The Heart of a Missionary, part 2

How do the ironies seen in the prophet Jonah’s attitude help us to address hypocrisy in our own spiritual lives?

Before we get into Jonah today, I want to take a moment here. I attended my first two funerals this week here at Calvary. One for Kenneth Levos.  I believe I met him, but I’m not sure that I had a much time to converse with him. He was a man who had great passion for the Lord. Deep heart for people. Cared deeply for the gospel. Yesterday I went to the funeral of Pastor Yee Na Kheeree, who is the one of the leaders in the Lahu congregation here at Calvary. Dorkham refers to him as the Billy Graham of the LA Who. And if you learn about his ministry, he went from village to village traveling on a cart, and then the gospel in northern Thailand to his people. I understand this has been a season even before I got here, of many of the leaders and saints of Calvary passing, going, graduating, going home to be with the Lord. And it’s a difficult time. So I thought I would just take a moment to pray and to thank God for their service. Would you pray with me? Lord God. Thank you for faithful men and women like Ken and Pastor Yee Na Kheeree, and those who have passed away over this last 6 to 8 months here at Calvary. Thank you for their passion for the gospel, their leadership, their willingness to pour themselves out, to innovate, to make changes, to see the world and see the community in ways that reflect the mission of Christ and the desire to serve people, love people, share the gospel with people, bring people to a knowledge of Jesus so that they can enter the kingdom of God. I thank you, Lord, for these men and women who have poured themselves out for your kingdom and for your glory. And Lord, this has been a difficult season for this church community. As many who loved you and served as pillars and cornerstones of this church have been brought home, have passed into an eternity worshipping Jesus face to face. We’re thankful for them, Father. And I pray that those who stand in leadership, who are the men and women who will lead Calvary forward in the mission, who will innovate, who will think deeply about the community, Lord, that they would stand on the shoulders of these giants. And that we have the same kind of love and passion for people that they did, and lead by their example. Thank you, Lord, for the goodness of your people. We pray this in Christ name. Amen.

So there’s something we should address right at the very start of our time in the God’s word today that is a question. Any time someone decides to read or study or preach through the book of Jonah, and that is this question, is this a story about a fish? Is that what it is? Basic popular views of Jonah are that Jonah was a man swallowed by a fish, somehow survived it. Roll credits. That’s it. And I blame children’s story Bibles, I do. I blame them because when you read them, that’s all they talk about for the most part. And I get it. I get it. Because if you’re going to illustrate it, if you’re going to draw a picture of anything that’s going on in the book of Jonah, it’s not going to be the murder of Jonah by the sailors. Right? It’s going to be the fish. And so they draw the fish. And so everybody thinks it’s about the fish.  But Church, this fish appears in exactly three verses of this book. Three.  Two of them back to back right at the beginning of our passage today, one of them at the end of the passage. And then that is it. That’s it. This fish never is mentioned again in Scripture until Matthew Chapter 12, when Jesus uses Jonah’s time in the fish as an illustration of his time in his tomb. So while this fish is a spectacular display of God’s glory, as we will see today and have His grace, this is not a fish story. The fish is an opportunity. The fish is a second chance. And Chapter 2 is dominated, not with fish story language, but with the words of Jonah to the Lord. And the question that we face today is whether or not this unfaithful prophet is going to turn his life around. That’s what we’re looking at today. Will this unfaithful prophet turn around and face the Lord? What will he say to the Lord?

What will he say in light of all that just has happened, his disobedience, his running from the presence of the Lord, his lack of care for those sailors back up on the ship. Jesus says that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. So what Jesus is saying is, whatever is in here, whatever we are treasuring inside of our heart, whatever we value inside of us, you can see that by the way we speak. And so this morning we’re going to hear Jonah answer for his actions.  We’re going to hear him speak and tell us what he has to say for himself. But we need to listen carefully. Because what he actually says might not be what we would expect him to say at this point. In fact, what he says today may not be what you think or have always thought that he said here in chapter two. The words are going to sound really good. But are they the right words? The Prophet quotes Scripture. But is it the right scripture? We’d expect a heart of repentance. But here’s the thing: do we see repentance? Is the abundance of Jonah’s heart a recognition of his disobedience; a thankfulness for God’s grace, and a return to obedience? We’re going to explore Jonah, because we want to have a heart of a missionary. That’s why we’re looking at this book. We want to have the heart of a missionary, so that we can use that to fulfill God’s mission for us. Your words are a window into your heart. You want to explore your heart? You want to know if you have the right one? Your words are a window into your heart. So if you want to know if you have the heart of a missionary, you need to look at what you say. Please open your Bibles to Jonah, Chapter 2. We’ll be in Chapter 1 for one verse, Jonah 1:17 is where we’re going to start today, we’ll mostly be in Jonah Chapter 2. In the Hebrew Bible, Jonah 1:17 is actually Jonah 2:1. For some reason, English Bibles divide things up strangely sometimes, and so that last verse is actually part of the next chapter. And Chapter 2 is Jonah’s Prayer from the belly of the fish.

We’re going to look at that prayer in two parts. We’re going to look at the descent. He’s going to talk about his descent into the depths of the sea. And then we’re going to look at the ascent of Jonah from his perspective, from his perspective. What does his ascent look like? And then we’re going to look at the Lord’s reaction to Jonah’s prayer. And as we look at what Jonah says, let’s also look through Jonah’s words to his heart. Let’s begin with Jonah’s descent into the sea. Chapter 1, verse 17: 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. And now, to Jonah 2:

“Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish,

2 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.

3  For you 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.

4  Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.’

5  The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped about my head.

6  at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land    whose bars closed upon me forever.”

Well, look who’s finally crying out, huh? He’s finally crying out. Did you see that in verse 2 there? I called out to the Lord.

In Chapter 1, Verse 2, the Lord told Jonah to call out to the Ninevites. In verse 6 of chapter 1, the sailors told Jonah to call out to his God. And then in verse 14, the sailors start calling out to the Lord by name. But here, finally, in our book, the Lord’s Prophet calls out to the Lord on behalf of himself. That’s what it took to do it. That’s what caused him to cry out. He cried out because he was in trouble. He would not do it to save the dynamites or the sailors. But when it comes to his own life, it’s all. Lord, help me. Help me. I’m tempted to stop right here this morning. And spend the rest of our time, talking about the strange phenomenon of self- focused Christianity. It’s a weird phenomenon. Self-focused Christianity. I won’t because there’s a whole lot more fish prayer to go and we need to get to it. But just a few comments here. It is fascinating to me just how passionate for the Lord’s blessings of healing, and how passionate we are for the Lord’s blessings of salvation that we become when we are personally in danger. Oh my goodness. We are so focused on God and His blessings and His salvation and his healing when it’s us and we are in need, when sickness and hard times hit close to us, we become very focused on crying out to the Lord, on our own behalf. And that’s not a problem, by the way. I’m not disparaging that. When we are in distress, we absolutely should cry out to the Lord. We should go to Him. We should cry out in times of need.

The Psalms are full of prayers, just like that –  we sang one earlier in our service. The Psalms have these in there. In fact, what Jonah is going to do and what Jonah is doing throughout this chapter is he’s grabbing little bits and pieces of psalms and he’s putting them together. It’s a combination in chapter 2 of Psalms that he has memorized. And that makes sense because, you know, when you’re in the belly of the fish, that’s probably not the time to compose new material. You know what I mean? He’s praying what he’s memorized. He’s crying out because of what is in his heart. But where is this passion for God’s healing and salvation when we look at the distress and spiritual state of other people? Where does it go? Why aren’t we as fired up and passionate then, where does that fire for calling out to the Lord and declaring gospel truth go when it’s somebody else who needs it? What happens then? See, by using the word ‘call’ here, the writer of this book is showing us what it took for Jonah to finally cry out to the Lord. And it’s a challenge to us to examine our own hearts and determine why it is that we are prone to only cry out to the Lord on our behalf. Okay. So what does Jonah say is happening to him? Jonah says he cried out in his distress and the Lord heard his voice. So we should be able to look at this chapter and find the content of Jonah’s cry to the Lord. Verse 3: You cast me into the deep. Now, that’s an acknowledgement that he’s receiving this punishment from the Lord. He knows that he’s in the water. He is sinking to his death because of the Lord’s punishment. He knows he’s also, by the way, been caught by the Lord. We know that because he admitted it up on the boat. He’s been caught in his escape from the presence of the Lord. And all of that is good. All of that is expected from a prophet of the Lord. He’s starting to act like the sort of thing we would expect from someone who’s faithful to the Lord. He should have known better in the first place, but at least here, he’s starting to acknowledge some things. But here’s the big question, and this is really the most important question of this entire chapter: is Jonah acknowledging why God is punishing him? Is he saying why? There’s a particular kind of psalm in the Old Testament Psalm book. It’s called a lament. They don’t get read nearly as much as the psalms of praise. So you may not recognize them. You probably have read them before though.

A common metaphor in the Psalms of lament is this idea of sinking into the mire or sinking into the sea when your enemies are coming after you, when distress is happening and you’re crying out to God for help. But God seems very far away. And so you’re sinking. You’re sinking and you’re crying out to him. That happens quite a bit, actually, in the Psalms. Jonah’s prayer is is made up of snippets and images from these psalms of lament. I’ll give you an example of this. This is from Psalm 88, verses 1 to 7. Listen to this: Oh, Lord God of my salvation. I cry out day and night before you. Let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry! For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol. I’m counted among those who go down to the pit. I’m a man who has no strength, like one set loose among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom you remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand. You have put me in the depths of the pit, in the regions dark and deep. Your wrath lies heavy upon me, and you overwhelm me with all of your waves.

I’m going to skip down to some verses. This is verse 13 and 14. Same Psalm. But I, oh Lord, cry to you; in the morning, my prayer comes before you. Oh, Lord, why do you cast my soul away? Why do you hide your face from me?

It sounds very familiar, doesn’t it? But I want you to hear something. Do you hear in that Psalm that I just read, how the prophet, how the Psalmist there, is searching for the reasoning that he is suffering. Did you hear that? That he’s crying out. But part of the crying out is he’s trying to determine, God what is happening and why is it happening to me.

Psalms of lament are generally cries to God for help and explanation for suffering. That is part of God’s plan, and they’re acknowledging as part of God’s plan. But here’s the thing most of the psalms of lament do not get tied to personal sin. We’re not tied to our sin. The lamenter wants to know why God is bringing this trial. He believes that God is bringing it, but he wants to know why his enemies are winning, and when will God come and rescue him?

The church in Ukraine right now is praying psalms of lament like this. God, where are you? God, we need you. We pray for them in the same way we did earlier in this service. God, please come and bring healing and rescue and protection. During this time, it’s so difficult. Some psalms of lament contain personal confession of sin. There are a few of those. This is from Psalm 38:

For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden, they weigh too much for me. My wounds grow foul and fester because of my folly. I am bent over and greatly bowed down. I go mourning all day long for my loins are filled with burning and there is no soundness in my flesh. I am been numbed and badly crushed. I groan because of the agitation of my heart.

Do you see the difference between those two psalms of lament? One crying out for God to give some direction and understanding to the pain and struggle, and one that acknowledges directly where the pain and the struggle is coming from because it’s coming from my sin. You see the difference there? Jonah’s psalm quotes that he uses come from laments where there is no confession of sin. He’s praying as if God’s mysterious will put him in the sea, that his his enemies are coming against him and they are prevailing, and that God has come to save him because he’s righteous, because he doesn’t deserve it. And so he needs he he needs an explanation because he’s unclear about why he’s sinking to the bottom of the sea.

I mean, let me just say. God can be mysterious, but not everything is a mystery, right? I feel like Jonah ought to be able to draw pretty solid lines between what I did and where I am. Right. Did I miss it? It’s clear, right? It’s clear why he is, where he is. And yet here he is praying like his situation is somehow hidden in the inscrutable mind of God. And His mysterious will can’t be known. Man, I feel like I got a pretty good handle on how things went down. I feel like you should have a pretty good handle, Jonah, on how things went down. Without question. This is not how Jonah should be praying. And yet here he is. He says, I have been expelled from your sight. Nevertheless, I will look again to your holy temple. Again that’s the language of the psalms. Looking to God’s holy temple in this situation means that Jonah recognizes he’s going to live. He’s going to be one who lives again. He’s not going to sink down the Sheol, sink down to death where he can no longer worship, that God has saved him and he is now going to be able to worship God again like he always does. That’s the explanation here. That’s what he’s getting at. Jonah is basically saying, I thought I was dead, but you’ve saved my life, Lord, so I can continue to worship you.

If you’re wondering where the repentance is, it’s not there. You didn’t miss it. It’s not there. The fish is salvation. Jonah is basically saying, thank you. Thank you for hearing my cry to save my life. I cried out and You heard me God. Thanks for putting me in a fish where I can breathe. When it looked like I was going to die. Now I can continue to worship, just like I did before.

So here’s what we have at this point in this prayer. We have a panicked Jonah crying out in distress for his own life. We have a beautiful description of Jonah’s descent.  He literally hits rock bottom here and an acknowledgement that Yahweh has caused all of this, that the Lord has come through for Jonah. Here’s what we don’t have. We don’t have any mention of Jonah’s disobedience, any brokenness over sin, or even a single word of repentance.

Well, maybe on the way back up, maybe on the ascent, we’re going to see the heart of a changed man who really sees where things went wrong. Pick it up with me again at the end of verse 6:

Yet you brought my life from the pit oh 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 will sacrifice to you what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord.

Not too encouraging, is it? Sounds nice. It’s always interesting when you’re counseling someone, and you’re trying to help them through something that’s going on in their life, and they just can’t see they’re part of the problem. You ever done that before? They just can’t see it. You’ve got a hard time going on. But they don’t recognize the part that they brought to the problem. Nowhere in this whole prayer does Jonah ever come close to repenting and acknowledging his sin. Now some have wanted to give Jonah the benefit of the doubt. They want to assume that when Jonah talks about being saved from death, that he actually is implying that he was wrong. And I might be inclined to sort of give him that benefit of the doubt. And sort of read him that way. If it were not for the fact that I know how the rest of the book goes. But this is sent back to life. It really isn’t repentance in any sense of the word. In fact, if anything, it’s the opposite of repentance. Jonah actually sounds pretty righteous in this prayer, doesn’t he? When Jonah was fainting away. Well, how did he get God’s attention?

Well, it was Jonah’s prayer that made it to the Lord. It was Jonah who remembered the Lord. You see, it was his prayer all the way to God and his holy temple. And that’s what caused God to come and to save Jonah. And why is Jonah so good at remembering the Lord and praying with him in this moment of need? Well, it’s because Jonah, according to Jonah, isn’t like all those vain idol worshippers out there who have forsaken the Lord. He’s not like that. Not at all. Those idolatrous people, those those pagan non Hebrew people have forsaken God’s love. They’ve turned to false idols. They’re going to get what they deserve. But not Jonah. Not Jonah. With a voice of Thanksgiving, Jonah makes his vows and his sacrifices to the Lord, to the one true God.

Now, you might remember from last week that the only people in this story so far who have made actual vows and sacrifices are the pagan idolaters up on deck. You remember that? They’re the only ones who have actually worshipped the Lord in this book. They truly called out to God for salvation. And they received it. They truly declared the goodness of God’s grace with voices of Thanksgiving. That’s because that’s what vain idol worshippers do when they encounter the Lord. That’s why we share the gospel with people, right Church? We share it because these people who are far from the Lord, they come near to Christ through the Gospel, their eyes are opened and they worship. They join the cause of God’s praise in the world. I think Jonah would actually be pretty surprised to hear about how things are going up on deck. He has no idea. We’re beginning to see that Jonah has missed a foundational piece of God’s character. I don’t know how we missed it. But somewhere along the line. He missed a foundational piece. That God’s love and salvation is for everyone. For everyone. Somewhere along the way, Jonah got it into his head that God was for him. And that God was for his people.

And not for anybody else. He started to think that he was righteous just by nature of being part of God’s chosen people, not realizing that being part of God’s chosen people meant that he was to go to all people and share the grace that saved him. That he’s entirely saved by God’s choosing grace, and that he therefore is part of the team that’s to go and share this grace with other people.

And so Jonah sits in judgment over people outside of his tribe. He can’t see the hardness of his own heart. He assumes that he is better, more deserving of God’s love than everybody else. He’s like a Pharisee in that way. He’s like a Pharisee of Jesus day. There’s not Pharisees yet, but he’s acting like them. Those who prided themselves on their religious affiliation with the right group of people and the way they presented themselves. You know what Jesus called the Pharisees? He called them whitewashed tombs, whitewashed, you know, on the outside. Very clean, very nice. Looking good on the inside. Deadness. Spiritual deadness. I have to say, Church, it’s unnerving to me that someone can know this much scripture, and pray this eloquently, and still have a heart that is so out of line with God’s heart. Isn’t that unnerving? See the danger, Church, is that religious behavior and identity can be separated out from the grace of God. And the mission of God. If you know enough Bible to quote it, and if you know all of the right words to say when it comes to prayers, when it comes to Bible study, when it comes to church time. If you know all of that, you can come off reasonably well as someone who is dedicated to the call of Christ without actually being engaged in the call of Christ. You can sound righteous and not be repentant. You can sound holy without being gracious. You can sound obedient and not be faithful to Jesus and his call to go and love people and make disciples. When we use the word hypocrisy, usually what we mean is someone who speaks out against a particular sin, but then engages in that sin in another way. So, for example, a hypocrite might be someone who. Condemns robbery. But cheats on his taxes. Right.

But there’s another kind of hypocrisy in the Bible that’s much more subtle. And it’s a lot more dangerous. It’s the person who speaks like he’s dedicated to following Jesus, but at the same time, he’s actually only concerned about himself.

Well, let’s see what God thinks about this prayer. And the Lord spoke to the fish and it vomited Jonah up out upon dry land. That’s it. That’s the whole end of the whole end of the chapter. There’s nothing more to it. You know, there’s a lot of different ways that could have been written. This would have been a good place for a euphemism, don’t you think? Some other words, in fact, some translations do use euphemisms here. It could have said the fish took Jonah to dry land. Maybe it would say something like the fish spit Jonah onto dry land. Most of the children’s Bibles say something along those lines. Instead it says the fish vomited Jonah out onto dry land. That’s the word. The word is vomit. And since, by the way, it was out onto dry land from the water, this is some sort of a projectile vomit where Jonah is like the chunk that flies up onto the dry land. This is like when you’re taking your toddler on that drive across the country and and you hear the noise. Right. And it’s not going into a cup. This is going to have some distance on it. You get hit in the head. Right. And you’re going to. This is a pullover kind of situation. I’m putting it in this disgusting manner because that’s what this says. The word there in Hebrew is vomit. Theologically, vomit is a loaded term. In Leviticus 18, it’s used to describe the land vomiting out the people. It vomits out the people who go to live in the land. They don’t just get taken out of the land; they get vomited out of the land. Listen to this is Leviticus 18:26-28. But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you for the people of the land who were before, you did all these abominations. So that the land became unclean, lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. That language gets repeated two chapters later in Leviticus 20, In Job and in Proverbs, vomit is used to describe what God will do to those who have eaten evil or wicked delicacies. They swallowed their sin and God in his sanctifying grace is going to make them vomit out this this sin. The Church in Laodicea in Revelation 3, the one that was lukewarm in Jesus mouth. It’s vomited out of Jesus mouth. We can do a whole theology of vomit this morning, shall we? This would be good. I’ll stop. Clearly, when vomit is used as an image, it’s in reaction to evil that has to be expelled. But what about here? Well, here we might argue that this is just the natural function of a fish. How else is Jonah going to get up onto the dry land? And yet I might be inclined to think that is all that’s going on here, except for the fact that the Lord spoke to the fish first. Do you see that? Remember everything in this book. Everything in this book does what the Lord tells it to do. Except Jonah. Next week, Jonah is going to get a second chance to respond to what the Lord says. But the fish doesn’t need a second chance to obey God’s word. The Lord speaks, the fish vomits, the fish, hearing the voice of its creator, projectile vomits Jonah back where he’s supposed to be. That’s the last time that that one right there. That’s the last time I’m going to say. Jonah speaks to God. Beautiful, lengthy prayer. God speaks to the fish. He hasn’t even redressed Jonah in words.

First of all, this vomit is judgment. What Jonah has to say makes God sick. Claiming to be righteous before the Lord while running from the Lord’s presence, disobeying his words and continuing in an unrepentant heart is unacceptable, and God here is visibly rejecting it. But at the same time that the act of this fish is judgment, it’s also grace. The vomit is grace. That’s the last time I’m going to say vomit. Right. It’s Grace. See, God had every right to reject the one who rejected him, wouldn’t you say? But here he is. He’s putting his prophet back on track. He’s putting his prophet back where he’s supposed to be. For Jonah to be back on dry land is a message to Jonah from the Lord. You say you want to worship me? Then worship me. You say you want to proclaim my salvation for yourself? Proclaim it for others. Proclaim it like I told you to do. You want to sacrifice and vow. Then get moving. Go sacrifice yourself. Complete your vow to me. When you said I will serve you as a prophet. I gave you words to say, go be a prophet, like I told you to the first time. Jonah doesn’t deserve a second chance to do this, but thankfully, God is gracious. We don’t deserve a second chance either. But God is gracious. God is gracious to Jonah. And next week, he’ll start his second chance. But Church, you don’t need to start your second chance next week. You can start it this morning. If you realize this morning that your words don’t match your walk, now is the time to go before the Lord in repentance. We serve a gracious God who is ready to forgive and bring undeserving sinners into his presence. People like you and me who do not deserve his grace. He’s ready. We serve a God who delights in taking people who are running away from him. And putting them on a track toward faithfulness by his grace. So let’s take a moment now as we close our service today. We’ll take some time in silent prayer. I want you to go before the Lord, speak to him honestly.