Well, he already told you who I am, so I don't have to say that. I'm Gloria Basques.
And the question here is, how long have I been attending? And I've been attending church here
since 1968. Yeah, that makes me old. I have been following Jesus and worshiping in this same place
since I became a believer in 1971. And even now, 52 years later, I attend village, and I have been
attending village since it was birthed here in 2023. And so, as you can tell, this is my church
home. I belong here. I belong here. And there's been many changes in the years that Jesus has
never changed, since he's the same yesterday, today, and forever. Right? Amen? Amen.
That's just the hint to get on with it. I know. I know. I didn't take that bet.
Today's scripture reading is from Jonah 2. Jonah prayed to the Lord, his God, from the belly of the
fish. I called to the Lord in my distress, and he answered me. I cried out for help from deep inside
shoal. You heard my voice. When you threw me into the depths, into the heart of the seas, the current
overcame me. All your breakers and your billows swept over me. And I said, I've been banished from
your sight. Yet I will look once more toward your holy temple. The water engulfed me up to my neck.
The watery depths overcame me, and seaweed wrapped around my head. I sank to the foundation of the
mountains. The earth's gates shut behind me forever. Then you raised my life from the pit,
Lord my God. As my life was fading away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you,
to your holy temple. Those who cherish worthless idols abandon their faithful love. But as for me,
I will sacrifice to you with a voice of thanksgiving. I will fulfill what I have vowed.
Salvation belongs to the Lord. Then the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah out
onto dry land. This is God's word.
God fights for us with the full might of his redemptive hand.
He is willing to make us uncomfortable and sad. He is willing to bring us through suffering
and grief. He is willing to shake and unsettle us. He is willing to squash our dreams and let the air
out of our hopes. He is willing to let what we have craved slip like sand through our fingers.
And he does all of these things because we are precious to him. We are the apple of his eye.
He will not share us with another. He will not allow us to live in the delusion that we have
found elsewhere what can only be found in him. That's a quote from Paul David Tripp.
We started the series off by pointing out that the story of Jonah, which is a well-known Sunday
School story, right, it's not so much a story about a big fish. Yes, it is an extraordinary part of
the story, but not the main point. We have been tracking with Jonah as he received a call from God
and he promptly ran in the opposite direction, and with no regard for the lives of the sailors,
he slept deeply through a great storm until the captain demanded some answers. What's going on?
What have you done? And trying everything that was possible to save the ship, the sailors finally
relent and agree to throw Jonah overboard, this rebel, this one who is running from the presence
of the Lord. And once they did, what happened? Peace. The waters calmed. And it's said that they
had great fear of the Lord, that they sacrificed offerings to him and they made vows to God.
And what of Jonah? Well, the last verse of chapter one tells us what happened to Jonah, right?
It says, the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish
three days and three nights. So chapter one ended with these words, the Lord appointed a great fish
to swallow Jonah. And so now we are here. And a great amount of ink has been used to try and
explain this part of the episode. The big fish, or the whale, or whatever you want to call it,
right? What kind of fish was it? Was it a whale? Was it a fish? Was it a fish? Was it a fish?
Was it a owl? Was it a giant, white shark? Was it an extinct shark breed? Was it a big tuna?
Are there any news reports out there that we can scrounge up and finds
how a person could survive in a fish? How did he breathe?
this children's book, but this was the question I wrote down.
How did Jonah have a little candle
inside of the belly of the whale so he could write this psalm?
Okay, this is an image that stuck from a kid's book.
There was a little candle on a little table
as he's writing inside the belly of the whale.
How did he bring that along and get that thing to light?
I need answers.
But wonder of wonders, the Bible doesn't say anything
like that, doesn't tell us.
All it says is the Lord appointed that a great fish
would swallow Jonah.
The point, the Lord did not want Jonah to die.
So he made a way, a miraculous way,
even as Jonah's life was surely lost to the sea.
A divine act doesn't require an explanation,
it requires our attention.
And the author of Jonah is giving us a keyword also
to remember here in this text.
It says, he uses the word that the CSB translates
as swallow, swallow.
And he uses it quite intentionally to draw
the keen Bible reader to the sea.
Intentionally to draw the keen Bible reader,
to draw the keen Bible reader's mind
to other places in the scripture,
like say Psalm 21, eight through nine,
where it says, your hand will capture all your enemies,
your right hand will seize those who hate you,
you will make them burn like a fiery furnace
when you appear, the Lord will engulf them in his wrath
and fire will devour them, engulf them,
that's CSB's word, same word for swallow.
The Lord will swallow them in his wrath.
Or Psalm 124, we studied this not too long ago,
if the Lord hadn't been on our side,
if we had been given over to the other people
under God's judgment, what would have happened?
Our enemies would have swallowed us alive
in their burning anger against us.
Being swallowed is an image in the Bible
of being under judgment.
And so the author of Jonah uses those words
in this context as he's writing out
so that we draw that hyperlink,
he could have seen eaten by or whatever it was,
went into a fish but he was swallowed,
he's under judgment.
It is the idea of God's severe mercy
to not allow his people to remain in their disobedience.
So Jonah makes that three day trip to death basically.
Three days, right?
The time it took to travel to the underworld
in ancient, the ancient mindset,
it's kind of like our modern day
so and so was six feet under, right?
But interestingly, the hyperlinks
that spring from that saying, the three days,
to other parts of the scripture,
the way that he links to other parts
is actually quite interesting.
And that's what we'll see a lot of in this particular study
today out of Jonah two,
is we'll see a lot of links
because that's kind of how the Psalms work
or the poems work,
is they connect us to a lot of other ideas and imagery.
And so what is this of this three days,
this trip that Jonah took in the belly of the whale?
Well, in Genesis 22, Abraham and Isaac,
maybe you guys remember this story,
Abraham and Isaac were in the desert
and Isaac, maybe you guys remember this story,
Abraham and Isaac are making their way
and Abraham has been commanded to make a sacrifice
and Isaac is that sacrifice.
And they're making their way in obedience to God
to offer Isaac as a sacrifice.
Abraham's making his way and what does it say?
It says that on day three,
Abraham sees the place and prepares the sacrifice.
Day three is the day of death.
Day three is the day of sacrifice.
But what happens?
The Lord stays his hand, doesn't he?
The Lord provides a substitute on day three.
Well, Exodus 15 is another one.
So after delivering the people of Israel
from slavery in Egypt,
they go on a three day journey in the wilderness
and what do they find?
No water.
The only water that they find
is the bitter waters of Marah.
It's certain death for the people of Israel.
No water in the middle of the wilderness.
Three days, right?
What happens on the third day?
God miraculously provides clean water to them.
Or 2 Kings 20, King Hezekiah,
he's stricken with a terminal illness
and he's told by the prophet Isaiah
that he will surely die,
so set your house in order is what he says.
And Isaiah turns and walks away from the king
and begins to walk through the palace
and makes it out to the outer courts,
or so I guess he's in the inner court still.
Hezekiah hears the words of the prophet
and it says he faces the wall
and begins to weep and cry out to God.
Have mercy.
Save me.
And it says the word of the Lord comes to Isaiah
as he's walking out and says, go back in.
There's another message for Hezekiah.
Go back and tell Hezekiah, the leader of my people,
this is what the Lord God of your ancestors, David, say.
I've heard your prayer.
I have seen your tears.
Look, I will heal you.
On the third day from now,
you will go into the Lord's temple.
I will add 15 years to your life.
I will rescue you in this city
from the grasp of the king of Assyria.
I will defend this city for my sake
and for the sake of my servant.
David.
So what is this theme, this idea of three day journey
or three days?
What is this other theme that the author
is playing with here in putting Jonah in a big fish
swallowed for three days?
Jonah was swallowed by a big fish, a giant fish,
and was in the belly, the stomach of the fish
for three days and three nights.
And this story is tying together these other themes
and it's about the story of Jonah
and the story of these other themes.
And I don't know if you notice them in all of them.
Yes, there's judgment.
Yes, at times there's difficulty.
Yes, at times there's illness and sickness
for all sorts of reasons.
But on day three, God brings salvation.
The story is actually about salvation through judgment.
Salvation through judgment.
What we find in chapter two is the first time
Jonah speaks to God in this story.
Up until now, he has been running
and talking about the situation,
but even when the sailors beg him to call on his God,
he doesn't do it.
Now, over the side of the ship and into the great fish,
Jonah prays.
If you have your Bibles open to Jonah too,
you will immediately notice that his prayer
is in the form of a song or a poem, right?
It looks very similar to how you would see it
in the Psalms, the Book of Psalms.
Hebrew poetry is what it's crafted as
and Hebrew poetry often employs a literary device
called parallelism.
And what that is is that,
this would be basically groups of two lines
where the first states something
and then the second line restates it,
but in a different way.
And you'll see it here as we dive into it.
We're gonna go verse by verse really quick
through Jonah two.
Starting with verse two.
Verse two says, I called to the Lord in my distress
and he answered me.
I cried out for help from deep inside Sheol
and you heard my voice.
You see the parallelism there?
I called to the Lord in my distress.
I cried out for help from the deep of Sheol
and he answered me.
You heard my voice.
And guess what?
Being thrown overboard worked.
This prayer shows that the one who is praying,
the supplicant, Jonah, he's very, very familiar
with the poetry and the Psalms of his people.
In his moment of distress,
he is drawing on many of the timeless classics
and the timeless classic Psalms of Israel
included into his prayer.
Psalms that were written by heroes like David.
The Psalms have given him a prayer language
that he can tap into at a moment of stress and distress.
It's one of the reasons why I like on our Wednesday night
worship and prayer, we spend time reading some scripture
and then we go to a place of prayer
because we want the Bible and the scriptures
to inform our prayers and give us the language.
How do we pray?
What do we say?
How do we say it?
Psalm 120 begins the exact same way.
I called to the Lord in my distress.
And here's something that is fascinating as well.
Chapter one, verse 17, listen to this really quick.
Chapter one, verse 17, when it says
the Lord appointed a great fish,
the word fish in the original language
is in its masculine form, great fish.
But the author does something in this second chapter.
He switches the form in verse one of chapter two
and now the fish is in the feminine form.
So, right, so what?
Well, when the last verse of the chapter
says that he is in the belly of the fish,
that would be standard translation for the stomach.
Right, he's in the stomach.
But what happens when the fish becomes feminine?
Womb.
It can be translated as womb and it connects
to the belly being the womb of the fish.
In the same line that Jonah is finally praying to the Lord,
it connects to the feminine form of fish
and there the word belly can take on a whole nother meaning.
Womb.
What happens in a womb?
Stomach is for eating and digesting, right?
Not fun.
Womb is for new life and new birth.
I cried out for help from deep inside Sheol
and you heard my voice.
Sheol was the place of the dead,
the place of hopelessness.
As in Job it says, as a cloud fades away and vanishes,
so the one who goes down to Sheol will never rise again.
From that place the Lord heard and answered Jonah.
Verse three says, when you threw me into the depths,
into the heart of the sea, the current overcame me,
all your breakers and your billows swept over me.
What is he doing?
He is saying that everything that he has done
and everything that happened to me in this whole story,
everything, the storm, the waves,
the sailors throwing me overboard, the water, the fish,
the Lord is behind it all.
The Lord is behind it all.
Borrowing from another Psalm 42,
all your breakers and your billows swept over me.
Verse four, and I said, I have been banished from your sight,
yet I will look once more toward your holy temple.
Banished from your side, just like Adam and Eve
were banished from the Garden of Eden,
so Jonah was cast away from the sight of God.
You see these hyperlinks that the author is drawing us to?
Bible readers, he wants us to see, see, it's like that,
it's like this, it's over here, look at this.
Drawing us into the story, yet I will look once more
to the place of your presence, to Mount Zion,
to Jerusalem, to your holy temple.
Because the waters engulfed me up to my neck,
the watery depths overcame me.
Seaweed was wrapped around my head,
I sank to the foundations of the mountains,
the earth's gates shut behind me forever.
Then you raised my life from the pit, Lord my God.
Lord my God.
The waters, these chaotic waters
that symbolizes the creation that he's undergoing
as he's sinking down, they're rising around him,
and the waters, like the darkness of nothingness,
begin to cover him.
And what are his grave clothes?
His grave clothes are seaweed, wrapped around his body.
I was going further and further down.
Remember in chapter one, he went down to Joppa.
He got on the boat and went down into the boat.
Down further and further and further down.
Even to the pit, the gates had already shut on me,
and then you raised my life up, God.
As my life was fading away, I remembered the Lord,
and my prayer came to you, to your holy temple.
I remembered Yahweh, the covenant name of God,
and my prayer came to you.
You were waiting, and you answered.
To those who cherish worthless idols,
those who cherish worthless idols,
abandon their faithful love, but as for me,
I will sacrifice to you with a voice of thanksgiving.
I will fulfill what I have vowed.
Salvation belongs to the Lord.
Those who cherish worthless or breathless idols,
abandon their faithless love.
They can't give you life when your life is ebbing away.
They have no breath to give,
because salvation belongs to the Lord.
Jonah's saying, I'm not an idolater.
I'm devoted to you.
I will sacrifice, and I will fulfill my vows,
and I will, you guys catch it yet?
There's something wrong with this psalm.
There's something wrong.
We spent two weeks in Jonah one.
What is Jonah actually saying here?
Or more specifically, who is Jonah talking about?
He's saying great things, awesome things.
Like he clipped them out of a magazine
and pasted them all together.
As we've been going through verse by verse to this chapter,
has something seemed off to you?
Has something about this poetic prayer seemed fishy?
So dumb, sorry.
It's written down, but I probably shouldn't have said that.
When Jonah talks about what he's done,
the actions that he has taken,
they've all been positive.
I called to the Lord, I cried out,
I looked to his temple, I remembered the Lord.
My prayer came to you.
I am not like the worthless idol worshipers.
I sacrifice to the Lord, I make vows, I fulfill them.
I am not like the worthless idol worshipers.
I sacrifice to the Lord, I make vows, I fulfill them.
Is this the same Jonah?
We spent two weeks studying.
How many times has Jonah talked about himself in this Psalm?
23 times.
In eight short verses.
He's saying all the right things.
And that's probably why some of you are like,
no, this is good, yeah.
Wow, yeah, exactly.
He's using the pious language.
He was raised on Hebrew poetry.
And if you were to classify this Psalm right here,
that we're reading, this poem,
you'd probably classify it as a Psalm of thanksgiving
and lament.
Bad things happen when I'm giving thanks to the Lord.
But you know what you wouldn't classify it as?
A Psalm or a song of repentance.
It's not a song of repentance.
This is not like Psalm 23 or Psalm 32 or Psalm 51.
Psalms of repentance.
I'm in the dumps, yes,
because I sinned and transgressed against you,
because I disobeyed and ran from your presence.
Forgive me, wash me clean, make me new.
None of that's in here.
Jonah has already proved through his own words
and Jonah has already proved through his actions
that he wanted nothing to do with Yahweh.
He was willing to run as far away.
And his request to get thrown overboard
was already kind of suspect,
because it might actually be the ultimate way
of running from God.
Here is a prayer that is full of irony
and thick with a satirical tone.
It's over the top.
Remember, Jonah was thrown out of the ship.
He doesn't know what the audience knows.
We know something he doesn't know.
Do you know that?
What happened after he was thrown out of the ship?
What happened back on the ship?
He doesn't know this.
He was in the water.
Those sailors, what did they do?
They feared the Lord.
They offered sacrifice.
They made vows.
Wait a sec, he says some of that stuff in this Psalm.
He doesn't know that the idol worshiping sailors
feared the Lord, made sacrifices, and vows to the God.
Yet he's saying, I'm not like those pagans up there.
I'm glad I'm not like those people.
Does that bring to mind a parable that Jesus once taught?
Luke 18.
Told this parable to some who trusted in themselves
that they were righteous and looked down on everyone else.
Two men went up to the temple to pray,
one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
The Pharisee was standing and praying
like this about himself.
God, I thank you that I'm not like other people.
Greedy, unrighteous adulterers,
or even like that tax collector.
I fast twice a week,
and I give a tenth of everything I get.
But the tax collector standing on the floor
would not even raise his eyes to heaven,
but kept striking his chest and saying,
God have mercy on me, a sinner.
I tell you this one went down to his house justified
rather than the other.
Because everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,
but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.
I will sacrifice and make vows to the Lord
my sacrifice is better than their sacrifice.
Samuel speaking to Saul,
after Saul had disobeyed the command of the Lord,
Samuel said this,
does the Lord take pleasure in burnt offerings
and sacrifices as much as obeying the Lord?
Look, to obey is better than sacrifice.
To pay attention is better than the fat of rams,
but to obey is better than sacrifice.
For rebellion is like the sin of divination,
and defiance is like witchcraft and idolatry.
You're the idol worshiper.
Jonah, I pointed down the middle.
Samuel.
Was an intervention or something.
We brought you all here so I could point my finger at you.
All of these scriptures,
they've been available, so this is something to remember.
All the scriptures that I'm referencing
have been available to the earliest readers of Jonah.
These are all available to the earliest readers of Jonah,
and the author would be banking on their ability
to make these connections.
Do you see?
Do you understand?
He's like Saul.
He's like this, he's like that.
Do you see these connections?
Is Jonah presuming on the grace and mercy of God
to rescue him apart from repentance of sin and obedience?
Is he making that presumption here?
All we know for sure is that Jonah is up to something,
and that's for sure.
And we gotta continue to explore his life
to see after this episode, is he a changed man?
Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm just talking.
Maybe he's a different guy.
Let's see what happens in chapter four, three and four,
and see if Jonah is the guy that he says he is
in chapter two.
But remember, today, that scripture is not about you,
scripture's not about me,
scripture's not primarily about big fish,
it is about God.
And it is about God revealing to us who he is
and what he is doing.
So in closing, as we wrap it up,
what does Psalm two tell us about God?
Number one, Psalm two tells us that God shows mercy
on undeserved sinners, hallelujah, can I get an amen?
Amen.
God shows mercy on undeserved sinners.
Maybe you even find yourself in Jonah's shoes today.
Maybe you've been sitting in your seat, disobedient to God,
and undeserving of his mercy.
Maybe you've been sitting there going,
man, that Jonah guy, he missed the boat, literally.
You may be willfully running from what you know about God
and what he's doing.
You may be tangled up in sin, like seaweed around your face.
You may be laughing and scoffing at Jonah,
man, he's sure messed up, what an idiot.
All the while, you're steeped in self-righteousness.
But God shows mercy to undeserving sinners.
We have all rebelled.
If any of you said, yeah, that's the person next to me,
I'll tell you, we've all rebelled.
We are all self-righteous.
Don't think you are?
See?
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
God is willing to have mercy on you this morning.
God wants you to experience his steadfast, faithful love.
The Hebrew word is hasad,
and it's a difficult word to translate into English
because it's a very difficult word to translate
into English because it has packed with meaning.
It's a word that basically is packed with the words
love, kindness, mercy, faithfulness, loyalty,
all wrapped into one.
He wants to show his hasad, his faithful,
steadfast love to you, an undeserving sinner.
You are not too far off.
You are, even in the deepest part of the sea,
even there, God can show mercy.
Even if you have run from his presence, as Jonah did.
Even if your motives are suspect, he can show mercy.
God shows mercy to undeserved sinners,
and number two, God makes dead things live.
Jesus referenced this story,
and I made reference to that last week,
that he referenced the story of Jonah when he was talking
to Pharisees who were asking him for a sign.
Show us a sign, big shot.
Show us who you are.
And Jesus basically said, you're gonna think I'm dead.
You're gonna think I'm gone.
You're gonna think you rid this world from me.
The three days, and salvation,
through judgment, will be revealed.
In Christ, we see that God makes dead things live.
Christ experienced the severe mercy of God.
He experienced salvation through judgment,
but the judgment he endured was not a result
of his own rebellion or sin.
It was because of our rebellion and sin.
He was the substitute.
He took our sin.
He experienced our death for us.
But God, Acts 13, 28 through 30 says this.
Though they found no grounds to kill him,
they asked Pilate to have him killed.
And when they carried out all that had been written
about him, they took him down from the tree
and put him in a tomb.
But God raised him from the dead.
God makes dead things live.
And you, now I am pointing the finger,
you were dead in your trespasses and sins
in which you previously walked according to the ways
of this world, according to the ruler of the power
of the air, the spirit now working in disobedience.
We too all previously lived among them
in the fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations
of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature,
children under wrath as the others were also.
But God, who is rich in mercy,
because of his great love that he had for us,
made us alive with Christ, even though we were dead
in trespasses.
You have been saved by grace.
The final thing I will say is that salvation
belongs to the Lord.
There is another way to phrase this.
In the Hebrew, it's Yeshua to Yahweh.
Yeshua to Yahweh, salvation belongs to the Lord.
Yeshua is the Hebrew form of the name Jesus.
Truly, as Acts four says, there is no salvation.
There is salvation in no one else,
for there is no other name under heaven
given to people by which we must be saved.
And that is the Yeshua of Yahweh, Jesus.
He is our salvation.
And we began to see another glimpse
even in this passage of what God is doing
through him for us.