Faith | Hope | Love

      Jonah 2:4 “Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight;

yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.’”

We are given a rare glimpse into the life of someone that is going through the process of spiritual transformation. Jonah knew that saving grace and living grace was entirely of the Lord. He experienced this grace and learned very quickly what it really means; Grace is an undeserved gift from an unobligated giver. Basically, something that nobody deserves or could ever earn. Well then, if grace is a gift, what’s the gift that Jesus gave us? Simply this, His life.

So let’s explain verse four. He looks at the temple because he knows that the answer to his problem is in there. To us 21st Century Americans, that doesn’t mean much. But there is something bewildering about it that we’ve got to understand. What he remembers about the Temple is that sin is taken seriously, there must be a punishment, so blood is shed as a consequence of sin. But it’s not the sinner’s blood.

This is perhaps the most life-changing truth taught in the astonishing true story of Jonah. See, God cannot overlook or dismiss sin. He never has and He never will. But He does not deal with it according to the justice system we have in mind, where he punishes sinners until they’ve paid in full. He chooses to forgive the sinner by punishing his innocent Son.

But wait, there is an amazing parallel here that we won’t see at first, so we’ve got to dig in a little more to understand this. Like we said earlier, Jonah is a picture of us, but he is also a picture of Jesus. See, God sent Jonah to preach repentance to Nineveh, just like Jesus was sent by God to bring repentance to the world. Nineveh was deserving of the wrath of God, just like the world. But neither the world nor Nineveh have received the punishment they deserve. God sent his wrath on Jonah through the storm, just like He sent His wrath on Jesus on the cross. And Jonah spent three days in the belly of the whale, just like Jesus spent three days in the grave.

When they both came back, they brought revival through repentance to Nineveh and the world. Jonah suffered for Nineveh’s salvation and Jesus suffered for ours. So when Jonah looked toward the temple, he was thinking about the sacrifices that had been made for him, and the ultimate sacrifice that would be made for us. He was looking to Jesus. The one who gave His life. The one who deserves our obedient love.

Jonah shows us that Jesus dying on the cross in our place is the greatest gift we would ever receive. And once Jonah became emotionally available to God’s grace, he understood the process of receiving that grace through faith.

So grace is a gift offered by Jesus that we can only receive with faith. What then is faith? Faith is a dependence, a trust, in anything at all. I have faith that a grandé white mocha latte with a pump of peppermint will quench my desire for deliciousness. I also have faith that Jesus dying on the cross is enough to pay for my sins and provide forgiveness and redemption for me.

Jonah’s looking toward the Temple helps us to understand the process by which God works in our hearts to bring about spiritual change. Grace is God offering the gift of eternal life. Faith is us receiving that gift by putting our trust in Jesus and His death and resurrection.

That’s the process. That’s how we first experience repentance, and how we always will thereafter. We call this The Gospel.

Jonah 2:9 “But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you;

what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord!”

           

There’s a simple truth about repentance written all throughout Scripture that tends to get treated like a secret. I mean, God wrote it in a book and it’s been published throughout the entire world, so it’s really no secret. But it’s often treated like one. Some people don’t like to talk about it because they say it’s too personal, or they’re too embarrassed, or that they don’t completely understand it themselves. But we’re going to unwrap this ‘secret’ to repentance and lay it out on the table for all to see so we can experience a spiritual breakthrough.

Jonah announces while in the fish’s belly that salvation is of the Lord. This is both a confession and an acknowledgement of a lesson learned and it’s really quite astounding. In fact, the entire theme of the Bible can be summed up in that statement, “Salvation belongs to the Lord.”

See, there are different people in the world and they have different beliefs about salvation. There are the Rebellious People, who defiantly say, “I do not need salvation.” Next are the Religious people, who stubbornly say “Salvation is of me.” Then there are the Repentant people, who humbly say, “Salvation is of the Lord”

Until you come to the realization that salvation belongs to the Lord, you cannot and will not experience spiritual breakthrough. That is true for people just coming into a relationship with Christ today for the first time, but it is also true for people that have already started a relationship with Jesus but desire a deeper spiritual breakthrough. And, by the way, everybody falls into one of these two categories: those in need of salvation today, and those in need of a spiritual breakthrough.

Both types of people cannot come to the realization that salvation belongs to the Lord on their own, however. It first requires God extending an invitation to them. He says, “Come and know me.” That is called grace. We can only respond to the invitation and start a relationship with Him. That is called faith.

So the first type of people accept God’s grace by faith. Let’s call that saving faith. The second type who have already accepted God’s grace continue in their faith. That’s called living faith.

So are you ready for the secret? Here it is in one sentence:

Grace is not just the way you have your first encounter with God, but how you have every encounter with God.

Accepting God’s grace through faith is how you are going to have a spiritual breakthrough. If you depend on your works to make you better, if you depend on your knowledge to get you closer to God, if you depend on your talent to do great things, you won’t make it. We have only one thing to depend on and that’s God’s grace.

But that’s just it. So many of us so many times rely on ourselves for our spirituality. “If I just read my Bible more I would be more spiritual.” But we have to have a change of mind; a change of dependence. And that’s exactly what repentance is. The word ‘repent’ literally means “to change one’s mind.” The question then is, “What do I need to change my mind about?” In this case, to have a spiritual breakthrough, we have to change our mind about who we depend on.

When I was teen, my friend showed me what it means to be dependent on the wrong thing. We had gone to spend the weekend at his grandparents’ cabin with his family. One day we were exploring down by the river, and we found this giant branch sticking out over the water about three stories high. So my friend says, “Hey! Let’s make a rope swing!” So he goes and gets a dog leash, he climbs the branch, ties the leash up, but realizes it’s too thin to hold on to. So he does the logical thing and grabs a log and ties it to the other end. Then he says, “Ok, who’s first!?” And the rest of us are like, “Bro, you made it, you have to do the first swing!”

So he climbs up a little and sits on a lower branch for a while trying to work up the courage. And in one awful moment he jumps off the tree trunk and puts all of his weight on this homemade rope swing, depending on it to hold him. But as it tightens, the log rolled, and he slipped. And fell. I’m pretty sure my heart stopped as I watched him plummet to what I felt strongly was his death. He fell about two stories down into about one foot of water with huge rocks underneath. I’m thinking, “Oh my soul! I just witnessed the death of my best friend!” For about two seconds, that felt like two hours, he’s underneath the water, then he bounces up and says, “Well, that didn’t work!” He was lucky to walk away with a small scratch on his knee. Needless to say, nobody else depended on the dog leash rope swing.

If you and I are going to move to a new level of spiritual breakthrough we must change our mind about who we depend on. Are you depending on your own goodness and effort for a spiritual breakthrough? Or are you ready to depend on God’s grace to give you a breakthrough? You’ll be launched to new heights with barely enough time to hang on when you let go and let God.

But how does Jesus give us His grace? I mean, what in the world is grace anyway? Next month, I’ll answer the question; What is the process by which Jesus gives us His grace?

RUN

Pt. 5 The Cure for Running

           

Jonah 1:15-17 “So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. ¹⁶Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.

¹⁷And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.”

At first, if you’re like me, your thought is of the terrible consequences. “God punishes those who run from Him!” After all, He created a storm and a giant, awful fish to eat Jonah. But here is the amazing truth, and you have to get this.

The storm wasn’t just Jonah’s punishment, it was really Jonah’s salvation. Hear me out. The storm was raging and Jonah accepted the fact that this was God’s wrath being sent to him. So he decided that there was no more running. He stopped running, he turned and faced God and the storm, and he dove into the waves of his consequences. But just below the storm (the wrath of God) lay a fish prepared by God (salvation). It was when Jonah had no other choice that he plunged himself, by faith, into the wrath of God fully expecting death, that he actually experienced the Lord’s salvation.

Now here’s the deal, God hasn’t really changed. The way He dealt with Jonah is how He is still dealing with us. I mean not with a big fish, of course, but the same principles. We run from God, and His wrath is sent towards us. But instead of us receiving the wrath when we stop running, we receive grace and forgiveness. Isn’t that the story of the cross? God’s wrath is poured out on the world. But Jesus steps in and takes the wrath upon Himself, so all that’s left for us is salvation. In the end, what we believe to be an ocean of God’s wrath turns out to be an ocean of forgiveness and acceptance.

Jesus taking God’s wrath was the most extreme act of love the world has ever seen. It has provided us an escape. But the escape is only through Jesus; by putting our trust in Him and what He did for us. We dive into Jesus, who took the wrath of God, and we receive salvation. And not just salvation from God’s wrath, but salvation from our own rebellion as well. The cure for your running always has been and always will be Jesus’ love. So stop running. When you turn and face the consequences of your sin, you will escape the punishment. You will embrace His love and you will live.

About two years ago I went to the funeral of a man I don’t know. The grandpa of two sisters in our student ministry was honored and remembered at this funeral. As I sat in the service, they had several family members and friends stand up to talk about Robert. It was made apparent from the very beginning that Robert was a good man. He loved God, he loved his family, and he loved his friends. As I looked around the auditorium I was impressed to see how many people came to remember Robert. He had lived a life that was impactful. He served in the church, he served in the city, he served in his family, and his life influenced many people, and they had all come to the funeral to honor his memory.

But as the service went on, the Pastor said something that struck me. He said, “We’re not here to make Robert out to look like he was perfect, because he had his flaws.” These girls’ Papaw had times in his own life when he ran from God. But here’s the thing that made him such a good man. In those times that he ran from God, it wasn’t long before he would stop, turn to face Jesus, and make the courageous decision to dive into the ocean of God’s wrath only to find it to be an ocean of His love.

I know you’re not perfect. But Jesus’s grace says you don’t need to be. His grace simply says, “Stop running. I lived perfectly FOR you. I took the wrath FOR you.” So let me ask you a question; When your time has come, and the funeral is yours, will people remember you as a good man or woman who loved God and loved people? I know you’ve already sinned, you’ve already messed up, and maybe your reputation right now is pretty lousy. But listen; that can change. You can be remembered as a man or woman who glorified Jesus if you stop running from God, face the consequences, and live in grace. If you want that, your only hope is in Jesus Christ.