Sermon Transcript

As you have your seat, let me invite you to open your Bible to the book of Jonah. A couple of weeks ago we started a series called Man Overboard. We’re going to walk through the forty-eight verses that make up the book of Jonah. As we’ve been discovering, the book of Jonah is an encapsulation of everything the Bible teaches about our relationship to God. Basically, it boils down to this: we’re all fugitives from God, we run from God, and by God’s grace, He chases us down and He comes to our rescue. That’s the title of the message this morning: Grace to the Rescue.

I’m curious this morning. . .How many of you have ever had someone that you love call 911 because of something stupid you did? Anybody here want to share a testimony? There probably are some pretty crazy stories. I remember when that happened to me. The year was 1996. I was in Life Action Ministries and we were traveling around to different churches, and we were presenting this one-night program called America, You’re Too Young to Die. It was a multimedia program, with the best of 1980s technology.

We went to this church in Kissimmee, Florida. My particular role on the team was—I was the narrator for that program—but I also was the electrician. We had a lot of different power equipment, and we had to tie in to get 220 volts out of the church’s breaker box. This first thing I did was to go find the church’s breaker box, and I pulled the panel off the breaker box. When I did, I saw ‘way too many circuits and ‘way too many wires crowded into this electrical box. I began to evaluate how I was going to add one more circuit into this already-overcrowded breaker box! Because I had confidence in my three-months-as-an-electrician internship, I knew that I could handle the job!

My first clue that I was in trouble should have been the fact that the light switch didn’t work in the room I walked into. Undeterred by that, I grabbed a team member, who held a flashlight over my shoulder as I carefully removed the panel from the breaker box. Then, with my screwdriver and needle-nose pliers in hand, I began to get closer and closer, to try and surgically remove some of the already frayed wires. I could feel heat coming from the box already, and noticed that many of the wires had actually melted the insulation around them! Undeterred, I began to find a space for my breaker.

And then it happened! The box exploded in my face! And it set the church on fire! I stumbled out of that room while other team members rushed in with fire extinguishers to put out the fire, and—gratefully—somebody on the team called 911 (pre-cell phone, may I add) to call for the rescue team to come take care of the dangerous electrician who had almost burned down the church!

Do you know who the sound man was on our team that day? It was the same sound man who is running the sound today! Phillip Wilson was there to come to my rescue. Thank you so much! And I’m able to be the pastor of Harvest Bible Chapel because someone came to my rescue! The church didn’t burn down; we safely got out of that situation. We didn’t have a program that night, but somehow we survived that event.

Now, if that was stupid act on my part, let me tell you. . .there are some people here who are acting in stupid ways, requiring grace to come to your rescue as well. You’re just like Jonah. . .you’re just a fugitive from God. We’re going to see that Jonah found himself in a very stupid position, because he was running from God.

You know the story of Jonah (and we’ve seen it these last couple of weeks). God told Jonah, “I want you to deliver a message of grace to these dirty, rotten sinners over here in [what was the name of the city?] Nineveh.” And Jonah said, “Uh, no. I’m going to go the opposite direction,” so he caught an Uber-driver ship-boat down to a place called Joppa, and he went on a journey in the opposite direction over the Mediterranean Sea. A storm blew in and began to sink the ship. The sailors find out Jonah’s the problem, so they throw him overboard, and that’s where we left the story last week.

This week’s story is going to start in the last verse of chapter 1, which is verse 17, and what we’re going to see is that God is going to teach Jonah five lessons about His grace. Here’s lesson number one:

 

• Grace finds me in the depths of my distress. (Jonah 2:1-7)

 

Look at Jonah 1:17 (ESV): “And the Lord appointed a great fish. . .” [notice it doesn’t say “a whale.” It was a fish; it wasn’t a mammal; it was a fish. It was an especially enormous fish, apparently, that would have the capacity to swallow a man.

I don’t have a problem believing that, because God created the world, God resurrected Jesus from the dead. . .I think He can make a big fish, right? So, He sends this great fish. . .Notice the word “appointed” here in the verse. That is not an accidental word. Jonah was not swallowed by accident. Jonah was appointed by God to be swallowed by this fish. It was an intentional, sovereign act of God to send this particular fish to this particular fugitive from God.

“And the Lord appointed a great fish. . . to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.”  Why so long? Why three days and three nights? Because that’s how long it took Jonah to learn these five lessons about grace.

Look at Jonah 2:1-2, “Then Jonah prayed to the Lord. . .” Uh, ya think? [Laughter.] Do you know what’s interesting about that? Nowhere in chapter 1 do we find Jonah praying. We find Jonah running, we find Jonah sleeping—but not praying. I guess he didn’t feel like his situation was too distressful. Now he’s convinced it’s time to pray!

The passage says, “Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, saying, ‘I called out to the Lord, out of my distress. . .’” What does the word “distress” mean?

We don’t use the word “distress” too much anymore, unless you’re on a ship and it’s sinking—you make a distress call. But I bet most of you have used the word “stress” in the last week. How many of you have experienced a little stress in the last week? If your mother-in-law’s in town just raise your hand right there. [Laughter.] Okay? If you are a mother-in-law and you have grandchildren, just raise your hand. There’s a little stress involved in that. . .

So, what is distress? Distress is any amount of pressure, pain, suffering, anxiety, heartache that you are experiencing. It could be for several different reasons, but the worst stress and the worst distress is when it is caused from you fleeing from God. That’s exactly the kind of distress Jonah found himself in!

And yet he called, he made a choice—it was an intentional choice he made to call out to God. But then look at what happens (the shock is not that he called; the shock is what happens next): “and he answered me;” That’s surprising! Why would God want to have anything to do with listening to a prayer from a man who has spent the last week of his life running away from God?

I don’t know about you, if I was God (that’s not an announcement, by the way!), I would not be interested in listening to this guy! I would be interested in listening to guys who were running toward Me. . .not prayers from guys who were running away from Me. It is a picture of God’s grace, that He would be so good to listen to the prayer of a guy who has been running from Him—a fugitive from God.

And so he says, “I called out to the Lord, out of my distress, and [lo and behold!] he answered me out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice.” (Jonah 2:2) It was an intentional act on Jonah’s part to choose to call out; it was an intentional act on God’s part to choose to listen to him. And only because God was good, did God listen.

Jonah 2:3: “You cast me into the deep. . .” Really? Now, if you’ve been paying attention, humanly speaking, who was it that cast Jonah into the sea? Do you remember the story from chapter 1? Remember those pagan sailors? They were the ones that threw him overboard, but Jonah saw that God even overruled what was happening among those pagan sailors. Jonah understood that it was God Who had put him in the depths of despair. He understood that it was God Who knew exactly where he was! It was God Who was going to come to His rescue.

Notice, he said, “You cast me into the deep [end].” He’s not playing around in the kiddie pool anymore! He is in the deep end of disobedience. He is in the depths of his distress. “For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows. . .” By the way, whose waves were they? Those were God’s waves. Whose billows were they? Those were God’s billows. God owns the waves and He controls the height and the depth and the length and the breadth of every wave we’re facing. Jonah acknowledged those were God’s waves.

He said, “. . .all your waves and your billows passed over me. Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight;” Really? Was it God Who was driving Jonah away or was it Jonah who was running away from God? You know, sometimes when we’re in the middle of distress, we’re not quite sure how we got here—but let me tell you a mistake you do not want to make in the middle of your distress. . .You do not want to blame God for your situation. So many times, we want to blame God, when it was our act of disobedience that got us into the storm that we are in!

So often we want to ball up our fist in the face of God and blame Him, rather than to call out to Him for grace and acknowledge, “It’s my responsibility that I’m in the situation that I’m in. The anxiety, the pressure, the pain, the relational difficulty that I’m in. . .God, I’m responsible for this.”

Jonah goes on; he says, “Yet. . .” See the word “yet” in verse 4? That is a very important word! Just circle the word “yet” in verse 4. You’re going to see that again. We’re going to come back to it.

He said, “‘I am driven away from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.’” Underline the word “temple.” We’re going to see that twice in this passage as well. Why is he talking about a temple? He’s in the digestive tract of a great fish, and he’s thinking about a temple! We’ll get back to that.

Jonah 2:5: “’The waters closed in over me to take my life;’” Do you think he was in over his head or what? Some of you are here this morning, and I don’t know what you’ve brought in with you—you may feel like you’re in over your head. . .there’s no way out for you. The pain, the difficulty, the relational conflict, the financial pressure. . .you think, “I don’t know how I’m gonna. . .I’m in ‘way over my head!” You should be able to identify with Jonah. He was in—literally—over his head. He’s sinking now.

“’The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped about my head. . .” I don’t think that was a fashion statement. I think that was probably God’s way of letting him know, “You’re not going to be able to breathe!”

Jonah says,”’. . .weeds were wrapped about my head at the roots of the mountains. . .’” Interesting phrase. Do mountains have roots? And why is he talking about mountains? He’s in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. There are actually mountains at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea.

Do you know what Jonah is telling us? He is going down! As a matter of fact, he says that next: “I went down to the land. . .” Where’s the land? At the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea! “I went down. . .” Interestingly, that is the fourth time we’ve seen that phrase in Jonah. He “went down” to Joppa and found a boat; when he got on the boat, he went dooown in the bottom of the boat. . .Mark it down—every step away from God is a step down! And there, all the way down, he says, “’ [The] bars closed upon me forever; [next word—“yet”—circle the word “yet” in verse 6] yet you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God. When my life was fainting away, [that’s when] I remembered the Lord,

and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple.’” Again—he says it again—something about this temple.

So, what was going on in Jonah’s life? He’s giving us this picture, through those seven verses, that he wasn’t just thrown into the sea and was kind of dog paddling on the water. . .After a while, after the dog paddling, he is exhausted! He is out of time! He is out of strength, he’s out of breath, and he’s going down (glub, glub, glub, glub)! I believe that Jonah was in the last half-second of his life when he was swallowed by that great fish!

Have you ever been to Sea World? Have you ever seen that big Shamu fish? Is that a fish or a mammal. It’s a whale? Okay, then it wasn’t Shamu, but we know it was something like this. He comes out of the water, and he touches something like forty or fifty feet above. . .Do you believe that God could have sent that fish to swallow Jonah before Jonah ever [initially] touched the water? I believe God could have done that.

But God doesn’t do that. God waits for him to fall into the water, waits for him to dog paddle his way, exhaust all of his resources, exhaust of all of his strength. . .then he starts to sink. . .he’s drowning, he’s out of breath—and that’s when God sent the fish! What was God doing? God was teaching Jonah a lesson about grace. “You’re not going to be able to get yourself out of this by yourself.” It is not until you admit that you are in over your head that you will ever know anything about God’s grace!

Grace comes when your self-sufficiency is gone. Grace comes when your strength gone. Grace comes when your life is almost over—or at least you feel the distress—and that’s the moment God wants to teach you something about grace! Do you feel like you’re in over your head this morning? You are a great candidate for God’s grace!

We heard some of those testimonies. Did you feel like they were about in over their heads? (I realize baptism involves getting in over your head, but. . .) Some of the stories they were telling, did you hear what they were saying? “When I realized I was in over my head. . .” But that’s the moment you have to know and believe, “God knows right where I am. I’m not off God’s radar screen. He knows right where I’m at, and God hasn’t given up on me.” Do you believe that?

I’m looking at your neighbor, and I’m not sure they’re quite convinced, so would you turn to your neighbor right now and just let them know, “God has not given up on you.” Do that right now. “God has not given up on you. He knows where you’re at!” And—no matter what you’re going through—the depths of your distress—it is never too late to call out for the grace of God.

God’s grace will come to your rescue! Do you understand that Jonah was coming to the end of his resources? God wanted to meet him there.  When Jonah was at the end of himself, that’s when he could meet—and know something about—the grace of God.

The second lesson we’re going to learn is this:

 

• Grace frees me from the vanity of idols. (Jonah 2:8a)

 

Look down at Jonah 2:8, “’Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.’” Now that was interesting because, back in chapter 1 Jonah was surrounded by a bunch of idol-worshipping pagan sailors, and God met them. They turned their attention away from their pagan idols and began to put their attention on the true and the living God—and God saved them!

Maybe Jonah’s waking up and saying, “Heeey, maybe I’ve got some idols!” You say, “But he identified as a worshipper of the true and living God. . .” Yeah, he did. . .but even those of us who are convinced that there is only one God are constantly being called to, by the voice of idols. Do you know what an idol is? Do you know what that is? [Trent holds up a life-preserver.] What is that? This is an idol. You say, “That looks like a life-preserver.”

Well, an idol is a lot like a life-preserver. A life-preserver kind of gives you a little bit of hope. It allows you not to completely sink. . .but it doesn’t get you back in the boat. It doesn’t get you on dry land. Do you know what idols do? Idols continually call out to us and they try to convince us that they will actually save us.

They say, “If you just strap those things on. . .” Remember floaties, when you were young and getting ready to go into the pool? You thought you were invincible, right?—going in the pool with your floaties on. Idols don’t get you where you need to go. They just hold out a false promise, that you won’t completely sink. Do you know that’s what idols do?

What are some examples of idols? Grandma’s pumpkin pie can be an idol. I mean, when you are in the middle of stress and anxiety, and feeling like nobody loves you, there is something in us that just says, “If I could just have some pumpkin pie. . .with some whipped cream. . .and some family gathered around. . .and some football. . .” I just named like six idols in that one statement. All of it is a false hope that, if I had all of that, things would be better. That’s what idols do.

And do you know the sad part about idols is? Some of us really enjoy being a fugitive from God. We don’t really want to think about sinking all the way. And so, we don’t call out to God to save us; we call out for God to throw us a life-preserver. “God, just keep me afloat! Just keep me from destroying myself completely.” Right?

Listen—it’s not until you throw away, stop clinging to all of the false hope that idols present to you, that you’ll ever experience God’s grace. You’ve got to throw away the idols! All of us have to get rid of the idols! Because as long as you’re grasping to idols and life-preservers, it gives you a false hope. . . “If I could just get married. . .If I could just get divorced! If I could just have more money. . .If I could just get a better job. . .If church just wasn’t so long [laughter]. . .If I just had a better church!” We’re holding out hope to things that can’t save.

So, we’ve got to crush the idols, or we’ll never experience God’s grace! Because the passage says, in Jonah 2:8, “’Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of [what?] steadfast love.” That’s the third lesson:

 

• Grace surprises me with the hope of steadfast love.

 

News flash! Don’t miss this! God loves you! Even in the midst of the waves, even as you are sinking in the middle of your distress, do you understand that God wants to come to your rescue, because He is a God of love? Where do you see grace in this story? Do you remember the little word “yet,” there? Let’s talk about that.

“Yet,” in grammar—is that a conjunction? (I was public schooled. . .I don’t really. . .okay, that’s a conjunction—the homeschoolers are nodding their heads over there—thank you.) [Laughter.] It’s a conjunction. What it does, it connects two illogical thoughts. It connects two things that normally would not go together. It’s a surprising thought that this could go with that. “Who would have thunk it?” Again, public school.

Who would think these two things would go together? Jonah does it twice in this passage. Look at verse 4: “’Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight; yet [nevertheless, however!] I shall again look upon your holy temple.’” Do you know what he’s saying? “As far as I am from God, I still remember—I can still see in my mind’s eye—the temple.” What was the temple? It was the place where God was! And as far away as Jonah was from God, he still had hope that God’s grace could get him to a better place. He does it again in Jonah 2:6.

Jonah says, “’I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever; yet [here’s the illogical thought] you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God.’”  “I was going down, yet You brought me up.” It’s a picture of God’s grace!

We’ve been talking about grace. Could we just define it? “What are we talking about?! You keep talking about grace.” Here’s the definition: Grace is favor given to an ill-deserving person by an unobligated giver. Every word of that definition is very carefully chosen.

Grace is favor: it’s God treating you better than you deserve. And, notice, it doesn’t say, “to an undeserving person.” If you just think you’re undeserving, you don’t get it. You are ill-deserving. You and I are fugitives from God! We’ve turned our back on God, we’ve disobeyed God, we’ve made our self God! And for that, we deserve judgment from God.

So, grace is favor given to an ill-deserving person by an unobligated giver. Some people will never experience the depths of God’s grace because they actually have too high a view of themselves. They think God is obligated to rescue them. . .because, “I’m awesome! I mean, look at all I do! I mean, compare me to ISIS, right? I’m looking awesome! God, you need to come and fix my thing here. God, you need to correct. . .God, where is the financial help. . .why. . .?”

And you have such a high opinion of yourself, you have in your mind obligated God to rescue you. And you don’t know a thing about grace!

How many of you have a job? How many of you actually get paid (I know you’re all underpaid—I get that—but you get paid, right?. . .) You work forty, fifty, sixty hours. . .put in all that labor. . .produce the product. . .and at the end of the week you get a paycheck by your employer.

Now, when you get a paycheck by your employer, is he exercising grace? Yes or no? No. He’s giving you wages, not grace. Wages are what you deserve, and your employer is obligated to give them. That’s not grace, and that is not how we come into relationship with God. . .and yet that is the way so many of us treat God! “God, I’m so good! I pray, I give money, I treat my grandma nice, I write cards and letters and I come to church and I read my Bible. ..and God, for all of that, you would think You would be nice to me!”

And in your mind, you don’t have a grace relationship with God, you have a wages relationship with God. That’s not going to go well for you in the end, unless you understand that you’re not only undeserving—you’re ill-deserving.

How many of you pay taxes? If you raised your hand the first time, you better raise your hand the second time! When you write out that nice little check at the end of the year to the IRS, and you send that in, are you exercising grace? No! Are you giving wages? No. Why? Because you are obligated to give them—even though the person or persons you are sending your taxes to are ill-deserving of what you are sending. . .right? So, grace is not wages; grace is not taxes; what is it?

How many of you went shopping on Black Friday, and you risked your lives to buy that thing, so you could wrap it up and put it under the tree to give it to the person that you love? If you’re a parent, on Christmas, you’re going to give this gift to your children. Do your children deserve the gift? No. They’re good kids, they’re in the family, they got your last name [laughter], but nobody’s going to call the cops on you—you’re not going to get arrested—if you don’t give your kids a Christmas gift, right?

You may be a bad parent, but you’re not obligated to give a Christmas gift, and your children aren’t deserving of whatever it is you give them. . .so why do you give it? Grace! You are giving an ill-deserving person a gift from an unobligated giver. That is what God wants to give you!

You don’t want a relationship with God based on wages—or taxes. You want a relationship with God based on grace! And that was the lesson that Jonah was learning. Jonah was called by God to deliver a message of grace to Ninevah, and yet Jonah hadn’t learned the lesson yet. That’s why God had to put him in time-out for three days and three nights. He put him in the penalty box and said, “You’re going to learn the lesson here, and the fish is going to be a great teacher to you. You’re going to learn about grace.”

Some people never experience grace because they have too high a view of themselves. Some people never learn about grace because they have too low a view of God. Maybe you’re here this morning and you say, “I know I’m an ill-deserving sinner. I mean, if you knew half of what I’ve done, you wouldn’t even let me in church! I should be in jail right now! It’s no wonder I’ve lost my family. It’s no wonder I’m living with the illness I’m living with. The stuff that I’ve done has brought tremendous distress upon my life. I’m so far from God, I could never get back!” You won’t experience grace until you elevate your view of how gracious God is.

Jonah had to learn how good God was, even in sending this fish. Here’s the fourth lesson he had to learn:

 

• Grace gives me a voice of thanksgiving. (Jonah 2:9)

 

Look at Jonah 2:9: “’But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you;’” The voice of thanksgiving. . .Now, I want you to think about this for a second. . .You’ve got to come into the belly of the whale. . .you’ve got to think about this. . .Jonah is at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea! He is in the belly of a whale, being digested by—Did I say “whale” again? It’s a fish! It’s not a whale! Don’t let me get away with that stuff, okay? So—he’s getting digested by this great fish. . .he’s got seaweed wrapped around his head. Question: What exactly is Jonah thanking God for? I think I know.

Jonah was thanking God for the fish. Do you understand, the fish was not sent to take Jonah down. The fish was sent to bring Jonah back up! The fish was God’s grace to Jonah! The lesson in that is this, I’ve don’t know what you’ve been swallowed by. Maybe you’ve had visions and dreams of going this way, and “I want this,” and maybe you’ve even prayed for that—“God, give me this.” And God won’t allow it. Instead, God swallows you up and sends you in a different direction. Thank God for that!

Sometimes God sends a fish to protect you from you, and to send you in the direction He wanted you to go in the first place. So, for the first time, Jonah is beginning to thank God for the fish! And not only that, but to thank God for God.

When you gathered around the turkey, and you went around the table and the patriarch of the family said, “What are you thankful for this year?” (Does that only happen in my family, or does that happen in everybody’s family?), how many of you sat around and listened to stories that had to do with good health, good friends, good family, “I have a little money in the bank, and everything’s going. . .”—and you began to list the gifts that God had given, but you never thanked God for God! You just thanked God for making your life a little easier.

How do we so easily forget to lift up a voice of thanksgiving? That’s why, over and over in the Bible, we are told to express a grateful heart to the Lord. Psalm 105:1-4: “Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name; make known his deeds among the peoples! Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wondrous works! Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice! Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually!” Jonah was beginning to understand.

It is not happy people who have a voice of thanksgiving. It’s people who have a voice of thanksgiving who are happy. You say, “Well, if God would do some more stuff, I would thank Him.” Now, that’s the problem. You don’t get it! God’s already been so good! Thank Him! And God will use the thanksgiving to change your own heart. Our first step away from God is a failure to thank Him, and Jonah was a fugitive because he had lost his voice of thanksgiving.

Do you know what, according to this story, is the first step back to God? Thanking God. “Thank you, God for the fish! Thank you God for getting my attention; thank you for the seaweed wrapped around my head to get me off of myself and onto You.”

Here’s the last lesson of grace:

 

• Grace reminds me salvation belongs to the Lord.

 

In the second part of Jonah 2:9, Jonah says, “’What I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord!’” That’s the number one lesson that God wanted to teach Jonah, was that salvation is completely and entirely a gracious work of the Lord. It’s so easy to forget that! We think that salvation, somehow, has something to do with us.

Do you remember the two times in the story that he talks about the temple: “I wanted to see the temple! I lifted up my voice to call out to the Lord, that He would hear me in His holy temple.” Why is that so significant? There were priests in the temple who were given very specific instruction about how to sacrifice innocent, spotless lambs. The priest would take a knife and slit the throat of that lamb, and the blood would drain, and he would sprinkle the blood over what was called the mercy seat. Just below the mercy seat was where the law of God, the Ten Commandments, sat. It was a picture, a preview, of coming attractions—that one day God would send Jesus to become the precious Lamb of God—Who would spill His blood and cover the requirement of the Law.

Jonah, as a Hebrew prophet, knew that story. He knew about the blood in the temple, and he knew that the only way to be rescued by grace had something to do with the blood. He knew and remembered what God had said back in 1 Kings chapter 8, when that temple was dedicated. Solomon envisioned a day when people would sin, and this is what he said, “’When heaven is shut up and there is no rain [the last thing Jonah needed at this point was rain—but work with me. . .] because they have sinned against you, if they pray toward this place [the temple] and acknowledge your name and turn from their sin, when you afflict them, then hear in heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel, when you teach them the good way in which they should walk [that way. Not this way—that way].’”  (1 Kings 8:35-36) And Jonah remembered, there was a better way than the way that he was going.

It’s so easy to get trapped and to forget that my salvation is completely and entirely a work of God’s grace. When you stray from that, when you forget that, do you know what you do? You begin to invent other gospels.

That’s what we read in the New Testament, in Galatians chapter 1. . .the apostle Paul, writing to a church that well-taught, writing to a church that knew something of God’s grace, this is what he said, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him [who does that sound like? It sounds like Jonah!] who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. . .” Do you see? There are two paths. There is the path of grace, and there is the path of a different gospel.

What is that different gospel? We would sum that up in the word “religion.” Do you know the difference between religion and grace? Religion teaches that man reaches up to God. “If I can just come to church and say my prayers, and give a little money and try not to hate too many people. . .If I just say the rosary or go through baptism or get married in the church. . .” We come up with all these religious formulas about how somehow we can climb our way up to God. . .

That’s not what Jonah understood! God taught him that you are sinking so far, God is unreachable. God, in grace, reaches down to man and pulls him up. Are you operating by grace, or are you operating by religion? Here’s how you’ll know: What motivates you to obey?

Anytime you do something that you’re supposed to do, why do you do that? “Well, I gotta do good ‘cause I really sinned hard on Friday night. I better come to church on Sunday and do some good stuff. . .because, after all, there’s kind of this scoreboard in Heaven, and God’s keeping score of my good works and my bad works. . .and I gotta outscore the other team because I did some really sinful stuff on Friday night—so I gotta do some good stuff on Sunday to make it right.” That’s religion, and what you believe is, if you are good God will love you. That’s not grace.

Grace teaches this: Because God is good, He loves me! Not because I’m good! There’s nothing in me that is good, there’s nothing in me that’s loveable. God is good, therefore He loves me. Religion teaches me that if I obey, then I’ll be accepted by God. But grace teaches me, I’m accepted—I’m rescued!—therefore, I obey. That’s what Jonah said in the last part of Jonah 2:9: “I have vowed—I will pay.”

He wasn’t going to pay his vows to be accepted and rescued by God. He was rescued by God, therefore he said, “How can I not, in gratitude and thanksgiving, love You and serve You and worship You—and go anywhere and do anything You would ask me to do.” It’s the difference between religion and grace.

Can I ask you, have you ever experienced God’s grace? Or are you still trying to dog paddle your way to God? Are you still clinging to your life-preservers? Are you still holding on to idols? Have you gotten trapped in a formulated, ceremonial religion that says if you jump through the right hoops, somehow God is obligated to rescue you? That is the entire opposite message of the entire Bible! It is all about you coming to the end of yourself, saying, “I can’t get there. I’m exhausted! I’m out of answers; I don’t know what to do! God, would You save me?!”

Have you ever been there? Are you there today? If you’re there, God will come to your rescue. Let me just ask you to bow your heads, close your eyes. I’m talking to some people here today who have been trapped by religion. And today, God wants to rescue you from religion. God wants to rescue you from self-effort. God wants you to surrender all of the life-preservers you’ve been clinging to: your education, your intelligence, your creativity, your good looks. . .and God wants you to call out to Him for a rescue! If you’ve never done that, why don’t you just do it right now in your own heart? Understand that that blood that was shed on the cross, by Jesus Christ, was for you. It’s the only hope of our salvation. “Salvation belongs to the Lord!”

Today, if He has opened your heart and quickened your mind to that reality, do you understand it’s even a grace of God that you’re understanding that concept? So, why don’t you open up your heart and say, “Lord Jesus, thank You for the cross. Thank you for spilling Your blood to wash away sin. I bring you my sin, all of my running. I’m a fugitive from You, and I am going down! In this moment, would You come to my rescue? I’ve got no other hope.”

Now, for some of you, you’ve been a Christian for a long time, and yet you need to be reminded that no one is ever too good that you don’t need to be rescued every day by God’s grace. So, why don’t you, in a fresh new way, call out to Him and say, “Lord, I need You as much today as I needed You on the day I surrendered to You. God, I don’t want to depend upon my own strength; I want to depend upon You. God, would You come to the place of my distress? Get me moving in the way that I’m supposed to go.”

Lord, thank You for Your Word today. Thank You for its clarity. Thank You for Your Spirit that draws us, calls us back. I pray for my friends here today. . .Whatever distress they’re in, would You meet them in that moment and would You convince them of Your grace? We pray in Jesus’ Name, Amen. Why don’t we stand and sing our response to the Lord?

The last verse in the section says this, “And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.” (Jonah 2:10) Isn’t that a “pretty picture?” Sometimes salvation and deliverance is a little messy. God wants not only to deliver you from your distress, but deliver you to the place you’re supposed to be. At the end of the service, we’re always here, down at the front. Not only did God speak to the fish, but God has spoken to some of you this morning.

He wants to deliver you from some of the stuff, if you’ll admit you’re in over your head. . .you need help, you need counsel, you need prayer…we’re here. I want encourage you. . .maybe like some you’ve heard this morning—who have shared their testimony and been baptized—some of you need to do that same thing. We’ll help you walk through that together. Baptism is a public declaration that, “God has delivered me and my salvation belongs to the Lord!” If you’ve never publicly proclaimed that, I give you an opportunity to do that. We’re here at the end of the service. I want to encourage you, don’t go that way (that’s what Jonah did)—come this way. Get going in the direction God wants you to go, and we’d be happy to help you make that decision for Christ, okay?

See you next week! Happy Thanksgiving! You are loved!