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From the Jonah Series
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Good morning. Welcome to Stonebriar Community Church. Thank you for being here or watching online. Today we're learning from God about life with God through the interactions of an ancient man in his walk with God—the prophet Jonah.
Jonah was a God-following, Bible-believing, church-going, regular tithing preacher. He was a legacy preacher. God had commissioned him to shift gears in his ministry. For a period of time, his ministry had gone really well in Israel. But God called him to head over to a foreign culture—to the Ninevites—and Jonah didn't want to do that. He didn't want God to be compassionate toward other people.
I understand the challenge of cross-cultural engagement. I'm not from here. I've had to travel and come to a people that weren't the original people I grew up among. Recently, I was reminded of how tricky cross-cultural travel can be through a cultural practice I encountered right in my front yard. I woke up one morning, got the kids ready for school, and headed out the front door—and the tree in our yard had bloomed overnight with what looked like rolls of white toilet paper everywhere. You know exactly what I'm talking about: it's called "teepeing."
I get cross-cultural engagement. I get having to understand how another culture does life, processes reality, and functions. I have my preferences on how people should talk, how they should enunciate words. I've been exposed to different ways of doing things that became natural to me and became preferences of mine. I have preferences for food products you don't have. These are things that can be tricky when you travel across cultures—but they're only cultural preferences.
However, there are many aspects of culture across all cultures that are not matters of preference, but that are morally rooted practices. They're non-negotiables for all of us—whether you're American, Canadian, Ninevite, or Texan. Issues like not telling lies, not stealing, loving God and loving others. These are not culturally determined practices. These are ways of life from God on all of us.
Jonah believed this. He was a good-living, God-following, Bible-believing, church-going preacher. But Jonah chose to be selective about how he behaved. He was willing to be obedient to God to a certain extent—as long as it didn't step on his toes, his preferences, his way of thinking about the world.
When God called him to go and reach the culture of Nineveh, who didn't know how to live life under God's ways, Jonah said, "No, I don't like them. They're way over there and they're different to me. So I don't want to go." And so he ran.
Disobedience is certainly never loving God or loving others. Running from God isn't living in submission to God. But Jonah doesn't seem to care. He sleeps fine as he runs from God. He runs from his responsibilities to the culture of Nineveh. But his sin, his rebellion, his disobedience goes with him. It follows him, and it affects all the people around him.
Let me read the passage to you from verses 4 through 17, and as I read, I want you to take note of God's involvement in this scene:
But the Lord hurled a great wind on the sea, and there was such a great storm in the sea that the ship threatened to break up. The sailors were in fear. Each cried out to his own God, and they hurled the ship's cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone down below into the hold of the ship. He had lain down and had fallen sound asleep. So the captain approached him and said, "How is it that you're sleeping? Get up. Cry out to your God. Perhaps your God will be concerned about us so that we will not perish."
The sailors said to one another, "Come, let us cast lots so we may find out on whose account this calamity has come upon us." So they cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. So they said to him, "Tell us now on whose account has this calamity come upon us? What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? What people are you?" And he said to them, "I am a Hebrew and I fear the Lord God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land."
Then the men became extremely fearful. They said to him, "How could you do this?" For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord because he'd told them. So they said to him, "What should we do to you that the sea may become calm for us? For the sea was becoming worse and worse." And he said to them, "Pick me up and throw me into the sea. Then the sea will become calm for you, for I know that on account of me, this great storm has come upon you."
However, the men tried to row to return to dry land, but they could not, for the sea kept getting worse and worse. So they cried out to the Lord and said, "Oh Lord, please do not let us perish on account of this man's life. Do not hold us guilty of shedding innocent blood, for you, oh Lord, have done as you pleased." So they picked up Jonah. They hurled him into the sea, and the sea stopped its raging. Then the men feared the Lord greatly. And they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him. And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah.
There are three key characters in this sea storm. The first character is the pagan sailors—the secular sailors. Ironically, they're the ones who become converted to God. They become saints and commit to walk the godly talk. They make vows to God to live for Him. It's ironic.
The second character is the main character in the whole book. The book is named after him: Jonah. He's the sleepy servant of God—a man who knows God, a pastor, a preacher who has been serving God for many years. And ironically, in contrast to the secular sailors who only got to know God in the last few moments, he's selfish. He talks the godly talk, but he doesn't walk the godly walk. Look at his statement in verse 9: "Hebrew I am. I fear the God of heaven, the one who made the sea and the land." But he's not living that out as he runs from God.
But there's a third character in this scene that's very important, and I don't want you to miss him. God introduces Himself to us here in a specific manner as the sovereign God.
By "sovereign," I mean that God rules. God rules with total authority, and He can express His total authority and complete sovereignty over His creation in different ways as He chooses—because He's sovereign. No one tells Him how to act. He acts according to His own will and desire because He's sovereign. He rules.
First, God is clearly sovereign over the storm. God rules nature with total control, and He rules nature to fulfill His purposes as He pleases.
Look at verse 4 again: "But the Lord hurled a great wind on the sea." Very clearly, right at the start of the story, we're told that God has the ability and the power to send a storm. The ship threatened to break up because of such a great storm.
You're not just supposed to see that God can summon a storm, but that He's been watching Jonah. The storm is being sent to that particular ship because God is calling a storm upon a man who's walking in rebellion to Him, and He knows better. The storm goes to that ship because of that man. So God sees all. Even runaway prodigal preachers—God sees all. He watches all. No one escapes His eye.
Jonah thought that he had got away with his disobedience. As Jonah whistled his way down to Joppa, wearing his little Hawaiian shirt, he was probably flicking through some all-inclusive resort brochures from Tarshish, planning what he was going to do over there. And he thinks he got away with it. He thinks he's fine. But Jonah thought wrong. God has a storm ready for Jonah just a little bit down the line.
This storm is depicted as an unusual event—an unusual, unexpected storm that rises up on this sea. It's not functioning in the ordinary natural flow of the natural laws of the sea for that season. That's why we read in verse 4 that the ship is in shock and panic mode. The ship is being presented as though it's thinking, "This is unusual. I'm about to undo myself here. I'm about to break up."
We're also told that these seasoned sailors are in shock and panic mode, too. They're trembling in extreme fear. We're even introduced to the captain of the ship. He has to leave the bridge or his quarters and find that snoring guy to ask him what he's doing. So we're brought into the fact that this captain even believes that this is a very unusual set of circumstances.
The sailors call it a "calamity" (verses 7 and 8), and they're acting in keeping with how they view the world. This unusual circumstance at this time of year must be the work of some God who's hunting someone. And so they're trying to figure that out.
But the storm also suddenly stops. In verse 15, once the sailors pick up Jonah and hurl him into the sea, the sea stopped its raging. It's as though Jonah is the switch that's flipped. Unusual start. Unusual stop. God can switch on storms and God can switch off storms as He pleases.
What we're seeing here is that God controls the wind, the waves, the seas. And in verse 17, we see that God appoints or ordains a great fish. In chapter 4, we'll read about how God grows or appoints a plant, and then how God ordains the birth of a hungry worm who eats the plant.
What you're supposed to understand from this story is that God is in control. God has sovereign total control over His creation. Wind, waves, stormy seas, calm seas, fish, plants, worms—total control. God rules over all and God rules through all. He directs His creation for His purposes as He pleases, including pursuing a prodigal prophet through a storm to give him an opportunity to sort his life out.
Don't miss that. God's using this storm to get this man's attention, to give this man the opportunity to sort his life out. That storm is essentially the compassion of God. They might not have felt it in the moment, but that storm is an act of God's compassion upon these people. Sovereign God pursuing a prodigal prophet because God is good, because God cares, because God is compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love and mercy.
Secondly, God's relationship with humans becomes very clear here. God is sovereign over the lives of these godless sailors, and God is sovereign over the life of this wobbly preacher servant. He rules over everyone. He rules over you. He rules over me. And He can use people—even lost people like the sailors. And He can use saved people who are acting like they're lost and in rebellion, like Jonah, to fulfill His purposes if He so wants.
God reached and used the sailors. They had no thought for the true God, Yahweh, that morning when they set sail. In verses 5, 6, and 7, we read of their lostness. They're praying and crying out to all these false gods.
But by verse 16, look at it: "Then the men feared the Lord greatly and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and they made vows to him." Pagan sailors with no thought for God are converted to God because of that storm. And then God uses them, as we read in verse 15, just like He uses the storm, the fish, the plant, and the worm. He uses them to do His bidding, to do what He wants. They hurl Jonah into the sea for the sea to stop. They gave God what God wanted.
Even when they were trying desperately not to throw Jonah overboard—trying to row back to get him to dry land—God is sovereign over their actions.
And God is clearly sovereign over the life of this full-time vocational pastor who's in rebellion. Look at verse 9: "Hebrew I am. I fear the Lord God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land." These are true words, but they're hypocritical—on the boasting lips of a runaway preacher because his heart is off. He can say that all day long, but he's not living like that.
But God uses those true words, even though they're hypocritical and on the lips of a runaway preacher, to do what this preacher doesn't want to have done—which is for them to be a witness to the lost concerning the true God. That's how sovereign He is. Using true words on fake lips in order to reach people who don't know God so that they come to know God.
This reminds me of an incident my dad told me about years ago. My dad is a pastor, and he had been visiting a man in the hospital over a series of weeks. The man was very ill, and Dad had been sharing the gospel with him, but he hadn't turned to Christ. One time Dad came to see this man again, and the man wasn't there. The man had passed away.
As Dad was there, the guy lying in the hospital bed beside this man who was now deceased saw Dad and said to him, "Don't worry. I led him to Christ. I shared the gospel with him and he believed."
Dad asked this individual how long he had been a believer. The man responded, "I'm not a Christian, but I know the gospel. I'm not a believer, but I know the gospel."
God can use Jonah despite Jonah. That's total control. Jonah can't outrun. Jonah can't outsmart. Jonah can't outwit. Jonah can't outmaneuver. Jonah can't sabotage God's plans.
The storm and the runaway servant were just used by a compassionate, sovereign God to reach these lost sailors because God is in total control and God is good. He's compassionate. He's slow to anger. He's abounding in love.
I believe God would have used some other means to get the gospel to these sailors someday. But the occasion arose through a runaway preacher for Him to reach them that day. That's how in control God is.
Thirdly, God is sovereign even over pagan-motivated cultural practices. Look at verse 7: "The sailors said to one another, 'Come, let us cast lots so we may find out on whose account this calamity has come upon us.' So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah."
What you're reading here is a cultural practice of trying to figure out what the gods are doing. Casting lots was done with stones—little pebbles that they would paint on one side dark and on the other side light. When you cast these pebbles, if both stones fell with the dark side up, the gods were answering your question with a "no." If they fell with the light painted side up, the gods were giving you the answer "yes." If one was dark and one was light, you'd throw again.
Well, it just happens that as they're working their way through all the sailors, when it comes to Jonah's turn, the pebbles must have been saying "yes," because they find their culprit.
God got Jonah for them. In His kindness, God even controlled this cultural practice in the hands of these pagan sailors in order to direct them toward truth. God accommodated to their level of maturity to speak to them. That's how good God is. That's how compassionate God is. That's how sovereign God is.
That storm and that runaway servant and those stones were used by a compassionate sovereign God for their good because God is good and God is in total control.
The sovereign God rules over all. Write this down. Underline it: Rules over all.
So we submit to His authority. We don't subvert His authority. We submit to His authority. He rules. He's boss. We surrender to Him, not to try and sabotage His will. We live and we walk in the worship and in the fear of God. We don't live and walk as believers in wrongdoing or fleeing from the presence of God.
To live in submission to God is good, because the sovereign God is good and He cares and He's compassionate even when He sends a scary storm.
Let me leave you with two practical teachings that I'd love you to write down and take home and chew on this week. They're scattered all over this scene and all over scripture.
The first is a word of comfort. God is in control and He is good. It seems so basic, but you need to live in that truth tomorrow morning. God is sovereign over storms and stones and sailors and prodigal servants and fish and plants and worms. But let me be very clear: these are just the categories in Jonah through which God wants you to understand that truth.
That truth works in all categories of life, not just storms and worms and plants and lots and stones. So let me be very clear, because I can't have you miss this.
What this means is that God is sovereign over you and God is sovereign over me. What this means is that God controls 2026 just like He did 1926, and just like He will 2126. God is sovereign over today, this Sunday, and every single day until next Sunday. God doesn't just own your Sunday mornings. He owns all your mornings.
God is sovereign over our economy. God is sovereign over all economies. God is sovereign over the markets. God is sovereign over our jobs. God is sovereign over our illnesses. God is sovereign over our cancers. God controls life where Jonah wanted to do life successfully in Israel. And God controls life in Joppa. And God controls life in Nineveh. And God controls life in Tarshish. God controls life on that boat and God controls life outside of that boat and God controls life on any airplane that you will ever board.
God controls the Strait of Hormuz and the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal and the next strait or canal that will come into our vocabulary this week. God controls all geography. God is sovereign over Irish rain. God is sovereign over Canadian snow. God is sovereign over the Texan sun. God is sovereign over all that nasty pollen that fell on my car and my house the last few weeks. God is sovereign over fire ants. God is sovereign over all those little tiny termites way down there trying to invade your house. God knows them all. Sovereign over each and every single one of them.
You get the point, right? It spills out from just the sea storm. God is sovereign over the birds nesting in my garden and your garden. God is sovereign over the squirrels in your neighborhood and the squirrels eating the apples in my apple tree in my house. God is sovereign over the possum that scared the life out of me the other night.
God is sovereign over the other side of the moon that humanity had never seen until recently. God is sovereign over Mars and Saturn. God is sovereign over every single dust particle that's flying in whatever direction in whatever galaxy out there heading. You get it, right? God is sovereign.
Just to be clear, God is sovereign over Trump. God is sovereign over Putin. God is sovereign over Xi Jinping. God is sovereign over the Pope. God is sovereign over Mr. Abel, the janitor at my kid's school. God is sovereign over all of us. He's sovereign over your days. He's sovereign over my days. He's sovereign over your bank account and my bank account. He's sovereign over our godly kids and He's sovereign over our prodigal kids that we want back. God is sovereign over every hair on my head, on your head, and on your cute fluffy dog's head.
Please don't miss the point. God is sovereign over all—total control. Not just storms and stones and sailors and servants who have gone rogue and fish and plants and worms. His control is total and His control is good because He is good. He's not pursuing Jonah to squish Jonah. He's not pursuing Jonah and sending the storm to drown pagan sailors who have no thought for Him. He's not wanting to send Jonah to Nineveh with a message of doom so that he can squish the Ninevites, but out of love, out of compassion, because He is slow to anger and He's abounding in love.
Take comfort in that truth. That is true. That is gospel truth from God's own self-disclosure in His book. God is in control of all and He is good and He wants to be inside your marriage and He wants to be inside your family and He wants to be inside your workplace and He wants to be with you in whatever storm you're facing tomorrow morning to take comfort in that truth.
But there's a second beautiful applicational principle I think that emerges here, and it comes to us as a piece of advice. Position your life, please, in the providential hand of God, not the dirty hand of Satan. You have a role to play here. Position your life in the providential hand path of a sovereign God, not the path, not the ways, not the terrain of the dirty hand of Satan.
The providence of God is an aspect, a part of the sovereignty of God. It's one of the ways in which He exercises His rule, and it is one of the most beautiful truths in the scriptures and it comforts me every day.
God created this realm and He did so with built-in natural laws that He designed. He operates according to these laws. But God is sovereign. He can directly interrupt their flow. Splitting a Red Sea in half so that His people walk is interrupting the natural order and flow of the laws that He designed His creation to function according to. Stilling the sun like He did under Joshua is the same. Having an ax head float to the surface of water rather than sink to the bottom like He did with Elisha was an interruption into the natural flow of nature that God designed. Jesus walking on water is another example.
In the scriptures we have God interrupting and pausing how He has made the world to function according to, and we tend to call those miracles. But God doesn't always work like that. In His sovereignty, He has also chosen to work indirectly—working within the system essentially, massaging the natural flow of things, tweaking them so that they're redirected toward His purposes. We see it all over the scriptures.
Take the life of Joseph. Joseph's brothers weren't happy with Joseph telling them that he had a dream where they would bow down to him. So they sell him into slavery, which was an evil thing to do. But in the providence of God, God actually uses that to get Joseph to Egypt so that he becomes the boss of Egypt and ultimately brings deliverance to them. They end up bowing the knee to their brother Joseph.
Or take the example of King Cyrus of Persia. He's a wicked king with no thought for our God. And yet God tweaks his international foreign policy regarding what to do with displaced people so that He sends the Jews back to Israel to rebuild the temple and the land, which was what God had promised His people long ago. God works indirectly, massaging events and encounters and people inside of creation. He's sovereign. He can directly suspend the natural laws that He's laid out for the functioning of the planet, or He can indirectly direct their natural flow to His purposes. That's how sovereign He is.
But as it relates to your life and my life, from what I see in the world around me, filtering what I see through the scriptures in light of what I see in scripture, God more often than not chooses to indirectly massage the natural flow of regular circumstances. We call that the providence of God. God working within His system, working within the ordinary routine activities and events and encounters of life as you walk with Him, learning to discern His voice, learning to detect His presence, learning to feel His nudging in His hand.
So you have to position your life in the providential hand of God, or else He might send a storm. We could have avoided chapters one and two of Jonah had Jonah just gone to Nineveh.
So, position your life. If you're a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, you position your life into the path that God wants to walk with you on. And when you do, He begins to direct you in the ordinary to fulfill His purposes.
How do you position your life where His hand works? I mean, I think you're doing it this morning. Get into His word regularly. It seems so basic, but it is true. Get into the word of God regularly. Gather with God's people regularly. These are environments where God shows up and wants to work and walk with you. Make sure that you're regularly coming clean before God. Making sure that you're not dabbling in some form of disobedience or sin. Making sure you're not snoring your head off in some ship toward Tarshish.
You position your life in the path that God walks and His hand will begin to direct your days.
But here's the thing. Satan has plans for your life, too. That's very clear in the scriptures. Satan has plans for your life. He had plans for Jonah. While it doesn't say in the text so don't hold me to it, I'm kind of convinced that Satan was whistling down to Joppa with Jonah. Probably got him that good deal on his Hawaiian shirt. Nothing made him happier.
He's always looking for a foothold. He's always looking for a bad attitude. He's always looking for some temptation to lure your heart. He's always looking for a gossipy tongue. He's always looking for a sleepy Christian. Anything to sabotage God's plans for your life and stick it to God.
Satan's hand is powerful. He's no match for God. He's a created being. It's not like there's God and Satan and they're equal. But he is powerful and he is very experienced. He's got a lot more experience with the human heart than you do. He's dirty and he wants to bait you. He's experienced at betting people away from God.
Satan can send you very tempting opportunities that you've no business pursuing. Satan knows how to work with flattery. Satan can organize lots of boats to Tarshish. Satan can Amazon Prime you a new pair of sneakers to your front porch so that you run from God comfortably and fast. Satan can organize a chauffeur-driven, luxury Uber to get you away if you give him the opportunity. He's active, but he's a snake who waits in the long grass to strike. He's a lion who prowls around waiting to pounce, hunting hungry.
And if you position your life where God wants rather than in disobedience from God, you'll be fine. But if you position your life in the way of rebellion, you become easy prey. You make it easy for the evil one. Jonah doesn't realize that he dodges a bullet not making it to all those all-inclusive resorts in Tarshish. I'm pretty sure Satan was waiting there to welcome him and to ruin his life.
So the advice from Jonah 1 on the sovereignty and providence of God—which is not to be contained to the categories of Jonah 1—is that you should position your life in the providential hand of God, not the dirty hand of Satan. You have a responsibility as it comes to that.
This is God's word and it's living and it's active and it's sharp. Don't forget: The sovereign God rules over all. He's the only reason you perhaps had some vanilla in your latte this morning. He's the reason that we can have donuts in the lobby from time to time. He's the reason that there were socks in your sock drawer. He's the reason that there's air in your lungs.
So submit to Him. Don't subvert His authority. Learn the lessons from and the warnings from Jonah's sea storm experience.
