Our passage today is Jonah chapter 2, and I'll begin with the last verse in chapter 1. This is the word of the Lord. 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, and you heard my voice. For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me with all your waves and your billows passed over me. Then I said, I am 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 around 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 fainting away, I remembered the Lord, 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, We'll 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. Father, we come hungry this morning to hear from you. Would you open our ears and soften our hearts to receive your word? And in the end, Father, would we walk, obey, thankful that salvation belongs to you. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Good morning, it is a delight to be with you. If you have a Bible, you can open it up to Jonah chapter two. If you don't have a Bible, there should be one somewhere in front of you underneath one of the seats, black or blue. And on page 774, you should find the book of Jonah. And if you don't own a Bible, that actually is our gift to you. Please take it with you. And we'd love for you to have that as a gift so that you could begin to read God's word on your own. So we've been in Jonah talking about this incredible story. And so far we have learned that Jonah was called by God to go and preach to the city of Nineveh. He was to go and preach to them, but because of their evil ways, destruction from God was on its way. And yet Jonah didn't want to go. We know that because instead of going towards Nineveh, he went the total opposite direction. He didn't want Nineveh to be spared from God's wrath. He wanted them to suffer God's judgment. and his wrath. And he finds himself on this ship on the way to Tarshish, and then this great storm comes from the Lord's hand, and the end result is they figure it out. The mariners on the ship, with Jonah's help, they figure out they've gotta throw Jonah overboard, and then they'll be spared. And so they throw Jonah overboard into the sea, and the storm stops, and the mariners then seem to worship and glorify and fear God. And so this was the consequence of Jonah's rebellion and sin is that he ran and he put the mariner's life in risk. And then in the end, he's in the sea. He's just in the sea sinking into its depths. And yet then at the end of chapter one, we see this fish show up and swallow up Jonah. And that's where we left off last week. in the chapter. And what's interesting is verse 17 in chapter one is perhaps one of the most famous Bible stories that has ever been known. Even people that don't know Christ, that aren't Christians, that haven't even read the Bible, there's a chance they've heard about this story of this man that got swallowed by a fish or a whale, as some people say it. It is a famous story, but here's the problem. The main character in the story of Jonah is not the fish. The main character in Jonah, in fact, is not even Jonah. The main character is God. And what God is doing in Jonah's life, what he's going to do in the city of Nineveh, and what he desires for people, his people, to come to know him. It's why near the end of chapter two in verse nine, Jonah says, salvation belongs to the Lord. That's the main point. That's what I think we're ultimately supposed to walk away with, that salvation is a work of God. And so that's gonna be the focus we're gonna have this morning, that God is the one who saves. And so we'll look at three points from this story in Jonah chapter two. First, that God saves Jonah from death. And then second, that God saves Jonah for himself. God saves Jonah for God. And then finally, that God saves Jonah for a purpose. For a purpose. But first, he does save Jonah from death. At the end of chapter two, we find Jonah on dry land. So this prayer that Jonah prays, is a recounting of what happened after. He didn't, I don't think he wrote down this prayer in the sea and in the fish, okay? I think later he thought about it and he wrote it down after he had an opportunity to contemplate what happened. But it's a recounting of in the midst of him being in the sea and being in the fish, what happened. So in verse two, We learn that he called out to the Lord out of his distress and God answered him. Out of the belly of Sheol, Jonah says, he cried and God heard his voice. So here Jonah is in the midst of the sea and he is in, I guess what we could call a distressing situation. I think that's a good word that Jonah has, that he is in the sea and he is sinking to his death. That's the reality. He's not just floating, having a good time. He is going to die. It's when he uses the word in the belly of Sheol. Sheol was this term that was often used in the Old Testament for the place of the dead. And so he sees himself floating and sinking in the middle of the sea, going down to death. He is going to die. If we wrote it today, we might say he's as good as six feet under. or he's got one foot in the grave. I mean, it is over for Jonah. Listen to how he describes his experience in the sea in verse five in the beginning of six. The waters closed in over me to take my life. The deep surrounded me. Weeds were wrapped around my head. At the roots of the mountains, I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever. He is being pulled to death and like a prison, he's going to be locked in and it's done. It's done for him. Now we have a much different view of the sea than Jonah and the nation of Israel did. We've used the sea or the ocean as the place to go to enjoy some sun, some sand and some surf, right? We pay money to go get into the ocean. We go rent hotels and places and we pay to park and we walk in and we willingly swim in this massive body of water. We even get on boats and go out into the middle of it to catch fish. And if we really are crazy, we get on these massive ships and we just cruise around the ocean. That's not the view of the sea at this time. The sea is viewed as dangerous, as dark, as a place to avoid. And so here is Jonah in this dangerous place. He's got no hope to be saved. There are no lifeguards showing up. There's nothing is going to save him. He has no hope of rescue. And yet, isn't this what Jonah deserved? God told him, go to Nineveh. He went the exact opposite way. And not only that, the consequence or the fallout of his sin is that he put all these mariners' lives in danger. He's not obeying God. Doesn't he deserve God's wrath, God's judgment? Well, yes, but then the miraculous thing happens in verse six, the second half. Jonah says, yet you, God, brought up my life from the pit. Oh Lord, oh Lord my God. You brought my life up from the pit. This is why at the end of verse nine, Jonah says, salvation belongs to the Lord. Because the only way Jonah could have ever been saved is if God did something. Jonah could not save himself. Remember that picture, the seaweed is wrapped around him. It's wrapped around him like ropes pulling him down. And he's walking into the prison of death and the bars are closing around him. It's hopeless. His sin led him to this, his disobedience to God, his just frivolous, I don't wanna go where you want me to go, God, leads him to this place of death, the pit. And yet, God saves him. God is the one that saves him. Do you see this as your story? In some way, do you see this is you and me? That if you have trusted in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, this is a picture of your story. That you were lost and dead in your sins, that you and I, we rebelled against God. We disobeyed the law of God, the commands of God, the call of God, and we went our own independent way in the exact opposite direction we should have. We had no hope in this world, and yet, even though we deserved God's wrath and judgment, he saved us in Christ, that he rescued us from the depths of the grave, from the pit, and he brought us back to life. Now, I understand most of us don't have such a dramatic story. I haven't heard any of you tell the story of you being rescued by a fish. But you have a story to tell. No matter what your story is, the truth of the gospel is that God raised us from the pit to newness of life in Jesus. But for some, we read this and we go, oh, I had a moment. I had some moments in my life where all of a sudden I realized I was lost and dead and God woke me up and made me realize he's my only hope. I remember for me it was my freshman year of college. And I was doing some things I should not have been doing. And then leaving that place, I was in a car I should not have been in. And the car was driven by somebody who should not have been driving. And as we're going back to campus, we just bump the curb in a median. And immediately in that moment, it was like God punched me in the face. I said, what are you doing? Do you see that your life is going down, that you're spiraling out of control, that you are going to die without forgiveness and without me? So I can relate to Jonah's story and I think you can too at some point. You realize that I was dead because I sinned against God and yet God saved you. This salvation of Jonah in the fish is a picture of God's grace. God's undeserved gift of salvation. Nothing Jonah could do to save himself and yet God saved him. And that's why we pick up in verse one of the story. You know, some people think the fish is the means of judgment. I don't think it is. The fish is actually God's means of salvation. Him falling into the sea and sinking down to the depths of the sea to the grave. That's the judgment of God and God brings this miraculous means of salvation, this fish that swallows him up and he's saved. Now, how would you feel if you found yourself inside a fish? Would you be super rejoicing and thankful? Or would you think, gross, this is gross. God, couldn't there have been a different way that you could save me? Couldn't you have brought another boat? Maybe the mariners could have turned around and thrown me some help, right? Couldn't you have done something other than this, a piece of driftwood maybe? Couldn't you have sent Nemo and Dory along and all their ocean friends to save my life? Couldn't you have done something? But you put me inside a fish. You see, Jonah doesn't respond in a negative way at this point. All he is is thankful. This chapter is how thankful he is that God saved him. It's actually a psalm of thanksgiving. If you were to read through the psalms, you would notice many similarities to some of the psalms of thanksgiving to Jonah's prayer here in chapter two. I think it shows that Jonah did know God's word. He's influenced by God's word. And his response to being in the fish is to really pray this beautiful prayer of thanksgiving, just thanking God that he is alive, that he's been saved. And it made me think, are we thankful that God has saved us? I know we are, but have we spent time just thanking God that he saved us from the grave? That he took us from being lost and dead in our sins? Weeds wrapped around us, pulling us down the bars and gates of hell, closing in on us under his wrath to be separated from him forever. But if you're in Christ, if you have trusted in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, you're forgiven. Have you thanked God for that? Or are you caught up in the struggles of life so much that you forget that no matter what this life brings, no matter what kind of fishy situation you may be in, you still have salvation. You're still saved that God has provided for you through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, who himself spent three nights and three days in the grave. In Jesus alone is God's final and complete and full and secure salvation. In this chapter, Jonah is in a fish, but he's saved and he's thankful. He's thankful that God has spared his life. What a lesson for us. That regardless of the situations in which we find ourself in, and some are very difficult, the trials and the sufferings and the struggles of our life, no matter what it may be that we're dealing with in our life, we can still rejoice and be thankful because God has saved us. That this life is not our home. This world is not our home. We are saved for a future home. And God will finish the work of salvation. He will bring us to completion of our salvation so we can be with him. No matter what we face, we can be thankful. Even Jonah in his rebellion and his disobedience is aware enough to know, God, thank you for saving my life. We couldn't do anything to save ourselves, yet God in His infinite grace and mercy came down to the pit, scooped us out, and He's given us eternal life. So when we read Jonah chapter 2 and we see Jonah being thankful for his salvation, what are we to do with that? I think simply take time consistently to thank God that he saved you, to remind yourself that you are in Christ, you are forgiven, and you have eternal life. Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 16 and 18, rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Give thanks in all circumstances, even the most difficult ones you face, we can thank God because we know that we are safe and secure in Christ's hands. If you need help knowing how to praise God, thank God, rejoice in God that he saved you, go to the Psalms and read them and he will give you language to speak back to him, to pray to him, to use for him. Psalm 51 verse 12. David writes, restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit. Psalm 118, 21, I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation. Are you thankful that God has saved you? Yes, you're facing difficulty, you're facing trials, and they are hard and painful. And yet, in the midst of it all, you can rejoice and be thankful that God saved you from the grave and He's given you new life. Now, if you're not a Christian, this could be your story. This could be your story that you, right now, could realize. that you, like Jonah, were rebellious against God, that you've disobeyed God, you've gone your own independent way. And because of your sin, you are spiraling down to death, to be separated from God forever. But God offers you salvation, not in a fish, praise God. but in his son, Jesus. That if you trust in Jesus, then you too can be saved, forgiven of your sin, given eternal life. And then with the rest of us, you could spend your days thanking God for his miraculous work. Salvation belongs to the Lord. Jonah knows it, we know it, let's thank him for it. But God doesn't just save Jonah so that he's not dead. God saves Jonah for two purposes. First, he saves Jonah for himself, for God. Look again, two different times in here, Jonah talks about God's holy temple, verse four. Yet I shall look again upon your holy temple. And my prayer came to you into your holy temple. In the Old Testament, the temple of God, the temple was where God dwelled with his people. He would come and dwell with his people. That's where sacrifices were made at the temple to atone for the sins of the people, the shedding of blood. That's where worship was made, people from all, Nations could come and stand around in the courts of the temple and praise God and worship God. So Jonah in his prayer of thanksgiving, in his salvation, he says that he's looking upon God's temple. I think what he's saying is he knows that ultimately he's made for God. that he is to be in relationship with God, that he is part of God's chosen people, the people that God has saved. I think Jonah realizes in the midst of it that sin and rebellion against God is terrible, and worshiping anyone other than God, any kind of other God than the one true God is fruitless. It's vanity. Look at what he says in verse eight. Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. Jonah knows, at least intellectually, in his head he knows that God will never leave his people. That God has made a covenant, an unbreaking promise to save a people for himself. Jonah is a part of that, and I think Jonah remembers in that moment that God will never ultimately leave his people. He will never walk away from them. He will always draw them back to himself. David says in Psalm 1611, you make known to me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures evermore. I don't think God saves Jonah just so that Jonah won't be in this situation anymore. God saves Jonah so that Jonah would realize what he needs most is the Lord. And what he ultimately desires at the depths of his heart is to be with God. Is to know that with God, in the presence of God, there is fullness of joy. And in his right hand are pleasures forevermore. Do you know that to be true? That in the presence of God there is fullness of joy. Fullness of joy. You can't get more joy than fullness of joy. It's with Him. God does save Jonah. And God saves Jonah so that Jonah would wake up and realize he's made for God. He's made to be in relationship with God, to know God, to look upon his holy temple, to worship him. That's why Jonah says in verse nine, but I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed, I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord. He makes this commitment to sacrifice and to make vows in response to God's salvation. Now, we don't know what sacrifice he's committing to make. We don't know what his vows are. But what we do know is after he was saved, then he says, Lord, I look to your holy temple. and I'm gonna sacrifice and I'm vowing something to you. He, in this moment, at least in his head, realizes I need to come back to God. Now, does Jonah truly repent? We'll have to wait and see, won't we? But it looks pretty good right here. It looks hopeful for him. He looks like he's getting it, he's understanding what he's done, and that he needs to turn and come back to God and be at the temple with God. But we'll find out, maybe he's just really thankful he's not dead. We'll have to keep reading in weeks to come. But it makes me wonder, can we say like the psalmist that in the presence of God there is fullness of joy and in his right hand are pleasures evermore? You've heard it said it here before in the pulpit but other places as well. What's the purpose of man? What's the chief end of man? The Westminster Shorter Catechism says it's to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. to enjoy him forever, to be with God at the temple, with God's people, in God's word, in prayer, just enjoying the God who saved us. What God wants most for Jonah, I think, is to come back to him, to come back to God, to be in right relationship with the God who made him and saved him. I understand this a little bit more now because we have two daughters in our family that are now out of the house. They've left us. Can you believe it? They have their lives. They've moved on and now they come back only to visit. How dare they? And we find ourselves just counting down the days for when they'll come back to visit. Because we just want all our kids to be in the house together. Now, when it happens, it's not like utopia, it's not perfect. I mean, we're still a family that has issues, right? But there's just something about when those that have left, and they've left for good reason, they're not sinful and rebellious. When they come back, there's just this joy of being together, of being in the same house together. Even if we're just sitting around, scrolling on our phones, we're at least doing it together. We just have that desire. And I think that's just a small glimpse of the desire God has for us, that He just wants us to be with Him. He wants us to spend time with Him, to come into His courts, to give Him praise, to be in the Word, to be in prayer, to be with God's people. to flee from the idols and the sin that are just vanity, that lead us to nothing and come back to God. See, the one constant in Jonah's life in this whole story is God. Jonah tries to run away from God, but he can't. Even on the ship, God causes this storm to come. It's God's sovereign, powerful hand. Jonah is sinking to the depths of the sea, and God's hand is upon him, and God sends a fish, appoints a fish to save Jonah. And we will see that God continues to be with Jonah all throughout the story. It's why the main character is God. that God desires Jonah, He desires us to be with Him, to enjoy Him, to know that at His right hand are pleasures evermore. I think there's a great promise in that, that Jonah can't get away from God. We see it at the end of the Gospel of Matthew when Jesus, before he leaves the earth for the first time, because he will return again, before he leaves, ascends to be back with the Father in heaven. He says this phrase at the very end, Matthew 28 in verse 20. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. What a glorious promise. that Jesus promises that He will always be with us to the very end of the age. It's the last words of the Gospel of Matthew. Even if you and I choose in our insanity to run from God, we actually can't get away from Him. If we're in Christ, if we are safe and secure in Christ's hands, no matter how much we may want to run, we won't get away from God. The psalmist in 139 verse seven and eight says, where shall I go from your spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If you're in Christ, God will never leave you. He will never forsake you. He will always bring you back to himself. If you rebel, if you walk away, try to, he will bring you back. But even in the difficulty and the pain, God is with us. Yes, it might be in a fiery furnace. It might be on a boat like the disciples with the storm raging, and who shows up? Jesus shows up. in the financial struggles that you face, in the doubts that you face, in that diagnosis that you've gotten from the doctor, after the guilt and shame that pile off after another stumble in the internet, or getting caught in the lie that you've been telling. God is with us. God has saved us, and why is God doing this in Jonah's life? To draw Jonah back to himself. He wants Jonah to come to the holy temple to worship him and to enjoy him. And that's what he wants for us as well. But God not only saves Jonah for himself, God saves Jonah for a purpose. The last verse in chapter two, and the Lord spoke to the fish and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land. Once again, we see God's sovereign hand and power on display. The same fish he used to save Jonah's life, now he uses to get Jonah back onto dry land. And yes, that is the word that is used, vomit. Not a pleasant picture. But that's what God does. God puts Jonah back on dry land. And we'll pick up next week and see what happens with Jonah. But here's the point, I think, is that God saved Jonah for a purpose. God had a call on Jonah's life. Jonah tried to run from it. He tried to go in the exact opposite direction. But in the end, he is going to end up just where God told him he needed to go. So spoiler alert, he's gonna end up in Nineveh. He tried everything he could to get away from there, but he ends up exactly where God told him to go. God has a purpose in mind for Jonah. And Jonah had a choice. He could have gone with God's call. It wouldn't have necessarily been easy. He would have had to say goodbye to family and friends. He would have had to go on this long journey from his hometown, maybe five to six hundred mile walk. Months it would have taken him to walk to Nineveh to get there. Then he would have had to walk into Nineveh saying, God sent me and here's the message. That wouldn't have been easy. A Jew walking into this pagan land, it wouldn't have been easy. But Jonah could have chosen to obey. Yeah, there would have been difficulty there, but he chose not to. But God had a purpose for Jonah's life. And part of that purpose was for Jonah to be in Nineveh. And he's gonna end up exactly where God wants him to be. I hope you take comfort in that. Yeah, it was not fun for Jonah probably. And sometimes it's difficult for us, but you know what? If God has a call on your life, if he has a purpose for your life, then he's gonna fulfill it in your life. He's gonna put you exactly where you're supposed to be. Now, we could run, we could rebel, we could push against him and say, no, I don't wanna do what I sense you may be having me do. or we could submit, and in faith go, God, I think maybe you're doing this, or you're calling me here, and so I'll obey you. If I'm wrong, correct it. Put me exactly where you want me to be. That's what he does with Jonah, and I think he's gonna do it with us too. So God saves Jonah for God, but for a purpose, and that's why we end the chapter with Jonah on the dry land. because he's got to go to Nineveh. He's got to go to Nineveh. And I don't know what God's individual specific call or purpose is for you. We've all been gifted in different ways. God puts us in different spheres in the world to contribute to the world, to serve him in the body even. But I know one common purpose that relates to Jonah's call and that's to proclaim the good news of the gospel. that Jonah is to go and tell them to repent of their sin and trust in God. And Jesus tells us the same thing in Matthew 28, go and make disciples of all nations. It's part of our purpose. It's part of the reason that God saved us is so that we would join him in his work of saving more people. And so in the end, the question comes, will we obey? Will we willingly obey God to fulfill the purposes that he has in our life? What a story this is. How thankful we should be that we have been saved. We can praise God that he saved us, not just so that we wouldn't be dead, but that we would know him and we would enjoy him. And not just that, that then God saved us to join in his work. of helping others know they too can be saved and know Him. Let's pray. Father, we thank You and praise You, for salvation belongs to You. It is a work of You, a total and complete and full work of You. And Father, now we ask that You would help us to apply Your Word, to walk away thankful, to enjoy our relationship with You, and to seek to obey You in the power of the Spirit, so that we could fulfill the purposes you have in our life. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.