Jonah 1:3
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soil from this morning. Good, fertile, fruitful soil to receive your word tonight from Jonah. We pray all of this in the name of Jesus, our Savior and Redeemer. Amen. God's word is brought to us tonight from Jonah chapter 1 verse 3 by one of our elders here at Third Avenue, Nathan Whitmore. I was about 10 years old the last time that I ran away from home.
I had a backpack, and it was idiotically stuffed with the silly things that a 10-year-old thought that he needed to survive on his own. It was nighttime. It was just cold enough to feel serious. It was the kind of night where everything feels bigger than it is. We lived in a small woods, no streetlights. The houses in the neighborhood were spread pretty far apart.
If you left the woods in any direction, about a quarter of a mile, then you encountered cornfields and then more woods, and in one direction a state park. In my mind, I wasn't just leaving home. I was disappearing. So I stepped out the door, and I didn't look back. And I walked, and I walked. Every sound felt loud. Every shadow seemed dark. And I walked some more.
And eventually, I sat down on this little hillside. Behind me, there were three great pine trees towering with their tips touching the inky black night sky. To my left, there was a little creek. And beyond that, a steep hill rose, thick with trees and dark. And to my right, there was just a small hill that was just dotted with trees. And in front of me, looking back the way I'd just come, was an open expanse, moonlit, about 150 feet wide.
And just beyond that 150 feet, there was my mom. In the window of our house, I could see her doing the dishes. All that dramatic effort, and I'd made it across the side yard. That was it. That was my great escape. And like many runaway stories, after about 20 minutes, I went back inside. I don't know that anyone knew I was gone.
My running was ineffectual and dumb. and so was Jonah's. He went a lot further than I did that night 35 years ago, and it was a much more dramatic run, but it was just as ineffective as my run was. Let's take a look at our text for tonight. It's on the front of your bulletin. Jonah 1.3. But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish.
So he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord. Here's what I want to convince you of tonight from this short snippet in Jonah. Don't run from the Lord. Run to him in trust and faithfulness. That's my two points for tonight. Don't run from the Lord, number one, and run to him in trust and faithfulness, number two.
So point one, don't run from the Lord. Why was Jonah running? Our verse tells us that he was, but it doesn't tell us why he was running. If we look back one verse into verse two, at least there we find out what he was running from. It says that the Lord had called him to go to Nineveh and call out against it, for their evil ways had come up before the Lord. That's what he was running from, but it still doesn't tell us why.
We found out why a few chapters later, actually, after most of the action of the story, after most of this story that, to most of us, is familiar. We find out why after Jonah's flight. We found out why after the storm on the boat. We find out why after he'd finally admitted to the sailors on the boat that he was the reason for the storm. After they'd thrown him overboard. After the great fish swallows him up. after three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, after his lackluster turnaround, after the fish vomits him out and after he finally obeys and goes to Nineveh and preaches against them.
And after, surprisingly, Nineveh's repentance. They respond to the message and they repent. And then in chapter four, we find out why Jonah had run in the first place. He said to God, he said, you see, this is what I said would happen. That's why I fled. Because I knew that you were a gracious God, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, relenting from disaster.
He was running because he resented God's grace. He rejected God's purposes, he forgot his own salvation, and he resented God's grace. And I want to look with you tonight at three things that characterize Jonah's flight. So here in chapter 1, verse 3, he's fleeing from the Lord. I want to look at three things that characterize his flight. Number one, it's foolish. Number two, it's dangerous. Number three, it's joyless.
It's foolish, it's dangerous, and it's joyless. So first, Jonah's flight was foolish. When Jonah ran, where did he go? Where did he get to? Was he really getting away from God? Was he any further outside of God's reach or his grasp? When he went down to Joppa, when he got on that boat, when he went into the bowels of the boat, was he the tiniest bit further removed from God's dominion or God's sovereignty or God's sight.
And what did he think was going to happen? Did he think that he could thwart God's purposes? Did he think that by simply saying no to God, he could thwart the Lord's purposes? No. Wherever Jonah went, God was there and God saw. And not only that, God was still in control and he was appointing all things. He was the one, for goodness sake, he was the one who'd made the seas, he was the one who'd made the skies, he was the one who made the creatures of the deep. Jonah was not outside of God's presence or his sight or his sovereignty. It was the Lord who appointed the storm and the great fish. There was nowhere Jonah could run from the presence of the Lord. So his flight was, at root, simply foolish. It was silly.
And I want to tell you tonight, don't run from the Lord. It's foolish. You can't outrun him. Jonah's fleeing from the Lord was also dangerous. The sea, the storm, the near-drowning, living for three days inside the belly of a great fish, it was physically dangerous for Jonah. But Christian, running from the Lord is dangerous for you too. When we do it, when we run from the Lord, our heart is slowly twisted into a position of considering ourselves in God's place, and the human heart makes a bad God. It makes an awful God. And we forget, like Jonah did, that we were a recipient of mercy too. And it begins to oftentimes slowly harden our hearts. It brings temporal judgment, and it impairs our graces and comforts.
So Christian, don't run from the Lord because it's dangerous for your soul. Some of you tonight might not consider yourself to be a Christian, but running from the Lord is dangerous for your soul too. God's first call to you is to bend your knee in repentance and faith to his son, Jesus. We've sung about that tonight. For Jesus bled and suffered for my pardon, and he was raised to overthrow the grave. To this I hold, my sin has been defeated. The chains are released. I am free. You need that from the Lord. That's your greatest need because of your sin. You've sinned against the Lord. He's the one who made you. He's the one to whom you'll have to give an answer one day.
He's the God who has a right to judge you and you need salvation from his hand and it's offered at Jesus' outstretched hand but it won't be offered forever. Don't delay in accepting it because you're not promised tomorrow. Running from the Lord is dangerous. Running from the Lord is also joyless. Jonah's flight was foolish and dangerous, and it was joyless.
It was a defiant descent into darkness and despair. To the ancient Israelites, the sea was a metaphor for chaos and darkness and destruction. And there he is on the sea, running from the Lord. He's in a storm. You can imagine the skies darkening around him as that storm hits. Not only that, as the storm hits, where is Jonah? Weirdly, he's in the bowels of the ship, in the darkness, sleeping.
And then he's thrown into the bowels of the sea. And then he's quite literally in the bowels of a fish. He resented God's grace. He forgot that he was a recipient of it in the first place. He forgot that he was desperately, at every moment, even when he didn't consider himself to be, He forgot that he was desperately dependent on God's grace himself. And that grace should have prompted gratitude in Jonah. It should have been put you to your knees, heartfelt gratefulness, thanksgiving to God.
But instead, he finds himself asleep on a dangerous sea with pagan soldiers going to a pagan town separated from the covenant people of God. there's narrowness and bitterness and joylessness in rejecting God's grace or taking it for granted. Don't run from the Lord. Point two, instead, run to him in trust and faithfulness.
When I walked back inside that night 35 years ago, I walked into a great reversal of Jonah's flight. Whatever silly thing I was angry about, and I'm sure it was silly, it paled in comparison to the wisdom of God-given parental authority and care for me as a 10-year-old or 11-year-old. It paled in comparison to the safety of my parents' home and to the joy of my parents' home.
And there I was thinking that I would give it all up instead of taking contentedly what the Lord had sent to me. We all still kind of do that, don't we? I guess in a way, at 10 or 11, it wasn't the last time that I tried to run. Spiritually, we're all tempted to behave like Jonah sometimes. And so often for Christians, slipping into Jonah-like foolishness and danger, it happens because we're either rejecting God's good design or we're rejecting something we're clearly called to in Scripture.
You don't want to forgive that brother or sister because of what they've done to you. You respond harshly over and over to your spouse at just a perceived slight. you think that the ends justify the means when really you're just being a jerk online about your position or you refuse to submit to authority because you think that you stand in judgment over it or a thousand other things that we do and bit by bit it becomes more and more commonplace to you to turn your back on the Lord's commands even if not a 180 but you turn your back just a little bit on the Lord's commands We slip into Jonah-like foolishness and danger, and we're tempted to run from the Lord or reject his grace, reject his goodness, reject his good design.
What does the flip side of this look like? It can be easy to think that faithfulness is something dramatic or radical day by day, Something that's beyond our ability to do. But friends, sometimes running after the Lord is just taking that next plodding step of faithfulness. Pick up your Bible with the expectation that God will speak to you. Pick up the phone or open your email with the expectation that that relationship can be restored or reconciled.
Kids, pick up your socks. With a smile and joyful obedience to your mom. And these plodding steps of faithfulness, do them in community. Not like Jonah did by absenting yourself from the people of God. Revel in God's grace and let it spur you on to further trust and faithfulness. There's a chaotic, stormy sea outside of God's grace, but there's great joy and freedom and rest when you receive it and when you rejoice in it and when you extend it.
And that gives hope when life is hard and when the battle seems long. That gives hope in the slog, in the muck and the mire of our fight against sin as Christians, and it brings glory to God, which then in turn illuminates even the darkest of life's valleys. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we look at this story of Jonah, would you make us more and more into people who hear your word, who receive it, and who obey it? Would you make us more and more into people who love being with your people and who revel in your grace and who rest in it and rejoice in extending it.
We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Brothers and sisters, our last song for the evening is Christ the Sure and Steady Anchor. You'll find it at the back of your bulletin. Let's stand and sing. Christ the sure and steady anchor In the fury of the storm When the winds of doubt blow through me And my sails have all been torn In the sun