The whole sermon, to read
Five Means of Grace in the Storm
The Grace of Suffering and Storms That Empties Us
Now let us look at the Word together. The book of Jonah chapter one, verses four through seventeen.
Next week, I will preach on this same text. Because it would become too long if we did it all at once, today we will look at the grace of God. From Jonah chapter one, verses four through seventeen, I will read one verse and you will read the next.
Then the Lord sent a great storm on the sea. A violent tempest threatened the ship, so that it broke up almost completely.
The sailors were afraid, and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the 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.
The captain approached him and said, How can you sleep? Get up and call out to your god! Perhaps your god will take notice of us, and we will not perish.
Then the sailors said to one another, Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity. So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.
Then they asked him, Tell us, who is responsible for bringing this calamity upon us? What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?
Jonah answered, I am a Hebrew. I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.
They were terrified and said to Jonah, Why have you done this? They knew he was running away from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them so.
The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?
He answered, Pick me up and throw me into the sea, and it will become calm. I know that it is because of me that this great storm has come upon you.
Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder against them.
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 shedding innocent blood. For you, Lord, have done as you pleased.
Then they took Jonah and threw him into the sea, and the raging sea grew calm.
At this, the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.
Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of the fish.
Amen.
Amen. The grace of God. In the passage we read today from Jonah chapter one, verses four through seventeen, we are going to look at five means of grace by which God turns us back to Himself. And next week, through the responses of the sailors and Jonah, we will examine how we can return to the Lord, and what the response of true repentance really is.
You know, these days it seems there are many foreigners who speak Korean very well, but do you know what restaurant sign foreigners say terrifies them when they first learn Korean? Grandmother Bone Hangover Soup. If you read Grandmother Bone Hangover Soup literally, it sounds terrifying, does it not? Yes. But all of us know the truth. We know that soup is not made out of a grandmother's bones. Isn't that right? Yet if you read it word for word literally, it sounds horrific.
Now, why am I bringing this up? Because there are so many people who read the Bible literally like that and end up ruined. They know nothing about the culture, nothing about the context, and even less about the original language. Yet they read it literally, stitch things together on their own, and present it as some kind of new interpretation. Then people say, Wow, I have never heard a message like this before, and that is how so many cults and heresies come about.
The book of Jonah is the very pinnacle of Hebrew literature. We think we know the book of Jonah, but if we are not careful, we can read it just like that Grandmother Bone Soup, if we read it strictly literally. Why is that? If you do not understand the language, the context, and the literary devices that Jonah is using, we will completely miss what this book is saying. We will reduce it to what five-year-old kids in Sunday school say: Oh, Jonah went inside a fish, stayed there, came back to life, and then people repented. Everyone, that is not all there is to it.
What kind of love of God is contained within it? This is a literary work, but at the same time, it is a prophetic book. The heart of God is melted into this literary work. To draw that out, Jonah is projecting the condition of Israel onto himself, telling his own story by portraying himself in a miserable state, almost like a type of Jesus. Through that, we must be able to feel the heart of God.
So as you read the book of Jonah, there is a recurring phrase. We need to listen to it very carefully. In chapter one, verses four through seventeen, there is a word that keeps repeating. Earlier, I mentioned that the repeating word in the previous part was great, gadol. In this section, the repeating word is throw, or hurl. So in verse four, it says that the Lord sent a great wind and created a great storm. When it says the storm came upon the sea, the original meaning is not just that it came down, but that He hurled it, He threw it upon the sea.
And that word throw appears many times, doesn't it? What happens? When the storm rises, what do the pagan sailors throw? In verse five, we see that they cry out to their gods, and to lighten the ship, they throw the cargo into the sea. And then later, what does Jonah tell them to throw? When they ask, What should we do to you? What does he say? In verse twelve, he says, Pick me up and throw me into the sea. You see, this throwing is, so to speak, a literary device. Through this, people are meant to realize, Ah, this is not just happening by chance, but something is unfolding within the great providence of God.
This storm is ultimately an opportunity to throw things out, an opportunity to be emptied. Through suffering, we must throw away the things we have been clinging to. What happened? The Gentiles threw out the cargo inside the ship. And then the Gentiles threw Jonah out. And what is Jonah? The pride of Israel, the greatest prophet, the prophet who was running away from God, the very core of this religion, they threw that out. The God that I believed in, the God that I thought I knew, that has to be cast away.
God's Mercy in the Storm and Childlike Faith
And where did that take place? It happened in the storm, the very storm that God hurled onto the sea. Ultimately, what is this? It is the mercy of God, the mercy of God. God does not merely throw a storm. Later on, we see that He provides a fish. You must understand this clearly. When suffering comes into our lives, it does not happen by accident. It does not just strike us by chance; there is an intention behind it.
Yet we constantly look only for the solution to our suffering, and we try to run to God with that solution in hand. We must ask who sent the suffering, who is controlling it, and if God sent it, whether it is a test, or refining, which are the same thing, a refining test, or training, or if it is because of sin, my own sin or the sin of others. If we can see this, then we must look at God, at God Himself.
In the midst of that suffering, we should not just look at the solution; we must look at God. But to do that, what must we do? We have to throw things out. We have to throw out our possessions. We have to throw out people. We have to give up on ourselves. We must be emptied. Only then can we hear the Word of God, only then can we see the providence of God, and only then can we enter the belly of the fish, into the path of salvation that God has prepared.
Church family, this is mercy. God could have simply wiped Jonah out right then and there, but He pursued him by throwing a storm. Look at how remarkable this is. In verse four, it says a violent tempest threatened the ship. It is almost personified, isn't it? It threatened the ship so that it almost broke apart. What was that ship? It was the safe refuge Jonah had found for himself. God threatens that very refuge. And yet, it does not sink.
You have had many experiences like that in life, haven't you? You feel like you should be completely ruined, but you are not ruined, and you just barely hang on with enough to survive. You feel like you ought to die, but you do not die, and your life just barely clings on. You feel so sick you could die, yet you do not die, and the pain just continues. You are so broke that you ought to go bankrupt, yet you do not go under. Why does this happen? It is just like this ship. The storm threatened the ship so that it was almost destroyed, but it would not sink. If it simply sank, everyone would die. Yet it does not sink. Why is that? Because it is a storm sent by God.
That is why this is mercy, pure mercy. This is God's first opportunity for repentance, causing us to abandon what is ours and realize who God is. That is why they had to throw out the cargo. What did they throw? To lighten the ship, they threw all the cargo into the sea. What was this cargo? This was a merchant ship sailing to Tarshish, what we would call an international flight today. Think of how many precious treasures and goods were on board. All of it had to be abandoned. The wealth I possessed, my efforts, my achievements, my hopes, all of these must be discarded.
And then Jonah had to be lifted up and thrown into the sea. The pride of Israel, which is the self. We must discard our religious ego. That is why we must look to God. We must hold onto God in the midst of this storm to find the solution. We have to realize that this storm was sent by God, but because we fail to see that it comes from Him, we keep trying only to fix the problem.
Jesus said that unless you become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven, didn't He? Yes. Yet in Hebrews chapter five, the Bible also tells us to leave behind childish faith. What is the difference between childish faith and childlike faith? Childish faith means that I already have my own answer, and I throw a tantrum demanding that God give me my answer. You have raised children, so you know this, right? Little babies constantly throw tantrums for what they want right at that moment. They demand to have it. Even when it is not time to eat, even when they should not do it, even when it is dangerous, they keep insisting on going there. They insist on crossing the street.
My grandchild will reach that stage soon enough. Everyone goes through it. That is what childishness is. It is throwing a tantrum in prayer, a tantrum in faith. Bowing and begging, just as Jesus said, this is what the Gentiles seek after.
On the other hand, childlike faith, the faith that Jesus praised, simply trusts God. It trusts Him because God is God. It does not seek its own solutions. It does not demand its own answers. It trusts in who He is. Why? Because He is God. Because He is our Father. Because He is our Shepherd. Because He is our Lord, it trusts in His character.
This is what childlike faith is. It trusts His person. It does not trust in its own solutions, nor does it merely trust in its own faith, but it trusts in God Himself.
Look at this. As the story unfolds, the Gentiles come to realize who God is. That is why they are filled with great fear. Through this storm, the Gentiles encounter God. But Jonah, even though he proclaimed that he knew God and was a great prophet of God, actually rejected God. Let us talk about that. We will explore it more next week, but this is the first grace: realizing that if the storm and suffering coming into my life are sent by God, they might be happening for my sake. Or it might be a natural phenomenon sent by God. Or it might be something sent by God to deal with my sin, or because of human sin and corruption. You become able to discern this. It is not that you figure it out on your own, but when you meet God, that discernment comes to you.
The Grace of God Speaking Indirectly Through Gentiles
The second grace is that after this emptying takes place, Jonah, who was fast asleep, is awakened. He was in a spiritual sleep. Living under the illusion that he was safe, he is awakened, and the way it happens is truly astonishing. Shall we read verse six together? Verse six.
The captain approached him and said, How can you sleep? Get up and call out to your god! Perhaps your god will take notice of us, and we will not perish.
Church family, there is a clear reason why the book of Jonah records this conversation between the captain, the sailors, and Jonah. Why is that? It is to help us realize the grace of God. The storm has been hurled, the ship is breaking apart, and they have thrown out the cargo to lighten the load, yet it will not sink. And then the captain comes. I do not know why he came, especially when he must have been frantic just trying to survive, but he came all the way down to the bottom of the ship to wake up Jonah.
And what does he say? He says, Get up and call out to your god! Call out to your god! But you know, when you hear those words, if you were Jonah, how would you feel? Chills ought to run down your spine. Why? Who originally spoke those very words? Arise, go and cry out! Who said that? God did! In chapter one, verse two, God said to Jonah, Arise, go immediately and cry out, for their great wickedness has come up before Me! It is the exact same Hebrew word. It is the identical expression, the exact same Hebrew vocabulary. It is the very same command.
Isn't that right? Yet from whose mouth did those words just come? They came from the mouth of the captain. It was strange enough that he came to wake the sleeping Jonah, but instead of saying, What are you doing? Hurry up and help us! Help us manage this cargo and save the ship! Help us out!, he tells him to seek God. A Gentile tells him to seek his own god.
When Jonah rejected the direct Word that came from the mouth of God, the very words he tried to escape were now spoken through the mouth of a pagan captain who knew nothing. Amen? Everyone, this is an incredible gospel message. Ultimately, the book of Jonah is a book of prophecy aimed at Israel. God's Word is given to the Gentiles, and the Gentiles are used to awaken Israel with the Word of God. We are the ones receiving that Word right now. That might be taking the thought a bit far ahead, but that is the reality.
This pagan captain tells Jonah, Arise, seek your God, and cry out to Him. God uses the voice of a Gentile to bring His own Word back to mind. First, it was the very mission Jonah had tried to avoid, to arise and cry out. And second, although Jonah had received a message proclaiming judgment upon the Gentile city of Nineveh, words asking for God's mercy now come from the mouth of a Gentile.
The message Jonah had received was that the Gentiles must be judged. Yet what this Gentile says to Jonah, the great prophet of Israel, is, Seek mercy. Who knows? Perhaps God will consider us so that we will not perish. Do you remember who else said this? Who said these exact words? In chapter three, the king of Nineveh says the exact same thing to the people of Nineveh. Do you see now? Do you see why the book of Jonah is such a brilliant literary masterpiece? This is a deliberate device.
What does the king of Nineveh say? As he urges the people to repent, he says, Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from His fierce anger, so that we will not perish. Cry out! Repent! A Gentile is asking for the mercy of God. While the Jews, while Jonah, the great prophet of Israel, runs away to escape it, fleeing because he hates the thought of Gentiles receiving God's mercy, the Gentile is the one saying that they must seek the mercy of God.
The very response that Jonah should have proclaimed and lived out after hearing the Word is now being displayed by a Gentile. How does this apply to us? If we do not listen properly to the Word, we must become humble before the truth that God can awaken us through the mouth of another person, even through the mouth of an unbeliever. This is the second grace. It is the grace of God speaking indirectly. The grace of God speaking indirectly. God approaches us to expose the very places we try to avoid, the areas we are wrestling with, and the things we try so hard to hide.
And when He does, those words are true. They are correct. But do you know what happens when those true words pierce us? Our sinful nature immediately puts up a wall. The Gentiles were saying, Seek mercy from God, but Jonah tightly shut his heart. We do this all the time, don't we? We experience this so often, especially the husbands here. When your wife says something that is completely true, even though it is right, when she points it out, you get upset, don't you? It is completely true, but hearing the truth just makes you angry. You end up losing your temper for no reason.
I am talking about myself here. Missionary, you do not need to feel embarrassed; I am talking about me. Why do we do this? It is because of our sinful nature. Even though Jonah heard through the captain the exact same message he had received directly from God, he still closed his heart. This is the grace of God speaking indirectly.
In my pastoral ministry, when I speak to people directly, they almost never listen. So I have to speak indirectly, and when I do, I have to pray a great deal. Why? Because the Holy Spirit must grant them understanding. When King David sinned, the prophet Nathan did not go straight to him and say, You are the sinner. What did he do? He compared a rich man's flock with a poor man's lamb. He told a story about how a rich man, despite having countless sheep, stole the one beloved lamb of a poor man. And what did David say? He said, That man deserves to die!
Restitution of sheep would have been enough, yet he called for the death penalty. Why? Because the hidden sin within him was exposed through that story, through that indirect word. When we hear the Word of God, our sin is suddenly brought to light like that. So when you hear me preach, please do not think, Why is the pastor targeting me personally? It is the Holy Spirit speaking to you. If something feels uncomfortable or rubs you the wrong way, that is your opportunity for repentance; it is an opportunity of grace. Suffering is an opportunity of grace. It is a chance to empty ourselves, and once we are emptied, it is a second opportunity of grace to be filled with the Word of God as He speaks indirectly. This is the goodness of God relentlessly pursuing Jonah. Amen? Amen. It is hard to believe, isn't it? I find it hard to believe too. But this is the way God approaches us. Our eyes must be opened now.
Therefore, when we hear the Word, we must be able to repent. We must examine ourselves when the Word is spoken. And when the Word comes, God should be able to speak to us through unbelievers, through circumstances, and even through the daily news. I always say this: there are people who weep uncontrollably while watching a drama, but when they come to church, they cannot shed a single tear. Crying over a drama is fine, though lately I do not know if my hormones are acting up, but whenever I see someone win an Olympic gold medal, tears just start flowing for some reason. Maybe it is just a sign that I am getting older.
However, that is not what is important. What matters is that God is speaking within you. You have to take hold of that. Will you be pierced to the heart by what He speaks within you and repent, or will you dig in your heels and stubbornly react in anger? In Acts chapter two, when Peter preached, three thousand people were cut to the heart and repented, crying out, Brothers, what shall we do?, and they turned back to God. But when Stephen stood up and preached the exact same message, an even more powerful sermon, what did the people do? They hardened their hearts, gnashed their teeth, covered their ears, and stoned him to death.
When the Word of God is proclaimed and we miss the opportunity to repent, our hearts become hardened. God gives us the grace of speaking indirectly. Through the captain, Jonah heard the words he needed to hear, the words he was meant to hold onto. What is the word that you need to hold onto? What is the word being spoken to you? If that word reaches your heart, it is an opportunity of grace, an opportunity for repentance. It is the day of salvation. Amen? Amen. May you never miss God's appointed time of grace. Amen.
The Providence of Casting Lots Turning Chance into Certainty
The third grace is the grace of casting lots. You might wonder, what is the big deal about casting lots? But look at verse seven. The captain came and spoke to him. And then in verse seven, the sailors said to one another, Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.
Why did they cast lots? Think about it. The storm was raging, and the ship was breaking apart. In the original Hebrew, it says the ship was literally tearing itself to pieces. It ought to have sunk, but it did not sink. They ought to have died, but they did not die. The ship should have been wrecked, but it was not wrecked. They should have been completely ruined, yet they were not ruined. It just kept going on and on. Imagine that ship spinning round and round in the midst of that violent tempest, water constantly flooding in, yet somehow refusing to go down.
What did the pagan sailors see in this? They realized, Look, this is no ordinary natural phenomenon. This is not a coincidence. And if it is not an accident, that means something divine is intervening, which means there must be a providence behind it. To find out what that was, what did they do? They said, Let us cast lots.
They sensed that a divine intervention was at work. Just think about that. Even the Gentiles sensed that something strange was happening, yet Jonah, who already knew the full truth, stayed completely silent. Consider this. In the ancient Near East, among the Gentile nations and in Israel alike, what did the high priest of Israel keep before him? He had the Urim and Thummim, objects like lots or stones that were cast to discern the will of God. Urim and Thummim mean light and perfection. Why did they do that? To show that it was not mere chance. King Saul was also chosen by casting lots. When an apparent coincidence repeats itself under God, casting lots helps us recognize that it is divine necessity. It was done to discern the will of God.
Now consider this: God caused the lot to fall on Jonah through the very method those Gentiles used to divine their fate, through that superstitious casting of lots. Isn't that extraordinary? From a human standpoint, people call it fate, but from where we stand, it is divine necessity. We already know the truth: God sent the storm, God sent the captain, and God sent the casting of lots.
This is the grace of providence. We tend to think everything is just a coincidence, but how many trials and errors must we go through before we realize that repeated coincidences are actually God's sovereign necessity? Because we are so dull and slow to understand, God uses these repeated events, even things like casting lots, to make His intervention known to us.
I heard a story about a believer who went to a fortune teller to ask about their future. When the shaman saw them, she said, Look, you just go back and believe in Jesus properly! What does that mean? God had chosen that person to believe in Jesus. To hear that truth from the mouth of a shaman, imagine how shameful that must be. A person ought to be thoroughly embarrassed, shouldn't they? How does it make any sense to go to a fortune teller to find out who you are, instead of seeking the will of God directly?
Yet that was exactly the situation Jonah was in. He was singled out through the casting of lots. This is the grace of providence. The grace of providence. Faith means accepting and acknowledging God's sovereign necessity rather than calling things mere chance. That is humble faith. The very moment you receive an apparently random event as God's divine appointment, you enter into the will of God. Amen? Amen. But if you fail to accept this and simply brush it off saying, Oh, that was just an accident, what happens? You fail to embrace God's providence. You cannot bring yourself to believe it.
Coming to believe in Jesus was not an accident in your life either. After we came to believe, we looked back and realized, God chose me before the creation of the world. When the New Testament writers reflected on their faith after believing in Jesus, they realized that He was the One who chose them, called them, and brought them to faith before the foundation of the world. It was no accident; it was God's sovereign necessity. It was the providence of God. Hallelujah! Faith is receiving that truth.
If I had been Jonah, I think I would have surrendered right then and there. Yet the prophet Jonah, portraying himself as stubborn Israel, refuses to yield to the very end. Think about it. He knew God had sent the storm, and later on, Jonah confesses that the storm came because of him. He heard the Word spoken back to him through the captain, and he was chosen by the lot. It was just like Francis Thompson described in The Hound of Heaven: like a hound relentlessly, fiercely pursuing its prey, God was using these means of grace to chase Jonah, pleading with him to repent and return to Him. Yet Jonah stubbornly resisted to the very end.
The Grace of the Question That Reveals Our Identity
So what do the sailors do? They finally begin to interrogate him. After the lot falls on Jonah, they do not simply say, It is your fault, and throw him straight into the sea. Instead, they start asking questions. What do they ask? Look at verse eight: Tell us, who is responsible for bringing this calamity upon us? What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?
Now, what is the core of these questions? These are questions asked by Gentiles, but the heart of it all is, Who are you? Isn't that right? Who are you? This is profoundly important. In order to know God, Jonah is challenged by Gentiles with the question: Who are you?
Let us read verse nine together. Verse nine: Jonah answered, I am a Hebrew. I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. Look at that. How theologically accurate and orthodox his faith sounds! I am a Hebrew. What immense pride! I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, the Creator who made the sea and the dry land.
Yet this was sheer shamelessness, pure arrogance. It was correct theological knowledge, but it was not his true identity.
At that very moment, Jonah was not living as a person of God, not living as someone who truly reveres the Lord, the Creator God, not walking as Israel should walk. He was running in the exact opposite direction. Yet Jonah answered without any shame. Even though his words and his actions were completely contradictory, he was under the illusion that he truly believed. This confession was not who he really was.
This confession did not match his life. This confession should have defined him, but his confession was one thing, and the way he was living was something entirely different. That is why in chapter two, Jonah's prayer sounds magnificent on the surface, but it is actually a shameless prayer. He borrows all the best expressions from the Psalms to pray to God, but as we will see later, it is an arrogant prayer. It is not the kind of prayer God delights in. Some people treat Jonah's prayer as a model for how to pray, but that is not the case. The words sound polished, but his heart and his true identity are not in them.
God had already sent four things: He sent the storm, He sent the captain, He sent the lot, and now He sends questions. What is the purpose of a question? It makes you think. It calls you to reflect. God is saying, Think about this. Who are you? Reflect on that. It is a moment to expose who I am and who the God I claim to believe in really is. This is grace. Pure grace. Suffering forces us to ask fundamental questions. It brings us to realize who I am and who God is. Only when this is settled can our problems truly be resolved. But we keep clinging only to problem-solving, living under the illusion that we already know ourselves and that we already know God. Isn't that how we live?
That is why, when we face a storm-like crisis in life, we must stop and ask ourselves seriously: Who am I? This is why the psalmist wrote, It was good for me to be afflicted. The crisis of the storm and the providence of the lot force us to face that ultimate question: Who are you? Who are you? Every Sunday when we worship before the Lord at church, or every morning when we wake up, we must remember anew who God is and who I am. Otherwise, we simply fall into our busy routines. We get up in the morning, brush our teeth, eat breakfast, go to work or school until we are completely exhausted, come home, watch television, wash up, go to bed while scrolling through videos, and we repeat that cycle all week long. Then we drag ourselves to church on Sunday, still exhausted, sit through the service, say, Well, church is over, and go home to repeat the same cycle. If you live like that, you are living entirely by your own strength. You feel no need to depend on God. Why? Because life just runs on autopilot. You never have to ask who you are.
When that happens, a crisis comes, and that spiritual apathy is the real crisis. Eventually, we must honestly confront this question. Church family, who am I? Do you know who you are? It seems like the easiest question in the world, but it is actually the hardest. Cults and other religions often exploit this to lure people in. Imagine someone asking me, Who are you? I say, I am Hoon Kim. They reply, That is just your name. Who are you? I say, I am a pastor. That is your job. Who are you? I am a father to my children. That is your family relation. Who are you? I am Korean. That is your nationality. Who are you? I am a man. That is your gender. Who are you? I am a human being. That is just your biological species. So who am I really? To define who I am, there must be a personal Being outside of myself, beyond my own existence, against whom I can be defined.
Is it warm in here, or is it just me? Please turn on the air conditioner. Maybe I am getting worked up! What am I saying? We call Christianity a religion. In East Asian languages, the word for religion originally comes from Buddhist thought, meaning the highest, most fundamental teaching, the primal doctrine. That is why Buddhism constantly asks, Who are you? Who are you? But it finds no answer. Why? Because without a personal God, there is no answer to that question. In Western culture, shaped by Christian thought, what do we call religion? What is the English word?
Religion. Very good. Religion. That word comes from the Latin religare, which means to bind together, to connect, to be in relationship. We come to know who we are through the God who enters into a relationship with us. What does Jonah say? I am a Hebrew, and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, the Creator. That was Jonah's answer. He explained what kind of relationship he had with God, yet he was not actually living in that relationship. How terrifying that is! Who am I? I can only know who I am before God. When I see how God treats me and understand who He is, only then do I discover who I am. Is that difficult to grasp?
That was the very question Jonah was confronted with. God was prompting Jonah to confess with his own mouth who he was, to wake up, to repent, so he would realize, That is right! The God who made heaven and earth has sent this storm so that I might turn back to Him! Yet what did Jonah do? He still refused. He still resisted. And so they found out that he was running away from the Lord.
And what did God do? He sent the storm, He sent the captain, He directed the lot, and He sent the questions. Yet Jonah still refused to understand. And what did Jonah do in the end? He simply told them, Throw me into the sea. He chose to drown rather than surrender. That is the stubborn nature of our sin. That is how we reject God. All of us were like that as Gentiles. We were worse than Jonah. We were worse than arrogant Israel. We had no choice but to reject God. Yet look at the Gentiles in this passage: how do they come to believe in God? When the storm grows calm, who do they recognize? They recognize God.
The exact same thing happened with the disciples. When they were crossing the Sea of Galilee with Jesus, a fierce storm arose, and with a single word from Jesus, the storm went completely flat. The disciples had been terrified of the storm, but suddenly they were gripped by an even greater fear, asking, Who is this? What kind of man is this? They began to realize who He was. That holy fear, that awe. Because of that awe, the pagan sailors in Jonah chapter one and the people of Nineveh in chapter three come to know God and believe in Him, while Jonah stubbornly resists to the very end. This is a prophetic book. It exposes the true condition of Israel. I pray that this will never be the picture of our lives. Amen.
Part 6
A few sentences here could not be translated automatically.
Especially when I was in Germany, staying there for three months after having resigned from everything without any decision on what to do next, I was in my late forties, utterly at a loss about where to go or what to do. I had no money, no home, nothing at all. I was staying at a friend's house in Germany, and every month several million won in credit card bills were piling up, which was driving me out of my mind. The debt was mounting back in Korea, while I was stuck over there feeling completely helpless. So every morning I sang praise, prayed, and worshiped, but fear, resentment, and grumbling kept welling up inside my heart. After three months, I returned to Korea with several million won of debt. I came back wondering, How on earth am I going to pay this off? Should I drive a delivery truck? Should I just do courier work? But when I arrived, I discovered that a deacon had been setting aside their tithes for several months with me in mind, and that accumulated tithe amounted to several million won. We were able to pay off that entire debt all at once. That was actually one of the pivotal moments that led me into pastoral ministry. God had provided a fish! Hallelujah! Right now, it might look like nothing will work out for you, right? But God provides the fish. It is not our kind of solution, where we say, It is all over for me, I am just going to jump into the sea, it is finished. Instead, He is the One who sends the fish. He is also the One who sends the storm. Why? So that we will look to God! Hallelujah! Amen.
We must believe that the God who leads us into a great storm is the very same God who prepares a huge fish. Church family, this is the means of grace by which God relentlessly loves Jonah, extends mercy to him, and turns him back. Through a pagan captain who knew nothing, He brought to mind the Word Jonah had heard. Through pagan sailors who knew nothing, He directed the lot so that Jonah would realize none of this was chance, but divine necessity. And through the questions of those sailors, He brought him to realize who he truly was, leading him to turn back to God and cling to His mercy.
How far does God take this? Jesus said it: No sign will be given except the sign of Jonah. He leads us all the way to the grace of the cross. Amen. Standing before the cross, overwhelmed by His love as we realize what immense grace we have received from God, and seeing how persistently He has reasoned with us to bring us to the cross, I hope that you and I will live trusting in this God of grace and mercy, who for our sake sends the storm, sends the captain, sends the sailors, directs the lot, and provides the fish. I bless you in the name of Jesus. Amen. Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, when we are in the storms of life, we want to look to You. Lord, help us lift our eyes to see those means of grace, those instruments of mercy with which You constantly pursue us, and open the eyes of our faith so that we may lay hold of them and turn back to You. Father, grant us this precious time to realize once again who we are and who You are. Lord, we depend on You. Please help us. With thanksgiving, we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.