Title: SALVATION COMES FROM THE LORD
Focus: Turn away from yourself. Turn to Jesus, for salvation comes from the Lord.
Function: To encourage the people to let go of all our self-efforts to conquer the storms of life and to surrender completely to Jesus.
Text: Jonah 1:8-2:10
No doubt, everyone here tonight has weathered storms in life. For some it may have been an illness, a tragedy, or a sudden loss of life. For others it may have been a rocky relationship, a fire, or perhaps a looming bankruptcy.
As for me, I remember one of my storms: I was 20 years old, driving a truck in Rotterdam, making some deliveries to restaurants and hospitals in the area. At that time, I was still trying to sort out my faith and commitment to God, and I was still trying to come to grips with my own identity. There were days I felt very much in control of my life, and there were days I was like a lost puppy—adrift, not sure of myself or of God.
My storm began when I hit a man with my truck. It was not my fault, but nevertheless, it was a helpless and awful feeling to experience the fateful accident. I remember looking at this man and wringing my hands and pulling my hair, crying inwardly: Who can help me now? My boss who owned the truck? No! The police, perhaps? No! My parents then? No! God! What about God? If there ever was a time that I needed God, it was then.
In my terror and anguish I cried out to God for help. And it was then that I experienced a calm—a calm which I shall never forget, a calm which sustained me through that difficult time. On the day that I accidentally killed a man with my truck, I discovered that God is alive and that salvation comes from the Lord.
In light of Jonah’s story and in light of the Bible’s teaching, I want to encourage us all today to let go of all our self-efforts to conquer the storms of life and to surrender completely to Jesus. Turn away from yourself; turn to Jesus, for salvation comes from the Lord.
Jonah is on the run. The Lord told him to go east, to the great City of Nineveh. But Jonah quits the prophetic ministry and decides to go west, to Tarshish. Jonah is in a state of rebellion against God. Jonah is on the run, thinking that he can outrun the Hound of heaven.
But God has sent his messengers to bring Jonah to his knees. The wind and the sea have joined forces against Jonah and the sailors on the ship. These are God’s instruments to confront Jonah’s rebellious spirit. So are the captain and the sailors. They, too, are tools in God’s hand to break Jonah’s spirit.
The pagan sailors know (intuitively so it seems) that behind this violent storm is the hand of a god. Someone on the ship must have done something terrible, causing the wrath of a divine being. The captain wakes up Jonah, who is sleeping blissfully unaware of the great danger facing them all. “How can you sleep?” said the captain. “Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us, and we will not perish.” Jonah does get up but he does not assume the posture of prayer. He remains a neutral observer, watching the sailors struggling for answers and thus casting lots to find out who is to blame for this monster storm.
But Jonah cannot remain incognito or neutral. He can no longer hide, for the sea, the wind, the lot, and the sailors all batter him and expose him as a rebel prophet. “Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?”
Congregation, when was the last time that people around you, (pagans or non-believers if you will), confronted us with questions that required a fundamental, honest answer where we could no longer “hide” or go “incognito” as a servant of the Lord?
God has many ways to call us to faith and faithfulness. Where do you stand when it comes to following Jesus in today’s world? Where do we draw the line when it comes to issues of abortion, same-sex marriages, or justice? At what point in our culture today will we show our “colors” as followers of Christ and defy the norms and worldly ways of popular culture?
Jonah realizes that his flight has come to an end. God has found him. The sailors are pressing him. So, Jonah decides to “come clean.” Here we see the turning moment in Jonah’s life. Listen: “I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.” This is who Jonah is: he belongs to the Creator of the universe, who has a covenant relationship with Israel. And Jonah is a servant of God. Yes, at the moment a run-away servant, but a servant nevertheless. It’s a turning moment, for Jonah confesses his God and acknowledges his identity as prophet who is in a rebellious mode.
Before Jonah confessed his God and his relationship to God, Jonah rebelled: I will go east; I will go to Joppa; I will embark on a ship; I will pay the fare; I will go to Tarship; I will sleep and rest and run away. Jonah’s “I” stood opposite of God’s will. But now Jonah bends his “I” to the will of God. “I am a Hebrew, and I worship the Lord.” So deep does Jonah bend his “I” that he admits: “It is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.” That’s why I say to all of us today: Turn away from yourself; turn to Jesus, for salvation comes from the Lord.
The pagan sailors are awe-stricken. They take Jonah’s words seriously. Or should I say, they take the God of Jonah seriously—the God who sends the wind and the waves and threatens their lives? The text says: “(Jonah’s reply) terrified them and they asked, ‘What have you done?’”
Then, as Jonah confessed to them that he was on the run, and as the furor of the wind and the sea increased, the sailors asked Jonah: “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?”
Here the sailors treat Jonah as a prophet. They inquired of him what the correct course of action is supposed to be. They do not dare to touch Jonah, or punish Jonah, or toss him overboard, for they know intuitively that dealing with this Jonah means dealing with Jonah’s God. Jonah they can handle. But oh, that God of Jonah! He is to be greatly feared!
Then Jonah does something startling. He gives up his rebellion; he bows down and yields his will, his self, to God. “Pick me up,” says Jonah, “and throw me into the sea, and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.”
It was Jesus who told his disciples: (John 15:13) “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” Jesus said these words on the night when the storm of betrayal and crucifixion began to blow in severity. Like a lamb led to the slaughter, Jesus surrendered himself—that we may have life today.
On the night that Jonah came to his senses and surrendered his will to God, Jonah offered himself to a certain death in the stormy sea, so that the pagan sailors might live. In Jonah’s surrender, we see a shadow of what is to come. Jonah’s self-surrender points us to our Lord Jesus Christ. Salvation comes from the Lord.
JONAH’S DESCEND
A medical doctor—greatly educated—once visited a farmer whose wife was ill. The doctor arrived at noontime, so the farmer invited the doctor for lunch. They ate fish. After lunch, the farmer read the Bible story of Jonah and the great fish. Then he gave thanks to God. The doctor was puzzled—not so much by what the farmer did but by the farmer’s apparent acceptance of the story as truth. “Man, how can you swallow this story of Jonah and the fish?” he asked.
The farmer responded: “I swallow this story the same way I swallowed the fish for our lunch. I eat the meat and lay aside the bones of the fish. So it is with God’s Word: I eat what I can digest or comprehend; I lay aside and ponder the mystery of the “bones” in the Bible. And in the process, God feeds my soul.”
Are you one of those who choke on the bones and therefore refuse to eat the meat of God’s greatest fish story? Turn away from yourself. Turn to God! It is no problem for the Creator of the heavens and the earth to “provide a fish” to swallow—and rescue Jonah. Nor is it a problem for God to send his Holy Spirit to raise his Son, the Lord Jesus, from a three-day burial in a tomb!
In fact, Jesus has patterned his self-sacrificial life after Jonah’s descend into the belly of the big fish. Jonah’s descend into the stomach of the fish is a sign that points forward to Jesus. Salvation is from the Lord! Listen: (Matthew 12:39) “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
The tomb of Jesus was not an accident or coincidence. Neither was the great fish. Note how chapter 1 ends: “But the Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.” Note how chapter 2 ends: “And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.” And right there—in the middle of these verses, right there in the gut of the fish, we find Jonah bending his will in complete surrender to the will of our heavenly Father. And right there, we find Jonah confessing, crying out, and in the end declaring: “Salvation is from the Lord.”
Jonah has written down his “death and resurrection” story after he came out of that tomb—that belly of the fish. Jonah’s story is in the form of a prayer of thanksgiving. Listen to Jonah
· Describing his troubles: “In
my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From the depths of the grace I called for help, and you listened to my cry…The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head.” Clearly, Jonah was in the grip of death. But the Lord’s hand was with Jonah. Listen to Jonah
· Pointing to God’s salvation:
“But you brought my life up from the pit, O Lord my God… Salvation comes from the Lord.”
As Jonah descended into a certain pit of death, Jonah turns to God in his anguish and distress. He humbles himself and reaches out to the Lord. And in that way, he discovers that his rescue lies with the Lord.
Back to the sailors, back to you and me. Did you notice what the sailors did when Jonah offered himself as a sacrifice, so that they would live? The sailors, says the text, “did their best to row back to land instead.” They refused to accept the prophet’s self-surrender or sacrifice. They were afraid. They did not take Jonah at his word. They relied upon themselves for their salvation. Then the text says: “But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before.”
It was only when the sailors yielded to Jonah’s God and prayed for his mercy, saying: “O Lord, please do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, O Lord, have done as you pleased”—it was only then that they discovered that salvation is from the Lord. For as Jonah disappeared in the stormy ocean, the raging sea grew calm.
You and I must take Jesus’ words seriously. Only by surrendering to our God and looking for mercy in and through his Son, the Lord Jesus, will we be fully saved. We cannot save ourselves from our own sins, from our own miseries, from our own storms in life. Turn away from yourself. Turn to Jesus, for salvation is from the Lord!
One more observation! Did you notice what the sailors did as they entered the calm after the storm? They greatly “feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him.” Did you notice what Jonah did after he was rescued by the Lord? Listen (vs. 9) “Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good.”
Gratitude and promises of willing service of the Lord flow from the hearts and the lips of all who receive salvation from the Lord and find themselves in the calm after the storm.
Remember then: turn away from self; turn to Christ Jesus, for salvation comes from him!
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.