(Slide 1) This morning I begin with a desire to hear from you. In a moment, I am going to ask you a series of questions and all that I want you to do is to do is raise your hands to “yes” or “no” ask I them, ok? Ready? Here we go!
(1A)Question 1: Did you pray last week? Yes No
(1B)Question 2: Did you pray out loud last week? Yes No
(1C)Question 3: Did you pray with someone else last week? Yes No
(1D)Question 4: Did you pray when things were going well last week?
Yes No
(1E)Question 5: Did you pray when things were going bad last week?
Yes No
(Slide 2)
Question 6: Did you pray instead of getting angry? Yes No
(2A)Question 7: Did you pray instead of gossiping? Yes No
(2B)Question 8: Did you pray when you were up to your eyeballs in stress? Yes No
(2C) Question 9: Did you pray in a panic situation? Yes No
(Slide 3)
Bonus question: Have you ever prayed from/in the belly of a great fish? Yes No
You have. I have. We all have… prayed from/in the belly of a great fish.
Praying from the belly of a great fish is praying out of up to your eyeballs stress moments, in a panic situation, when anger is breathing down your neck, and when the temptation to gossip about someone for your own gratification challenges the thought of praying from them instead.
Here is our main text for this morning…
“Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from inside the fish. He said, “I cried out to the Lord in my great trouble, and he answered me. I called to you from the world of the dead, and Lord, you heard me! You threw me into the ocean depths, and I sank down to the heart of the sea. I was buried beneath your wild and stormy waves. Then I said, ‘O Lord, you have driven me from your presence. How will I ever again see your holy Temple?’
“I sank beneath the waves, and death was very near. The waters closed in around me, and seaweed wrapped itself around my head. I sank down to the very roots of the mountains. I was locked out of life and imprisoned in the land of the dead. But you, O Lord my God, have snatched me from the yawning jaws of death!
“When I had lost all hope, I turned my thoughts once more to the Lord. And my earnest prayer went out to you in your holy Temple. Those who worship false gods turn their backs on all God’s mercies. But I will offer sacrifices to you with songs of praise, and I will fulfill all my vows. For my salvation comes from the Lord alone.”
Then the Lord ordered the fish to spit up Jonah on the beach, and it did.” (NLT)
(Slide 4) Reed Lessing tells the story of a Native American ritual for training young braves:
On the night of a boy’s thirteenth birthday, he was placed in a dense forest to spend the entire night alone. Until then he had never been away from the security of his family and tribe. But on this night he was blindfolded and taken miles away. When he took off the blindfold, he was in the middle of thick woods. By himself. All night long. Terrifying! How out of his element the young brave must have felt. How very un-BRAVE, in fact.
Every time a twig snapped, he probably visualized a wild animal ready to pounce.
Every time an animal howled, he imagined a wolf leaping out of the darkness.
Every time the wind blew, he wondered what more sinister sound it masked.
No doubt it was a terrifying night for many.
After what must have seemed like an eternity, the first rays of sunlight entered the interior of the forest. Looking around, the boy saw flowers, trees, and the outline of the path. Then, to his utter astonishment, he beheld the figure of a man standing just a few feet away, armed with a bow and arrow. It was the boy’s father. He had been there all night long. It is a lesson in bravery ... in independence. But it is an important lesson in DEPENDENCE as well. Tribe and family matter. You aren’t alone, even when you are most lonely.
Have you ever considered that sometimes God may put the blind fold on us, take us out into the woods, as a manner of speaking, and then leave us alone to see how we will respond?
The Spirit, the Holy Spirit, led Jesus into the wilderness for 40 days. Could not the Lord do the same to us for the purpose of helping us mature in our faith and relationship with Him?
Someone has pointed out that Jonah’s prayer is a prayer of thanksgiving. Jonah was thankful that he was spared and did not drown.
This is praying inside the belly of the fish… seeing the situation through the eyes of faith and not through the lens of circumstance.
Yes, Jonah was there because he was disobedient.
Yes, it would appear that God had decided to deep six Jonah.
Yes, it could be viewed as Jonah being blindfolded and sent into a watery forest and then left alone, not for a single night, but for three days.
How do you pray when you are in the belly of the fish? Do you argue with God? Do you curse Him and your circumstances? Do you blame Him for where you are?
When we are in the forest, confused and alone, are we really alone?
In Lessing’s story, a few feet away, is the father. Armed.
Armed for what?
Armed to protect his son! He knows that he is unable to defend himself and so, nearby, he stands guard ready to intervene when necessary. But, he does not simply intervene because to do so would rob the boy of some valuable lessons that he must learn if he is to grow up and become a responsible brave and warrior.
Does not the same thing apply to you and me, to us?
Does not God stand nearby, waiting to intervene, but only when necessary, watch over us, when we find ourselves in the forest alone, afraid, and confused?
Is not God also aware of where we are in the darkness of the belly?
(Slide 5) We have been tragically reminded of the power of large fish, like the whale, in recent weeks.
They are immense creatures who are capable of swallowing us.
This passage of scripture has raised many questions over the years about its plausibility. I did some research and while there was a story in the late 1800’s about a British sailor being swallowed by a whale, there has been enough lack of collaborating evidence to confirm the story. However, my research also showed that sperm whales do and have swallowed squid whole. In fact, in 1955 one weighing 405 pounds was removed intact from a capture whale.
The issues raised by being in the belly of a large creature are numerous. There is the danger of drowning or suffocating even though whales are mammals that need air to live. They can and do dive to great depths for several minutes. Imagine the pressure on your ear drums at 500, 1,000, or 1,500 feet.
There is the issue of the chemical nature of the stomach which digests food. There is the lack of light and the issue of total darkness, total darkness. Not to mention the other living creatures, like squid, that could be a fellow resident with you in the stomach!
We do not have to be swallowed whole by a ocean giant to know what it is like to suffocate under the weight of fear and uncertainty; we do not have to have a sleepless and disoriented night in a forest to experience a sleepless night in our bed over issues that face us the next morning at work, at school, or right there at home.
Which brings me back to my questions about prayer.
When you are in the belly of the fish because of your disregard for God’s direction or the disoriented darkness of the forest that comes from God’s choice to test you and see how you do, how do you pray?
From Jonah, we learn how to pray…
“When I had lost all hope, I turned my thoughts once more to the Lord. And my earnest prayer went out to you in your holy Temple. Those who worship false gods turn their backs on all God’s mercies. But I will offer sacrifices to you with songs of praise, and I will fulfill all my vows. For my salvation comes from the Lord alone.”
Then the Lord ordered the fish to spit up Jonah on the beach, and it did.”
In praying in the belly of the great fish, under dire circumstances, we must remember who God is and that it is His will that must be done and it is He who is worthy of our total obedience.
(Slide 6) Here were the questions for this week that I thought were for last week, but were actually for this week…
1. How do times of distress affect my prayer life?
2. How fervent am I in prayer when life is going well?
3. How does distress re-orient my thinking toward God?
4. Is the power of prayer found in my sincerity, my persistence, or God’s grace?
(Slide 6a) It is this final question that I want us to focus on this morning as we move toward conclusion. “Is the power of prayer found in my sincerity, my persistence, or God’s grace?”
How many think it is our sincerity? Our persistence? God’s grace?
Certainly it is God’s grace that is the basis for prayer’s power because it is to whom we pray that matters.
And scripture reminds us that God’s grace is not something we earn but is a gift given freely by God that makes us right with Him.
But what about Matthew 15 where Jesus encounters a Gentile, a non-Jewish woman who seeks deliverance for her demon possessed child? At first Jesus refuses her request.
Finally he says to her, “I was sent only to help the people of Israel—God’s lost sheep—not the Gentiles.”
Then we read, “But she came and worshiped him and pleaded again, “Lord, help me!”
To which Jesus replies, “It isn’t right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs,” he said.” He calls her, and the gentiles, dogs! That’s un-Christlike!
But then she says, “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “but even dogs are permitted to eat crumbs that fall beneath their master’s table.”
And Jesus relents, “Woman,” Jesus said to her, “your faith is great. Your request is granted.” And her daughter was instantly healed.
Or what about Luke 7 when Jesus encounters the Roman officer who seeks Jesus’ healing of his slave and He hears the officer say, “Lord, don’t trouble yourself by coming to my home, for I am not worthy of such an honor. I am not even worthy to come and meet you. Just say the word from where you are, and my servant will be healed... And when the officer’s friends returned to his house, they found the slave completely healed.”
(Did you catch what he called Jesus? “Lord!” A Roman officer calling a Jewish teacher “Lord.” Imagine that! “Lord” was reserved for one man and one man only in the ways of the Roman Empire and who was that? Caesar! And he calls Jesus “Lord!”)
In these two passages we see both sincerity and persistence in action. Is God moved by them to answer their prayer? Yes He was.
So what is the right answer to this question?
How sincere are we when we pray? We cannot fake sincerity in prayer! God knows are hearts and He knows when we are faking it! He also knows when we are deeply sincere.
Then there is persistence in prayer.
I remember a time after Daniel was born that we needed more space to live in. We needed a house. The apartment that we were living in was nice, but we need more space.
I began to pray and ask God for an amount of money to help us get a home. Not for myself but for my family.
I asked, again, and again and again.
One night, I again asked for this amount in prayer and felt like God restrained me from asking anymore.
And from two different people, we got nearly twice the amount I had asked for in my prayers.
God knew Jonah’s heart in the belly of that whale. He discerned a sincerity and persistence (and desperation!) that He responded to for two reasons: 1. He loved Jonah and was sticking with him 2. He wanted Jonah to obey Him and go to Nineveh and proclaim His message to them.
You and I have prayed, and we continue to pray, prayers that God knows are sincere and persistent. They are for our children, our grandchildren, parents, friends, co-workers, family, our church, our nation, and a host of other things.
Some of us have been praying these prayers for quite a while; years, if not decades! We are seeking God to work and for people to respond to Christ; for relationships to be healed and restored; for problems to be resolved.
Let us not give up on praying these persistent and sincere prayers. God’s heart is in them too. He may take a while to answer some of them, but He is going to answer them in some way, some day.
Not every prayer is like these prayers; these belly of the whale prayers, these in the confusion of the forest prayers. But some are… and the Lord knows which is which.
As we prepare for our corporate prayer time, I am going to ask that we form pairs and pray for the following:
(Slide 7) Pray for…
1. One another – their concerns and for them as a fellow believer
2. For our new building plans and our church’s future direction that we would discern and follow God’s direction.
Amen.
