This morning we continue our series of messages on the Book of Jonah, "Lessons from a Man who Ran." Last week we discovered that the key theme about the story of Jonah was that he was a man who ran from God. Because he was someone who ran from God, each of us can identify with that because we are people who, in our own way, have run from God. It may be that you spent your whole life running from God or maybe you have run from God in only one area of your life. You have put God in the rearview mirror in your business, your marriage, your friends, your lifestyle—God is just not in front of you but behind you in those things and you are running. Everybody has been a runner, is a runner or will be a runner.

The lesson we discovered last week from Jonah 1 was that the only place you go when you run from God is a dead end. We found out that running seems like an option when we feel like God has pushed us to the limits of our understanding. We also saw that when we run it only allows God the opportunity to demonstrate his endless possibilities to bring us back. The third thing we looked at was that our dead end really becomes our only way out. Remember we said that the "fish" that can swallow us is an event, circumstance or period of time that God uses to break our resistance and turn back to him.

Perhaps this week you have thought about being a runner and God has made it obvious to you that you can’t outrun him. What do you do? Will God want you back into a relationship with him? What I want us to see this morning is that God is always waiting for us to run to him when we give up running from him. That’s what Jonah 2:1-10 teaches us. Jonah recognizes not only that he has run from God but also now, in the belly of the fish, he makes a choice to run to God and when he does, his testimony is that God was waiting for him the whole time.

Jonah 2:1-10 is a song or a poem that Jonah wrote after he was freed from the fish. It is a reflection of how he felt as he was thrown into the sea to die, sank to the bottom and then was saved by the fish. His reflection doesn’t get into any of the details about being in the fish but about his longing to be in a right relationship with God. What he sees or understands once he is out is that the fish was God’s way of giving him a second chance. As painful, disgusting and frightening as it was, he could now look back and say: "That was God!"

So today you are someone who realizes that you have run from God in some one area or maybe with your whole life or this time in your life. You wonder where do you start trying to run to God. How do you get back? Well running to God when you have run from God begins with faith that is real. (Jonah 2:1-4). When Jonah 2:1-2 says, "Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from inside the fish. He said, "I cried out to the Lord in my great trouble, and he answered me. I called to you from the world of the dead, and Lord, you heard me!" Jonah prays to God in the belly of the fish. He says he "cried out to the Lord" and "called to you" in his "trouble" and when he saw himself as good as dead. What Jonah realizes is that God was waiting to answer him once he started praying. He says that God "answered" and "Heard" him. God wasn’t standing back with his arms folded mocking Jonah’s cry for help but willing to say, "What can I do to help?"

Then in verses 3 and 4 he says that God was involved in the circumstances that put him in this place to start with. He said, "You threw me into the ocean…" and as a result "you have driven me from your presence…." (v. 3a and 4a). Jonah is saying that God was the cause of his being in the bottom of the ocean but the effect was that he was as far away from God as he could possibly be. The word he uses for "driven" is the word "banished" and it meant being removed from God’s presence and relationship with him without any hope of return. Jonah is physically and spiritually as far away from God as he could possibly imagine.

But look at the last part of verse 4 in the NASV. It says, "Nevertheless, I will look again toward your holy temple." Jonah is saying, "I may be as far away from God as I can possibly dream but in spite of all that, "nevertheless" I am going to believe that I can come back to a full relationship with him. I love that word "nevertheless"! In spite of what he has done and where he is, he is confident he is going to get out of this and be in a place where he can reconnect with God!

It takes a huge amount of faith, courageous faith, real faith, to say when you are experiencing the full effects of the consequences of your running from God, "Nevertheless, I’m going to reconnect with God." That is where running to God starts. It starts with real faith that dares to believe that God will answer you when you pray in the very middle of the mess that you are in. The good news is that God is not like us! We want to say to people who have walked away from God, "I told you so! Don’t come whining to me! You made your bed so you can lie in it!" No, God is waiting anxiously for you to raise your broken heart and scared life and say, "Nevertheless, I am going back." Friends, that is where your return begins. Right where you are. All that God is trying to do is bring you back, not pay you back and when you say, "Nevertheless…" That is real, gutsy, gritty faith. He says, "That’s all I’ve been waiting to hear!"

Running to God when you have run from God begins with faith that is real. Yet running to God when you have run from God also has a focus that is clear. (Jonah 2:5-7). In verse 5 through the first part of verse 6 Jonah describes the realities of what has happened to him. He describes himself going down, lower and lower into the depths of the ocean. He remembers how the seaweed wrapped around his head and he hit the bottom where "the roots of the mountains" are located. Then he says in the rest of verse 6 that where he is is again the result of God’s actions because he was "locked out of life and imprisoned in the land of the dead." God has allowed him to feel the full effects of his own choice. He felt as though God had locked him in jail and thrown away the key!

But look at verse 7, " While I was fainting away, I remembered the Lord; And my prayer came to Thee, Into Thy holy temple." While he is seemingly the farthest from God, locked out of any hope of connecting with God, his focus is on the location that was the closest physical place to God he could imagine: the Temple in Jerusalem. In the middle of the most desperate circumstance he could imagine, when all hope for life was gone, he made his focus clear: the Temple in Jerusalem. I like the way the NASV says it: "And my prayer came to you into your holy temple." It’s as if he is aiming the focus of his prayer from the bottom of the sea to the very center of the temple.

The "Temple" was a primary focus for Jonah. He mentions it in verse 4 and verse 7. You wonder what he had experienced there before when he was obedient to God. It obviously had great meaning for him and was a place where he had connected with God. It was a focal point to remember when he felt the farthest from God that drew him back to God. It was the focus of his faith again when he was the farthest from God that was possible. Just like the Prodigal Son in Luke 15 thought of home, so Jonah thought of the Temple. It was the focus of his faith.

I told you that I was a runner from God from ages 15-19. I stopped running in June of 1973. I needed a focus. The only thing I knew to do was to go back to Second Baptist Church in Hot Springs. I remember the first time I came back after years of being away. I sat on the back pew and they sang "Saved, Saved, Saved" and maybe for the first time that song meant something to me and I sang, smiled and cried all at the same time. My head was full of Led Zepplin but my heart wanted more.

The first thing that usually goes when you run from God is the church. Whatever it used to mean to you, it doesn’t any more. You have all kinds of reasons why you dropped out or you are thinking about dropping out. If I am to blame, then I’m sorry and I ask you to forgive me. If someone else is to blame, then I’m sorry and we need to make it right. It may not be that this place needs to be the focus of your returning to God but I can tell you this, it will need to be some place with someone, if you are going to have a clear focus. When I was running I blamed the preacher, the music minister, the youth minister, my Sunday School teacher – on and on. Yet when I quit running it was the church that I ran to for my focus. I’ll admit they didn’t know what to do with me and I found a group of people who did, but I needed the focus, the clear focus on something and someone other than myself.

Today I’m telling you that you need a place where other runners gather. If it is not here, then find your focus somewhere else. Just remember that you may blame me or anyone else here for something but we are not the ones who have made you run. That was your choice and it is still your choice if you are going to find a focus that is clear. Jay Farrar, a current songwriter, says, "You better find a focus before you’re out of the picture." I’m saying to you that where you are is the farthest place away from God you need to be and it’s time to get a focus that is clear. Running to God when you have run from God has a focus that is clear.

Running to God when you have run from God begins with faith that is real and a focus that is clear. One more thing is true and that is that running to God when you have run from God receives grace that is unconditional. (Jonah 2:8-10) One of the things that are not hard to pick up in verse 8 is that Jonah is both speaking the truth about those who worship idols or false Gods that they "turn their back on God’s mercies." You want to say to Jonah, "Ah, excuse me but aren’t you still in the belly of the fish? Aren’t you a little full of yourself to be saying how somebody else has failed God when you are the prime target of this whole story?" It is just a reminder that even when a runner stops running they aren’t perfect and can still have an attitude.

Yet what Jonah is saying is true: A person who runs from God or tries to substitute something else for God is running from God’s provision and protection. Jonah says that they "turn their back on all God’s mercies." That word "mercies" is the Hebrew word "hesed," which is God’s pursuing love for his children. When we run from God we cut ourselves off from his mercies, his pursuing love, his unconditional grace. All that God wants to give you and show you and provide for you you have turned your back on and you placed yourself out from under his provision and his protection. As a result, God has let you be scared from the consequences of your choice. At the same time, when we run to God it places us in the center of protection and provision. We run right into his unconditional grace, his pursuing love for us.

Jonah thought all along that by running he could save himself from whatever he thought God was going to do to him. Instead, he finds himself being saved by a huge fish that has swallowed him. From the belly of the fish he says at last what God had wanted to hear: "Salvation comes from the Lord." Whatever it is that you are running to that you think can save you from what God wants to do in your life won’t work. You can’t save yourself because God wants for you to admit, "…My salvation comes from the Lord." Isn’t it time that you realized that and receive his unconditional grace for you? Phillip Yancey said, "Grace means there is nothing I can do to make God love me more, and nothing I can do to make God love me less." God is waiting for you to run to him and receive his unconditional grace.

So today, where are you? Are you ready to give up running? The good news, the great news is that you can’t outrun the boundaries of God’s grace. Jonah was at the bottom of the sea in the belly of the fish and ran to God. He did it with real faith, a clear focus and by receiving unconditional grace. So can you. Do you have the courage to say right where you are, "Nevertheless…" I have faith that God will accept me in spite of how far I ran from him. Will you shift your focus and say, "I’m going to gather with others who have ran and run right to the heart of a relationship with God"? Are you willing to receive his unconditional grace and realize you can’t do this on your own? God is always waiting for us to run to him when we give up running from him.

Here’s something to think about, though, if you decide to keep running: God can’t give you the time back that you have spent running. He loves you so much that he is watching and waiting for us to decide we’ve had enough and we give up running. I’m just asking you today: "Why do you want to run any farther when he is waiting to welcome you back when you run to Him?"

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org