Jonah 2 (ESV) — 1 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; yet you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God. 7 When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple. 8 Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. 9 But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord!” 10 And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

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In last week's opening study of Jonah, we considered Jonah's background. Very little is said of him in the books of Kings and Chronicles, but what is written shows us a man who prophesied good news to Israel. He wasn't like many of the prophets who had to confront God's people with their sin. Instead, God used him to declare a season of peace and prosperity, a time when the borders of Israel would be restored (2 Kings 14:25).

So Jonah had a positive message for God's people. Now, in the book of Jonah, the prophet has been tasked with the opposite—he has a negative message for Nineveh, people far from God.

But Jonah didn't want to go. In the last episode of his story he told God why he didn't want to go—because he knew God's gracious, merciful, patient, and loving nature (Jonah 4:2). He knew that if God was sending him over 500 miles to preach a word of judgment to the Assyrian capitol, God was ready to withhold judgment if they repented. And Jonah didn't like that. Like a train car unhitched from the locomotive, Jonah had entirely unhitched himself from God's nature. Disconnected from God's grace, Jonah turned into a legalistic and repulsive man.

So Jonah needed to reconnect with God's grace—that's what this book is about. God's goal for Jonah was that he would comprehend grace. God has the same goal for us in Jonah—he wants us to know grace.

But what is God's grace?

The grace of God is God's goodness manifested toward the ill-deserving. — Henry Thiessen, Lectures in Systematic Theology [^1]

Grace is not a novel, failsafe catchphrase that will ensure [success]. No, it’s something so much better than that! It is God’s assured favorable attitude toward undeserving rebels whom, in his inscrutable love, he has decided to bless. — Elyse Fitzpatrick & Jessica Thompson, *Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus [^2]

So God's mission was to get hitch Jonah up to his grace. God needed Jonah to reconnect to his nature. He wants the same for us. He doesn't want us to merely have correct theology about God—Jonah had that! But he wants us to live out the implications of his nature. If God is gracious, merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness, he wants us to demonstrate the same to our world. So God will do for us what he did for Jonah in the midst of the sea—he will reach us wherever we are at to give us a firm lesson on grace.

To begin our study of this passage in Jonah, we must first reject any cartoonish version of this story we've held onto in our minds. We should not picture a man diving off the edge of a boat and straight into the open mouth of a large whale. What we should imagine is a man desperately clinging to life. He is sure of death as he sinks into the storm's waters. Everything else fades away—the wind, the sailors, the boat—all of it is gone. Now, we are alone with Jonah and his thoughts.

And what we will discover along with Jonah is that God's grace is there in the depths of the ocean—and the depths of the great fish. So Jonah prays a poetic psalm of thanksgiving for the grace of God's salvation.

So let's inspect God's grace by inspecting Jonah's song.

1. God's Grace Can Be Found In The Dark

Utter Darkness

The first point I want to make is that God's grace can be found in the dark. When Jonah was cast into the sea, he was thrown into the chaos of darkness. Throughout his song, he highlighted the desperate nature of his situation. He said he was in distress because he was cast into the deep (2-3). He spoke of waves and billows and waters that closed in over him to take his life (3-5). He felt he was at the bottom of the ocean, the roots of the mountains, with bars that were ready to close on him forever (6).

Jonah's situation might be amusing to us, but it wasn't comedy to him. He was in the disorienting experience of drowning and dying before being swallowed by a sea creature. I don't think many of us can imagine just how wildly this would have stressed Jonah's system.

I read of one study done in the 50s to try to understand how some prisoners of war were being turned by putting them in total darkness. A psychologist named Donald Hebb paid volunteers to enter "sensory isolation." He put them in small, soundproofed cells, made them wear frosted goggles that impaired their vision, and even fitted them with special gloves to decrease their sense of touch.

The result shocked the researchers: the subjects were completely disoriented after just a few hours. When they took a break to relieve themselves, they would get lost in the bathroom. One was released and immediately crashed his car. And most of them had hallucinations—they saw things like dancing squirrels and old men driving around in bathtubs or even a second version of themselves. Without the normal stream of input to their senses, each subject's brain produced its own stream of input.[^3]

All this to say, Jonah was being pushed to the limits inside that fish. But as all his other senses were submerged into the water, his spiritual senses rose to the surface. The man who did not think of God while in the storm began realizing his deep need for God.

Stripped Of Everything But God

It was as if Jonah was stripped of everything but God. To Jonah, everything else was dead. He felt he was in Sheol, the place of the dead (2). But, in the darkness, a ray of light began to shine.

I think this is why Jonah said, near the end of his song, that those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love (8). Jonah had made an idol of his perception of good and evil, righteousness and unrighteousness. He might've even made an idol of his identity as a Hebrew. As he did, the steadfast love of God could not do its beautiful work in his heart. So God put him in the fish in the ocean to strip all those idols from his life. Alone in the sea, Jonah saw how he had built an idol out of his perspective on himself and the Ninevites.

The first of the ten commandments says, “You shall have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:3, ESV). As Tim Keller says, “An idol is whatever you look at and say, in your heart of hearts, ‘If I have that, then I’ll feel my life has meaning, then I’ll know I have value, then I’ll feel significant and secure.’" [^4]

Down in that fish, Jonah came to terms with his worship. He saw how he'd worshipped ideas and principles out of step with God. He realized he had thought of his hatred of the Ninevites as more core to his identity than his connection to God. And he felt God's steadfast love toward him.

As God stripped away Jonah's idols, showing him how foolish they were and how little they could do for him, Jonah saw God again. In the dark, Jonah began enjoying God again.

Recently, a woman named Laura Young bought a two-thousand-year-old Roman bust—they think it's of the man who killed Julius Caesar. She found it on sale at an Austin, Texas Goodwill for thirty-five dollars. A collector of antiques, she knew it was worth much more than that. Obviously, Goodwill and whoever donated it to them didn't. Now, this piece is sitting in a museum where anyone can appreciate its value.

Sometimes God will allow darkness to come into our lives as a way to get us to see what is truly valuable. God is not meant to be a cheap accessory to our lives but the very center of who we are. Only he can bear the weight of our worship, so we must value him higher than anyone or anything.

So Jonah found grace in the darkness and was illuminated by it. But Jonah, in the belly of the fish, felt he was dead and had descended into the belly of hell, but he wasn't and hadn't (2). The bars, as he said, had not closed upon him forever (6).

As intense as his grief was at that moment, Jesus Christ entered into a state of darkness, death, and forsakenness Jonah could never know. When Jesus died on the cross, he experienced separation from the Father. That's what hell is—total separation from God (2 Thessalonians 1:9). The Bible uses images like fire and darkness to describe it, but at the end of the day, hell is existence completely away and apart from God. And Jesus endured that separation for us while on the cross, all so that we could be reunited with the wonderful and entirely undeserved favor of God.

2. God's Grace Illuminates Us Without Crushing Us

Acceptance Of God's Methods

So grace can be found in the dark, but I also want to say that grace illuminates us without crushing us. What do I mean?

Well, all through the song, it is clear Jonah understood that the storm, the sea, and the whale were all under God's control. He sent the wind. He manipulated the cast lots. He prepared the great fish. Jonah said, "You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, all your waves and your billows passed over me (3).

And, from Jonah, there is no argument. It's as if he's realized all he had coming to him. He has sensed the gravity of his rebellion and sin. The hard-hearted prophet who thought he knew better than God is now softened by God's grace.

He realized that God's discipline was also God's rescue. Yes, the storm and the sea and the fish were all uncomfortable, but they were also necessary vehicles God was using to drive Jonah back into his loving arms.

And Jonah had this hope while inside the fish. He sang of going back to God's temple (4, 7). He did not feel it was too late to return to God, that he was somehow beyond God's grace. He saw his error and realized his need for judgment but knew God was not done with him. God was raising up his rebel.

Jonah's self-righteousness had evaporated at this moment. God was birthing something new within his man. He was no longer pompous and proud but humble and contrite. He knew he deserved judgment but had instead received God's grace.

As Jerry Bridges wrote: "Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace." [^5]

This is the Christian perspective. God upholds us when at our worst. In the dark, illuminated by God, we are not crushed by God.

Contrast this with the mindset of the world. William McRaven's short book Make Your Bed is filled with many great insights. But at one point, he said, "We will all confront a dark moment in life...In that dark moment, reach deep inside yourself and be your very best." [^6]

But what do we do when we are the cause of the dark moment? What happens when we reach inside ourselves and sense it is a place no good dwells? It is there we must know that we are not beyond the reach of God's grace.

I cannot say this enough: you are not beyond the reach of God's grace. If Jonah shows us nothing else, he shows us God does not give up. He keeps reaching out to his own.

3. God's Grace Produces A Beautiful Response

Response!

The last element of God's grace I want you to see today is that it produces a beautiful response. When God's grace truly impacts your heart—when you realize the magnitude of his mercy and kindness toward you—you can't help but respond.

I am firmly convinced by the idea that an understanding of God's grace, no matter how small that understanding is, can have major results. I believe human life becomes most human when it is lived in light of God's grace. Grace produces, and this is a major reason our church vision statement is Jesus Famous.

Jesus brought God's grace—his cross gave God's favor access to us. Like a damn blown up with dynamite so that the old river can flow again, Christ's cross blew up sin, the obstacle to God's grace flowing in our lives. So the more appreciative of Christ you become—the more Jesus becomes famous to you—the more grace-driven you will become. Grace will produce!

Consider how Paul described the response-producing nature of God's grace:

For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. (Titus 2:11–14, NIV)

What is he saying? God's grace teaches us to live holy lives. God's grace is the motivation to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age. It is God's grace that produces a people who are eager to do what is good.

It is a concept I want to color our pulpit here at Calvary, which is why I handwrote these verses from Titus on the floorboard beneath the pulpit. As God's grace is taught, we will respond in the best of ways.

And how did Jonah respond?

Renewed Relationship With God

He responded by renewing his relationship with God. You probably noticed all throughout his psalm that his walk with God was rekindled while there in the darkness of the fish. From there, he called out to the Lord, directing his prayers to God's heavenly temple (2, 4, 7, 9). He might have received his original mission from God while sacrificing to God in Jerusalem's temple, but now he is so far from God's temple, inside a stinking fish, yet his connection to his Father in heaven is stronger than ever.

But he didn't stop with prayer. He went on to devote himself to God again. He said, "I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay" (9). Jonah was saying he would go again to the temple, give God a thanksgiving offering, and dedicate himself to God with that offering. It was a prayer of dedication and commitment—marks of a true revival in Jonah's heart. He might have run from God, but now he reenlists with God.

We do not offer animal sacrifices as a way to dedicate ourselves to God. Instead, we offer ourselves as living sacrifices:

And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. (Romans 12:1, NLT)

Jonah did this. He spoke of sacrifices in the temple, but his life would be a sacrifice also. Jonah knew his commitment to God, his vow, would require him to obediently go and preach to Nineveh. He knew his sacrifice would cost him, but God's grace drove him back into devotion to God.

Recognition Of Salvation's Source

But Jonah also responded to God's grace with a shout of praise: "Salvation belongs to the Lord!" (9). It was a statement of recognition—God saved the sailors. God saved Jonah. And God would save Nineveh. He saves.

But it was also a statement of submission—God can give salvation to whomever he chooses. Jonah had stubbornly acted as if he was the arbiter of salvation, but God had shown him he was wrong to take that position. God decides.

But it was also a statement intermixed with tension. There, in the fish, during a song, Jonah is ready to confess that salvation belongs to the Lord. You can save who you want, O God. You can reach into lives I've deemed too evil for your grace. You can rescue anyone! But this is not the end of Jonah's story. We already considered the end, how he would go to Nineveh, preach, and then be angered when God withholds his judgment from them. He certainly wasn't singing about how salvation belongs to the Lord then.

All this might lead us to think Jonah's encounter with God's grace inside the fish was not legitimate. But don't the complexities in Jonah remind us of ourselves? We humans vacillate wildly between revelation and blindness, love and anger, grace and law. Jonah, in the fish, had seen that salvation belongs to the Lord, but, once in Nineveh, his eyes became clouded. This tension within Jonah should remind us that we need constant exposures to God's grace.

When cancer is treated with chemotherapy, multiple rounds are required. Only one exposure will not kill the cancer. And our hard hearts require ongoing rounds of God's grace, which is part of the reason we need church gatherings, worship songs, sermons, and small groups—each gives us another exposure to grace.

Conclusion

So Jonah became a recipient of God's grace. He went into the dark, and God was there. He realized God was not done with him, that he would again visit God's temple, and that salvation belongs to the Lord.

If only we could grow in our understanding of God's grace. Like Jonah, we need to know it for ourselves. But, also like Jonah, we need to realize it for others. Grace makes life worth living!

"Grace transforms desolate and bleak plains into rich, green pastures. It changes grit-your-teeth duty into loving, enthusiastic service. It exchanges the tears and guilt of our own failed efforts for the eternal thrill and laughter of freely offered pleasures at the right hand of God. Grace changes everything!" —Chuck Smith, Why Changes Everything[^7]

[^1]: Thiessen, Henry C. 2007. Lectures in Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: William B Eerdmans Publishing.

[^2]: Fitzpatrick, Elyse M., and Jessica Thompson. 2011. Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

[^3]: Hunt, Will. 2019. “What Happens When Humans Spend Too Much Time in the Dark.” Popular Science. February 1, 2019. https://www.popsci.com/sensory-deprivation-effects-darkness/.

[^4]: Keller, Timothy J. 2009. Counterfeit Gods. Dutton Books.

[^5]: Bridges, Jerry. 2006. The Discipline of Grace Study Guide: God’s Role and Our Role in the Pursuit of Holiness. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress.

[^6]: McRaven, William H. 2017. Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life... And Maybe the World. London, England: Grand Central Publishing.

[^7]: Smith, Chuck. 2008. Why Grace Changes Everything. Word for Today.