Sermon Transcript
As we connect to this idea of prayer, that we’re asking God to not just bless us and to not just be with us, those are safe prayers that if God was to answer, we wouldn’t even know if he answered those, right? ‘Cause he’s always with us and he’s always doing things. But when you’re facing a mountain and you need God to move a mountain, we need to turn to prayer. And this message today is on the topic of being desperate in prayer, and I want to talk about what that looks like for us. To me, as I think about this idea of prayer, it’s— we need to be reminded to pray at all times.
God wants us to depend upon Him at all times. But I think God is drawn to desperate people. God is drawn to people who are willing to be honest and vulnerable with God about their need. And all throughout Scriptures, we see miracles that happen when a person in faith comes to God and says, I got nowhere else to turn. In fact, I’m not turning to anyone else, I’m turning to You.
That’s a beautiful thing. We think of desperation as being a negative thing, but in Scripture, it’s not. God does miracles when people come to Him in faith and are desperate and say, God, we need You to do something. I think of the early church in the book of Acts, and we read about these miracles, and we say, Why doesn’t God do that now? Well, He does do it now, but sometimes we don’t see those things because, let’s be honest, we’re not as desperate as many of those individuals were who it says they gathered together and they met together all the time to pray and to listen to the apostles’ teaching and to share the breaking of bread together and to worship together.
There was a sense of desperation there, and you read about the miracles in the New Testament and God doing these incredible things, and it was because people were desperate. Maybe you can relate to that idea about being desperate. There’s sometimes when we’re more willing to admit that than at other times. But to be desperate is to say, God, I have no one else. After Jesus fed the 5,000, He started doing some teaching, and people started to leave because His teaching was really, really hard.
And He turned to His disciples saying, what, you’re still here? And Peter said, Lord, where else are we going to go? You have the words of life. And that’s how sometimes we feel when we’re overwhelmed and we’re facing a mountain and we’re facing something insurmountable, and we’ve got to have God move. Sometimes that comes at the end of the process when we’ve exhausted every other option, but it’s always best to turn to God as your first option, as your best option, and to be desperate in prayer.
I don’t know about you, but I want to see God break through. I was honored this weekend to be in the Yosemite area with my son who just returned from Nepal. It’s good to see you, buddy. Tate has been serving the Lord with his buddy Dan over there. Dan’s from Canada, and I love everybody who’s from Canada, and so I love Dan.
Yeah, I do. Yeah, everybody I meet from Canada is awesome. Dan’s awesome. That’s the some sort of algebraic equation. I could probably draw that up on a board.
But I was honored to watch this 6-month sort of graduation ceremony after these students have come back, these young people, from serving God in Nepal, and some were in Thailand, and some were in Lebanon. And we got to watch videos and hear stories.
And it’s just amazing to me to hear how God moved. And I have to believe this because they would say, and I talked to them about it, They were desperate.
When you’re being told that you have this responsibility to share the good news of God with people who may not want anything to do with God, and you don’t know the language necessarily, and you don’t always have a translator, and you’re in places that you don’t know what you’re going to do— and it’s not just there. It was when they were in Oakhurst as well for the first 3 months of their discipleship training. Process in the fall when they’re doing evangelism and outreach and stuff. And it’s like, God, we gotta have you show up.
Talk about desperate people. I think these young people get it. We as adults, as we get a little bit older, our hearts get hard. We don’t want to admit that we’re desperate. We’re desperate people.
And I think God brings about breakthroughs if you’re desperate. If you’re waiting on God to move a particular mountain in your life, I’ve got good news for you. God moves mountains. And if you, in faith, come to Him in desperation, He receives that. That’s a beautiful thing.
Well, sometimes we learn from stories in Scripture about what to do, but sometimes we also learn in stories in Scripture about what not to do. And I’m going to go to a kind of an interesting place to look at this idea of desperation and prayer, because sometimes we’re desperate because of choices that we’ve made. Other times we’re desperate and in difficult situations because of choices other people made that have affected us. And sometimes we’re in desperate situations just because God has placed us there, and He wants to show you how desperate and helpless and needy you are apart from Him. And there’s sort of a combination of all of that going on in this story.
So I’m going to invite you to turn to the book of Jonah. Book of Jonah. As I mention the name Jonah, it would be easy for us to just go, oh, I know that story. And I would say every time I read the story of Jonah— it’s my favorite book in the Bible, which I know sounds strange because it’s like, it’s just about a guy in a fish. It is so much more than that.
It’s just— it is just an amazing book. Oh, and by the way, you can read it in 7 minutes, which I also kind of like, too.
But every time we come to Jonah, it’s tempting to go, oh, I know the end of that. If you’ve seen the movie The Sixth Sense or something like that where you know the ending, you watch the movie different. It’s easy for us to read the story differently because we know how it ends. But the fact of the matter is that Jonah was in over his head. He was in a desperate situation, and yet he responded in the wrong ways.
And then there’s a group of people we’re going to see who were in a desperate situation, and They looked to God, and it was surprising that they looked to God, and God brought about a breakthrough. It’s just a fascinating story. I’m going to be moving around a couple different Scriptures, and so if you have your Bible, that’s awesome. There’s also pew Bibles. I think— I looked earlier.
I think it’s page, if I recall, because I’ve memorized the entire Bible, 654. If you look in the pew Bibles, I believe you’ll find on page 654 the Book of Jonah. And so I’m going to be moving around a lot, but I want to look at 4 decisions that a person who’s facing a mountain, 4 choices that a person who’s in over their head in a desperate situation thinks that we should do. And we’re going to learn what to do and what not to do from Jonah’s example, who, again, was in a desperate situation. Jonah starts off like this in Jonah 1.
The word of the Lord came to Jonah, Son of Amittai, go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because its wickedness has come up before me. Jonah’s being given an assignment. He doesn’t want this assignment. He doesn’t want the assignment because it involves doing something that is out of his comfort zone. It was not something that he was planning to do, and it wasn’t always in a prophet’s job description to actually go and declare a negative message.
It would have been a lot easier to have just posted something on Twitter from a distance, to maybe troll the Ninevites and, you know, the Assyrians, and people from a distance to write an angry letter to the editor or something like that about the Assyrians. But God is saying, I want you to go. I want you to go to the place that you don’t want to go. Why didn’t he want to go? Because the Assyrians were brutal.
The Assyrians and the Ninevites— Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire. They were brutal. They were arrogant. If you think that the Roman Empire, and the Egyptian Empire, and the Babylonian Empire were bad, the Assyrian Empire had them beat in terms of what they did to people that they did not like. You can read about their different torture techniques, and all of these things.
They were incredibly cruel in what they did. And so now, it’s like, hey, Jonah, I want you to go there. Not only that, but they were enemies of Israel. Hey, Jonah, I want you to go to a place you don’t want to go. He’s in over his head.
He’s in a desperate situation. It says, verse 3, but Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord. We already have seen here twice in just the first couple of verses, he’s running.
He’s fleeing. He’s trying to get away from God. All the more desperate. And as the story goes on, you know that he boarded a ship, and God brought about a storm, and the sailors on the ship didn’t know what to do. And so they find Jonah, who is sleeping, and they said, get up and tell us what’s going on here.
And Jonah had already admitted that he was running from God. He openly told them that, and you read about that here in chapter 1. Well, they start praying to their gods. Jonah doesn’t pray, but they start praying to their gods, and they try rowing to shore. Verse 13, instead, the men did their best to row back to land, but they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before.
Then they cried out to the Lord, please, Lord, do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, Lord, have done as you pleased. Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. And at this, the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to Him. Already, there’s a breakthrough that’s happening with a group of people who weren’t even looking for a breakthrough, or they were looking to their gods, I guess, for a breakthrough.
And the true God— notice, by the way, in verses 14 and 15, now they’re using the covenant name of God. Before, they had been going after their gods, lowercase g, and now they’re going after Yahweh Himself. And praying and saying, Lord. That’s the covenant name of God that they are now using. They’ve had a breakthrough.
And God did something supernatural. And we know the rest of the story, that the Lord appointed a fish to come and swallow him up, and he was in the belly of the fish for 3 days and 3 nights, it says there at the end of chapter 1. And then from inside the fish, he prays. I want to point out just a couple things here. That, again, I think are decisions and choices that we can make when we’re in over our head in a desperate situation.
Things that Jonah did and things that he didn’t do as well. The first thing that we see here, and it’s the most obvious, it’s the one that people always point to, and that’s to run to God, not away from God, and to run to God first. When we think about all of our options about what to do when I’m in a desperate situation, I need to consult this person. I need to look this up. I need to spend some time processing this.
No, the first thing we ought to do is run to God.
He actually runs away from God, even though he’s in a desperate situation. The Bible says to be anxious for nothing, but with prayer and petition and thanksgiving to present your requests to God. That should be the first thing that we do. And if you’re in a desperate situation right now and you haven’t yet run to God, Run to God, and run to Him first, above everything else, because He has the comfort, and the wisdom, and the peace that you need. That’s the promise of coming to Him with our prayers, that He will give us a peace that passes all understanding.
And Jonah didn’t have peace about this, even in the midst of this difficult assignment, but he ran. Why don’t we run to God? We sang the song last week. I don’t know if you recall. We were in this room, if you were here.
We sang the song by Third Day, God, I’m running for Your heart. I’m running for Your heart. And I’m sitting over here singing this song last week and thinking, I don’t know that I really mean this song. Have you ever had that experience where you’re singing a song and the words catch up to you saying, I don’t know that I really believe what I’m actually singing here? Because more often than not, I’m running away from God’s heart.
I’m not running to God’s heart. And when I’m in a desperate situation, I’m running away from God’s heart. I’m not running to His heart. And it’s a reminder that God wants us to pursue Him and to run towards Him. And to run away from Him is defiance.
It’s shaking our fist in His face, saying, I’m going to go my own way. Why do we do that? Because of pride. That’s one of the themes of this whole prayer series, is that we so often feel like, I got this. I can do this.
And God wants to put us in an impossible situation, a desperate situation, to show us, no, you ain’t got this. You don’t have this. You can’t do this. He’s able, but because of our pride, we don’t run to Him. We don’t run to Him because we’re afraid of what He’ll tell us to do.
He might tell us to go to our enemy and to do, you know, to take the word of the Lord. He might put us in an uncomfortable situation. His timing is different. We don’t always like His timing, and so therefore, we’re not going to run to Him first. Nevertheless, Jonah runs away from God.
And it’s not like this is a vague order, right? This is pretty specific. It wasn’t sort of up for interpretation. He’s specifically being told what to do here. But he’s like the child who hears something that they don’t want to hear.
And what does that child do? Put their fingers in their ears. La, la, la, la, la. I don’t want to hear. That’s what he’s doing.
That’s what he’s doing. And notice that the process of running from God here— and I think it’s so beautifully put. This is one of the reasons why I love Jonah. It’s a brilliantly written book.
But is that when you run from God, the only direction is down. Do you see this? Verse 3, but Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down. To Joppa.
Look at verse 5. All the sailors were afraid, and each cried out to his own god, and they threw their cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone down below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. There’s a message here that running from God is just spiraling downward. And not only that, but it’s dangerous.
He’s imperiling himself, but he’s also imperiling the sailors because of his bad decisions. They hadn’t done anything wrong, but he’s endangering them. And then also the Ninevites, who God gave Jonah an assignment, and if Jonah didn’t go, who else was going to go? So all of these things are a reminder that running from God may seem safer, it may seem better, you’re not free. When you run from God, you’re not free, and God will pursue you.
To show you how desperate and needy and helpless you are, to show you how great He is. Run to God first in your desperate situation. There’s another lesson that I see here, and it says in the middle of verse 5, but Jonah had gone down below deck where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. The captain went to him and said, how can you sleep? Get up and call on your God.
Maybe He will take notice of us so that we will not perish. Jonah’s asleep at the wheel, and this is a reminder that when you’re in a desperate situation, wake up!
Wake up! Pay attention to what God is doing. There are so many odd and obscure and outlandish things happening here in this story that we notice it, but Jonah wasn’t apparently paying attention to this. He was just oblivious to it. And when you’re really desperate and you’re pursuing God, Sometimes He will allow certain things to happen that there’s no other explanation other than God’s doing it and He’s trying to get your attention.
There’s signs and other people may be able to see it, and it’s hard to see when you’re in the middle of that. The idea of this storm— who brought the storm? It says in verse 4, the Lord was the one who sent the great wind. Not only did the Lord give the word, but the Lord, verse 4, sent a great wind on the sea and a violent storm arose. At the end of chapter 1, it says, the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah.
At the beginning of chapter 3, then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. In chapter 4, when he’s actually out of the fish now at this point, in verses 6, 7, and 8, the Lord God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah. Verse 7, at dawn the next day, God provided a worm. Which chewed the plant so that it withered. Verse 8, when the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint.
Who’s in charge here? Jonah thinks he is, but it’s God, and bringing all these signs and all these indications that he’s just not paying attention to. And it’s as if God’s trying to say, wake up! Pay attention. Don’t miss the good things that God is trying to do here, and that He wants to do a breakthrough.
He wants to bring about something amazing. What about being in this fish? How could— how in the world could a person survive inside a fish except by a miracle from God? And we have these images, you know, if you’ve ever taught children’s Sunday school, you tell the story of Jonah and you see these crazy pictures about— pretty sure it wasn’t exactly like this, where he’s all happy and he’s laying in bed and he’s, you know, he’s in a campfire and he’s, you know, just kind of hanging out here. This would have been an incredibly constricting environment.
It would have felt like he was in a straitjacket for 3 straight days. Think about the smell of just raw fish and old seawater, and who knows what else that’s in there. By this point, his hair would have been bleached because of all the stomach acids of the fish, and, you know, lesions and sores would be breaking out on his skin. His eyes and his lungs would be burning at this point. This isn’t a pleasant experience, and yet God is somehow sustaining him.
Wake up, Jonah. Look at what God is doing here, trying to get your attention. Now, God doesn’t always send a fish. He may do something else, but the point is, is wake up. But what’s so interesting is that even though God was doing all of these things, it says in chapter 2, verse 1, from inside the fish, Jonah prayed to the Lord his God.
Some translations, in fact, your translation may use the word then. Then inside the fish, Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. And that Hebrew word then suggests that it’s possible and probable that Jonah didn’t pray during those 3 days and 3 nights. He prayed at the end of those 3 days and 3 nights. How stubborn is he?
He’s not even paying attention. Now, there’s one other possible explanation. He was dead and God raised him. Back to life. I think that that’s certainly a possibility.
The point is, is that whether he prayed at the end of the 3rd day or at the beginning of the 3rd day, why did he wait so long to turn to God? And this is why we need the people of God to help us to get through desperate times, to help us to connect the dots. Sometimes you can’t see it, but other people can see it, and they can counsel you and guide you through that time to help you to see what God is doing. Don’t miss what God is doing if you’re in a desperate situation. This is— this could be the moment of breakthrough for you.
It could be the moment of breakthrough for somebody else. You can be an agent of breakthrough, that God wants to do something supernatural in somebody else’s life, and He’s put you somewhere, and He’s doing miraculous things. We just have to open up our eyes. It’s very possible God’s trying to get your attention.
Here’s a third lesson. That is a little bit less obvious as you read through this. Look at chapter 2. Jonah’s inside the fish, and he prays. And it says this in verse 2, he said, in my distress, I called to the Lord, and He answered me.
From deep in the realm of the dead, I called for help, and You listened to my cry. You hurled me into the depths, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me. All Your waves and breakers swept over me. Verse 4 of chapter 2. I said, I have been banished from your sight, yet I will look again towards your holy temple.
The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me, seaweed was wrapped around my head. To the roots of the mountains I sank down, the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you, Lord my God, brought my life up from the pit. When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple. Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them.
But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to You. What I have vowed I will make good. I will say salvation comes from the Lord. Sounds a lot like one of the Psalms that you would read from the Book of Psalms.
But there’s something that’s missing here that we don’t often notice. There’s no remorse. For what he’s done. There’s no repentance. There’s no contrition here.
He says in verse 3, you hurled me into the depths, into the very heart of the seas, which God indeed did do that, but it sounds an awful lot like what Adam said to God in the garden. Hey, the woman that you gave me, God, this situation that you’ve allowed me to be in, God, this is all your fault. And it sounds like piety, and it sounds like, you know, a stately prayer, but what we come to see after he’s out of the fish is that his heart is still far from God. And so one of the lessons that we can learn from Jonah about what to do on something he didn’t do is to own your part. To own your part.
When it comes to desperation, we talked a lot about this last week, about contrition and repentance and remorse, and that our prayer is about not focusing on what other people have done to perhaps get you into your situation. God’s after you. He’s after your heart. And Jonah is not owning up to his part at this point. And in fact, if you look even a little bit closer again at verses 8 and 9, those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them.
Who’s he talking about? He’s talking about the sailors that he had just been with because they cling to worthless idols, but Jonah, I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. That doesn’t square up with what we just saw in chapter 1. Jonah’s not actually being truthful here. Who was the one who actually prayed?
Not Jonah. It was the pagan sailors. And who was— who were the ones who were eager to uncover sin? It wasn’t Jonah. And who were the ones who had compassion?
It wasn’t Jonah.
So Jonah here is seeing himself as more superior instead of on a level playing field with the pagan sailors, and he’s making this commitment. And I would argue that he’s still not owning his part. He may be owning a part of it, but he’s not seeing that the reason why he’s in this desperate situation— yes, God allowed it, But it’s also he’s running from God. He’s running from God. And so God’s trying to get his attention here.
But that leads well, I think, into this last point here, that when you’re in over your head, there’s a choice that you can make, and it’s one that I don’t think Jonah made, but it’s an important one to bring out nevertheless, and that is to ask God to change your heart and not just your circumstances. The first place we want to go is to ask God to change our circumstances. God, change my situation here. I don’t like where I am. I don’t like being desperate.
You must not like me to be desperate. It’s not true. God can change your circumstances, but He cares more about your heart. He cares more about my heart. And what we see here is that chapter 3, then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.
Jonah obeyed the Lord, or the word of the Lord, and went to Nineveh. But it’s almost as if he’s just complying and going through the motions in order to avoid God’s discipline. Because look, it says, Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city proclaiming— listen to this 8-word message here— 40 more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.
Like, there’s no hope of good news. There’s no promise of forgiveness. He’s just simply saying, hey, you’re going to be destroyed. Deal with it. In other words, Jonah is more than happy to receive God’s mercy and compassion, but he’s not willing to give it to somebody else, especially not his enemies.
His heart is still far from God. His circumstances may look different, but he’s just going through the motions and complying. And yet, look what happened even through such a lame sermon like that. When Jonah’s warning, verse 6, reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat down in the dust. This is the proclamation issued in Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything.
He’s even proclaiming a fast for the animals. The animals need to repent, apparently. But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence.
Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish. And when God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, He relented and did not bring on them the destruction He had threatened. Jonah’s going to be excited about this, isn’t he? Chapter 4.
But to Jonah, this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? This is why I tried to forestall my fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that You were a gracious and compassionate God. You’re slow to anger.
You’re abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, just take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live. Sounds like his heart hasn’t exactly been transformed. He’s had some surface-level changes in his life. He’s a new person, and he’s grateful for God rescuing him from the fish, but is he really?
Because he’s now asking to die. He’s miserable.
But he doesn’t recognize that he’s miserable not because of the Ninevites, And not because of his circumstances, but because of his depravity and his sinfulness before God. He even questions the character of God. That should be something we rejoice in. God, You’re merciful. You’re loving.
You’re powerful. You can do anything. You can save the unsavable, like the Ninevites. Nobody can save the Ninevites. Well, God can.
And yet, Jonah doesn’t like what God’s doing here, because his heart’s far from Him. And then, a little bit later on, Jonah goes out, verse 5 of chapter 4. And sits down at a place east of the city. And there he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade, and just waited to see what would happen to the city, hoping fireworks and fire and brimstone are going to rain down on them. Verse 6, then the Lord God provided a leafy plant, made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head, to ease his discomfort.
Jonah was very happy about the plant. But at dawn the next day, God provided a worm which chewed the plant so that it withered. And when the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind And the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die. He’s wanting to die again.
And said, it would be better for me to die than to live. But God said to Jonah, is it right for you to be angry about the plant? It is, Jonah said, and I’m so angry I wish I were dead. 3 times in 1 chapter. What’s wrong with you, Jonah?
His heart’s not right with God, and he cares more about plants than he does about people. He cares about— Receiving mercy, but, God, don’t let your compassion and mercy go to anybody else. This may seem like an extreme situation to you, and it’d be easy for us to just look at Jonah and say, I’m glad I’m not like Jonah. But the reality is, is we are all desperate, whether we realize it or not. You may be in a desperate circumstance and situation, but we’re all constantly desperate because of our depravity and the fact that we are broken and sinful and we need God’s help.
Fortunately, God is compassionate. He is merciful, and we see that in his prayer, Jonah’s, inside the fish. But with shouts of grateful praise, I will sacrifice to you, and what I have vowed I will make good. I will say salvation comes from the Lord. He’s right.
Salvation— the word there in Hebrew is Yeshua. It’s the word that reminds us of Jesus’ name. Yeshua is his name. Salvation, rescue, deliverance comes from the Lord. He’s talking about physical salvation, physical deliverance, but more than that, salvation and rescue comes in the form of being freed and forgiven of the penalty of sin.
And the fact is, is we live in a fallen, broken world, and we’re all part of it too, and we’re passing it on to other people too. We’re part of the brokenness, and we need salvation, we need deliverance, we need divine rescue, we need a breakthrough. In our hearts. We need a heart transplant, not just some outpatient cosmetic work. We need something deep within to show us our depravity and our sinfulness and that we are prone to run.
How far away from God do we run? Sometimes pretty far. If you look at the map and you see how far away Jonah was whenever he tried to run from God, he was told to go to Nineveh, which was just 500 miles to the northeast, but instead he said, I’m gonna run as far away as I can possibly run. Instead of to Nineveh, I’m gonna run to Tarshish, which is in modern-day Spain, which is more than 2,300 miles away, which is as far away as could possibly be at that time.
There’s Tarshish up there. Look how far away he’s trying to run. We do that too. God, I don’t want to deal with your Judgment, I don’t want to deal with your discipline. I don’t want to deal with your assignment.
In terms of what the United States looks like, we have, you know, if, say, for instance, you were in Detroit and God told you to go to Washington, D.C., which is 500 miles away, and you decided to go, I’m going to go to San Francisco instead. That’s the equivalent. Or if you were in Los Altos and God told you 500 miles away is Elko, Nevada, and I want you to go, but you, I’m going to go to Honolulu, which some some of us would like. The point is, is we run as far away from God as possible.
That’s just within our nature. We’re all runners. We don’t naturally run to God. We’re prone to wander. We’re prone to leave the God that we love or say that we love.
And we need rescue and we need help to keep us from running and to help us to see that In desperation, God may be allowing you to be in a desperate situation to show you how powerless and helpless you are apart from Him. But thank God He is faithful and just and forgiving and compassionate, and that His mercies never fail. I like this quote that I heard a few years ago. It says this, that though you and I are great sinners, God is a great Savior. And though our sin reaches far, God’s grace reaches farther.
That’s really good news.
And if you’ve never, in your desperation and your depravity and your sinfulness— something we all share in common— if you’ve never asked for rescue and salvation from God from the penalty of sin, you need to receive that. And you just simply, in prayer, Say, God, come into my life, forgive me of my sin, deliver me from the penalty of sin. But also, on top of that, once you’ve made that decision, there will always be the need to be delivered from the power of sin while you’re still here on this earth. You’re made right with God because of what Jesus has done for us on the cross, but the power of sin still has some hold over us, and God wants to deliver us from that. And one day, we’ll be free from the presence of sin.
In heaven, but not yet. And so in that time, our flesh is prone to wander, is prone to run, is prone to depravity, and we need rescue. God is a great Savior. Jonah is a book about the lengths that God goes to show his faithfulness even in desperate times. And what’s amazing to me is people who weren’t even looking for a breakthrough from God experienced it.
The Ninevites experienced a breakthrough. Because they were broken about their own sinfulness. They owned their part. They didn’t run away from it. They didn’t blame other people.
They owned it, and God did something supernatural. The sailors embraced it, and God did something supernatural in their lives. Unfortunately, Jonah missed it, although it’s possible that as his life went on, that God changed his heart because we have the Book of Jonah. We’re assuming that he actually wrote the book. It’s a very unflattering book about himself, and the only reason why you would write these kinds of things about yourself is if God’s changed your heart.
God changes hearts. If you’re in a desperate place right now, that could be the safest place to be right now for you. It could be the best place for you to be right now. Run to God first. Wake up, look at what He’s doing.
Call upon Him and own your part and ask God to change your heart as well as your circumstances. Let’s pray.
God, we thank You for the good and the great news of what You did by sending Your Son Jesus to the earth to rescue us.
And I pray that anyone here that is trusting in any other thing or name or person to save them and to rescue them. I pray that today, Lord, that they would turn from that. Your Word is true that there is salvation in no one else but in Jesus. And He is our rescuer. He is our deliverer.
And I pray that we would turn in faith to You. And beyond that, Lord, I also pray that You would help us as we deal with the power of sin. Sin is not more powerful than You, and You have our hearts in Your hand, and You can turn us back to You. And I pray that as You were faithful to Jonah, as You were faithful in this story, I pray, God, that You would restore to us a soft and a right and a humble heart before You. God, I pray for Your relief and Your comfort and Your help and Your wisdom and Your peace for anyone who’s in a desperate situation, in over their head.
Thank you, God, that when we’re in those moments, we may be on the verge of a breakthrough. We pray for that breakthrough to happen in our faith and in the lives of others around us. Thank you, God. We pray in your Son’s name. Amen.
