Tag Archives: Family Integrated Church

Learning to Cry

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Crying? There’s no crying in math! Or so I thought.  Echoing Tom Hanks’ iconic line from A League of Their Own, my children often hear me declare ‘there’s no crying in math – it’s simply facts and figures, not emotion.’  And yet, for all my feeling that there should not be any crying in math, it does indeed exist.   It is not the crying of pain, or pleading, or even sadness – it is the crying of overwhelming disorientation as operators and operands leap from the page and swirl in a tornadic vortex, mixed and disordered beyond repair.  There is crying in mathematics.  Its angst is not merely the angst of computational failure.   And many tears have been shed over math in our home.

Crying is peculiar if you think about it.   While the production of tears, or lacrimation, has a cleansing effect removing debris from the eye, the physiological and psychological dimensions of crying go much further.   We cry when we are afraid, sad, happy, angry, relieved, or surprised.  And these emotional tears differ in their chemical composition from other tears.   They have higher concentrations of protein-based hormones, including prolactin, and also the neurotransmitter leucine enkephalin – a painkiller produced when one experiences stress. Emotional tears are also more viscous, remaining on a person’s face longer thus more visible to others.

Crying communicates what words cannot.  Before children speak, they cry to communicate.  And even after we speak, crying communicates what words cannot.   Humans are the only creatures that cry.  Our tears transmit a depth and nuance of human emotion that even the infinite subtleties of our mother tongue cannot express.   We feel this in Paul’s discussion of the work of the Holy Spirit in Romans 8.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Romans 8:26-27

Groanings too deep for words.   That is where prayer often takes us.   John Owen, in his treatise on prayer, emphasized written prayer.  He rightly observed that vocabulary governs thoughtful expression in prayer.  But there are depths of joy, sorrow, and uncertainty that outpace our conscious expression – groanings too deep for words. 

“Deep calls to deep” the Psalmist laments.   And deep answers deep!  This is the truth of crying out to God.   His ear is tuned to his children’s cry.   He hears, he sees, he remembers, and he knows.   No sorrow, trial, joy, crisis, or struggle slips past his loving gaze.  The Hebrew people had been slaves of countless Pharaohs through centuries of Egyptian history.   They cried out.  And God heard.   They learned not only to cry over their condition, but to ‘cry out’ and to ‘cry out to God.’   Exodus 2:23-25 shows this dynamic in a remarkable way.  Four different expressions of crying are answered by four specific responses from God.

The Hebrews learned to cry.   Perhaps this seems absurd.   After all crying is not learned.  We have known how to cry from day one.   Most of us were born crying.   No one taught us to cry at weddings or funerals, to cry when pain grips us, or to cry when a loved one returns home.  Some cultures cry more, some less.  Women cry more than men.  Yet we all cry.   What we must learn is ‘to whom to cry.’   Until we cry out to the Lord, our crying, though cathartic, is like shouting into the darkness.   But when we cry to the Lord, he sees, he hears, he remembers, and he draws near.   Only he will answer our cry.  Only he can make the difference. Join us this week as we examine Exodus 2:23-25 and consider what it teaches us about learning to cry out to God.

We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube. 

Wait for It

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Click bait! Our feeds are flooded with click bait — shameless attempts to lure us to a sketchy website with the promise of frivolity.  Often baited with interminably uninteresting videos captioned with ‘Wait for it.’  Well, I never make it to ‘it.’  My patience expires at the minute mark. I refuse to endure two minutes of a duck floating on a pond in hopes that an ‘it’ will appear bringing joy and satisfaction.  Wait for it?   I think not.

No one likes to wait.  Waiting for a test result, a customer service agent, or the next season of your latest streaming binge is agonizing. Waiting has always been hard, but the modern world has attempted to train it out of us. Everything must be immediate. Fast food, same day delivery, on-demand entertainment. Waiting is not on the schedule.  Our devices offer us a retreat during our waiting from the virtue of patience or the value of conversation with an actual person.

Modern life waits for no man and no modern man waits for life. The vacuum demands filling. The idle moment screams, ‘don’t just stand there, do something.’ But God often says, ‘don’t just do something, stand there.’  That is solid advice.  ‘Wait!’ is often God’s plan for us.  Twenty-five times the Psalms counsel us to ‘wait upon the Lord.’   And eleven times Isaiah catalogues the benefit of waiting upon the Lord.    And the rest of the Bible takes up the theme.   From Genesis to Revelation, waiting is on the docket.

But what does waiting look like?  And what do we do while we wait?   David Giarrizzo, in his article, Nine Ways We Wait Upon the Lord observes,

When we think of waiting, we often think of passivity. Waiting is practically synonymous with doing nothing.  When the Bible speaks of waiting, it’s an entirely different thing than what we do after we take a number at the motor vehicle department. Biblical waiting is not a passive activity, but is demonstrated by active dependence upon and obedience to God. Thus, waiting upon God is a spiritual discipline that we should seek to practice in our lives.

David Giarrizzo

Learning the spiritual discipline of waiting is critical.   But failing to do so is catastrophic.  In Samuel 13, Saul’s stunning failure to wait for Samuel to offer sacrifices before a battle costs Saul his kingdom.

And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the Lord your God, with which he commanded you. For then the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.” 

1 Samuel 13:13-14

Refusal to wait upon the Lord brings grief.   Saul learned this.  And Moses had to learn this too.   Moses’ birth was remarkable.  God saved him to be Israel’s deliverer.  But at the outset, he fails to wait on God’s calling and instruction.  And in one foolish act, forty years of hopes for Israel’s deliverance go up in smoke.   In Exodus 2 we read.

One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the wrong, “Why do you strike your companion?” He answered, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid, and thought, “Surely the thing is known.” When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian.  

Exodus 2:11-15

Moses ran ahead of God’s timing and planning.   He had not learned to wait upon the Lord and it cost him.  And it cost the people of Israel forty more years of suffering and death.   Yet God was not done with Moses.   The gracious truth of Moses’ life is that our failures are not a failure of God’s plan or His plan for us.   Join us as we examine Exodus 2:11-22 and consider the spiritual discipline of waiting on the Lord.

We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube. 

11/27/2022 | “Who Is This” | Matthew 1:1-17, 21

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As the New Testament opens, God places Jesus in a dysfunctional family.  A family into which we have been adopted.  A family story that shows God’s faithfulness and grace to those who do not have it together.  And in his story, we find hope for our own story.  Join us as we examine Matthew 1:1-17 and consider the question so many asked about Jesus – “Who is this?”

Going Undercover

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“Go outside and play!”  That was an important part of my parent’s parenting strategy.  It was not a cop-out – but legitimate instruction.  When they needed privacy for parental conference, or we were too much underfoot for my mother, or when we moped around decrying, “I’m bored,” the Rx was “go outside and play.”  The only ‘screens’ in those days covered our doors and windows.  So outside was the place of adventure, imagination and industry.

And go outside we did.  Building forts in the woods, riding our bikes for miles and miles, gathering the neighborhood gang for baseball, acrobatics on the Boyd’s trampoline, and our favorite game – Spycraft.   Don’t look for it at Game Stop.   Spycraft was a game of our own invention.   It was a simple game.   A hapless neighbor working outside, washing their car, or completing some home improvement project became our target.   We began at the point in our cul-de-sac farthest from our quarry.  And we would work ourselves as close as possible without being observed by anyone.   And in a neighborhood in which watching the neighbors was the unwritten covenant, this was no small challenge. 

Hedges, trees, cars, other yard décor in our neighbors’ yards were carefully navigated.   Features which had their own unique dangers.   The game could go for hours.   It took time, careful movement, stealthy concealment and an indefatigable desire to draw close to our object.   We were surprisingly effective, or so we thought.

Have you ever thought that others are working carefully, tirelessly, intentionally to draw nearer to you? Though their actions are undetectable as we go about our own lives unaware, they are watching, listening, loving us from a distance?   This has been the theme of many great love stories and is a beautiful part of The Great Love Story, the Bible.   While our God is a God who reveals himself through His Word, by His Spirit and most fully in His Son, much of his love and care for us goes undetected.  

Jesus noted in John 5, “my Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.”   The psalmist notes in Psalm 121 that, “He who watches over you will neither slumber, nor sleep.”  And this reminds us that even as we sleep, the Lord is awake, preparing grace for us in the coming hours and days.  This is the sweet doctrine of Providence.    Our Westminster Shorter Catechism expresses it succinctly and well.

Q. 11. What are God’s works of providence?
A. God’s works of providence are his most holy, wise and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures, and all their actions.

Westminster Shorter Catechism

Nothing is out of his control.  No circumstance, no crisis, no sorrow, no past, present or future action.   He is the God who governs all his creatures and their actions – to graciously redeem, restore, and bless his beloved people.  Through providence he works “in all things… for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)   Do you believe this?  Can you rest in the truth that even when you don’t see him drawing near, seeing, hearing, and knowing you and your life, that He is always at work, even to this very day?  

Amram and Jochebed, Moses’ parents, believed in the providence of God.   They lived in trying times, oppressed by slavery and death.  Marriage and family seem ill advised. Yet they trusted in God’s providence rather than fate, or circumstance.   Though their grasp of God was in spiritual infancy, God granted them sufficient faith that his promises could not fail.  Even when God seems unseen he is seen in his providence.  The poet William Cowper would later express the ethos of their faith in his hymn, God Moves In A Mysterious Way.

God moves in a mysterious way
his wonders to perform;
he plants his footsteps in the sea,
and rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
of never-failing skill
he treasures up his bright designs,
and works his sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
the clouds ye so much dread
are big with mercy, and shall break
in blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
but trust him for his grace;
behind a frowning providence
he hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
unfolding ev’ry hour;
the bud may have a bitter taste,
but sweet will be the flow’r.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,
and scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
and he will make it plain.

William Cowper

Exodus 2 unfolds the remarkable providences of God that fulfill his promises to Jacob’s offspring.   Yet he is still undercover.   Sometimes God goes undercover in our lives.  But he is never absent.  The providences that bring about the birth of a deliverer for Hebrew slaves anticipates a greater deliverer whose birth, death and rising again deliver us from sin’s slavery and death.  Join us this week as we examine Exodus 2:1-10 and consider the undercover God and the challenges we face to live by a faith that has ‘confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1)

Under Pressure

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Few things test a friendship like a self-move.  A self-move exposes the flotsam and jetsam of your life and quickly sifts friends from mere acquaintances.  I have self-moved.  And I have shared in the fellowship of sufferings of friends who unwisely chose the way of pain.  I am no stranger to the perils and pitfalls of moving day.    Friendships are tested.  Marriages are tested.   Logistics are tested – and harshly judged.   And most importantly, packing skills are tested.  

Packing a truck makes clear who has mastered Tetris and who has not.   And if that truck is a pickup, you face the daunting prospect of rigging the tarps.   Your scant repertoire of three or four boy scout knots is no match for the gale force of the Interstate.   Unless you are an engineer with experience testing concept designs in a wind tunnel or perhaps a farmer, you probably have no idea what is required to secure a load with tarps.  

The relentless 75 mph wind produces far more pressure than we imagine as we sit behind protected glass cruising the highways and byways.  Odds are you will arrive at your destination with rigging in tatters, flapping in the breeze like Himalayan prayer flags.   Intense pressure makes quick work of any false claims to competence.  And what is true of our tarps is even more true of our convictions.

Who you are under pressure is who you are.   Stress reveals fault lines.   Weakness buckles.  And the strength bears the load.  Pressure reveals who we really are, what is really inside.   Pressure blasts away facades, social conventions, and political correctness.   In the crisis, who you are, what you are, is clearly revealed.   We all think we will stand up under pressure.  We are sure we will hold fast our convictions.   But will we?

Proverbs 24:10 warns, “if you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.” And Proverbs 20:6 observes, “many a man proclaims his own steadfast love, but a faithful man who can find?”   The Apostle Paul also warns us, “therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.” (1 Cor 10:12)    Do we fear God more than man?   Will we resist pressure to compromise our faith?  Will we meet persecution like those in Revelation who  “conquered by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives unto death?” (Rev 12:11)

How will we handle pressure when it comes?   Who we are under pressure is who we really are.   We see this first in Exodus, not in the lives of Moses or Joshua, but in the midwives, Shiphrah and Puah.  We read simply that they feared God more than Pharaoh.   They put themselves,  the midwives who worked for them, and their families at extraordinary risk because of their convictions.   We often focus our scrutiny of these women on their truthfulness, but their courage is prodigious.

The midwives were not national leaders.  Nor did they not seek leadership roles in their community.  But their quiet, principled resistance thwarted the cruelty of the tyrant.  The very policy that Pharaoh thought would exterminate the Israelites was overturned by God to raise up and equip the deliverer through whom he would set his people free.

The midwives’ names are remembered, while pharaohs passed into obscurity.  And these godly and faithful women assume far greater historic importance than those all-powerful tyrants who ruled Egypt.  Their faithfulness had a great part to play in the unfolding of God’s redemptive plan.   And so does ours.   Under great pressure, they lived by faith.   What about you?  Join us this week as we examine Exodus 1:15-22 and consider what it looks like to live by faith under pressure.

We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube. 

Crickets

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Chuck Pugh was a masterful negotiator. He was not articulate nor prescient. He was no maven of technology, but he wielded the one tool in his negotiation toolbox with devastating effect. Chuck knew the power of silence. He understood that prolonged silence would awaken profound uncertainty in the minds of vendors regarding their proposals. We witnessed this time and time again.

Vendors would make their pitch to our team – hardware, software, development environments, networking gear. As engineers we would sit like a silent chorus in a Greek tragedy as Chuck worked his magic. They offered and Chuck would sit, stare, and create a looming silence. He never spoke first. Like men on the anxious bench, the vendors would offer up concession after concession. All born out of the insecurity his silence conceived.

Salesmen are afraid of silence. It is the one objection they are not trained to overcome. But then most of us are afraid of silence. It unsettles us. It makes us insecure, uncertain, afraid. Nothing heightens tension and drama like silence. We declare, speak, express and the void says nothing back. Nothing is more invalidating than silence. We think more silence is to be desired. And then we spend the day alone.

But no silence is more unsettling than the silence of God. One of the most comforting truths of Scripture is that God is a not silent. He is a God is reveals Himself, who is knowable, who is known. One of the great fears of paganism is uncertainty about who a god is, how he feels about us, and what he requires. But the God of scripture is not like the false gods of the nations. He is the God who is not silent. He reveals himself in his works and in his word. Yet sometimes He seems silent. The words of Psalm 22 reflected this feeling.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from my cries of anguish?
My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
by night, but I find no rest.

Psalm 22:1-2

Even the Lord Jesus, in his human nature felt the weight of these words as he bore the wrath and curse of God for our sin. Has God every appeared silent in your life? Has you every felt he was far from saving you? So far from your cries of anguish? Like one who will not answer your cries, day and night? How does this square with the Scripture promises that He will never leave us or forsake us, that he is always at work, his ear attentive to the cry of his children?

Scripture invites us into the lives of many to whom God seemed silent. Mary and Martha at the graveside of Lazarus and the children of Israel in Egypt are examples. God seemed silent. Their adversity was not a consequence of sin or unfaithfulness. Yet, suffering increased and deliverance was withheld. Is God silent? Is he far from saving? Is he unconcerned? Is he not all that we believed him to be? What are we to think when God seems silent?

God’s people were oppressed in Egypt under the hand of a xenophobic, genocidal Pharaoh. God’s promises were unfolding as he blessed the people with children yet as their blessing increased, so did persecution and adversity. But God did not deliver them. Why does God allow times of adversity and suffering in the lives of his people? We all ask this and many experience this personally. Join us this week as we examine Exodus 1:8-14 and wrestle with the question of why God sometimes appears silent.

We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube. 

Promises Kept

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Children’s stories are never just for children.   The good children’s author exposes the deep magic of the universe in vivid clarity and simplicity, illustrating profound, abstract truth through familiar experiences of children and animals.  C. S. Lewis, in his essay, “On Three Ways of Writing for Children,” muses “I am almost inclined to set it up as a canon that a children’s story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children’s story.”  Children’s stories are never just for children.  It is a critical and arrogant misstep to dismiss simple stories as simplistic.

This is a real danger for us when we read the stories of the Bible.  Our modern skepticism subtly tempts us to relegate the narratives of creation, of Joshua, Jonah, David, and Moses to the category of mythic moral allegory, best suited for children’s Bible storybooks.  We think we know what these stories are about.  But we often dismiss simple stories of men and women of faith as simplistic.

The story of the Exodus is a good example.  Often coopted in popular movies, Exodus is routinely distilled down to some predictable theme, missing the real point of the story.   The lavish 1960s epic, The Ten Commandments, starring Charlton Heston, cast the story as an ancient version of Romeo and Juliet set among the visually stunning background of Egyptian grandeur and sensational catastrophes.  

And Disney’s Prince of Egypt with its memorable soundtrack and beautiful animation, reduces the story to the stock Disney conflict between a noble, oppressed protagonist and his privileged, tyrannical antagonist.  Like every Disney classic, the Prince of Egypt uses the Exodus as the backdrop for its hero to overcome oppression and adversity.  Unfortunately, Disney failed to identify the real hero of the story.

While we probably would not expect expositional clarity from Hollywood or Disney, has the story fared much better in the hands of Christians? Have we reduced it to the heroic story of Moses, a narrative of liberation, or a birth epic for the nation of Israel? Is Exodus just a bridge to get us from the patriarchs to the monarchy?

But Exodus is much more than any of these.  It is in Exodus we are introduced to the language of redemption that prepares us for the ministry of Jesus.  It is in Exodus that we learn God’s name, his character, his purpose, his power, and his plan to dwell with his people.  It is Exodus that show us how God is different from the gods of our invention and imagination.   And it is Exodus that reveals a God who always keeps his promises.  His ways are not our ways and his timing not our timing, but his promises never fail, fall by the wayside, or get buried in the sands of time or adversity.   God sees, he hears, he knows what is going on in our lives. And he is at work.

Exodus introduces us to the mercy, grace and presence of God with his people.   Exodus prepares us to grasp what it means when John writes, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” And what John the Baptist means when he declares, “behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”   And the Exodus prepares us to understand what it means to live in covenant with God as those delivered from the “house of bondage.”   It is a simple story, but it is not simplistic.  

Join us this Lord’s Day as we begin our examination of the Exodus and consider its powerful story of the God who keeps his promises through long ages and against all odds – a story that prepares us for an even greater story of grace in our own lives.  

We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube. 

A Sad Conclusion

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A book’s conclusion often leaves a greater impression than its opening. We like our conclusions to resolve all tensions, restore what was broken, and answer all questions. Yet despite all the amazing things that happen in the short book of Jonah, we are left not with answers, but with a question. Jonah’s conclusion is a sad note after one of the greatest revivals in history.

In Jonah 1, Jonah fled on a boat enroute to Tarshish from the call of God to go to Nineveh, but the Lord sent a storm that eventually led the sailors on that boat to throw Jonah overboard. But the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah. In chapter 2, in the belly of the fish, Jonah seeks the Lord and turns to Him for deliverance. The fish spits Jonah out, and in chapter 3, Jonah finally obeys the call of God as he is restored to his prophetic office. In that chapter, the Lord uses a message of judgment preached by Jonah to bring about the salvation of the people of Nineveh as they turn unto God.

We would expect a prophet to rejoice over such a revival! After all, the prophets were God’s prophets, and the desire of a prophet ought to be God’s honor and for the people to turn to Him. But Jonah does not respond with rejoicing. Jonah 4 details Jonah’s regret over the Lord’s saving the people of Nineveh. The Lord, however, is merciful with Jonah.

In one sense, the book ends on a sad note. But in another sense, it is a cliffhanger. A cliffhanger leaves the reader on the edge of their seat waiting for the next book, leaving the plot unresolved. As if to say, “To be continued…” In the final verse of Jonah 4, the Lord asks Jonah, “And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”

Though we do not know how Jonah responds to this question, the cliffhanger actually involves all of the people of God. How do you respond to this question? Do you have compassion for the lost? What do you value more than the souls of your neighbors? Is it pride, that your sin is not like the sin of your neighbor? Is it your comfort? Perhaps your comfort zones?

Perhaps as you have read through the book of Jonah, you have been convicted. Maybe your life has been like that of the people of Nineveh, having no regard for God and living in opposition to His commands. Maybe you wonder how the Lord could ever receive you. But look at the grace and mercy shown to the people of Nineveh. If you run unto Jesus, you will find in Him a kind and merciful Savior.

Or, maybe you are a Christian who has been struggling with sins similar to that of Jonah. Perhaps pride has clouded your vision and you’ve lacked a zeal for the lost to come to faith. But dear friend, God was merciful to Jonah as well as He was to the people of Nineveh. Go to Jesus in repentance and faith, and you will find that He is faithful still. And if you have not desired the salvation of your neighbors, then pray to the Lord asking Him to change your desires. He is faithful to grow His people in conformity to His image and to keep them to the end.

Join us as we examine Jonah 4 and consider a sad conclusion and some hard and revealing questions. We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube. 

01/09/2022 | “A Fleeing Prophet and a Sovereign God” | Jonah 1

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Jonah was greatly concerned over the condition of his people. He exercised his calling zealously. Yet in the book of Jonah, he receives an unexpected calling. He is called to speak God’s grace and mercy to the enemies of his people and his God. Nineveh is a wicked city at the heart of a wicked empire, proverbial for its rebellion and sinfulness. But one great theme we see in Jonah is God’s mercy to the Gentiles. Christ would come as the Savior of both Jew and Gentile a promise given even in the Old Testament to a pagan world.

God commands Jonah to go: “Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah …, saying, ‘Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.’” Jonah goes immediately, but not to Nineveh. Jonah knows God’s gracious character and sees God’s gracious plan. And it is not what Jonah wants. So Jonah flees from God, the Ninevites, and his calling. But God is sovereign. It is God’s will, not Jonah’s, that is the last word. God is not finished with Jonah. In His sovereignty, He pursues him, and He shows mercy. Mercy that comes through discipline. Along with the wicked Ninevites, Jonah is shown the grace of God. Believer, the God who is sovereign in salvation in this book is also sovereign over your salvation. If you are His, it is because He has pursued you and brought you to Himself. Joining this Lord’s Day as we examine Jonah 1:1-16 and consider the fleeing prophet and the sovereign God.

Salvation Belongs to the Lord

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Herman Melville wrote of a great white whale. And in his tragic tale, the whale takes center stage. But Melville’s magnum opus pales in comparison to the tale of the prophet Jonah – swallowed alive by a great fish, then spit out three days later. Melville’s work is fiction, but the events in Jonah are real historical events. Jonah was actually swallowed up and spit out by this fish at a real time in history, yet still, the fish is not the central theme of chapter 2. Rather, the One who is central is Jonah’s God.

In the first chapter of Jonah, we see that Jonah flees from his God, but his God pursues him. God is sovereign over all things, even over His prophet who is fleeing from His commands. Jonah was called to go to the people of Nineveh but ran away–he sought to chart out his own course. But God sent a storm to rage on the sea which Jonah was attempting to use as an escape route. Jonah was tossed into the sea to cause the storm to cease from its raging. But this was not the end of Jonah.

Jonah 1:17 says, “And the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” This fish was appointed by God to swallow up Jonah in order that Jonah would live. And in the belly of this fish, we see in chapter 2, Jonah calls out to God. In Jonah’s prayer we see the power and the sovereignty of Jonah’s God, and we also see the faithfulness of God to deliver His people. We see especially that God is absolutely sovereign in the salvation of His people: “Salvation belongs to the LORD!” (Jonah 2:9)

This is a truth that comforted Jonah’s soul once again, and the truth that many have noted is the theme that runs through the entire book of Jonah. Jonah’s time in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights also points us to the one who died for sinners and on the third Day was raised from death. It is there, in the death of Christ for sinners and His victorious resurrection that we see most clearly that “Salvation belongs to the LORD!”

We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube.