Jonah 2:8-9 “Learning to be Thankful from Inside a Fish”**
Main
Idea: According to his own testimony
in Jonah 2:8-9, the prophet Jonah learned the importance of expressing
thankfulness to the Lord from inside a fish.
His testimony also teaches us that there are essentially two kinds of
people in the world.
I.
There are people who worship idols (8).
A. Some people believe in
false gods (e.g. the people of
B. Some people believe false
notions about the true God (e.g. Jonah).
1. “God exists for me.”
2. “God blesses me because
I deserve it.”
3. “God wants me to be
happy.”
C. All idol worshipers
forfeit grace.
1. The pagan does.
2. The self-focused believer
does, too.
II.
There are people who worship the right God in the right way (9).
A. They sing a song of
thanksgiving.
B. They bring sacrifices to
God.
1. In so doing they admit
they are not worthy.
2. In so doing they admit God
is worthy.
C. They keep their promises
to God.
D. They affirm that salvation
comes from God.
Make
It Personal: If I am truly
thankful…
1. I will see the world the
way God sees it.
2. I will see my possessions
the way God sees them.
3. I will see God as worthy
of my song, my sacrifices, my all.
We have so much!
If there is one thing that traveling outside our country helps you to see vividly is that we have so much! The rather obvious blessings we enjoy are the material ones. Our homes are castles compared to the dwelling places of many. Most of us have not only an automobile, but more than one, again unheard of by most of the world.
More significantly, there are the spiritual blessings.
We have the privilege of having God’s Word (only one in one hundred
Christians in
It’s so easy to take for granted the blessings we enjoy. If that weren’t bad enough, this is worse. We can easily begin to think that we deserve the privileges God has graciously sent our way. Though unsaid, it’s as if we expect them to continue.
If you struggle with that tendency you are not alone. The prophet Jonah did as well.
Background:
Jonah, an eighth century B.C. prophet in
When a dog bites a man, that is not news; but when a man bites a dog, that is news! Similarly, when a man catches a fish, that is not news; but when a fish catches a man, that is news!
Jonah was a prophet. As such he was God’s representative. That was his job. He was supposed to give an accurate representation of the will and word of God for His people. People should have been able to look at Jonah, to talk with him, and know what pleased God.
But Jonah had a problem. In
fact, he merely reflected the rest of
Jonah
1:1-2 “The word of the LORD came
to Jonah son of Amittai: ‘Go to the great city of
God’s instructions were quite clear. “Go!”
But Jonah had other thoughts in mind…
Jonah 1:3 “But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD.”
Why did Jonah head for Tarshish? Why
did he want to avoid
That raises another question. Why
didn’t Jonah want God to spare
God chose
So Jonah ran from God. He
found a boat heading as far away from
By the way, I often hear people say, “Well, I’ve got such peace about the decision I’ve made. It must be God’s will.” Sometimes the peace doesn’t come from God, but from the enemy of God who is more than willing for you to feel good (temporarily anyway) as long as your disobedience smears God’s good reputation. It’s never God’s will for us to disobey God’s Word, no matter how much peace we experience.
You probably remember what happened next.
Jonah’s resolve to disobey God was so firm, he chose death
over going to
That’s called prejudice…a cancer that’s alive and well in our world today.
I met “George” a couple of weeks ago in
Jonah was simply reflecting the spirit of his proud nation. He hated the Ninevites and there was no way he was going there.
But God had other plans! God
was going to get His message to
Jonah 1:17—“But the LORD provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.”
Know this. The main character in the story of Jonah isn’t Jonah. It’s God. This book is intended to teach us about God. As the words “But the LORD provided” indicate, God is sovereign. Time and time again, we see God at work orchestrating events to fulfill His purpose.
1:4 “The LORD sent a great wind.”
2:10 “The LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.”
4:6 “Then the LORD God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah…”
4:7 “But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine…”
4:8 “When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint…”
What’s God doing in this book? He’s correctly the faulty theology of His people. They’d developed wrong thoughts about Him, that He was a Jewish God, that they possessed exclusive rights to Him. But God would have none of their narrow-mindedness. He is the God of all creation.
And so, God took Jonah into the classroom of the belly of the fish. And there, the prophet came to his senses. Jonah 2 records the prayer Jonah prayed while floating under water from inside the great fish.
Thomas Carlisle confessed, “I was so obsessed with what was going on inside the whale that I missed the drama inside Jonah.”
According to his own testimony in Jonah 2:8-9, the prophet Jonah learned the importance of expressing thankfulness to the Lord from inside a fish. His testimony also teaches us that there are essentially two kinds of people in the world.
I.
There are people who worship idols (8).
Jonah 2:8—“Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.” Chew on those words…
Those who cling—to cling speaks of attachment. The miser clings to his money. The word reveals the longings of a person’s heart, the intense affections that govern his life. And what is it that guides their lives?
Worthless idols—he gives his heart to empty, valueless creations of his own hands, idols. He gives them “God status,” but they are not real and can’t provide what he hopes.
There’s more than one kind of idol worshippers. We see two kinds of idolaters illustrated in the Jonah story…
A. Some people believe in
false gods (e.g. the people of
But they’re not alone. The KJV rendering of verse 8 begins, “They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.” That’s a good way to describe a worthless idol. It’s a lying vanity. John Calvin observed, “Lying vanities are all inventions with which men deceive themselves.” There are physical idols before which men bow down. But there are also a host of unseen idols which usurp the place of God in many a heart. That brings us to the second type idol worshiper in the Jonah story, the not so obvious idolater.
B. Some people believe false
notions about the true God (e.g. Jonah).
In nearly every city and village I saw in
In the
In short, that’s exactly what Jonah was doing in our story. What kind of false notions found a home in Jonah’s heart? Some of the same erroneous beliefs we tend to hold, such as…
1. “God exists for me.”
Is that true? Is God a Genie in a bottle? No. We exist for God.
2. “God blesses me because
I deserve it.”
Granted, God blesses us greatly. He even blesses unbelievers with a host of good gifts, such as sunshine on their crops, a measure of health, peace in relationships, all blessings from his common grace. But He certainly doesn’t give us what we deserve.
3. “God wants me to be
happy.”
Those who think that are clinging to a worthless idol. God wants me to be holy. Indeed, many of the things He brings in my life to accomplish holiness won’t make me happy!
Yes, this too is idolatry. When a person thinks those ideas about God, he is misrepresenting God just as much as the pagan who wrongly portrays God with his wooden or stone idol.
Jonah had acted as if he deserved God’s blessings and that the people
of
C. All idol worshipers
forfeit grace.
1. The pagan does. That’s because he doesn’t believe in the true God of grace.
2. The self-focused believer does, too. That’s because he misrepresents the God of grace. He distorts grace. He forgets grace.
A grace-less Christian (a contradiction in terms, but a reality at times) becomes several things, including stingy, self-absorbed, selective in his obedience to God, and sour.
That’s what Jonah learned inside that fish, about the ugliness of
idolatry, not just the Ninevites’ idolatry but his own!
Yes, there are two ways to approach life.
There are people who cling to worthless idols and…
II.
There are people who worship the right God in the right way (9).
When a person worships the right God in the right way, it shows up. Note four evidences in Jonah mentions in verse 9, “But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the LORD.”
Jonah contemplates what he is doing to do if the Lord mercifully allows
him to leave the belly of this fish. He’s
going to the temple. He’s going
there to do four things that people who worship the right God in the right way
are known for…four traits.
A. They sing a song of
thanksgiving.
“But I with a song of thanksgiving.” God
wants His people to sing. That’s
why He gave
B. They bring sacrifices to
God.
Why did the Jews bring sacrifices to the temple in
1. In so doing they admit
they are not worthy.
As sinners we cannot approach a holy God. We are not worthy. We must enter His presence through the means He provides. That means is atonement. We must come to Him through a sacrifice. For Jonah it was perhaps a lamb. For us it is the Lamb of God. By coming to God by means of a sacrifice God’s people are admitted that they are not worthy. What’s more…
2. In so doing they admit God
is worthy.
That’s why we give to Him.
May I extend a word of thanks to you?
Your generous gifts made the ministry of God’s Word in
Notice Jonah’s next words, “What I have vowed I will make good.” With that statement Jonah reveals a third trait of a person who worships the right God in the right way.
C. They keep their promises
to God.
When Jonah became a prophet, he took a vow to preach God’s Word whenever and wherever God told him. Jonah was breaking that vow when he headed for Tarshish, but now he’s ready again to obey. He’s learned his lesson!
We, too, have an assignment, a vow to keep. Jesus told us…
Matthew 28:19 “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…”
Acts
1:8 “But you will receive power
when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in
The day we became a Christian was the day we made a promise to the Lord. “I surrender all. I will obey you. I want the world to know about You, the One who saved me. I belong to You now. Use me to let the world know about You.”
My grandfather told me something I’ll never forget.
He was in his 80’s and death was approaching.
I was in my early 20’s with life in front of me.
He told me about how he preached God’s Word as a young man, in the coal
mines of
I don’t want to become a Jonah. I want by God’s grace to keep the promise I made to God, to live for His purposes in obedience to His call.
Our brothers and sisters in
What I have vowed I will make good.
Jonah eventually obeyed God in chapter three.
He preached in
Let’s be honest. We’re prone to break our vow. When Christ saved us, we promised Him we would live for Him and seek to tell others about Him. But we get preoccupied with our own little world and forget the lost people and lost nations out there. We become, like Jonah, ingrown.
Again, I want to thank you for NOT being that as a church. I commend you for your desire to see Christ made known in this community and in the countries of the world.
Jonah reveals one final trait of people who worship the right God in the right way.
D. They affirm that salvation
comes from God.
Listen to the final words of Jonah’s prayer inside that fish. Verse 9—“Salvation comes from the Lord.” That’s what God wanted Jonah to acknowledge. He is a saving God. People cannot save themselves. He must save them. And that’s what He is doing, saving people, through His Son, through the cross and empty tomb of His Son, which Jesus said Jonah foreshadowed (Matt. 12:40 “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”).
Jonah points us to Christ. The point of the Jonah story isn’t to prove that God can keep a man alive inside a huge fish (which He can), but that God can powerfully and graciously raise a man, even from death, and make him live to His honor.
That’s God’s agenda. He is saving people by His grace and for His glory. And that’s the agenda He wanted Jonah to get on board with. And us.
Make It Personal: If I am truly thankful…I will see three things.
1. I will see the world the way God sees it. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.” If I am truly thankful I will see the world as God sees it.
2. I will see my possessions the way God sees them. What I have isn’t mine to hoard. It’s on loan to me to use for God’s kingdom purposes.
Brothers and sisters, this is why we support missionaries. This is why we send folks from our congregation to serve in the harvest fields around the world. We don’t send Erin, or Gary and Nancy, or others because we don’t want them around here, or because we wouldn’t benefit from having their gifts around here. We send them because we want to have a heart that reflects God’s heart. Are we interested in reaching this community? Yes. And the world? Yes. It’s not either/or, but both/and.
3. I will see God as worthy of my song, my sacrifices, my all. Let’s learn from Jonah.
Power
Point Presentation to Follow:
“Training of Leaders in
[Show pictures of two weeks of training, week 1 in Chernovsti, week 2 in
**Note:
This is an unedited manuscript of a message preached at