God's Response to Jonah Running From God Was Not Divine Punishment

This is part 4 of a sermon series on Jonah entitled “Surprised by Grace.”

In this sermon—“The Ultimate Price of Rescue”—we see that Jonah’s self centered flight from God generates an act of divine intervention which produces a momentary act of selflessness on Jonah’s part. It would seem he is getting better, that he’s learned his lesson. But the rest of the book shows Jonah slipping back into self-centeredness.

This pattern mirrors our own lives. One moment we’re doing something selfless and the next moment we are acting despicably selfish. One moment we are giving and the next moment we are taking. As Paul says in Romans 7: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

What we see in this message is that no matter how often you run or to what dark places your roaming may take you, God NEVER stops coming for you with infinite amounts of gritty grace, muscular mercy, and ferocious forgiveness.