it’s vanity…that the value of having God far outweighs any other treasure you could have… and when your heart gets to that place, that’s a miracle… that’s grace…
And so God shows His grace through His merciful wrath… through a spectacular rescue… and also through…
His kind restoration
But I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you;
(Jonah 2:9)
When we experience the grace of God, it leads to thanksgiving and worship. Show me a person who’s not thankful…who has a tendency to grumble and complain, and I’ll show you somebody who has yet to really understand the grace of God.
This is why hyper-judgmental and religiously legalistic people are often angry grumblers, complainers, and thankless fault-finders… they have a deficient understanding of God’s grace towards them, and so they struggle to apply that grace to themselves or others…
But Jonah, in the belly of the fish….spared from an end of rotting on the ocean floor being picked apart by sharks has a heightened awareness of his hopeless state and God’s gracious rescue.
And he realizes that he has nothing to complain about and every reason to be thankful. Jonah says,
What I have vowed, I will pay.
(Jonah 2:9)
This seems to speak of a prior commitment to the Lord….probably his commitment to be a prophet…to receive, speak, and obey God’s Word…
Because when you receive much grace FROM God…the result is obedience TO God…
Sometimes people think that God’s grace means we have the freedom to disobey…but that’s not the purpose of grace… the Bible says we’re not saved BY works but saved TO works that God has prepared in advance for us to do….and the purpose of grace is not just to save us but to transform us.
And God’s grace here is serving its purpose in bringing Jonah to a place of obedience where he’s finally willing to go to Nineveh and proclaim the Word of the Lord…
God could have easily let Jonah drown, and He would have been right to do so. You want life without me! Here it is, and you’ll never serve me again! You don’t deserve to serve me.
But friends' grace isn’t about “deserving!” Grace is undeserved favor and blessing… It’s not based on past performance.
You see friends, God is not like us. We treat people based not on grace. But it works. If somebody fails us, maybe we’ll let them squeak by a couple of times, but if they do it again, we’re done with them.
They offended me…they failed me… they hurt my feelings…. and we may not wish them dead literally…but we treat them as dead… as people rotting on the ocean floor. That happens in marriages…in friendships… even in the church.
This doesn’t mean we don’t call out sin… and it certainly doesn’t mean we should never distance ourselves from people who may be dangerous or abusive… those are extreme situations… but some Christians are too quick to write off practically anyone…. and so their relationships are “works-based” … not “grace-based.”
Thank God that He’s not that way with you. And He’s not that way with Jonah as He graciously pursues him and restores him to ministry.
Now… some of you may be disturbed…because you know the end of the story…that by the time we get to chapter 4 (spoiler alert), Jonah has regressed and failed again like he hasn’t learned anything at all…we’re going to have to deal with that!
Here’s the amazing thing. God restores Jonah not only in spite of his past failure… but knowing that Jonah will let him down again… and that unsettles some of us…because frankly we’re not as gracious as God is.
And may God help us grow in our understanding and appreciation of God’s grace in our own lives. Remember that God has saved you not only in spite of your past failures but with the full knowledge of all the ways you’ll fail Him in the future….and He loves you anyway. And may we demonstrate such generous grace in our dealings with others.
Well, Jonah, after reveling in the grace that he has received, ends his prayer with this final declaration,
Salvation belongs to the LORD!
(Jonah 2:9)
And here Jonah is acknowledging two things.
One… God’s sovereignty in salvation… salvation is the Lord’s prerogative. He will have mercy on whomever He wants, and Jonah can’t dictate that. He can’t decide who should and shouldn’t hear the gospel…who should and shouldn’t receive grace…
Salvation is exclusively God’s domain. God doesn’t consult with us about this. His responsibility is salvation…. our responsibility is to proclaim the message of salvation wherever He sends us.
Second…Jonah’s statement reminds us that there is no other savior but the one true God. Life, hope, peace, satisfaction, joy, forgiveness... these things can only be found in the Lord.
Well…in this strange story of Jonah’s descent into Sheol… his three days in the fish…his expulsion on the dry land…we see one more manifestation of God’s grace.
God shows us His grace through a future savior.
What God did for Jonah was grace. But it points to an even greater and more scandalous grace. Jesus Christ, looking back on this very story, refers to this event as the sign of Jonah. Not that Jonah brings a sign…but that Jonah IS the sign as we’ll see next week, as he walks the streets of Nineveh alive and well after being in the belly of Sheol, and buried alive for three days and nights.
Jonah will be to them the sign of God’s power, might, and amazing grace.
There was a time when Jesus’ enemies demanded a special sign to prove Himself…and Jesus said,
“An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 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…and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
(Matthew 12:39–41)
When Jesus Christ goes to the cross….He experiences something worse than Jonah. Jonah feels cut off from God and driven from His presence. Jonah’s experience was like Hell.
Jesus’ experience was Hell! As He hangs on the cross, He experiences banishment from God’s presence… As He suffers not God’s merciful wrath….but God’s holy, just, terrible, vengeful wrath… the full force of God’s punishment…. Not for His own sin because He had none…but for the sins of the world…
Jonah thought he was as good as dead, but God graciously spared him.
But God the Father did not spare Jesus, His own Son.
Jonah was on the very edge of death. But Jesus went all the way. Jesus’ breath left His Body, and He descended into Sheol….into the tomb…and was buried there for three days and nights. And yet…. Jesus is greater than Jonah.
Jonah is violently expelled from the fish…disoriented, disheveled, humbled, reeking of fish vomit…. Jesus walks out of the tomb under His own power…as a conqueror….exalted, triumphant, and glorious.
Jesus’ point is that when you see the sign… when you see a formally dead person… an ex corpse… emerging from the belly of the tomb… after three days and nights, you don’t say “show me a sign”; that is the sign! There will be no greater sign of God’s saving power and grace for sinners than that.
A grace that declares to all liars, adulterers, murderers, arrogant religious snobs, greedy politicians, drug addicts, self-centered people, gossips, runaway prophets, and you and me and the whole world….
Grace declares to such a people that salvation has come….And is found in Jesus…whose name… Yeshua… actually means what Jonah declared… “salvation is of the Lord!”
And all who trust in Him will never have to fear Sheol…will never have to fear the grave…will never have to fear God’s judgment because the innocent Christ was judged on behalf of the guilty. Friends, that is a grace that is scandalous, amazing, and beautiful….that is love….generously coming down from the one who is greater than Jonah….
I want to invite the worship team to return and play quietly for a moment as we reflect on what we’ve heard….
Friend, if you only get one thing out of Jonah chapter 2 this morning, I hope you understand that no matter what you’ve done…or how low you’ve sunk… God’s amazing grace is available for you right now if you would but turn to Him and trust in Christ and what He has done…
And here are some questions that can help you engage with the Lord in prayer and reflection…
Have I been running from God?
Will I stop running and return to God?
Who can I share the hope of God’s grace with this week?
Let’s spend a moment quietly reflecting on God’s word to us this morning…
