WHEN GOD LETS YOU SINK (2 OF 8)
by Ross Lester
Scripture: Jonah 2:1-10
This content is part of a series.
When God Lets You Sink (2 of 8)
Series: Jonah
Ross Lester
Jonah 2
Intro:
Howdie. Good to see y'all.
Won't your turn in your bibles to the book of Jonah? We are in the second week of an 8-week study through this action-packed narrative, so familiar and yet so profoundly strange to our sensibilities. Why is it strange?
- It's strange because the good guy is a bad guy and a good guy. While most books of the prophets tell of how God used a prophet to speak to his people, this narrative seems to tell us primarily how God speaks to a prophet by using a people. We love clear-cut characters, but I love how the bible lets even its heroes reveal their faults. Jonah is a great prophet, and he is a rebel. He clearly says yes to God is many areas and is simultaneously capable of saying no to God in other areas. I am grateful that the Scriptures are honest enough to reveal that.
- It's strange because it is miraculous. We don't really know what to do with a God who interrupts what we really perceive to be a closed natural order and system. We covered this last week and so I won't get into it again, but I will briefly say it again as many of you might not have been here, and because it is important to note. To be Christian is to believe in a God who interrupts and intercepts laws of nature because he wrote them and upholds them. Without the miraculous we have a very short and extremely hopeless book.
- It's strange because it reveals a God who loves people that we hate, and forgives people that we loathe, and reaches after people we avoid. It is a seriously disorienting tale of grace. Grace is supposed to be disorienting, otherwise we probably aren't believing it right.
This is a story about God chasing down rebels with that grace - as described in the central statement of the book - "Salvation belongs to the Lord!" That's the big idea.
Okay, remember where we were with Jonah? He was in outright rebellion, running from God and his call on his life to b ...
Series: Jonah
Ross Lester
Jonah 2
Intro:
Howdie. Good to see y'all.
Won't your turn in your bibles to the book of Jonah? We are in the second week of an 8-week study through this action-packed narrative, so familiar and yet so profoundly strange to our sensibilities. Why is it strange?
- It's strange because the good guy is a bad guy and a good guy. While most books of the prophets tell of how God used a prophet to speak to his people, this narrative seems to tell us primarily how God speaks to a prophet by using a people. We love clear-cut characters, but I love how the bible lets even its heroes reveal their faults. Jonah is a great prophet, and he is a rebel. He clearly says yes to God is many areas and is simultaneously capable of saying no to God in other areas. I am grateful that the Scriptures are honest enough to reveal that.
- It's strange because it is miraculous. We don't really know what to do with a God who interrupts what we really perceive to be a closed natural order and system. We covered this last week and so I won't get into it again, but I will briefly say it again as many of you might not have been here, and because it is important to note. To be Christian is to believe in a God who interrupts and intercepts laws of nature because he wrote them and upholds them. Without the miraculous we have a very short and extremely hopeless book.
- It's strange because it reveals a God who loves people that we hate, and forgives people that we loathe, and reaches after people we avoid. It is a seriously disorienting tale of grace. Grace is supposed to be disorienting, otherwise we probably aren't believing it right.
This is a story about God chasing down rebels with that grace - as described in the central statement of the book - "Salvation belongs to the Lord!" That's the big idea.
Okay, remember where we were with Jonah? He was in outright rebellion, running from God and his call on his life to b ...
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