Speaker 1: There we go.
Speaker 1: Nate Hilgenkamp, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: Wow, I've had a lot of things happen.
Speaker 1: I've never had that happen.
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 1: Here's a marshmallow.
Speaker 1: I've got a three-year-old daughter and I am so proud of her.
Speaker 1: She can do so many things.
Speaker 1: She just consistently impresses me.
Speaker 1: She can count to 20 on her own, she knows the ABC, she knows some scripture memorized and she's really amazing.
Speaker 1: But there's one area of her life where she's just like flat out no good, like awful at this, like she needs to grow in this area because she loves to play hide and seek.
Speaker 1: She's just no good at it because she's oftentimes like dad, let's play hide and seek, let's play hide and seek.
Speaker 1: She's just no good at it Because she's oftentimes like dad, let's play hide and seek, let's play hide and seek.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, okay, great, I'll count to 20 over here.
Speaker 1: And every single time she does the exact same thing.
Speaker 1: She runs from our living room over to our kitchen, finds the dead center of our kitchen, and then we'll hide like this, just like this, and so I'll count to 20 and I'll be like, okay, jc, girl, where'd you go, jc, where are you?
Speaker 1: And I walk into the kitchen and I see her, just like that.
Speaker 1: And she thinks that since she can't see me, I can't see her.
Speaker 1: And as a dad, I don't have the heart to just say, hey, I found you already and I'm just like JC, are you in the microwave?
Speaker 1: I open up the microwave.
Speaker 1: Jc, are you in the refrigerator?
Speaker 1: Jc, are you in the trash can?
Speaker 1: Where'd you go?
Speaker 1: Jc, I can't find you anywhere.
Speaker 1: You see, here's what I've learned about my daughter.
Speaker 1: She can try to run from me, but she can't hide from me.
Speaker 1: She can try to run, but she can't hide.
Speaker 1: I'm always going to find her.
Speaker 1: I'm going to find her really, really easily.
Speaker 1: And here's why I start with that this morning.
Speaker 1: Here's what you need to know about your heavenly father.
Speaker 1: You can try to run from him.
Speaker 1: You can't hide from him.
Speaker 1: He's going to find you really easily every single time.
Speaker 1: And the reality is I know there's many of us in this room this morning that came in hiding yeah, you're at church, yeah, you're at a D now, but there are some parts of your life that feel hidden, like you walked in here this morning and you are trying to hide some things, because the reality is that much of your life you really look like this.
Speaker 1: You're like I just hope God doesn't see that the shows that I'm watching or the music that I'm listening to, and if I just hide like this, maybe he won't make me change.
Speaker 1: Or I just I hope he doesn't hear the language that I use when I'm around my friends, or I hope he doesn't see the things that I'm looking at online.
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to hide these areas of my life, but the reality is your heavenly father loves you way too much to leave you like that.
Speaker 1: You can try to run, but you can't hide from him.
Speaker 1: And what I hope you hear from your heavenly father this morning is hey, ready or not, here I come, I'm going to find you there.
Speaker 1: And you see, in his grace he doesn't want to uncover those areas just to shame you.
Speaker 1: He wants to uncover those areas of your life because he knows the more you run away from him, the more you run away from grace, the more you run away from peace, the more you run away from joy, because your sin wants to keep you trapped in a place you don't want to be.
Speaker 1: He wants to find you there this morning.
Speaker 1: So this morning we are going to be in scripture, we're going to be in Jonah, jonah, chapter one.
Speaker 1: Jonah's in the Old Testament.
Speaker 1: It's a short book of the Bible and if you've been raised in church you probably kind of know the story of Jonah.
Speaker 1: That it goes something like you know, jonah was asked to go to a certain group of people but he ran away from God and so he got swallowed up by a whale and then got spit out and you don't exactly know what happened next.
Speaker 1: Well, I just want to clarify specifically one thing about the book of Jonah.
Speaker 1: I know when we typically think of Jonah, we think Jonah is a book about a man who ran away from God.
Speaker 1: That's not primarily about what the book of Jonah is.
Speaker 1: Jonah is not primarily about a man who ran away from God, but about a God who ran after that man Because, as he was running away from God, god was chasing him down.
Speaker 1: Because the book of Jonah is not primarily about a big fish, but a big God who cares deeply about his people and some of you this morning.
Speaker 1: You have been running and hiding from God and I just want you to know that your God has been running after you.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna be in Jonah, chapter one, verse one, starting right there.
Speaker 1: It says this the word of the Lord came to Jonah, son of Amittai go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.
Speaker 1: But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish.
Speaker 1: He went down into Joppa where he found a ship bound for the port.
Speaker 1: After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.
Speaker 1: Now just to explain what's going on here.
Speaker 1: Jonah was a real person.
Speaker 1: In fact, he's mentioned elsewhere in Scripture.
Speaker 1: In 2 Kings 14, verse 25, it says that he was a prophet who prophesied before the king.
Speaker 1: He was an advisor to the king.
Speaker 1: So Jonah is this prophet and he hears a word from the Lord saying Jonah, go to Nineveh and preach against it.
Speaker 1: Now here's why that was a massive problem.
Speaker 1: At that time, nineveh was the largest city on earth and it was the capital of a country called Assyria Now Assyria.
Speaker 1: They were the bitter rivals and enemies of Israel because Assyria was potentially the Assyrians were potentially like some of the most evil people to ever have existed.
Speaker 1: These people were nasty, mean, awful.
Speaker 1: I could tell you many things about what they did, but I'm not gonna to tell you all of them.
Speaker 1: Here's an example, and it's still really, really gruesome.
Speaker 1: They would take over cities and then, once they would take over those cities, they would stretch out the people, skin them alive, throw their skin over the walls of that city to show to everyone else hey, you don't mess with us.
Speaker 1: I could go on.
Speaker 1: They do more, but I won't.
Speaker 1: It actually even gets worse from there.
Speaker 1: These people were awful people and so Jonah, a follower of God.
Speaker 1: God appears to him and says, hey, go preach against these people.
Speaker 1: And Jonah goes thanks, but no thanks.
Speaker 1: There's no chance I'm going there.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be skinned alive by them.
Speaker 1: And you know it's easy to throw stones at Jonah and be like man.
Speaker 1: Why weren't you obedient to God?
Speaker 1: But I'm like man, I get it.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't want to do that either.
Speaker 1: Another explanation for what he was called to do here.
Speaker 1: This would be like if a Jewish rabbi was called to go preach against the Nazis during World War II in Germany.
Speaker 1: Like this had no chance of success and a very high chance of death for Jonah.
Speaker 1: So Jonah hears from God and he says thanks, but no thanks.
Speaker 1: I'm getting on a boat to Tarshish Now.
Speaker 1: I never knew where that was until recently, when I was studying this text, I'd heard that growing up I had no idea where it was.
Speaker 1: Here's where he decided to go to.
Speaker 1: We've got a map of it right here.
Speaker 1: So he's in Joppa.
Speaker 1: God asked him to go 550 miles to the city called Nineveh, and he says, nope, I'm not going there.
Speaker 1: Instead, I'm getting on a boat that's 2,500 miles away to Tarshish Tarshish, which is in modern day Spain.
Speaker 1: Now why did he decide to do that?
Speaker 1: He heard this word of the Lord he goes I'm going to Tarshish.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because that's the other side of the world, like that's the exact opposite of what God has called him to do, like they didn't even think there was anything beyond that.
Speaker 1: He's going.
Speaker 1: I am going to run from the Lord so I can hide from the Lord, because I'm honestly sick of following the Lord.
Speaker 1: He's asking me to do these hard things, so I'm going as far away as I possibly can because I wanna run and hide, because he doesn't wanna be bothered by the Lord any longer.
Speaker 1: And this is the first thing that we can learn from the text.
Speaker 1: Jonah knew what God wanted, but he did what he wanted.
Speaker 1: And you know, I feel like God could have prevented this from happening, because he could have told Jonah more than what he actually told him.
Speaker 1: All he says in verse two is go to that great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up, has come up before me.
Speaker 1: That's it Like.
Speaker 1: Why doesn't God tell him what's going to happen?
Speaker 1: Why doesn't God say hey, you're going to go to this city called Nineveh and they're going to repent and it's going to be totally fine, and it was actually going to be a book of the Bible named after you.
Speaker 1: People will be talking about you thousands of years later.
Speaker 1: It's all going to work out okay, but all he says is go to that city and preach against it, and this makes Jonah fear what might happen, because God didn't tell him what will happen.
Speaker 1: Now, why does God do that?
Speaker 1: Why does he ask us to do things and not always tell us what's going to happen?
Speaker 1: Here's why God wants his word to be good enough for you in your life.
Speaker 1: God doesn't always want us to figure out the outcome before we choose to be obedient, because that's not faith.
Speaker 1: Faith is trusting in what we do not see.
Speaker 1: So oftentimes God will ask for our yes before he tells us his why?
Speaker 1: Because he wants us to follow him, not to follow an outcome.
Speaker 1: He wants us to follow what he wants more than what we want.
Speaker 1: But the reality for our life is, if point number one is Jonah knew what God wanted but did what he wanted, we could easily replace that with any one of our names.
Speaker 1: Like many times in my life, it could look like Nate knew what God wanted but did what he wanted.
Speaker 1: I bet that's true of your life as well.
Speaker 1: Like, like you know what God wants for you in terms of sexual purity, but you don't really like that.
Speaker 1: So you know what God wants you to do, but you're doing what you want to do.
Speaker 1: Or you know that God has asked you to make himself the most important part of your life, but you really really care about your sports team.
Speaker 1: So you know what God wants you to do, but you do what you want to do and you play sports before God.
Speaker 1: Or you know that God has asked you to share the gospel and to share Jesus with the friends in your school, but that makes you feel really, really uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: So you know what God has asked you to do, but you just do what you want to do and you're running from God.
Speaker 1: And here's what it comes down to.
Speaker 1: I bet most of us here want to follow God, most of us want to be faithful, but we also want to be comfortable, and oftentimes God's commands are him saying hey, I want you to choose, do you want to be comfortable or do you want to be comfortable?
Speaker 1: And oftentimes God's commands are him saying, hey, I want you to choose.
Speaker 1: Do you want to be comfortable or do you want to be faithful?
Speaker 1: Because oftentimes you can't have both in your life and oftentimes, just like Jonah, I choose comfort over faithfulness, and when you do, it will only bring you down.
Speaker 1: Before we move on, I want to show you one other thing in this text, and this is what the writer of this book would have wanted you to see, because you see, jonah hears this call from God, then runs from God, and in his disobedience we see the same word over and over again.
Speaker 1: I want to show you, or at least read from you, the ESV translation of these verses, because it's more word for word translation than the NIV is, and it says this in verse 3.
Speaker 1: It says Jonah went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish, so he paid the fare and went down into it.
Speaker 1: Then verse 5, but Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep.
Speaker 1: Now contrast that with the very first word that was spoken to Jonah from God.
Speaker 1: Again, this is in the ESV, the potentially more accurate Hebrew to English translation.
Speaker 1: Verse 2, it says arise, jonah, and go to Nineveh.
Speaker 1: So this text is showing us that God says hey, arise.
Speaker 1: Jonah says no, and his sin takes him down, down, down, down.
Speaker 1: What you need to know is this is always what sin is going to do.
Speaker 1: When God is asking you to sin, he's not keeping you from something that will give you pleasure.
Speaker 1: He's keeping you from something that will bring you down, down, down, to depths of despair, loneliness and brokenness, and some of you are there right now.
Speaker 1: You are in a season where your sin has brought you down, down, down, and you don't know what to do with where you've ran to.
Speaker 1: Here's the good news as we're about to see, when it comes to God, you can run from him, but you can't hide from him, because Jonah is not a story about a man who ran away from God, but a story about a God who ran after that man.
Speaker 1: It's ultimately a story about how God wants to run after you as well.
Speaker 1: So let's keep reading in verse 4.
Speaker 1: We're going to read a big chunk of scripture here.
Speaker 1: This is what happens next.
Speaker 1: Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up.
Speaker 1: All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own God, and they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship.
Speaker 1: But Jonah had gone below deck where he laid down and fell into a deep sleep.
Speaker 1: The captain went to him and said how can you sleep?
Speaker 1: Get up.
Speaker 1: Interestingly enough, that's the same word that God used at the beginning.
Speaker 1: Arise and go to Nineveh.
Speaker 1: The captain says here, arise, get up from where you are and call on your God.
Speaker 1: Maybe he will take notice of us, that we will not perish.
Speaker 1: Then the sailors said to each other come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.
Speaker 1: They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah.
Speaker 1: What that means is the sailors were superstitious.
Speaker 1: So really it was like they took some dice and assigned a number to each person on the boat.
Speaker 1: They like rolled the dice and it fell on Jonah.
Speaker 1: This is not saying this is what we should do.
Speaker 1: This is just saying what happened.
Speaker 1: So they asked him tell us who is responsible for making all this trouble for us.
Speaker 1: What kind of work do you do?
Speaker 1: Where do you come from?
Speaker 1: What is your country?
Speaker 1: From?
Speaker 1: What people are you?
Speaker 1: He answered I'm a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.
Speaker 1: This terrified them and they asked what have you done?
Speaker 1: They knew he was running away from the Lord because he had already told them.
Speaker 1: So the sea was getting rougher and rougher.
Speaker 1: So they asked him what should we do to you to make the sea calm down?
Speaker 1: Pick me up and throw me into the sea, he replied, and it will become calm.
Speaker 1: I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.
Speaker 1: So Jonah knows what God wants him to do, but he does what he wants to do.
Speaker 1: And in running from God, he encounters a storm so strong that even these professional sailors begin to panic.
Speaker 1: Like this is what these men did every single day for their life, and yet even they were so overwhelmed and so nervous that they took the cargo aboard the ship and threw it overboard.
Speaker 1: Now, that was a drastic move for them, because that was like throwing their paycheck overboard that's how they were going to get paid.
Speaker 1: But they were willing to throw their money essentially overboard because they thought they were going to die because of this storm.
Speaker 1: And this was all a result of Jonah's rebellion.
Speaker 1: And this is an important teaching here, because what it's teaching is not that every difficulty in our life is a result of sin, because what it's teaching is not that every difficulty in our life is a result of sin, but it is teaching us that every sin will bring you difficulty, because there is always a storm attached to sin.
Speaker 1: You can't sin and expect to not have to live with the consequences of that sin, because there's always a storm attached to sin.
Speaker 1: This is point number two.
Speaker 1: Second thing we can learn from this text Jonah's sin impacted everybody in his boat.
Speaker 1: Jonah's sin impacted everybody in his boat.
Speaker 1: See, jonah was the one who was disobedient, but it impacted everyone there, because you never sin in a vacuum.
Speaker 1: The results of sin aren't just on you, but are on the people around you.
Speaker 1: This reminds me of a time when I was in high school.
Speaker 1: I was in about junior year of high school and I grew up in Minneapolis, minnesota, which is the land of 10,000 lakes Like there's just water and lakes all over the place.
Speaker 1: So I grew up on the water a lot of the time and one day one summer we were out on the water in a canoe.
Speaker 1: It was me and three other friends and two of my buddies on the canoe.
Speaker 1: They just decide, hey, we should start to rock the canoe and flip it over.
Speaker 1: Now we're in the middle of a lake and me and my other buddy are like, hey, let's not rock the canoe and flip it over.
Speaker 1: Like that sounds awful, let's not do that.
Speaker 1: But they were like, no, we're going to rock the canoe and flip it over.
Speaker 1: So they just stand up and they start going like this, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
Speaker 1: It didn't matter that I didn't want the canoe getting flipped.
Speaker 1: They were going to flip the canoe and as they're going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, eventually the canoe flipped over and all of us got wet.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to, but their decisions impacted me and we had to be stuck in the middle of this lake until this like police boat, came out and saved them.
Speaker 1: It was awful.
Speaker 1: You see, their decisions impacted everyone in their boat, because your sin always impacts other people and you know this because the people in your life, their sins, have impacted you.
Speaker 1: Your dad's anger has greatly impacted you.
Speaker 1: Your mom's gossip has greatly impacted you.
Speaker 1: Your friend's selfishness has greatly impacted you.
Speaker 1: Your friend's selfishness has greatly impacted you Because when you are in the boat with someone else, their sins and their decisions impact you.
Speaker 1: In the same way.
Speaker 1: Your sins don't just impact you, they impact everyone in your boat.
Speaker 1: So I want you to think about who's in your boat right now.
Speaker 1: Who's in your boat?
Speaker 1: Maybe it's your family, maybe it's your small group that you're with this weekend.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's with friends on your sports team.
Speaker 1: Who's with you in your boat?
Speaker 1: And I just want you to know that your decisions are impacting them for better or for worse.
Speaker 1: And your addiction to sexual sin it's going to impact other people.
Speaker 1: It's going to impact your future spouse one day.
Speaker 1: Sin it's going to impact other people.
Speaker 1: It's going to impact your future spouse one day.
Speaker 1: Your gossip, even this weekend, your gossip, is causing other people to think less of people.
Speaker 1: This weekend, your materialism is fueling other people's struggles with comparison.
Speaker 1: My self-centeredness daily impacts my daughter, my daughters, my wife, my co-workers, because your sin never just impacts you.
Speaker 1: And if this is you, you are willingly in sin and you're thinking that you're getting away with it.
Speaker 1: You're not, because you can't sin and avoid the consequences of your sin.
Speaker 1: Now I want to be clear.
Speaker 1: Romans, chapter eight, verse one, says that therefore, there is now no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus.
Speaker 1: It doesn't say there are no consequences, because sin always has a storm attached to it and even if you're not feeling the effects of it, the people around you are.
Speaker 1: So the best thing you could do for you and for the people around you is to passionately pursue Jesus, because in him there's not a storm attached to him, but grace, peace and joy.
Speaker 1: So the second thing that we need to understand is that Jonah's sin impacted everyone in his boat.
Speaker 1: So there's this storm and he says, hey, pick me up and throw me into the sea.
Speaker 1: Let's see what happens next.
Speaker 1: Verse 12.
Speaker 1: Instead, the men did their best to row back to land, but they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before.
Speaker 1: Then they cried out to the Lord please, lord, do not.
Speaker 1: Let us die for taking this man's life.
Speaker 1: Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, lord, have done as you please.
Speaker 1: Then they took Jonah, threw him overboard and the raging sea grew calm.
Speaker 1: At this, the men greatly feared the Lord and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him.
Speaker 1: Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Speaker 1: Now I read this part of the story very differently than what I used to, because I would have categorized this all as punishment for Jonah, but now I just see this section is dripping with grace.
Speaker 1: I want to explain why.
Speaker 1: This is point number three, third thing that we need to understand Jonah couldn't outrun God's grace.
Speaker 1: There's just grace all over here.
Speaker 1: First there's grace to the sailors, because think about how ironic this is Jonah gets on a boat to flee to Tarshish because he doesn't want to tell non-believers about God.
Speaker 1: As he's fleeing from telling non-believers about God, god makes him tell more non-believers about God.
Speaker 1: And then verse 16 happens At this the men greatly feared the Lord and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him.
Speaker 1: You see, this is what God does.
Speaker 1: God takes what man meant for evil and he turns it as good.
Speaker 1: Because while Jonah is going, I'm going to run God, because I don't want you to save lost people.
Speaker 1: God just goes, okay.
Speaker 1: I guess that means I'm just going to go save more lost people.
Speaker 1: Because, you see, one of the primary lessons of Jonah is that God wants to save rebellious pagans, but one of the other lessons of Jonah is that God wants to save the rebellious religious.
Speaker 1: He doesn't just have grace for the sailors, but grace for Jonah.
Speaker 1: You know, I always saw this storm as a punishment for Jonah's sin.
Speaker 1: But I don't actually think it's punishment necessarily, because if God truly wanted to punish Jonah, what would have he let him do?
Speaker 1: He would have let him get to Tarshish, he would have let him run, he would have let him keep hiding.
Speaker 1: But God loves him too much to let him run, so he sends a storm to stop him.
Speaker 1: You know, this reminds me of a time recently we had this like celebration at our church where we had a bunch of inflatables outside and, for whatever reason, I was in charge of, like the little kids.
Speaker 1: I'm watching over the little kids and there's this like three-year-old boy, three or four-year-old boy.
Speaker 1: Eventually he gets off one of the inflatables and he just, he just looks straight at me and then he just immediately runs towards the street.
Speaker 1: I'm like what in the world?
Speaker 1: And at that moment I'm like you know, this is a lesson he's got to learn, like I'm just going to let him keep running, see what happens, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I hope his parents understand this is his decision.
Speaker 1: No, I did not do that.
Speaker 1: I'm in charge of making sure that this kid's safe.
Speaker 1: So as he looks at me, runs into danger, what do I do?
Speaker 1: I run after him, I pick him up and I don't bring him back to the inflatable.
Speaker 1: I pick him up and bring him straight back to his dad.
Speaker 1: You see, this is what's happening in this moment in Jonah.
Speaker 1: Jonah looks at his heavenly father, says I'm running into danger.
Speaker 1: And his heavenly father doesn't just say that's too bad, I feel bad for you.
Speaker 1: Instead, he says no, I love you far too much to let you run into a place where you don't wanna be.
Speaker 1: So he sends this storm to pick up Jonah and bring him back into his presence, because God loves his kids too much to let them just run into a place that's going to bring them pain, and the same is true for you.
Speaker 1: This storm here was not designed for retribution but for restoration.
Speaker 1: And in the middle of this storm, jonah is thrown into the sea and the waves are calmed.
Speaker 1: And then look at what verse 17 says.
Speaker 1: It says now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah.
Speaker 1: See, the fish wasn't punishment for Jonah, it was provision for Jonah.
Speaker 1: God's not going here.
Speaker 1: Hey, you're gonna jump in the ocean.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna let you die and use someone else Instead.
Speaker 1: The fish was God continuing to pursue Jonah.
Speaker 1: Because with the fish, god's not saying hey, you sinned, so I'm gonna punish you and make you smell a little fishy.
Speaker 1: He's going no, you sinned, so I'm going to punish you and make you smell a little fishy.
Speaker 1: He's going no, you sinned, so I'm going to show you.
Speaker 1: Even in your unfaithfulness I'm still faithful to you, and in your running I'm going to chase you down.
Speaker 1: And here's one other thing that I just found really interesting as I was studying this text.
Speaker 1: Our best guess for what the name Nineveh means the city he was called to is house of fish.
Speaker 1: So Jonah goes hey, I'm not going to the middle of the house of fish.
Speaker 1: And God goes.
Speaker 1: Okay, if you're not going to go to the middle of the fish on your own, I'm going to send you there myself.
Speaker 1: See, this is what God does.
Speaker 1: God, in his grace, is reminding Jonah hey, I'm in charge, not you, buddy and Jonah is not a story of Jonah running away from God, but about God running towards Jonah and, in his grace, he'll send a storm to rock your boat, he'll send a sailor to wake you up and he'll send a fish to swallow you up, all to bring you back to himself.
Speaker 1: So, in summary, the three things that we can learn from this passage are Jonah knew what God wanted, but did what he wanted.
Speaker 1: Point number two, jonah's sin impacted everyone in the boat.
Speaker 1: And point number three, jonah couldn't outrun God's grace.
Speaker 1: Well, to close, I want to compare this story in scripture with another story in scripture, because I think this is what the Holy Spirit would want us to do, because I think the writers of Scripture, underneath the guidance of the Holy Spirit, wrote something that is almost identically accurate to what we read in Jonah, chapter 1.
Speaker 1: Like they follow very similar plot lines and us with where we're at today, being able to see both the Old Testament and the New Testament.
Speaker 1: I think God wants us to compare the two stories because there's a really similar moment to this in Mark, chapter 4.
Speaker 1: And it's with Jesus.
Speaker 1: Mark, chapter 4 is a story of Jesus calming the storm, and you may remember some details, but it really looks like very identical to Jonah, chapter 1.
Speaker 1: And let me just show you how similar they are.
Speaker 1: It says this a furious squall came up in Mark, chapter 4, and the waves broke over the boat so that it was nearly swamped.
Speaker 1: Then it says this then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up.
Speaker 1: That's in Jonah sea.
Speaker 1: And such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up.
Speaker 1: That's in Jonah.
Speaker 1: Now, in Mark, jesus was in the storm sleeping on a cushion.
Speaker 1: The disciples woke him and said to him teacher, don't you care if we drown?
Speaker 1: Then Jonah.
Speaker 1: But Jonah had gone down below deck where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep.
Speaker 1: The captain went to him and said how can you sleep?
Speaker 1: Get up and call on your God.
Speaker 1: Maybe he will take notice of us, that we will not perish.
Speaker 1: Mark, chapter four he got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves quiet be still.
Speaker 1: Then the wind died down and it was completely calm Then in Jonah.
Speaker 1: Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard and the raging sea grew calm.
Speaker 1: Mark chapter four.
Speaker 1: They were terrified and asked each other who is this?
Speaker 1: Even the wind and the waves obey him.
Speaker 1: Jonah chapter one.
Speaker 1: They were terrified and asked each other who is this?
Speaker 1: Even the wind and the waves obey him.
Speaker 1: Jonah chapter 1,.
Speaker 1: At this, the men greatly feared the Lord and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him.
Speaker 1: You see, these two stories follow a very similar plot line.
Speaker 1: They are almost exactly identical, except one thing that there's only one difference, really, between these two stories, and that is the sacrifice.
Speaker 1: Jonah sacrificed himself, but Jesus did not Yet, because one day he would, and in doing so he would prove that he is the truer and better Jonah.
Speaker 1: Matthew, chapter 12, says 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.
Speaker 1: Because, you see, jesus is the ultimate Jonah.
Speaker 1: He too was sacrificed Because as he was thrown up onto the cross, he was thrown under the wind and the waves of the storm that threatened to take us out.
Speaker 1: And as he was thrown up upon the cross, in the moment, he breathed his final breath and said it is finished.
Speaker 1: Do you know what was finished?
Speaker 1: The storm in your life.
Speaker 1: And he calmed the storm by sacrificing himself for you.
Speaker 1: You see, just like Jonah, he too would be saved, not by a big fish, but by the strength of his own power.
Speaker 1: And three days later, after being brutally crucified, he rose from the dead.
Speaker 1: And as he did, here's what you need to know he killed what wanted to kill you.
Speaker 1: He broke what wanted to break you.
Speaker 1: He broke what wanted to break you and he destroyed the destroyer who wants to bring destruction on your life.
Speaker 1: He was killed and sacrificed so the storms of your life could be calmed.
Speaker 1: And here's what we need to understand in looking at Jonah's life and looking at the life of Jesus.
Speaker 1: The good news is, we don't have to look like Jonah.
Speaker 1: We don't have to make things right on our own, we don't have to atone for things on our own.
Speaker 1: We don't have to throw ourselves into the storm to calm it.
Speaker 1: Instead, we just have to throw ourselves upon Jesus, the ultimate calmer of our storm.
Speaker 1: And the good news about scripture is and the good news about your God is is it doesn't matter how long you've been running or where you've run to.
Speaker 1: You can never run far enough away from God.
Speaker 1: You can never hide enough from God because wherever you're at, your heavenly father is going.
Speaker 1: I see you there, I love you there.
Speaker 1: There's grace for you there, there's hope for you there.
Speaker 1: So you don't have to keep hiding, you don't have to keep running away from your God, because your God's been running after you every single day of your life.
Speaker 1: Let me pray you'd let them find you this morning, father.
Speaker 1: I pray for these students I know that there are many of them right now that are hiding things.
Speaker 1: They've been keeping things hidden from you.
Speaker 1: They know what you've asked them to do, but they're doing what they want to do and they're afraid.
Speaker 1: They're afraid that if anyone knew, they'd see them differently.
Speaker 1: They're afraid that if you really knew, you wouldn't love them.
Speaker 1: But the good news of Scripture is you see it all, you know it all and you love them fully, in spite of their sin.
Speaker 1: You didn't send your son Jesus because they were perfect.
Speaker 1: You sent your son Jesus because they were perfect.
Speaker 1: You sent your son Jesus because we are not.
Speaker 1: And in our imperfection, in our running, you still chase after us.
Speaker 1: Father, may we see the characteristics of you through the book of Jonah, that you desire to chase us down as we run?
Speaker 1: And, god, I pray that we see the truth of Jesus, that we don't have to make things right on our own, we don't have to throw ourselves into the storm to calm the wind and the waves, but instead you have thrown yourself upon the ultimate storm so that the wind and the waves of sin and death and despair and loneliness could be silenced in our life.
Speaker 1: So, god, I pray that the hidden areas of our life would be uncovered, that we would bring sin to the light, that we'd bring brokenness to the light and, as we do, we would allow ourselves to be found by you and loved by you.
Speaker 1: And more than anything, this morning we just wanna rejoice in the fact that, no matter what we've done or where we've been, jesus is alive and with us and for us.
Speaker 1: It's in his name we pray.