Not a Children's Story // Jonah (Running from God)

Not a Children's Story, Part 1: Jonah

Main Idea

• Pastor Jonathan launched a new series called "Not a Children's Story," exploring familiar Bible stories that are often oversimplified.
• The goal is to move beyond children's Bible lessons and discover how these stories reveal the heart of God and point to Jesus.

Jonah Is About More Than a Whale

• Many people reduce Jonah to a simple lesson: "Don't run from God."
• Pastor Jonathan argued that the whale is not the point of the story.
• Just as David's story is about more than Goliath and Joseph's story is about more than his coat, Jonah's story is about something deeper.

Key Point:

• The Book of Jonah is unique because it is not primarily a book of prophecy; it is a story about a prophet and his heart.

Understanding Jonah's Context

• Jonah was sent to Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire.
• Assyria was a brutal superpower known for violence, conquest, and oppression.
• The Israelites viewed the Assyrians as enemies and feared them.

Key Point:

• Jonah did not run because he was afraid of Nineveh.
• He ran because he knew God might forgive them.

Why Jonah Ran

• Pastor Jonathan highlighted Jonah 4, where Jonah admits his true motive:
• He knew God was gracious, merciful, and slow to anger.
• He feared the Ninevites would repent and receive God's forgiveness.
• Jonah hated the Assyrians and did not want God's mercy extended to them.

Key Point:

• Jonah loved God's mercy when it benefited Israel.
• He struggled with God's mercy when it benefited people he disliked.

Jonah as a Mirror

• Pastor Jonathan challenged the congregation not to see Jonah as a foolish prophet, but as a reflection of themselves.
• Jonah represents the tendency we all have to resist God's will when it conflicts with our own desires, preferences, or sense of justice.

Questions Raised:

• Where has God invited me into something that I do not want?
• What area of my life am I withholding from God?
• Who am I unwilling to forgive?

A Different View of the Whale

• Pastor Jonathan emphasized that the fish was not primarily a symbol of God's anger.
• Instead, it was a picture of God's mercy.
• Jonah wanted to die rather than obey God, but God pursued him and preserved him.

Key Point:

• The storm and the fish were not punishments as much as they were acts of grace designed to rescue Jonah from himself.

The Sign of Jonah and Jesus

• Jesus referred to Jonah as a sign pointing to Himself.
• Just as Jonah spent three days in the fish, Jesus spent three days in the grave.
• The story ultimately points to God's relentless pursuit of humanity through Christ.

Key Point:

• The greatest act of grace was not the fish—it was Jesus' death and resurrection.

Application

Pastor Jonathan challenged everyone to reflect:

• Where am I running to my own "Tarshish"?
• What has God asked me to do that I am resisting?
• Am I fighting against God's pursuit and grace?

He encouraged the church to:

• Trust God's goodness even when they do not understand His direction.
• Stop running from God's call.
• Allow themselves to be "swallowed up" by God's mercy and grace.

Memorable Quote

"The greatest enemy Jonah faced was not Nineveh, the sailors, or the fish. The greatest enemy Jonah faced was himself."

Takeaway

The story of Jonah is not ultimately about a whale—it is about God's relentless grace, humanity's resistance to that grace, and God's pursuit of people even when they run from Him. Jonah's story invites us to examine where we are resisting God and to trust that His plans are better than our own. 

Good morning. It is so good to be back. My name is Jonathan, the pastor here at Destiny Church. Some of you, maybe you're here and this is your third time and you're like, who is this guy? I've never seen him before. I've been on vacation the last two weeks and it was wonderful, it was excellent. Me and my family had such a good time. Super refreshing.

If you see the rest of my family, they'd be like, wow, you're also tan. And then you may ask if I've been indoors the entire time. No, I was also outside. I just didn't happen to tan as beautifully as the rest of my family, but that's just how it goes. Hey, do this with me. Stand to your feet. I wanna read a scripture today and we've got a new series that we're gonna kick off today. Matthew 12, verse 39 says this. This is Jesus speaking, it says, but he answered them, an evil and adulterous generation seek 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. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it. For they repented at the preaching of Jonah and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for today. Lord, we thank you for the opportunity we have to come into worship, Lord, to be encouraged by the testimonies of those around us, Lord, to fellowship with one another, to be just engulfed in the love and the embrace that you have for us. Lord, I thank you for this time as we get to study your scripture and your word, that your spirit illuminates these truths in our hearts and our minds, and that we get to be encouraged by the very nature of who you are towards us, Father. We thank you for that. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen, amen. All right, you may be seated, you may be seated.

So today we're kicking off a new series and the premise of this series is pretty simple, but I'm looking forward to it, because one of the things that if you've grown up in church, and even if you haven't grown up in church, one of the things that you will experience is that there are certain stories in the Bible that we become very familiar with. Like, and if you grew up in church, you grew up in Sunday school, you heard a lot of these stories a lot, and even if you didn't grow up in church, just some of them are like things that are in pop culture, right, like you know you've heard of them. And stories like David and Goliath, you probably, people understand what that story is about, and the main highlights of that. The story of Joseph and the Technicolor, I mean the code of many colors, right? We know what that is. Or Jonah and the whale, Daniel and the lions, there's a bunch, pretty much any video that Veggie Tales made in the late 90s, early 2000s, and those who Veggie Tell people, you know what I'm talking about.

Like, there are these stories that become very popular. And here's the thing, if you have a children's Bible, and you read some of these stories, you read them, and typically they simplify these stories a lot, for children, which makes sense. And then they usually try to tie some kind of takeaway, or moral ideal that comes from those stories, and then like that's it. Now what happens is, is if you as an adult go back through, and you read some of those stories from the Bible, sometimes you are shocked by what you see.

You find out there's a little more to the story than what you read in your children's book. You find out that there's a little more complexity to some of these stories than what we maybe were taught when we were in Sunday school. And here's the issue, many times when we're exposed to information young, when we re-go back through, and we relearn, or we're re-exposed to that information, we have this information bias where we say, oh I already know that. So when you read it again, as opposed to reading something with fresh eyes, and fully embracing, and trying to dissect, and thoughtfully think through some of this stuff, you think, oh yeah yeah yeah, I already know the story of Jonah. He was swallowed by a whale.

And then he threw him up.

The end.

What a good takeaway. And it's like, what was the moral of that? Don't run from God. That's the moral. You run from God, he will chase you down and eat you.

(Audience Laughing) And it's like, wait a minute. I don't know if that's what the story of Jonah is about. And so we're gonna take some time, as a church, to do a little series, it's called Not a Children's Story. Not a Children's Story. And we're gonna take some time to go through a couple really popular stories, and learn them, and look at them through a new lens, and through a little bit of a deeper time. And here's why. The purpose of the Bible, none of it was ever written with the intention of being children's entertainment.

That was not what it was meant to be. All of the Bible, however, was written with the intention of communicating the heart of God towards you and I, and illuminating the person of Jesus, and who he is to us. And in Luke chapter 24, in one of my favorite stories, I mention it all the time, in The Road to Emmaus, after he goes through this whole discourse with these two people, the resurrected Jesus, who was pretending to be someone else, and listening to them talk, it says that he began to explain to them all of scripture, starting with the law, and going through the prophets, and the other writings, and pointing out how all of scripture eliminates and points to him, Jesus, and the death, the burial, and the resurrection, and the grace that we now get to live in through the work of the cross. All of it points to him. And so, when we take some of these things, and again, I don't wanna bash certain children's books or something, but when we take some of these deals, and we make them overly simplistic, and we try to teach this really binary idea, we're missing the very heart of what scripture is trying to illuminate to us. And I will tell you this oftentimes too, and trying to make something really simple with the idea of like, oh, we just want kids to understand, we're painting a picture of God for kids that is not actually accurate.

It's missing the point.

Because today, you maybe guessed it from what we've already read, we're gonna start off a multi-week study where we're gonna look at the story of Jonah. And Jonah's wonderful because Jonah in your Bible is probably like a page and a half. It's four chapters. I'm not trying to brag or anything, but when I was like in fifth or sixth grade, I had a teacher in one of my homeschool co-ops, yes, I was homeschooled, I know it explains a lot,

who we memorized the entire book of Jonah.

Now ask me, do I have it memorized now?

No, I don't. Thank you for asking and being so participative this morning. I don't have it memorized. In fact, I thought I knew at least the first verse, and I found out I do not. I have forgotten all of it. But I at one point had the whole thing memorized. And here is the thing, it's short, and you may say, yeah, it's short, it's simple, it's an easy read, it's about the whale, and there we go. But what we are gonna look at is we're gonna find out that this book is far more complex and far more rich and a far greater picture and an opportunity for us to see ourselves in this story, to see humanity in this story, and God's goodness in this story. Because most of the discussions that I've ever had about this book strictly goes around one concept. What type of marine life was that fish whale?

Was it a fish or was it a whale? And that was, if you grew up in like Christian circles, that was a really important part of contention. Because it really determined what happened when he was swallowed. Because if he was a whale, then he actually has oxygen in there, so he's in this channel and he's breathing, and yet he can be under, like, okay, I got that. But if he was a fish, now if it's a fish, fish don't do that. So now what's happening is he's slowly being digested, like that thing from Star Wars that Boba fell into. Like what is happening right now?

And literally, for decades of my life, that is the only thing that we discussed about Jonah.

And here's like a real spoiler. The point of the book of Jonah is not the whale.

The whale is a part of the story, and the whale is the part that really sparks our imagination, because it's really crazy. But that's not the point.

Guess what? The point of the story of David was not Goliath.

And the point of Joseph wasn't that coat.

Each one of these has so much more that we can see, but Jonah is written in this beautiful way. It has poetry, it has narrative, it has all sorts of satire and figures. And so we're gonna take a little bit of time to kinda get through some of the scripts. We're only gonna get through a couple verses today, and set ourselves up, see the table, and be like, wow, look at something that we can experience and what we can see through this book of Jonah and what we can look at. And so we're gonna take a little bit, we're gonna read, we're gonna read through it slowly. I will tell you this, I encourage all of you to read through the book of Jonah in the next week. Read the whole thing. Read through it slowly. Like I said, it doesn't take long. It's like a 10-minute deal. But read through it slowly, and see what details stand out. See what you see and see what you pull out. Take a little bit of time and think about it and reflect in all the details. So here's where we're gonna start.

Jonah chapter one, verse one. It says this, "Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amati." Now we're gonna stop right there.

That's how far we're gonna get right now.

Now it starts off this, now if you are a fan of the Bible, if you've read the Bible a lot, right now we're getting these clues and you're hearing something. But here's what you gotta realize, especially when you're reading some of these Old Testament books of prophecy, the major prophets, the minor prophets, which Jonah's considered to be part of them, the minor prophets is how we categorize them. Although I'm sure if you were lumped into the group of minor prophets, you wouldn't appreciate that. But he is in this little group. Often they start, and it's like they're picking up right in the middle of a show. Have you ever started watching a show and you didn't realize that you were watching in season four, episode five, and it just takes off and you're looking like, do I know what's happening right now? Like who are all these characters and who are they referencing? And then you realize like, oh, I've missed some. Like I don't know what's going on. I need to go back to catch up. And there's a lot of stuff that's happening. Well, often in these books of prophecy that we see in the Old Testament, they are under the assumption that you already know what's going on, that you are familiar with the history, that you're familiar with the different writing styles, that you're familiar with the culture. And so they give you a few little verbal cues to kind of help you orient where you're at and then you are supposed to know from there. But the problem is most of us don't know all the history and we don't know all the characters and we miss the verbal cues. And so we pick up right in the middle of something and we just think, well, I guess we're, here we go. I should know what's going on. But here's what we're gonna do. So we're gonna help orient ourselves around the book of Jonah before we really dig into what's going on. Now, Jonah, just, this is all fun. His name means dove and his dad's name, Amitye, means son of faithfulness. So the dove, the son of faithfulness, it says the word of the Lord comes into it. And when you read this, you will hear it starts like almost every book of prophecy starts. In fact, if you just turn to the next page of your Bible, the book of Micah, it starts just almost word for word, the exact same. Now the word of the Lord came to Micah, right? But the difference is if you keep reading the book of Micah, the next seven chapters of Micah is the different prophetic writings and sayings that Micah gave to the nation of Israel. It's his prophecies. It's the things that God spoke through him and that's what he did. And that's what you should be thinking should happen when you read Jonah because he's sandwiched in the middle of all these different prophecies. Now the word of the Lord came to Isaiah or to Jeremiah or Amos. And then all of a sudden, we've got, now the word of the Lord comes to Jonah and you think this is a book about prophecy,

about God speaking to his people, about telling what God's heart is for people, maybe even occasionally sharing about what future events are gonna be. But as we read the book of Jonah, we find out that this is not a book of prophecy at all. It's a book about a prophet.

It is a story about a prophet and is unique in that way because it is the only book that an entire book is dedicated to the story, to the narrative about the prophet. And it actually has very little, in fact, only like one of the prophecies that he gets.

So it's about the character, the person of Jonah, not about the works or the words or the prophecy. So God is speaking to us not through the words that he's sharing, but through the story that Jonah lives. And we get to see something completely unique and different. So going on, verse two, this is God speaking. It says, "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me." Now Nineveh, another character we need to know, Nineveh is the capital of the Assyrian Empire. The Assyrian Empire at this time, this is in the period of the kings, is about halfway through the, like if you were reading in the Bible, the second kings, this would be somewhere in there, that about halfway through. The Assyrian Empire is the major world empire. They are the superpower of the day. They have the strongest military, the best technology, and they go around and they are devastating conquerors. They are really not good dudes. They are people who would they come, they would conquer your city, they would take all the rich elite, and they would skin them alive in public.

And then they would take whatever was left over, and they would scatter them all over. They were considered to be scatterers. They would take the people and certain rich elite and people that were pleasing to them, they would take back to the capital of Nineveh, but what they would do is they would take different groups and family members and they would split them up forever. They didn't let families stay together, they didn't let neighbors stay together, they didn't let even like tribesmen stay together, they completely cast you out and put you from here to here to there because they didn't want you to have any kind of cultural identity. You became a slave for the rest of your life and then that was who you are. You are now a slave. And they conquered many, many people. And they were the global superpower until they were overturned by the Babylonians. Now if you fast forward in the history of Israel, it is Assyria who defeats the 10 northern tribes. And that's why we talk about the 10 lost tribes of Israel because they were defeated, the Assyrians conquered everything, they completely wiped them out and scattered them all over the place and they were completely brutal. And it's that same Assyrian empire that went to the very gates of Jerusalem and that they were there camping out, putting the city under siege and asking for them to surrender when God basically showed up and said that he was gonna be faithful because of the repentance of the nation of Judah, the two southern tribes in the south. And it says that the angel Lord went and struck confusion in the Assyrians and they killed each other. And as a result, whenever they woke up the next morning, the Assyrians had fled because so many had died and God saved Jerusalem and their oppression was kept away. And the Assyrians were that superpower until the Babylonian empire rose up and kind of overtook their place. And so that's kind of some of the historical context. So needless to say, people didn't like the Assyrians, they were scared of the Assyrians, they were enemies, they didn't believe about the same things religiously, economically, it was not a good deal. So the nation of Israel did not like the Assyrians and Jonah did not like the Assyrians. And God tells him, go to Nineveh and give them this word, a prophetic word.

And tell them that evil has come up before me.

Now, this is very interesting, you would think that as someone who is an anti-Assyrian,

when Jonah's given a message, to give an anti-Assyrian message, be like, you've been bad and God's gonna punish you, that he would jump on that. He'd be like, I can't wait to deliver this news, this is great, but that's not what Jonah does. Verse three, Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish, from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and he went down to it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord. Now, I wanted to throw a map up on the screen, because I know some of your geography, you don't know where Ada is, let alone Tarshish. So I wanted to throw this up here, okay? So he is from this town called Gath Heifer, has nothing to do with cows, I think, but that's where he's from. And God speaks to him. Now you can see Nineveh's up there northeast, it's about 550 miles.

On foot is not fun, but that's where he's called to go.

But what he does, is he goes south, not too far of a trip to Joppa, a port city in Judah. And then when they say Tarshish, people argue exactly where it is, but it's basically in Spain, around the Strait of Gibraltar. It was literally the furthest place, like the end of the earth. There was no further place that you could go in anyone's known mind than Tarshish. So God said, go up to this place. And as you can see, he literally went as far as possible, at least that was his intention. He wanted to go as far as humanly possible from the calling of God, because he wanted to escape the call and the presence of God. Now clearly, though it was a contemporary work, it was in existence, he had it read Psalms 139 that says, where can I go to escape your presence Lord? He apparently hadn't read that one yet, he missed it. So he thought he could get away. So he boards this ship.

And he's going, and he's going. And you may sit here and think, well, he's probably going, because the Assyrians have a bad reputation, they have a violent reputation and for good reason. And he probably doesn't wanna go to this pagan city after a 500 mile trip to say, hey, you guys have been really naughty and God's gonna punish you, because I bet that he's worried that they would punish him,

that they would kill him, like his life may be forfeit. And maybe he's just too enthralled with his life. And if you thought that, you would be wrong.

Because he actually tells us in chapter four, and this is kind of getting into the story, but it's important. But in chapter four, which by the way, if you ever read the story of Jonah in a children's book, chapter four is never there.

Because chapter four is basically where he throws a massive fit, is angry with God, has a weird affair with a plant, and then just basically asks God to kill him. It's weird, chapter four is weird, and the children's authors are like, edited.

It's been redacted, sorry.

But in chapter four, again, verse one through three of chapter one says, go to Nineveh and speak this message. And he goes the opposite direction. This is what it says in chapter four. And again, this is after he's done this. We'll get through all this later, but it says this. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly. By the way, what displeased him was that Nineveh had repented and God was gonna forgive them.

It says, he was angry and he prayed to the Lord and said, oh Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God, merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster. Therefore now, oh Lord, take my life from me. It is better for me to die than to live.

Whoa. This guy literally quotes God to himself.

He's quoting one of the most quoted verses of all, or passages in all of the Old Testament, which is when God revealed himself to Moses, and he said, the Lord, the Lord your God, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love. He quotes God as a very character. When God says, this is who I am, he quotes it back and he says, because of who you are, because you are so merciful and so gracious and so faithful, I knew that if I went and said to them to repent, that they would repent because of your goodness and because you're so soft,

you're gonna forgive them. And now I just wish you'd kill me.

Because I hate them.

I hate them. I don't want them to receive forgiveness. And I knew you were too good. All of a sudden Jonah, we start to realize very early on in the story, that he is a big dichotomy within himself.

This is the prophet.

This is the one who speaks on behalf of God. Now Jonah, this is a fun little Bible fact for you. He's actually referenced in another book other than Jonah. 2 Kings 14, 25, listen to this, it says, and he, being God, restored the border of Israel to Hamath as far as the sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah, son of Amittai, the prophet who was from Gath, Heifer.

But here's what's interesting.

The king that we're talking about here is Jeroboam II, who was named after Jeroboam I. Jeroboam I was the person who led the revolt that split Israel into two different nations. He was also the one who built a pagan altar and put golden images in the altar and told the people to worship them. And it says that Jeroboam II did not turn from those. In fact, he was even more of an idol worshipper than his namesake. He did what was evil in the sight of God. And yet even being an evil king who led people and pagan worship in that process, though inspired by the spirit, Jonah gave a message saying that God would enlarge the territory of Israel. And Jonah was faithful to give that message.

So when it was good news for Israel,

Jonah gave the message even when the recipients were undeserving because God was faithful and merciful and compassionate and slow to anger.

And yet when it was the same mercy being extended to a people that he didn't like, to something that he didn't envision as being just and fair,

he refused to give that message. And spoiler alert, when he does go and give the message, he preaches the worst sermon of all time. Five message, repent, five word message, repent for the kingdom of God's a hand.

That's all he said.

And it worked. I don't know why I talk so much up here.

(Congregation Laughing)

He's supposed to be the prophet of God, the one who hears from God, chosen by God, the one who speaks the message. And yet when we read this story and we continue to read the story, Jonah is the most hardhearted, disobedient, least repentive person in the entire story.

We're gonna get to meet next week some sailors who are polytheistic and guess what? They repent, the people of Nenia, they repent, even the cows repent.

But not Jonah, not the one who believes in God, not the one who knows who God is, not the one who speaks on behalf of God. He is the one who says, I don't like the vision that you're giving me.

I'm gonna go somewhere else.

And here's the interesting story about Jonah.

When we first are reading it, we think it's this wild story about some guy who lived a long time ago in the whale. And you read it like, who does this guy think he is? How can he think he can escape? Look, he's been in the belly. Oh, he got vomited up. I can't imagine how gross that is. Then he has to walk 500 miles. That's tough. All this kind of stuff. But if you continue to read it and we think about it, at first you think, what an idiot this Jonah. But at some point, at some point, you may realize, wait a minute, this story may actually be

a picture and a reflection of me.

My life.

Because ultimately what's happening

is that God is speaking to Jonah

and is giving him a picture, a vision of the good life

and inviting Jonah to participate in a picture and an expression of the good life.

And offering grace and mercy and a message of forgiveness to a people who are undeserving and offering the ability, the city of Nunavah had 120,000 people living in it, which at that day and time would have been like a 10 million person city today. Like offering an opportunity for grace and mercy to be exposed at a level that had never been seen before. But because Jonah had a picture of what he thought was just, of what he thought was right, of what his life would look like, of what he thought God should call him to do, that when something was presented to him that he didn't like about a people group that he didn't agree with, about someone who looked different than him and believed different than him, he no longer felt like it was his job or requirement to fulfill what God was asking to do or be obedient. And so instead, we begin to see a full psychology of what disobedience creates in a person as they try to run from the calling and the purpose of God.

And then I start to ask myself this question, I can't speak for you, but for me, I start to ask myself this question.

What areas of my life and how often has God given me a picture of what the good life looks like and invited me to participate with him? And because I didn't like it or because it looks painful or because I just didn't wanna do it or I had a better idea, I decided to run to my own Tarshish.

I decided, not that God, you can't have that part of me, I'm holding on to that.

I'm not gonna forgive that person God because they didn't ask me for forgiveness. And you know what your good book says God, you have not because you ask not. And so I'm not gonna break the word of God, so why would I forgive them? And you know what, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, golden rule, so sorry.

And we convince ourselves that there's certain things that God brings to us, certain habits to participate in or habits to stop, or relationships to start, or relationships to break off, or things that we should do, things that we should dwell on and things that we shouldn't and we go and when we see that it looks different than the plan we had for our lives or the thing that we envisioned or how we perceive something to be just, we say sorry God and we begin to get on our own boat and go to Tarshish.

And we think I just wanna go somewhere else.

But see, although some of the children's books paint God as angry and that's why he sends this storm.

And paint God as angry and that's why they throw him over the ship and paint God as angry and that's why he swallowed up by a fish.

I don't think that's what Jesus saw.

Because multiple times in his ministry when people were asking for signs that proved that he was God, he said I won't give you any signs because you are a generation that is just broken, but I will give you this sign, the sign of Jonah.

And he said for three days, for three days he was in the belly of the fish, but for three days the said of man will be in the earth. Three days, you see the very idea of this storm and the very idea of this what we sometimes think about God's wrath or God's judgment and this idea of him being punished is the exact opposite. What we may not realize is the reason that he was swallowed by the fish, yes it was because of his choice of disobedience, but that fish was a capsule of mercy and grace for Jonah because Jonah wanted to kill himself, that's why he asked them to throw them over the ship.

He wanted to die because he would have rather died

than see those Ninevites be forgiven.

And yet because of God's mercy and grace for Jonah and also the people of Nineveh, he sent a fish, he sent a storm to stop them, he sent a fish to swallow him, he did everything that he could to create the opportunity for Jonah to be obedient and faithful so his word would become true because what God speaks it will come to pass. And what you don't understand is sometimes you are walking around and you decided by your own choice to go towards Tarshish and then you're so confused why you're always constantly in a storm or maybe why you have been swallowed up by something and you think God where are you, why in the world would you abandon me and what you don't realize, you are literally in a capsule of grace and mercy that has swallowed you up and has protected you from yourself because many times when you're walking the wrong direction for the picture that God has for you, your greatest enemy is from within.

It is you.

Jonah didn't have enemies in Nineveh, Jonah's enemies weren't those sailors, Jonah's enemy wasn't even that fish, Jonah's enemy was his self and his prejudice and his bias and his arrogance and his disobedience and here's what's wild, the only other prophecy that we have and we don't even have a whole thing about Jonah that we just read in Second Kings and I still don't fully understand all of this but every, the only other thing that we have is that in the book of Amos, Amos goes through and actually negates word for word the prophecy that Jonah gave

and he counteracts it and says because of your disobedience, everything that God did do for you, he's taking away.

The book of Jonah shows us

so much about the person of who we are and who we can be

and the pride and the arrogance that people can do and our hard heartedness that sometimes we experience and that when God in our loving mercy comes to us and even when we know, you ask Jonah, who is God? He will say to you the same thing that he said in chapter four, back to God when he was angry, he would say to you exactly this, he would say that you are merciful and gracious

and then not believe that's actually what he wants from us and that what he wants for us is the very best.

And so we hold on and we run away and we go somewhere else and then we blame God when we get the exact thing that we've been running to because what Jonah wanted to do was he wanted to get away from God's presence and yet God would not allow him to get away from his presence and it was in the belly of the whale that he had the greatest spiritual awakening

was in the depths of despair. (Soft Music)

The question I have for us today,

where in your life are you running to Tarshish?

Where in your life do you know that God has something for you, that God has spoken something to you, he's given you a promise, he's given you a word, he's commanded you to do something, he's asked and instead of being obedient, even if you don't understand, even if you don't even agree, even if you don't like the person that you're supposed to forgive, even though you may know that God loves you, where are you running from?

And you could be at any part of the journey, you could be early on in the running,

you could be in the middle of the storm,

you may be swallowed up and in the depths.

It actually doesn't matter where you are because the same God who spoke to you in the beginning, the same God who has good things for you, the same God who sent Jesus so that he could show the sign of Jonah that just like Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days as an act of mercy and grace towards him, as an act of mercy and grace towards us, Jesus, who did not deserve to die, laid down his life and died. And for three days and three nights, he was in that grave so that he could raise to life, so that you could have resurrection power inside of you. So the very Holy Spirit of God could tabernacle in your heart and dwell inside of you and could begin to transform you from the inside out, making your heart new and pliable and molding you into the exact image of God that he has for you with a purpose and with a plan so that you can participate in the work that God has of showing Jesus to the nations and making his name famous. And when that spirit begins to mold and you say, "No, I don't wanna do that," you have the opportunity to decide, "Will I submit and obey to what the spirit is doing in me "or will I run to Tarshish and be shocked "whenever I experience storms and problems in my life?" But God says, "I won't give up on you. "I will chase you to the ends of the earth. "There is no mountain, I won't climb. "There's no shadow that I won't show in Leiden. "There's no depth because there is nowhere." And no place that you can be separated from the love of God. No height or depth or breadth can separate you from his love and so God continues to pursue you.

And it's the sign of Jonah.

The whale was the biggest act of grace that we've seen until Jesus literally goes to the cross. (Soft Music)

That you have been saved from the same thing that Jonah was saved from,

your self,

your disobedience, your sinful and wicked nature, you have been saved from that.

And our act of baptism is when we get to publicly express not only that we follow Jesus, but that our old man was buried in that tomb. The watery tomb, the place where the fishes go.

And what comes back out is a new man who's resurrected, who doesn't run from the call of God, but instead runs to the call of God. And even when we don't understand, and even when we look around and say, "God, I don't know what's going on, but I trust you.

"I trust you that if you're calling me to go there, "then I will go there. "If you say they're worth forgiving, then I'll forgive. "If you say that I should reach out to them, "then I'll do it.

"I'll trust you."

We got three verses down and four chapters. Don't worry, next week we may finish chapter one.

But no promises. I've done that too many times.

When you read the story of Jonah this week,

put yourself in the story.

Where are we?

But this week reflect. Is there anywhere in my life that I'm running from God?

Is there anywhere I'm running and trying to hide? Is there anywhere where His love is pursuing me and chasing me and pulling me and I'm still fighting?

And if so, just allow yourself to be swallowed up by His mercy and grace.

Because He always gets the man or woman that He's chasing after.

And you are no exception to Him.

But as we emerge towards the present phase and I gather, and we say, "irth is your Glow, "and the book are your "Therefore yourche Hug will never give in," and you never accepted Jesus, that's the first step.

I'm gonna give you an opportunity to do that today. With every head bowed, I'm just gonna invite you to say this prayer and repeat after me, say, "Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for sending Jesus

to die for me so my sins could be forgiven,

so my heart could be set free.

I give you everything I have.

It's in Jesus' name I pray."

With every head bowed for just a minute,

if you made that decision today, anywhere in the room, would you just raise your hand up real high? Anywhere in the room, just so we can celebrate with you.

If there's any hands that are up, they can go down.

And real quick, I wanna pray for a second group of people.

If you're here today, if you're here today, and as I've been speaking, the Holy Spirit's been moving and working,

you feel in your heart, there's somewhere, God's brought something up in your heart that you say, "You know what? I've been running from this.

I've been running from this."

I want to invite you to do something really brave and really bold.

I just want you to stand up right where you're at.

Stand up right where you're at, so I can pray for you.

You say, "Yeah, that's me." This isn't an embarrassing thing. This isn't a saying of like, "Hey,

this doesn't make any sense." This is just the reality of where we find ourselves. You can be early on in your spiritual journey, or you can be following God for decades and decades. We all can find these moments when God speaks to us. And just like the prophet Jonah, we turn and run the other direction. (Gentle Music) If that's you, stand right where you're at.

Father God, for every person who's standing,

and even for those who don't have the strength to stand this morning,

I thank you that your love is unfailing, that your mercy and grace is overwhelming, that your goodness towards us knows no ends,

and as high as the heavens are over the earth, so great is your love for us.

Lord, I pray for these brothers and sisters in Christ,

that whatever you're inviting them to,

whatever you're calling them to,

whatever it is that's creating this hesitation, or this fear, or their inability to walk and to stand for it in what you've called them to go to, Lord, I pray that they would just allow themselves to be engulfed by your mercy and your grace and your love,

that Jesus has won the battle, that God in us is working through us.

And we can trust that you have good things for us.

We thank you for that. It's in Jesus' holy name we pray, amen and amen. Well church, listen, if you need any prayer for anything else, our prayer team's gonna be down here at the end of service. If you're new, or if it's your first time, or first time in a long time, my wife and I would love to meet you. We're gonna be in the green room, which is just on the other side of this wall here, and so other than that, you are dismissed. Have a great rest of your Sunday.