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THE BEST OF FELLOWSHIP CHURCH
Inside Out
Ed Young
December 9, 2001
Several years ago, I had the privilege of lecturing a first grade class about my most favorite topic in the world—sharks. I brought along one of my prized possessions, a set of shark jaws from a Texas-size bull shark. This shark was captured off of Freeport, Texas. After my talk, I opened the floor up for questioning and sure enough, almost every hand in this first grade class shot up in the air. All the questions centered on being swallowed by a fish. Kids would ask, “Ed, if you are swimming in a pool, would, like, a shark eat you?” I would say, “No, sharks do not live in pools. They live in the ocean. Even if you swim in the ocean, it’s rare for you to get attacked by a shark.”
These children were expressing one of the biggest fears known to man, the fear of being eaten by a shark. Maybe today you are kind of feeling like you have been eaten by something. Maybe you feel like a problem has swallowed you up. Maybe you have lost your job and financially you are saying, “This deal is swallowing me up. It’s eating my lunch.” Maybe you are in a marital difficulty right now, and you are saying to yourself, “I feel like it is swallowing me up.” Maybe you are in some kind of problem that is getting the best of you, a hurtful habit. I don’t know. But a lot of us have felt many times in our lives like we have been swallowed by something.
Today, we are going to talk about Jonah, because Jonah was a guy who got swallowed by a fish, and he lived to tell about it. Jonah’s life will show us how to do something that is really huge—how to follow God’s lead. I know for many people here, you are thinking, “Wait a minute, Ed. You are telling me that God wants to lead me somewhere? You are telling me that the God of the universe cares about me? He wants to guide me and direct me? The answer is a resounding “Yes, God does.” But there is no way that you can follow God’s lead unless you know where he is pointing and where he wants to take you.
Having said that, let’s bow for a word of prayer. Then we will open up the book of Jonah and delve right into it. God, thank you so much for, once again, this opportunity to come to a place like Fellowship Church, and to laugh, God, to see a humorous drama. Thank you, God, for the opportunity we have to worship you through song. Right now, Lord, I thank you for this opportunity that we have to open your truth, open your word, and allow it to speak to us. God, may your Spirit now just hover over this place. May it convict and move and bring results in every heart and life here. And, God, I thank you now in advance for the results of this worship time together. In Christ’s name, Amen.
Let’s dive right in to the book of Jonah and see what’s up about following God’s lead. In Jonah, Chapter 1, I will begin reading with Verse 1. It’s a great place to start, Jonah 1:1. The Bible says, “The word of Lord came to Jonah.” The word came to Jonah. We are not sure by what medium the word came, but we know the word came to Jonah. All of us can connect with that, because we have all felt the presence of God at certain times and in certain situations. We have all felt that nudging—maybe through a friendship, or a Bible study, or through a defining moment in our lives. We have felt the word of God coming to us. This word came to Jonah. Check out what this word said. In Verse 2, God said, “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”
Now, I am sure our boy, Jonah, probably said, “Now, God, wait a minute. Surely, God, you didn’t say Nineveh, as in the capital of Assyria. Surely, God, you are not talking about Nineveh, the place that has walls 100 feet thick, 1,200 guard towers—that place that skins people alive. Surely, God, you are not asking me, your prophet, to walk 500 miles east through the Arabian desert and preach against those people. Come on, God, surely you didn’t say Nineveh.”
God doesn’t stutter. God doesn’t stammer. No smoke and mirrors here. He doesn’t play around. He told Jonah to go. God said, “Go,” and Jonah said, “No.” God said east and you know what Jonah did? Jonah did a 180. He went the opposite direction. Look at Verse 3, “But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish.” I don’t know. I guess if you could read between the lines, maybe Jonah, because he felt so much stress and so much pressure, because he did not follow God to Nineveh, maybe just maybe he buried his nose in the newspaper. Maybe it was called The Joppa Journal and maybe he thumbed to the travel and leisure section and maybe he saw an ad that caught his eye.
Maybe the ad read, “Tantalizing Tarshish Aboard the Disobedience II.” Maybe Jonah thought, “That’s for me. I can get away from God. I can jump aboard the Disobedience II and sail for Tarshish. After all, Tarshish is 2,000 miles away from Nineveh.” And the Bible says that Jonah sailed. Jonah did a 180 and moved toward Tarshish.
There are only two destinations on God’s map, Nineveh/obedience or Tarshish/disobedience. You have got obedience, number one, and Tarshish, number two. In your life and mine, I am always headed toward either obedience or Tarshish/disobedience.
Maybe right now, you are thinking about throwing in the marital towel. Maybe you are thinking about jumping aboard the Disobedience II and heading toward Tarshish. Maybe about now you are thinking about compromising in some business situation. Maybe because the economy is kind of tenuous, you are thinking about moving toward Tarshish. You are thinking about jumping aboard the Disobedience II.
Or maybe just maybe you are a student, and you know exam times are coming, and you are saying, “Well, I am thinking about moving toward Tarshish because I can cheat on this exam.” We are always going toward one or the other. There is no middle ground here. Jonah set sail, the Bible says, toward Tarshish, toward disobedience. “But Jonah ran away from God and headed toward Tarshish. He went down to Joppa.” I like that phrase, “he went down to Joppa.” Every time we run away from God, what happens? We are going down.
He went down to Joppa. Then he went down into the depths of the sea. Then he went down into the belly of a fish. So, we are going down when we run away from God.
“He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port.” Back in biblical times, it wasn’t like DFW Airport. At DFW, you can go anywhere in the world like that—flying here, flying there, and yonder. Back in biblical times, ships left every four to six weeks, and before they left, all the winds had to be moving properly, and everything had to be hunky dory.
You have got to realize something. I realized it a long time ago. The evil one is in the mass transit business. Whenever we decide to go away from God, whenever we turn our back on our Nineveh, on obedience, Satan will always have a ship leaving. This ship will look good. It will look so attractive. Maybe you are having a problem in your marriage. I want to tell you something. Satan will put an attractive vessel at the office, and this attractive vessel will say, “Sail with me.”
Or maybe you are thinking about compromising in some area of business as I talked about earlier. There will always be a vessel leaving, and it seems like smooth sailing. It seems like everything is A-okay. Satan provides that. That is the way he is, and that is what our boy, Jonah, did. Jonah jumped aboard this ship, and the Bible says that he paid the fare. He paid it. He put down the Israeli Express card. It was his deal. Whenever we cruise away from God in disobedience, we never get to where we think we are going. And take a wild guess who pays the fare? You pay the fare. On the other hand, when we go toward obedience, we always get to where we are going and God pays the fare.
Many times I have the opportunity to talk to people. When I lock eyes with them, I can tell, just by looking into their eyes, if they are paying the fare or not. I say to myself, “You know, he is paying the fare. She is paying the fare. That student is paying the fare, because they are going the way of disobedience.” You can tell it in someone’s countenance.
How many times have we all gone the way of disobedience? How many times have we all set sail toward Tarshish? It looks good. It looks fine, but looks can be deceiving.
“He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD” (Jonah 1:3). He was trying to shake God, trying to give God the spin move. You can’t get away from God. You can’t shake God.
Owen Goff—how many people in here know Owen Goff, one of the pastors on staff? Owen Goff is a phenomenal guy. He has been a part of Fellowship Church from the get-go. He left his insurance company to come on board staff about nine years ago. Owen has done everything here from parking to greeting. He makes sure the A/C is on, the heat is working, you name it. Owen is a jack-of-all-trades.
One of the things that he took upon himself is to make sure that I am where I am supposed to be every single weekend. I mean, Owen is like the hawk. I will be up in my study trying to tweak the dials on the message. And it never fails, five minutes before the service, I will hear that faint knock on the door and Owen’s one-of-a-kind voice, “Pastor, it’s about five minutes from time to go right now. Do you have your microphone on yet?” He will rig this microphone up every weekend, and this has been going on for eleven years.
One time, I got tired of it. I got tired of the routine, tired of the monotony so I thought, “I’m just going to hide from Owen.” I went out in the parking lot and hid behind a couple of cars. It was the most hilarious sight I have ever seen to watch Owen Goff walk around—and Owen walks kind of like a bowlegged cowboy in a hurry—looking for me. “Have you seen the Pastor?” Perspiration was dripping off of his face. Finally, he found me.
You can’t shake Owen. He is omnipresent. You can’t shake God either. You can’t run from God. You may think, “I can get away from him. Oh, yes, I can.” No, you can’t. If you cruise away from God, you will cruise right into him every single time. You can’t shake him. I don’t care how far you go. You see, Jonah thought God was a geographical God. He thought God was just the God of Israel. He didn’t realize that, when he jumped aboard the Disobedience II and fled to Tarshish, God was there.
So, Jonah is aboard the ship. Look at Verse 4, “Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up.” I thank God for the storms he has sent into my life when I am disobeying him. We need to be thankful for those storms. Where do you think our boy was? Where was Jonah? You know what Jonah was doing? He was asleep. The storm was raging with sea swells, increasing force 5 winds, and Jonah was asleep.
Now, you say, “Ed, how can someone sleep when they are 100% disobedient to God? How in the world can they do that? How can they have that mentality, that peace of mind?” I will tell you how. When we are disobedient, when we go the opposite way of God, the evil one has a way of giving us a false sense of security. This was a bad storm because the Bible says that even the sailors began to wig. Have you ever been out in the ocean and sailors and captains and old salts get freaked out? You better get scared.
They began throwing stuff overboard. Finally, they said, “Jonah, what is the deal?” Jonah said, “It’s my fault. I’m running from God.” They had to toss Jonah overboard. Once he hit the water, he was like a human fishing lure. The big one saw him, and the big one swallowed him. Verse 17, “The Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah. Jonah was inside the fish for three days and three nights.” Can you imagine doing time in the belly of a fish, those digestive juices eating away at your skin, the stench, darkness, cold, slippery, slimy, terrible stuff. Jonah was in there.
Here is the principle, a biblical principle, that you need to understand about following God’s lead. I’ve talked about it. I have hammered it about four or five different ways already, but let’s write it down, if you have a pen or a pencil. There are always consequences when you cruise away from God. There are consequences. “Sometimes, Ed?” No. “90% of the time?” No. There are always consequences when we cruise away from God, when we are disobedient.
This might shock and rock you, but God wants the best for you and me. God wants the best for us. We obey God as an act of worship, but we also obey him because it is the best thing. There are always consequences when you cruise away from God, so remember that when you are thinking about jumping aboard the Disobedience II. Remember that when you are thumbing through the “Travel and Leisure” section and you see tantalizing Tarshish.
Okay, Verse 1, Jonah, Chapter 2. This verse made me laugh. “From inside the fish Jonah prayed.” What a spiritual giant. I would have prayed. How about you? I would have done some serious, foxhole-religion praying. This guy was talking to God, wasn’t he? The guy really did pray. If you read his prayer, he confessed his sins before God. And he prayed Scripture, specifically, the book of Psalms. That is why it is so vital that we know the word of God. One of the best ways to learn how to praise God, and one of the best ways to learn how to pray and to articulate your thoughts, is to pray through the book of Psalms. There is amazing stuff right there in the middle of your Bible, the book of Psalms. “From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God.”
I like Verse 10, “And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.” God had hammered Jonah, “Jonah, go to Ninevah. Jonah, go toward obedience.” Jonah said, “No, no, no.” He didn’t pray. He didn’t talk to God about it. But God tapped a fish on the fin one time and said, “Vomit up Jonah.” Boom. The fish obeyed. The fish obeyed much quicker than God’s prophet. Pretty sad, isn’t it? For years, Jacque Cousteau told us that whales were brilliant. Right here, you have got it in black and white.
Oftentimes, God allows things in our lives to bring us to him. Oftentimes, God allows things to swallow us up. Oftentimes, as I have said before, God will knock all the props out. He will even knock one of our knees out. Then he wants us to put the other knee down.
I had lunch with a good friend of mine, several days ago. This man has just stepped over the line to become a Christian. He’s going through a tragedy right now, a real storm. He looked at me and his eyes got kind of teary and he said, “Ed, I’m not sure I would have put the other knee down. I’m not sure I would have stepped over the line of faith had it not been for this tragedy.”
God sends storms. God will allow things to swallow us up, just so we will turn toward him. But don’t be like Jonah. Don’t wait. Go ahead and do it now.
Let’s talk about prayer. Do you know what prayer will do? Every time, prayer will take us from the pit to the pinnacle. That’s another principle in following God’s lead—prayer. We have got to talk to God. We have got to stay connected to him. Prayer is simply conversation with him. How in the world will we know where God is leading if we are not talking to him? If you were out in the jungle or the wilderness, and you had a guide who had grown up there, but you never talked to him or her, you would be an idiot. Yet we say, “Oh, yes, I know what to do. I know which path to take relationally, financially, or emotionally.” Yet, you are not talking to God about it? You are going to mess up every single time; so will I. Talk to God about it. He is waiting. Prayer will take you from the pit to the pinnacle.
Let’s keep going, Jonah 3:1, “Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.” Are you ready for that? The whale coughed Jonah up, he has gotten right before God, he has done the 180, and now God has come to him a second time.
I want to take a break right now and play a little golf. Do you mind? How many golfers do we have? Okay. I like this shot right here. I am going to try to put this golf ball right down the middle of that carpeted isle. You talk about a tight fairway. The pressure is on. Cinderella story. Here we go. Let’s see if I can do it. Don’t worry, these balls are plastic. Don’t think lawsuit, okay? Our attorneys are here. Oh, did I miss it! That’s pathetic. Nice catch. I’ll take a Mulligan. Do you know what a Mulligan is? If you know what a Mulligan is, lift your hand. A Mulligan is something really cool in golf. When you mess up on one shot, you can say, “I’ll take a Mulligan.” It’s a do over. Isn’t that great? So, I’ll just take a Mulligan. If I miss this shot, I’ve got some more golf balls, and I’ll take a Mulligan and a Mulligan and a Mulligan. He did it!
God gave Jonah a Mulligan. He messed up on the first one and God gave him a Mulligan. I’m so thankful that we serve a Mulligan-giving God, aren’t you? Moses got angry, had a temper tantrum, and smashed the Ten Commandments. And did God say, “Well, that’s it.” No, God said, “Moses, I’ll give you a Mulligan.”
Samson had a haircut in Satan’s salon. Did God say, “Hey, bodybuilder, muscle head, it’s over. Forget it.” No, he didn’t. God said, “Samson, I’ll give you a Mulligan.”
David committed adultery at the peak and pinnacle of his career and had the girl’s husband rubbed out. Did God say, “David, it’s over.” No, after David repented, God said, “I’ll give you a Mulligan.”
I wouldn’t be up here if it weren’t for the fact of God giving Mulligans. You wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the fact that God gives us Mulligans. So, maybe you are saying, “Ed, you don’t realize how far I have gone. You don’t know how far away I am from God. Ed, at one time in my life, I had accepted Christ, and I was walking with him, and I was even involved in the church. But now, my life is in shambles. Surely, God wouldn’t give me a Mulligan.” Yes, he will. If you will do a 180, if you will repent, if you will turn from your sins, he will. He will meet you right where you are.
That’s the beautiful thing about the Gospel, isn’t it? That is the Gospel. We have sinned. We’ve failed. We’ve missed the mark. Yet God sent Christ to die on the cross for all of our sins, and he says, “Yes, you can have another chance.” I love God for that. That’s grace.
Look at Verse 10, Jonah 3. Let me read it right quick, and then I will fill in the blanks. “When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways,”—Who is they? Well, we are talking now about the Ninevites, the Assyrians—“he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.”
Here is what happened. The whale had upchucked Jonah. Jonah now had seen the light. He had traveled 500 miles through the Arabian Desert. He preached obedience. Take a wild stab at what happened. The entire city repented and turned toward God—one of the most amazing revivals in the history of the world. That would just blow your doors off. Something incredible occurred.
That brings me to another principle about following God’s lead. Success occurs, friends, when we seize the moment of a second chance. Success occurs when we take the Mulligan. That’s success. God is giving you that opportunity. He is giving you the chance to repent. He is giving you a Mulligan. Just go for it. He’ll forgive you. He will change you.
If I had written the Bible, I would have probably ended the book of Jonah at Jonah, Chapter 3, Verse 10, because that would have been a pretty cool ending. Jonah preaches and an incredible revival takes place. The End. And they all lived happily ever after. I would say that Jonah can now swim off into the sunset with his beautiful killer whale. But see, the Bible is so real, that not only does it show the strength of its characters, but also the weaknesses; not only the great times, but also the bad times as well.
So we continue. I hate to read this. I hate to say this, but Jonah did something very poor. After this incredible revival, after this move of God, after he had been forgiven and had the Mulligan, Jonah went outside the city, sat down under a vine that God had provided, and he entered the moan zone. Then God caused a little worm to eat the vine giving him shade, and the vine crumbled. You see, Jonah wanted God to nuke the Ninevites. Jonah didn’t like them. Jonah didn’t dig what God was doing.
Let me read in Jonah 4:1-3, “But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry.” Are you ready for that? “He prayed to the Lord, ‘Oh, Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee Tarshish. I knew that you were a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, O Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.’” Jonah is deep in the moan zone. He is all freaked out about the worm eating the vine. He is all freaked out at God because God spared the Ninevites. He is thinking about himself, other than what God has done.
Here is another principle that we need to understand: Be careful when you are critical of God’s concerns. Do you hear that? Be very careful when you are critical or negative about what God is positive about. The first time I did this talk, it was in May of 1994, and I am going to show you a brief excerpt from this message. Now, I will warn you. Don’t laugh at my hideous outfit. I think my pants were pulled up underneath my armpits, and I had this ugly jacket on. My hair looked like some pompadour look. Here it is.
[Video clip from “A Few Good Men – Inside Out”]
Why are you laughing? I have got to take this jacket off. This was just kind of a memory lane type situation.
Following God’s lead is what it is all about. We talked about it in 1994; we talked about it today. We can all connect with Jonah, can’t we? We have all been there. We have all been aboard the Disobedience II. We have all spent time in Tarshish. Yet, obedience is the place to be. Often times, going toward Tarshish is easier, the circumstances kind of fall into place. Sometimes people will say, “Well, Ed, it must be God’s will because the circumstances have fallen into place.” That’s not necessarily so. Oftentimes, the will of God is the way to obedience. It’s through the Arabian Desert. It is the more difficult path.
I remember years ago, a single lady came up to me and she said, “Ed, I want to ask you a question about dating.” I said, “Okay.” She said, “You know, I have been praying that God would send me the right guy for years. The day after I really began to pray, God sent me this guy who is like the second coming of Brad Pitt. He’s rich. He’s sweet. He’s kind.” I said, “Stop for a second. Is he a Christ-follower? The Bible says we need to hook up with other Christ-followers.” She said, “No, but it must be God’s will, because it just fell into place. He looks so great.”
That doesn’t mean it’s God’s will. So, it’s time that we understand these principles, that we follow God’s lead, that we do the 180 and take the Mulligan, that we say, “God, I want to be positive about what you are positive about.” Then and only then will we follow God’s lead. Because his lead is right here in the Bible. You know what? That’s no whale’s tale.