We're going to begin today entering into the 3rd chapter of
Jonah, where we will be the next three weeks.
But I want to begin at verse 10 of Jonah 2 and then read the
first 2 verses of Jonah 3. They're printed in your
bulletin. If you did not have, do not have
your own Bible. And the Lord spoke to the fish,
and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.
Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time,
saying, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out
against it. The message that I tell you.
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Please be seated in his 64 page commentary on the book of Jonah
O Palmer. Robertson begins chapter 3 in
his commentary on Chapter 3. With these words, we have a
story to tell. The nation's Our story has
greater potential for helping a troubled world than all the
proposals of the politicians of all the nations.
That's why this Sunday matters, and next Sunday and the
following Sunday, and the mission conference Sunday and
every Sunday we have a story to tell the nation's.
And it's a story that you, if you're in Christ, would never
have believed if it wasn't for the sovereign grace of God.
It's a story that today, if you're not in Christ, you might
begin to realize in His sovereign grace, He brought you
here to hear what you're about to hear.
It's the only story that can save.
It's the only story that can redeem.
And it's a story that is not meant to simply have us living a
life that says I'm moral, I'm grounded, I'm conservative.
It is a story that it's at its essence the living God is
saying, I made you to love me with all your heart, mind, body,
and soul. I made you to love your neighbor
as yourself. I made you to abide in Christ
and bear much fruit so that you might bring me glory from
Jesus's own words. If anyone would come after me,
He must take up his cross daily and follow me.
That's what I made you in Christ for.
I made you to go and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. Even from this little book
called Jonah. In chapter 3, we're in the book
of Jonah. If you're new to our church,
perhaps this is your first Sunday and we're going to spend
several weeks there, or we have already, but I want to begin in
chapter 2. If you have a Bible, open it up.
If not, grab the Blue Pew Bible in front of you because I want
to start back in or Section 2 for just a minute.
And what I want you to picture is this fish that God made.
If the fish that swallowed Jonah, where Jonah lived for
three days, which we believe to be true is a stumbling block to
you, just let me encourage you. You need to get over the fish.
Many people say I can't believe the fish could do that.
Yet they have no problem with the fact that Jesus rose from
the dead. You need to get over the fish.
We believe it really happened. We believe it at this level that
God created that fish, just like He created every other thing,
every part of it. And when that fish was given
life, the sovereign God knew that this would be the fish that
would grow large enough to be the one to swallow my rebellious
prophet to the people of Israel. He knew when it would happen.
He knew how it would happen, and He knew that He would, as the
Word says, speak to the fish. He spoke to Jonah.
Jonah didn't listen. Jonah rebels.
Jonah rationalizes. Jonah begins to live in terrible
theology, believing he could hide from the living God.
But the sovereign God is going to have his way, and His way is
not a way that we would ever make up.
His way is to use broken, fallen, sinful people to bring
his news of redemption to another broken, fallen people.
And so Jonah's in the well, Jonah describes it this way in
chapter 2, verse 5. He's in the fish.
This is essentially Jonah's Psalm.
He is, He is taking psalms and bringing them into his prayer
because he knows the word. And he says in verse 5, the
waters closed in over me to take my life.
The deep surrounded me. Now picture this.
Weeds were wrapped around my head, about my head, at the
roots of the mountains. I love that phrase.
You cannot go lower than the roots of the mountains.
Jonah has rebelled. He's in the fish.
In the fish. He is experiencing the
discipline of God who's about to deliver him.
He is experiencing the might of God who's about to show him
mercy. He's experiencing the will of
God, the way of God, and the word of God.
And he repents upon his repentance This fish in
obedience to God, speaking to it, the one who made him vomits
Jonah out. Now here's what I want you to do
for a moment. We have no narrative, no
testimony of anyone who saw Jonah come out of the fish's
mouth. But I want you just for a
minute, because this is what God allows us to do through his
Spirit to imagine what that looked like, what he smelled
like, what he did next with seaweed, the inside of a fish
all over him. It's really happened.
It really happened at some point, we assume right away,
verse 3, chapter 3, verse one says then the word of the Lord
came to Jonah the second time. And if you take chapter 1 and
chapter 3 in those first few verses in each one, you'll see
how how close these words are to one another.
We'll begin to unpack that next week in the following.
The word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time.
Before we come to the table in a few minutes, here's how I want
to approach the text. I want to talk about the rock
bottom of sin, and I want to talk about the God of new
mercies. Jonah's at rock bottom.
He's at the roots of the mountains.
The phrase rock bottom begin to enter our narrative in the 19th
century. Around 1865 to 1870.
Miners begin to talk about being at rock bottom when they would
hit bedrock, meaning they could they could go no further.
In our lives, we typically think of rock bottom being when
someone is in such a condition that they are absolutely
desperate. They cannot go on living this
way. If they continue to live this
way, they will surely die. At this point, it's likely
destruction in the wake of destruction has already affected
family members and friends all around them.
Some of you, even as they speak right now, are saying I've been
there, or I'm married to someone who's been there, or I've been a
friend to someone who's been there, or right now I'm with
someone who is, or I'm with someone that needs to see that
they are. Rock bottom is an horrific
place, and that's where Jonah is because he rebelled, because he
rationalized in his own mind to begin to practice horrible
theology. Jonah was in the belly of that
fish at the roots of the mountains.
Rock bottom is a place that leads to desperation.
Often we think of it when we think of somebody that's in the
throes of addiction. I've walked with many, many
people, even in our church who have been in this place.
I've walked as a pastor. I've walked as a brother, not in
the spiritual sense and the blood sense, with one of my
siblings whose life was just at a devastating low rock bottom
for people who really get there puts them in a place where they
now know, and sometimes it's so much deeper than they thought it
would ever be or could ever be. They know if I don't admit my
powerlessness, if I don't cry out, I am not going to live.
But there's something worse than rock bottom, and I want you to
hear this carefully. There is something worse than
rock bottom, and that is for a person to never feel their need
for Christ. For a person to never feel the
need they have for Christ. Here's the truth of the gospel.
We all start out at rock bottom. In the Epistle to the Ephesians,
chapter 2, Paul described it this way.
And you, all the people of Ephesus, the Saints of Ephesus
to it's written to. And you were dead in the
trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the
course of this world, following the Prince of the power of the
air, the Spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience
among whom we all, all of us once lived, and the passions of
our flesh carrying out the desires of the body and the
mind. And we're by nature children of
wrath like the rest of mankind. One of the problems with this
image of rock bottom is we tend to look around at other people
even now, and think, that's not me.
I'm glad I'm not like that. But there are other rock
bottoms. One of the rock bottoms that
could be so contagious in our culture is that we don't see
Christianity to the way Christ described it, the way His word
described it, which is a life of joyful surrender.
All of who we are to Him that we, by His grace, seek to love
Him with all of who we are, not just some of who we are.
All of who we are, that we are to abide in Christ, the only way
we can bear fruit. You can't bear fruit apart from
Jesus. That we are to take up our
cross, that image of suffering, not just some days, but every
day. If we're a follower of Christ
every day, then we're to go into the nation's, the Great
Commission, making disciples. Christianity is not about being
a churchgoer. It's not about being a good
little boy or a good little girl.
It is about admitting that if Jesus Christ doesn't save me,
that if Jesus Christ doesn't save me, the Holy Spirit doesn't
sanctify me, make me more like him.
I can never bear fruit. We're desperate always for
Christ. Those who are in the throes of
that classic sense of addiction, whether it's to alcohol, drugs,
pornography, shopping, gossips, or whatever it might be, when
they come to the end of themselves, which is what God
and His sovereign grace will do, they understand the power of
that one. But for many in a community like
ours, they're ashamed and would be ashamed to admit they're at
rock bottom. There's something worse than
rock bottom, and that is not feeling your need for Him.
And if today you're here and you're even in Christ and you're
honest, and the Holy Spirit speaking to you through His Word
and Spirit, and you don't feel your need for Him, that is your
rock bottom. You don't have seaweed about
your head. You probably have pearls.
You don't have the remains of vomit on you.
You have luxury. We would be tempted to think
that Satan's masterpiece is the one who's on the streets, but I
don't think that's his masterpiece.
I think his masterpiece is the one who almost has it right but
never admits their desperation for Jesus for all of their life.
That's another kind of rock bottom.
One of the ways it benefits itself is when you ask each
other, how can I pray for you? And Christians are like just a
little bit, bless me, my work, my family.
Sometimes people are like, I don't really have anything.
If you tell me you don't have anything, I know what to pray
for you. We are desperate for Jesus, as
desperate as Jonah was. But here's the good news.
That sovereign grace of God reaches us even at the roots of
the mountain, even at rock bottom, even when we've been
deluded into thinking wrongly about Christianity.
And it really is just a nice fragrance or condiment to add to
a little bit of our life. God's grace meets us there, even
on a morning like this and says, this is not my plan for you.
This is not my will for you. Hear my word again, and we need
to. And that's where you see the
good news in this text, verse 1, chapter 3.
Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, and
it's going to need to come again and again and again.
And it does. The good news of God's new
mercies, new mercies made new each morning.
You might think of it this way. It's God giving us a second
chance, a do over, a fresh start, a Mulligan, a chance at
redemption. But with God, there is no chance
in his plan of redemption. His plan of redemption is going
to accomplish its purpose. And if you belong to Him, no
matter how low you sink, he's coming for you.
That's the message of the book of Jonah.
Jonah's not the hero. The fish isn't meant to be a
distraction. The story is of this sovereign
God who loves his people is coming for them.
Adam needed a second chance. Abraham needed a second chance.
Moses needed a second chance. David needed a second chance.
The parable of the lost sons, they needed second chances.
From the parable to Peter, I will lay down my life for you.
I don't know the man. I don't know the man.
Do you love me, Peter?
Feed my sheep. Do you love me, Peter?
He needed that word three times on another shore.
Feed my sheep. Everyone in God's Word needed a
second chance except the second Adam.
Jesus Christ never needed a second chance.
But for every time I need a second chance, for every time
any of his children need a second, third, 70 * 70 chance
Jesus died. And you might say on the cross,
as Jesus cried out those last words, saying it is finished
breathing his last, his side being pierced, blood and water
dripping out, that that was his rock bottom.
And you would be right. The cross is the rock bottom,
and it is as deep as it can go. It is as deep as it can go.
Nothing can be added to it. Your best day can't be added to
it. Your best effort can't be added
to it. Nothing can be added to it.
And though we will at times be at the roots of the mountains,
as Christians we must live in the rootedness of the cross
where Jesus died for every one of your sins and mine.
Placed in the tomb, being raised on the third day, every morning
our Savior gives us new mercies. And so we repeat things over and
over and over again, today, friend, and tomorrow, and until
Christ returns, you are going to be desperate for Christ Jesus to
make you desperate. That's why we pray that God
would do what only God can do. We avail ourselves of the means
of grace, of prayer, of the preached word, of the sacrament
we're about to partake in. I want you to think of this this
morning. The table that we come to this
morning is in obedience to what Christ called us to do.
He knew we would need it. And as we who are in Christ come
forward and take of His body and blood, we are reminded of our
need for Him and what God did and His sovereign grace to meet
that need. Nobody here can come because you
had a better week than the week before or better months in the
since the last time we had communion.
You come as a desperate child of the living God who reveals to
you again and again what He is going to do to make you and keep
you His own friends that are here today.
If you're new to our church, this is not a Presbyterian
table. It is a table for believers in
Jesus, though. And if today you know you've
never trusted Christ, I want you to tell.
I want to tell you how grateful I am that you're here, that this
might be the day that Jesus in his sovereign grace brought you
to hear the good news. So don't come forward and
partake of the elements, lest you would eat and drink
judgement on yourself as the Word of God says, but simply
listen to what's being sung. Watch what the people around you
are doing in obedience to Christ.
And if this is the moment where you really begin to desire to
know Jesus, tell someone around you or even this day, pray a
simple prayer. Lord Jesus Christ, I'm a Sinner.
You're the only Savior. I receive you and I rest in you
as my Savior. Simply pray that prayer and then
tell the person you came with, or me or Tommy or one of our
elders so that we can help. You know what that means?
Jesus Christ is going to meet every need that we have as His
way in His will, with His Word every day until He calls us home
or returns. Until then, avail yourselves of
everything He gives you. Are you desperate for Him?
If not, tell Him because He can make you so.
Father in heaven, as we come to the table, bless us now.
Draw near to us. Encourage us with this powerful
truth. You speak your word, Your Spirit
illuminates. We live in Christ and whose name
we pray. Amen.
Please stand.