1. "We shouldn't marvel at the miracle but we should marvel at the God of the miracle."

2. "They are not the Avengers of evangelism. They are just ordinary men and women like you and me who struggle and stumble and fall. There's nothing special about them. But God chose them because he is special and his message is life changing."

3. "Jonah was a hoarder of God's grace and only wanted his own people to experience it."

4. "As we are daily catechized and discipled by a canceled culture, we need to realize that God is not seeking to cancel anyone or anything but their debt that they owe against him."

5. "We do not need to hoard God's mercy, but be generous, be liberal with extending God's mercy to other people."

6. "Jonah, you're gonna flee to the sea? I'll meet you there. Jonah thought he could find refuge in the sea. He thought it was gonna be a safe place. But the sea turns out to be more loyal and faithful to God than Jonah was."

7. "God can pick up the broken pieces of your life and glorify himself. Oftentimes it's the deepest scars that preach the best sermons."

8. "Christ offered up himself to be thrown overboard so that we could live. Christ was swallowed up by death so that death would be swallowed up forever."

9. "God has taught Jonah this lesson that Jonah doesn't get to decide who gets saved. It's not up to him. It's up to God. He alone owns salvation and he alone is able to save."

10. "Once we get it right and rightly orient our perspective that God has been so merciful to us, we shine brightly for God in everything we do."

Observation Questions

1. According to Jonah 1:1-2, what specific command did God give to Jonah, and what reason did God provide for this command?

2. In Jonah 1:3, what actions did Jonah take in response to God's command, and what phrase is repeated to describe his destination and purpose?

3. According to Jonah 1:4-5, how did God respond to Jonah's flight, and how did the mariners react to the storm?

4. In Jonah 1:9-10, how did Jonah identify himself and his God to the sailors, and what was their emotional response when they learned he was fleeing from the Lord?

5. What does Jonah 1:17 say God did after Jonah was thrown into the sea, and how long was Jonah in this situation?

6. In Jonah 2:9-10, what declaration does Jonah make about salvation, and how does God respond to bring Jonah's time in the fish to an end?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why is it significant that Jonah 4:2 reveals Jonah's reason for fleeing was not fear but rather his knowledge that God is "gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love"? What does this reveal about Jonah's heart toward the Ninevites?

2. How does God's sovereignty over the sea, the lot-casting, and the sailors' questions (Jonah 1:4-14) demonstrate that God's purposes cannot be thwarted even by the disobedience of His own prophet?

3. What is the significance of the pagan sailors crying out to the Lord and offering sacrifices to Him (Jonah 1:14-16)? How does this connect to God's broader mission in the world?

4. How does Jonah's experience of being swallowed by the fish and then delivered serve as a picture pointing to Jesus Christ, especially in light of Matthew 12:38-41?

5. What does Jonah's declaration "Salvation belongs to the Lord" (Jonah 2:9) teach us about who has the authority to determine who receives God's mercy, and why was this a lesson Jonah specifically needed to learn?

Application Questions

1. Jonah wanted to hoard God's grace for his own people and exclude his enemies. Is there a person or group of people in your life toward whom you struggle to desire God's mercy? What specific step could you take this week to begin praying for their salvation rather than their judgment?

2. The sermon emphasized that God entrusts ordinary, weak people with the gospel message. In what relationship or setting has fear of inadequacy kept you from sharing the gospel, and how might remembering that success depends on God's greatness rather than yours change your approach?

3. Jonah's circumstances in the belly of the fish led him to praise God and remember His mercy. When you face difficult consequences—whether from your own sin or others'—what practices help you turn toward God in praise rather than away from Him in despair?

4. The sermon challenged listeners to consider whether they are more focused on what they lack or on the eternal life they have received in Christ. What is one specific way you could reorient your daily thoughts this week to cultivate gratitude for God's mercy toward you?

5. The story of Elizabeth Elliott and Rachel Saint showed believers extending mercy to those who killed their loved ones. Without minimizing genuine hurt, is there someone who has wronged you to whom God may be calling you to extend grace or share the gospel? What would be a first step toward that?

Additional Bible Reading

1. 2 Kings 14:23-27 — This passage provides the historical context for Jonah's ministry, showing God's mercy toward Israel despite their evil king Jeroboam II.

2. Matthew 12:38-41 — Jesus directly references the sign of Jonah as pointing to His own death and resurrection, connecting Jonah's three days in the fish to the gospel.

3. Genesis 12:1-3 — God's call to Abraham establishes His mission to bless all nations, the same mission Jonah resisted by refusing to go to Nineveh.

4. Ezekiel 18:30-32 — God declares He takes no pleasure in the death of anyone and calls all to repentance, reinforcing the sermon's emphasis on God's mercy toward sinners.

5. Romans 9:14-24 — Paul addresses God's sovereign right to show mercy to whomever He chooses, echoing Jonah's lesson that "salvation belongs to the Lord."

Sermon Main Topics

I. Opening Illustration: A Childhood "Miracle" and How We Should Read Biblical Miracles

II. God Pursues Sinners (Jonah 1:1-3)

III. God's Pursuit Cannot Be Stopped (Jonah 1:4-14)

IV. God Pursues to Save (Jonah 1:15-17; 2:1-10)

V. Responding to God's Mercy Through Praise and Proclamation

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Detailed Sermon Outline

Have you ever had an experience in your life or an event that you would consider miraculous? Like something happened to you outside the norm that you're like, this was basically a miracle. So for me, I think back to when I was eight years old, living in Birmingham, Alabama, there was this builder who built this new development and they were giving away like a million dollar home. So all these people in Birmingham, they go and they try to see it, and I'll never forget as a kid, I was probably seven or eight, there was cars lined up for miles on this hill. We were walking on this path with a bunch of rocks, and there were trees on our left.

And as a good little boy that I was, I found these rocks in my hand, and I knew they needed to be thrown. That was the assignment that God had given me that day. I began to throw them. I got a warning, Don't do that. Do them again.

My dad said, Don't do it. He was extending an opportunity, either mercy or judgment. Which will you choose this day? I chose the ladder. I had one more rock and it was just so perfect that it was like God created it for me to throw it.

So while he wasn't looking, I hurled back and I threw it as hard as I can. And what happened next is truly a miracle. I hear it hit a tree, ricochet off a tree, and it busts a car windshield. Now to make matters even more interesting, It wasn't any car windshield, it was our car windshield. Like, what is the probability of something like that happening?

What is the likelihood that that could happen again?

And that's often how we read the Bible. We read the Bible and we encounter these miracles that are so significant they seem like this could never happen and we wonder how it happened. But really the question that we should be asking is not how it happened but why it happened and better yet who caused it to happen. We shouldn't marvel at the miracle but we should marvel at the God of the miracle. So as we encounter stories like Noah and the flood and Moses going and freeing his people, the Israelites from bondage in Egypt or even our story today with Jonah and the great fish, Let's not look so much at the miracles that are happening in there, but look at beyond that to the God of the miracle.

Because in each of these moments, God is revealing something about himself, something about us, and something about what he's doing in the world. And that's true of our story today. And so my kind of main thesis this morning is this. That God's pursuit to save sinners will not be stopped. God's pursuit to save sinners will not be stopped.

So that's my thesis and we'll take each part of this sentence as our outline. So if you have your Bible, I invite you to go ahead and grab them and turn to the book of Jonah. If you have a red Pew Bible, it's on page 774 and 775.

1 Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, son of Amittai, the son of Amittai, saying, 'Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it for their evil has come up before me.' But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord. So before we jump into our passage today, I wanna kind of zoom out and give us some context where we are in the Bible. So after Adam and Eve fell in the garden, God has been pursuing a people for himself that would image his nature and character in the world.

See this in Genesis 12, when God calls out Abraham. We see this when God calls out his people out of Egypt, when he raises up Moses to lead them out. We see this with God leading Israel through the desert and to the land in Canaan. And God gives them a king after they long for a king and reject God as their king. He gives them Saul and Saul fails and he gives them David.

Well after David comes Solomon and Solomon later on in his life rebels against God. His son, Rehoboam, acts evilly, doesn't act according to the wisdom of God and the kingdom is split. The northern kingdom is Israel, the southern kingdom is Judah. And so God during this time, you can see this in 1 and 2 Kings, would speak to them through prophets. And he would encourage these kings to be faithful to the covenant that they made with God at Sinai.

And oftentimes we see that they act evil and God is gracious to save them and rebel them, to redeem them from their rebellion. And we see this with the story of Jonah. The only other time that Jonah is mentioned in the Old Testament is in 2 Kings 14. We see there that he is a prophet to Jeroboam II. And Jeroboam was not a righteous man.

Jeroboam did evil in the sight of the Lord, and yet, despite Jeroboam's sin, God does not blot Israel out. He redeems them and He saves them because He is a gracious and merciful God, and He is saving a people for Himself in all the world. So it brings me to my first point that we see today is this: what we see in Jonah and what we see throughout the Bible is God pursues sinners. My first point today is God pursues sinners. So we see here in these first three verses of Jonah that God speaks to Jonah and he gives him a message.

He says, Go, and I want you to go to this city and I want you to call out against it. So throughout the Bible we see that this is what God does. He has a messenger, he calls them out and he entrusts them with a message. What is this message that God has given to Jonah? Is to go to Nineveh and call out against it for their evil.

If you were to read later on in Jonah chapter three, you would see what this message really is. It's not merely a message of judgment, it's an invitation to repent. It's an invitation to experience God's mercy. This is what God is doing in the world, is he's extending his mercy to rebellious people. We see this with Jonah.

Isn't it super encouraging to know that God is not just a God who judges, but he's a God who extends mercy? This is what God has been doing throughout the Bible, is he's given messengers a message to tell other people about who God is and what he's doing in the world. I mean, go back to the Garden of Eden. Go back to Genesis chapter two. What you have there is God has made Adam, and Adam at this moment is alone, and God has given Adam some instructions.

He said, Do not eat of the tree of knowledge and good and evil. Well, at that very moment, Eve was not in existence. So whose responsibility was it to give Eve the message for how to live in God's world? It was Adam. It's the responsibility that God gave Adam.

Think about like we talked about earlier with Moses. God gave Moses a message, Hey, go to Pharaoh and say, Let my people go. See it with Joshua, we see it with Isaiah, Jeremiah, with Jonah. If you skip over to the New Testament, we see that after Jesus' resurrection, what does he do? He entrusts a message to a group of men to go to the nations and say, Look what we have seen and look what we have heard.

To share the invitation to repent and respond to the salvation that God is offering in Christ. Well, who has that message today and who is supposed to share it? Well, it's you and it's me.

God has entrusted this great gospel message to us to share with those around us and with the nations. He's commissioned all Christians. It's not just for pastors, it's not just for missionaries. And there's a temptation that we face when we read the Bible is to see some of these men and women as like superheroes, like they had this superhuman strength that God set them apart because of how good they were. And that's not true.

They are not the Avengers of evangelism, right? They are just ordinary men and women like you and me who struggle and stumble and fall. There's nothing special about them. But God chose them because he is special and his message is life changing. So brothers and sisters, if you feel weak and frail in evangelism, join the club.

And in that club you will find Moses, you will find Joshua, you will find Rahab and Esther, you will find Jonah, you'll find Peter and Paul, a group of people who've experienced God's mercy and God entrusted them with a message to go and tell others how to receive that very mercy. And any success they had wasn't because they were great, it's because their God is great. So keep trusting God in those relationships. And keep sharing the gospel because the message he has given you is life changing. So God gives Jonah a mission and a message to go to a group of people.

Well, who are these group of people? Well, God calls Jonah to go to Nineveh. And this is pretty spectacular because if you know your Bible well, you know that Nineveh is one of the capital cities of Assyria. And these were wicked and evil people. And honestly, in this moment in Israel's history, they may be Israel's greatest enemy.

And God is saying to Jonah, Hey, I've chosen you to go and share this message of repentance because I love them and I want to have compassion on them. Well, Jonah goes, but the different direction than what God had called him to go to. He didn't go to Nineveh, he goes to Tarshish. He flees, he goes down as far as he possibly can because he has no desire to be a part of this mission and message that God has given to him to go. And why does Jonah run?

Is it because Jonah's scared? Is it because Jonah feels his own weakness and feels like, God, I can't do this, I'm just not strong enough? No, it's actually quite the opposite. The reason why Jonah didn't go to Assyria and didn't wanna go to Nineveh is because he hated them. You see this in Jonah 4, we can kind of cheat a little bit and look over to Jonah 4:2.

Jonah tells us why he ran. Jonah 4:2 says this, For I made haste to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Why did Jonah not go to Nineveh? Because he didn't want them to experience God's mercy. He wanted them to experience God's judgment.

Jonah was a hoarder of God's grace and only wanted his own people to experience it. If we're having a moment of honesty today, who is the Assyria in your life? Where is the Nineveh in your life? Are there people that have so harmed you and so hurt you in your life that you you don't want them to experience God's mercy. You want them to experience God's judgment.

Has this past year so harmed you and so hurt you and how the events of the pandemic have taken place, how the political polarization has happened, how the racial strife has gone about, has that hardened you towards a certain person that you've now adopted Jonah's disposition towards them? When you're on Twitter and you see that specific person make that certain post, What is your first response? To post a reply or to pray for them? Or maybe you're here and it's not necessarily that you want God's justice on these people, but you've convinced yourself in your own mind that they are so sinful and so wicked that they are outside the grace of God. That even this great and mighty God cannot save them.

If I can be honest with you, that's more my temptation. It's to see people in my own life who I think have sinned so badly and grieved God so deeply that God is not able to save them, which is a lie from the pit of hell. And so brothers and sisters, as we are daily catechized and discipled by a canceled culture, we need to realize that God is not seeking to cancel anyone or anything but their debt that they owe against him.

And we should flee from Jonah's mindset. We should denounce and repent of any hard thoughts towards people who don't know Jesus. We should take that to God. We should run to him and seek to give that to the Lord because we know Ezekiel 18:32 says this for God says this, I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord our God. So turn and live.

We should pray and seek that God would make that our own mindset. And we should daily come to the cross and remember all that God has done for us in Christ. We do not need to hoard God's mercy, but be generous, be liberal with extending God's mercy to other people. In evil ways or any thought that seeks to convince us not to share the gospel with someone else is not of God. We need to repent of those thoughts and turn those over to the Lord.

There are many examples throughout Christian history of Saints who maybe without Christ would have hated individuals who harmed them or hurt them, but yet chose to extend mercy. A few of those for me are Elizabeth Elliott and Rachel Saint. Maybe you've heard of their stories before that there were these missionary families, Jim Elliott being one of them and Nate Saint being the other, and a few others that went to Ecuador and they had a desire to minister to the Auca people. And one Sunday morning, they had had some success ministering to this specific tribe who was kind of an obstinate to the gospel, who did not want to hear or have relationships with anybody from the outside world. One Sunday morning on January 8th in 1956, these five men went out to have a worship service and potentially meet with the Alca people, and it ended up costing them all of their lives.

Five men on those beaches were speared to death that day because of their desire to share the gospel with those people. And do you know how Elizabeth and Rachel responded to that? Instead of running from them, instead of fleeing from them, two years later, they end up going to live with those very people who murdered their husbands. And they began to read the Bible with them and share the gospel with them.

And the very man who murdered Rachel's husband was one of the first people to come to Christ. Brothers and sisters, that is the mentality that we should adopt, and that is the power of the gospel. There's nothing special about Elizabeth and Rachel other than the fact that they had been spiritually raised from the dead. They had received God's mercy, and they wanted to extend God's mercy to other people. We don't need to be like Jonah in this story.

We don't need to hoard God's grace. We need to daily remember all that God has done for us in Christ and seek to extend it to other people. Jonah was maybe convinced in his own mind that only Israel was worthy of God's grace, but he forgot to realize that Israel was just as sinful and wicked as Nineveh. That the only reason they had life in God was because God was merciful towards them. I mean, even in 2 Kings 14, you see the mercy of God towards Rehoboam and towards Jonah.

We should seek to remember that daily and seek to extend it to other people. To not only see here that God is pursuing sinners, but that God's pursuit cannot be stopped. It's my second point. God pursues sinners and God's pursuit cannot be stopped. We see this specifically in verses 4 through 14.

So let's read that now. Verse 4, But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his god. They hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep.

So the captain came down and said to him, what do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your God. Perhaps the God will give you a thought to us or give a thought to us that we may not perish. And they said to one another, Come, let us cast lots that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.

Then they said to him, 'Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation and where do you come from? What is your country and what people are you?' He said to them, 'I am a Hebrew and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land.' Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, 'What is this that you have done? For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord because he had told them. Then they said to him, what shall we do to you that the sea may quiet down for us?

For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. He said to them, pick me up and hurl me into the sea. Then the sea will quiet down for you. For I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.

Nevertheless, the men rode hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. Therefore they called out to the Lord, O Lord, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for your, O Lord, have done as it pleased you.

So we see in verse 3 that Jonah he flees. And I'm not certain what Jonah's motive was. I'm not certain if he was simply trying to thwart the purposes of God or he was just making sure that he had nothing to do with God's purposes towards Nineveh. But Jonah, he flees to the sea. He runs away thinking he can find security there.

And he miscalculated because every square inch of creation is God's. And there's nowhere that Jonah could get away from God's presence. God is showing us today through Jonah that what God has purposed, he will bring about. And a few things we see here, it's very evident that God's providence is all over these verses. We can see here that God is sovereign over the sea.

The sea is mentioned 11 times and we see it here in verse 4. It said that God hurled a great wind upon the sea. Jonah, you're gonna flee to the sea? I'll meet you there. Jonah thought he could find refuge in the sea.

He thought it was gonna be a safe place. He thought the sea was gonna be his ally in fleeing from God. But the sea turns out to be more loyal and faithful to God than Jonah was. And it obeys God. And the sea begins to roar and rage at God's command.

The wind begins to blow so much so that this boat is about to break apart. These mariners, these pagans who do not know this one true God are crying out, they're fearful, they're going to lose their lives. They begin to throw their cargo overboard and they begin to cry out to their God because they know that they cannot save themselves.

So for those of us who are here or those of you who are here who are not Christians, thankful that you're here, we just ask you to consider this question. If we could have a conversation, I just want to know, in moments of despair in moments where your life is not going the way you want it to go, in moments where it feels like your life is falling apart, who do you go to to find comfort? Who do you go to to find strength and salvation? See, these mariners, they ran to things outside of God and it did not provide salvation. The gods they cried out to failed them.

Because there were no gods at all. The sea kept raging. And in a last ditch effort, they remember that there's this man named Jonah downstairs, and he's like a good old man and he's sleeping in the back of the room. He is downstairs and he's asleep and he's maybe either guilty or depressed, but he is not awakened by the storm. And as soon as they wake him up, I wonder that Jonah began to question, Is God after me?

We see that God is sovereign over the sea, but we also see that God is sovereign over these dice. Look at this. If you look down in verse 7, it says this, They said to one another, Come and let us cast lots. Casting lots was a way in which people would try to discern what God has for them, and so they would cast these dice, essentially, and there was three answers. It was yes, no, and basically roll again.

And can you imagine how awkward Jonah had to feel in this moment? It's like he knows that this is going to land on him. Like there's nobody else it's gonna land on. So the dice falls, Jonah's up first, and Jonah is the man and the reason, the cause for this to happen. He's the reason this storm has happened.

Even the dice are subject to God's providential hand.

And even notice this too, that God is sovereign over the crew and their questions. They begin to ask, why is this evil come upon us? And what is your occupation? And where do you come from? And what is your country?

And what people are you? Meaning, what God do you worship? And Jonah is forced to speak. Just think about how ironic this is. That Jonah is fleeing from Nineveh because he does not want to speak about God's mercy and God so ordains the circumstances that Jonah now has to preach about who God is.

God has orchestrated even the mistakes of Jonah to bring people to him. This is what God has done and this is what God is doing in our lives today. So I don't know what you're here and what you're dealing with. I imagine we have a few people here that you've made some bad decisions and some bad mistakes and you're having to deal with the consequences of your own sin. Or maybe you're here and it's not your sin that you're having to deal with, it's somebody else's.

You're living and dealing with affliction because of somebody else's sin. I just want to encourage you today from the story of Jonah that your story and your life is not irredeemable. That God can pick up the broken pieces of your life and glorify himself. That oftentimes it's the deepest scars that preach the best sermons. So I don't know what you're going through and what you're dealing with.

Maybe you just need to own up and repent of your own sin. But I encourage you, turn to God, don't flee from Him, submit to His word, continue to pray, continue to wait well, and continue to seek Him. And trust that God is working all things out, even our missteps and mistakes, for our good and His glory. We see that here in the story of Jonah. So in the providence and mercy of God, These mariners who were pagans who did not know God hear about God.

And in this very moment, they are shocked that Jonah could run from such a God. They're terrified and they begin to question Jonah, what do we need to do to get this storm to stop? Jonah instructs them and says, well, you need to throw me overboard. That's the only way this is going to end. They don't believe him and they don't do it.

They begin to row against the storm and they themselves are like, Jonah, they're going against God and they fail. They are no match for this relentless God. Then they are terrified because they have encountered the living God. They're terrified now to submit to Jonah's instruction. This man who's running from God, they're like, can we trust you?

They're fearful, as we'll see later on here, that they're fearful at throwing him overboard. They're throwing over an innocent man. And then this God of the sea and of the dry land will judge them and hold them accountable for his innocent blood.

Notice what these men do next though. Look at verse 14. They cry out to the Lord. They've encountered the true God and they say this, O Lord, let us not perish for this man's life. Lay not on us innocent blood for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you.

See, this is what God is communicating to Jonah and all of us today. That God acts according to his own wisdom and to his own pleasure. That what God plans to do and what God purposes to do, He will bring about and there's no one or nothing that can stop Him. So why did God send Jonah to Nineveh? Well, in the words of Psalm 115:3, because God sits in heaven and He does all that He pleases.

Why did God want to extend mercy and grace to Nineveh and these Assyrians, these wicked people who deserve justice and not mercy? Because God sits in heaven and he does all that he pleases. This is what God is doing and this is what God is showing us in Jonah, that our views of God and his mercy are far too small. That we need to widen our gaze a little bit to have a better understanding of who God is and what he's doing in the world. It's kind of like this, we've been reading through the Chronicles and Narnia at night with our daughters.

And we're now in Prince Caspian. If you know the story, the kids have left Narnia and it's kind of reverted back and like either hundreds or thousands of years have passed and Narnia has run down. It's not what it was when they were reigning as kings and queens. They come back and Aslan is nowhere to be found. Lucy begins to sense and see that he might be there and one night she wakes up while the others are sleeping and she encounters Aslan for the first time.

If you've read it, it's a great little section in the book. And here's their encounter. She runs up and she hugs Aslan and she says this, Aslan, you were bigger. And he says this, this is because you were older, little one, answered he. Not because you are, said Lucy.

I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger. And I think that's the Christian life. I think that's what God is doing here with Jonah. He is saying, Son, I am far more bigger and far more gracious and far more compassionate than you can ever imagine.

And maybe you've experienced that in your own life. That God has orchestrated and used the circumstances of your life to show you that he is much more gracious, much more compassionate, much more sovereign and providential over in your life. Than you ever imagined. God is showing Jonah, these mariners, and all the world that what he plans to do he will do and none can stop him. This truth is a gold mine of comfort and encouragement for us as Christians.

That God's purposes to save sinners will not be stopped and we can trust him. They're sure that he will save a people for himself. So for the parents in the room, that are continuing to share the gospel with your kids, either young children or teenagers or kids that have grown up and gone away, I just want to encourage you with this today that God is able to use any circumstance or any season of your kids' life to bring them to faith. So no matter how old they are or what they are doing, if they are alive, they are not outside of God's mercy. So keep praying, keep trusting God, keep sharing the gospel with them, and believe that God is able to do what he's promised.

For those of you who are here who are discouraged about the events of the world, maybe you're worried about Christianity in America, you're anxious about the church's future in America, I just encourage you to let this passage reorient your perspective. There's nothing that can stop God. The church has been through really difficult days in the past and is probably gonna go through harder days in the future, but that does not scare God. Nothing can stop him, not even pandemics or racial strife or political polarization, not even the gates of hell can stop God from adding people to his church. That should give us great comfort that he will not be stopped in glorifying himself in and through saving sinners.

So we see that God is pursuing sinners, that God's pursuit cannot be stopped and this brings me to my last point that God pursues to save. We've seen this throughout already, but I just want to focus on it in particular that God pursues to save. We'll see this in verses 15 and 17 of chapter 17 in chapter 1 and then verses 1 through 10 in chapter 2.

So let's read that now. Verse 15, so they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. 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. We're gonna stop there and we'll continue to read chapter two here in a moment.

So we see later on or earlier in verse 12 that Jonah had counseled these men, hey, the only way this is gonna stop the only way the sea is gonna stop raging is if you throw me overboard, right? They don't believe him, but eventually they realize that he's telling the truth this time, that he must be thrown overboard. What's interesting is you can almost see this development, something is happening in Jonah. Jonah recognizes and he realizes that the only reason that these men and their lives are in danger is because his rebellion against God. Jonah knows that he must be thrown overboard so that these men can live.

And that's what happens. What happens next after Jonah was thrown overboard? We see that God appoints this great fish to swallow Jonah, that Jonah lives in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Jonah flees from God, but God chases him down. But was God pursuing Jonah simply to bring judgment?

No, God was pursuing Jonah so that he could save Jonah, and so that Jonah would go and preach the gospel to the Ninevites. Like many of you, God is pursuing you and has been pursuing you to save you. I encourage you to turn towards him and trust in him. God wasn't pursuing Jonah to embarrass him or shame him. God wanted to save him.

Can you see the imagery here? The imagery of Jesus throughout this passage? No, Jesus wasn't the cause of our own sin or Jesus wasn't the cause for the storm that is sin in the world and Jesus wasn't running from God. Jesus was submitting to God. He came down into the boat that is our lives to tell us that the one true God had sent him to end the storm.

Christ offered up himself to be thrown overboard so that we could live. Christ was swallowed up by death so that death would be swallowed up forever.

Jonah didn't stay in the belly of the fish forever. And Christ didn't stay dead. Just as this fish had to give up Jonah, so did death have to give up Jesus. Jesus was raised from the dead and ascended on high to present this acceptable sin offering to God. We see this in Matthew 12:38-41.

You know that passage where the scribes and the Pharisees, they come to Jesus and they want a sign. You know what sign Jesus gave them? He said, no sign will be given to this adulterous generation, but the sign of Jonah. What is that? That Christ would lay dead in the grave for three days, but that was not the end of the story.

That God would tell his body to come forth and it would, which means that sin and death is defeated once and for all. And maybe you're here today and you're not a Christian and you're like, I just need a sign, God. I need to see something to know that you're real. And the sign that God has given to you is this, that Christ is risen from the dead and if you will believe in him, there is life life in his name. That is the sign that is given to all of us.

And that's what Jonah is ultimately pointing towards. It's a shadow of a greater reality that is Christ. So trust in Christ. Believe in him and find salvation in him. If you're here and you want to know more about what it means to be a Christian or what it means to follow Jesus, there'll be pastors at the doors afterwards.

We'd love to talk to you. I'll be at that door right back there. I would love to answer any questions that you have about what it means to be a Christian. See this great imagery of Christ in Jonah. What happens to Jonah?

Let's read on in chapter 2, what life is like in the belly of the well. Look at chapter 2, verse 1.

It says this, 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, And he answered me, out of the belly of Sheol I cried, you, heard my voice. For your cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me. All your waves and your billows passed over me. Then I said, I'm driven away from your sight.

Yet I shall again look upon your holy temple. The waters closed in over me to take my life. The deep surrounded me, weeds were wrapped about my head at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever. Yet you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God.

When my life was feigning away, I remembered you and my prayer came to you into your holy temple. Those who pay regard to vain idols Forsake their hope of steadfast love, but I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you what I have vowed, I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord. And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

So clearly here from the context, I think Jonah thought that he had out-sinned the grace of God. By being thrown overboard, I think Jonah realized that he was a dead man, that God was pursuing him to bring his life to the pit. But we see here, that's not what God does. We see that God extends mercy. I mean, you see the first really five verses are talking about how bleak Jonah's view was.

I've sinned against God and now I'm receiving the justice and judgment I deserve. But look what happens. Look at the transition. Six, he talks about this, the roots of the mountains. He's there, I went down to the land whose bars closed over me.

He's basically saying, death had imprisoned me. But look at the transition, that you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God. He sees this and he experiences this, that God had appointed this salvation or this fish, not for his judgment, but for his salvation. That's why Jonah sent this, or God sent this great fish, to deliver Jonah from Jonah's own bad decisions of fleeing from God. That's why Jonah in verse 8 declares, salvation belongs to the Lord.

God has taught Jonah this lesson that Jonah doesn't get to decide who gets saved. It's not up to him. It's up to God. He alone owns salvation and he alone is able to save. Jonah has experienced God's mercy.

Jonah responds to God's mercy. There's really two ways in which we should respond, as we see here in Jonah chapter 2 to God's mercy. One, we should praise. Look what Jonah does. He bursts forth.

My life was fainting away. I remembered the Lord in verse 7. My prayer came to you and to your holy temple. He's praising God, saying that those who pay regard to vain idols, they forsake their hope of steadfast love, but God, you've been merciful to me. But I, the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you what I have vowed I will pay.

Jonah breaks out into praise for God's mercy towards him. So saints, how have you been doing praising God for his mercy towards you? Think about this past week. What was more apparent to you? What you don't have, maybe possessions and a job or a a spouse, or what you do have, eternal life in Christ.

How are you doing thinking and meditating on what God has done for you in Jesus? And as I've read this, I just, I really want to be a Christian that is just happy in Jesus. That's how I want to live the rest of my days. Not discontent in what I don't have in this life, but overwhelmed that God did not give me what I deserve. Living all the days of my life, rejoicing that I have received mercy.

I just wanna live and be happy in Jesus. You see, when you rightly understand what God has done for you in your life, it kind of reorients and recalibrates your whole perspective. It doesn't matter that you don't have all the things of this world, because you have something better than what's in this world. You have Christ. It's like this, when you have the right perspective, it's like getting the light bulbs right on the Christmas lights.

I hate putting Christmas lights on trees. It's a way in which God sanctifies me each and every year. Because there's that one strand that I can't figure out why is this not working, right? Like this one bulb I gotta go through and test and figure out which it is, but when you get it right, it shines brightly and beautiful. And saints, that's how it is as Christians.

Once we get it right and rightly orienting our perspective that God has been so merciful to us, we shine brightly for God in everything we do. Gives us a right perspective about every single area of our life. So God has redeemed Jonah from the pit so that he might praise him. But secondly, God has redeemed Jonah from the pit so he might proclaim the good news about who God is. We see later on in Jonah chapter 3 that Jonah ends up going to Nineveh.

He repents of what he did. He goes to Nineveh and he begins to speak about what God has done. So basically here what we see is a resurrection. God has raised Jonah from the dead. In Jonah's first act is to tell people all that God has done for him.

Christians, we have been raised spiritually from the dead. God has saved us so that we might praise him and proclaim his good works to others. How are you doing proclaiming the gospel? I know I mentioned this earlier, but this is a privilege that we have been entrusted to. It's not a burden, it's a wonderful blessing.

And I would encourage you today, maybe even today that you have an opportunity to invite somebody to Carols on the Hill so they might hear the gospel. Maybe immediately after service you should just text your family member or friends and just say, hey, I would just love for you to come. I want you to hear about Jesus. I want you to sing Christmas songs, but ultimately I want you to hear about Christ. Jonah's salvation led to his praise and his proclamation of the gospel, and that should be the trajectory of our own life.

So in conclusion, we see this great miracle that happens today. No, we don't need to marvel at the miracle that God did all these things in Jonah's life and that God appointed the great fish. Yes, those are fascinating things, but God is teaching us something about himself. God is teaching us that his pursuit to save sinners cannot be stopped. That's what God is showing us in Jonah, that God will and is saving a people from every tribe, tongue, and nation.

And there's nothing that sin, the world, the devil can do about it. That is what God is teaching us today. But also God is showing us something about Jonah that we should learn from. That the people of God should be so marked by joy and gratitude that they extend mercy even to their greatest enemies. Jonah, he's a bad prophet.

He's sin against God. And Jonah gives us hope that even if God can use Jonah, he can use us. God encourages us and shows us that even when we stumble and fall, that God can use our mistakes for his own glory and bringing people to him. It's a wonderful miracle to marvel at, but it's more joy to not necessarily marvel at the miracle of this great fish, but marvel at the God of the great fish. And speaking of miracles, When God saves us, something miraculous truly happens in our lives.

I'm gonna end on this story. I saw this yesterday. I was kind of preparing that on December the 3rd, there was a police officer named Richard Houston who was outside of Dallas, Texas, in Mesquite, Texas, who was responding to a call. Richard was a Christian, and he went and he was fatally shot in this accident. I don't know if you saw it on Twitter, but his daughter Shelby spoke at her father's funeral and listened to what she said this past week.

She says this, There has been anger, sadness, grief, and confusion. And part of me wishes I could despise the man who did this to my father, but I can't get any part of my heart to hate him. All that I can find is myself hoping and praying for this man to truly know Jesus. I thought this might change if this man continued to live, but when I heard the news that he was in stable condition, part of me was relieved. My prayer is someday down the road, I would get to spend some time with the man who shot my father.

Not to scream at him, not to yell at him, not to scold him, but to simply tell him about Jesus. Brothers and sisters, this girl is not special on her own, but she's experienced the miracle of new birth. She's experienced the grace of God, and even to the man who's murdered her father, all she can do is help but tell about the mercy she's received in Christ. Let's pray.

Father in heaven, we come before you and thank you for being a gracious God, for being merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster. Oh, Father, thank you for not giving us what we deserve. Thank you for this mercy that you have extended to us in Christ Jesus. Amen. Oh Father, I pray that we would be marked by joy and gratitude all the days of our lives because of what you've done for us.

Lord, thank you for what you're doing in the world. Father, we thank you for saving sinners. Lord, we thank you for glorifying your Son. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.