The Prayer That Saves: Part 2 - Beacon Sunday Service: September 21st, 2025

If you can rise with me, I want to read Jonah chapter two, and I'm gonna just read the first four verses of the prayer. And uh last week we looked at the prayer from the vantage point of the sinner. Today we're looking at it from the vantage point of God. Okay, so verses one to four. Then Jonah prayed to Yahweh, his God from the stomach of the fish, and he said, I called out of my distress to Yahweh, and he answered me. I cried for help from the belly of Sheol. You heard my voice, for you had cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the current surrounded me, all your breakers and waves passed over me. So I said, I have been driven away from your sight. Nevertheless, I will look again towards your holy temple.

Would you uh pray with me? Father, we come before you just longing to hear your voice. And no matter how clearly you speak, there are elements, Lord God, where we are distracted, where we don't catch everything. But I pray that you would stir in up our hearts a great humility, a great awe and terror, and yet thankfulness that is overflowing into praise. Teach us how to respond in worship, teach us how to love not only one another, but also deeply the lost, and would you honor your own namesake and glorify yourself through just the proclamation of your truth? Lord, would you bear fruit through your preaching? And I pray for just a good time of fellowship together as we face in the same direction, longing to see you and to hear you and ultimately to know you.

I'm gonna pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Go ahead and take a seat. So some of the grandest truths of the scriptures are actually impossible for our finite minds to grasp. And they sound wonderful and they sound inspiring, but some of the proclamations that are in the Bible just are beyond us. They are thoughts too difficult, almost too strange for us. In fact, if we think really deeply upon some of the truths that we find in the scriptures, they will offend, they will humble, and then they will distress us. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are my ways your way, or your ways my ways, declares Yahweh. For as high as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Amen. It sounds nice, right? These verses are on cards and they're hanging on frames and homes. And I'm sure you've read or heard this passage before. Do you believe that to be true? Really think about this. Do you really believe this? Or does our pride quietly sneak in and make us feel that the distance between us and God is actually not that great in our minds. Sometimes we are deceived to think that his ways are just slightly higher than our ways.

That he simply is just like us, but just a lot wiser. Is he infinitely different from us? Like the passages say, or the passage, right? God is not like man, he is completely different from man. He is absolutely different from you and me. And that's the definition of holy. Some people, when we think holy, it's just we think of like a bright color or like perfect. No, it just means he's other, he's set apart. So he is a God that is completely other. So I want to illustrate this to help us try to wrap our minds around the distance between us and God. Most of you guys have been to our home, and uh we have an older dog named Bailey. Becky and I adopted her in 2013 from Korea. So she's a Korean dog.

Her favorite food is actually Korean curry rice. Okay, so Becky feeds her Korean curry. Bailey is Asian. Her roots are Asian. Because she's an Asian dog, we were just assuming she's smart too. Okay. So now we also spent some time in Beijing, China, so I can speak some Mandarin. Even though I'm forgetting more and more with each passing year. The four tones, the grammar, the written characters. No. No matter how, passionately and diligently, I sit her down and accurately instruct her, our Mandarin lessons will. Maybe if they sit in front of Bailey, will they teach her better? No. What if we brought in the world's most famous Mandarin teacher to teach my dog Mandarin? It would still be a future effort.

Bailey would not improve in her Chinese no matter how long she sits under our lessons, no matter who is teaching her. It doesn't matter that she's from Asia, that she first had a Korean name, it was Panguri. The problem is not in the complexities of Mandarin. It is because there's a great chasm between the intellect of human beings and dogs. The problem is not with the Mandarin.

Bailey can't understand math or Shakespeare. She can't grasp the laws of physics or to even understand what an email is. Dogs are not like humans. Now, if I take it a step farther and I brought you a frog or a guppy or a spider, then the gap becomes even bigger. And this may offend us, but there are far more similarities between us and a worm than there is between us and God. And that would offend a lot of people if you actually think about this. The gap between Yahweh God and man is exponentially greater than the gap between me and a cockroach. The gap is as high as a heavens or above the earth.

In our pride, we think that we can understand the things of God. And if something doesn't make sense to us, we reject it as falsehood. But as we age and mature, we're gonna come to realize that there are many, many truths that are way beyond our ability to understand. And the problems do not lie with the truths of God. The problems are in our limitations and our inability to grasp and understand God's truth. So God, through his word, clearly explains things to us so that we can kind of understand. But again, in our understanding is limited and finite. And it's also corrupted with sin, with pride, with self. So in our corrupt, limited and sinful and arrogant states, it's actually impossible for us to understand the truths of God fully, no matter how well God articulates them to us.

Right? So for example, the doctrine of the Trinity. One God, how many persons? Three persons. That makes no sense.

No matter how you try to harmonize. So no earthly illustration will ever clearly explain to us the doctrine of the Trinity so that we're not confused. We don't teach the Trinity because it makes perfect sense to our limited understanding. We teach it because the Bible clearly teaches it. God is one God, and He is three persons. And I'm not going to try to explain it. Here's another point of tension. And this is what we're going to be looking at in Jonah today. So you're going to feel uncomfortable. How can a God who hates sin with a perfect and fiery hatred? Be at the same time a perfectly loving, compassionate, and a God who is slow to anger. That is beyond us. There is no hint of error in the juxtaposition of God's hatred and God's love.

God's hatred and God's love. And that juxtaposition is all over the pages of the Bible. And we're going to see that in Jonah's prophecy and his dealings with the Assyrians. And I've explained to you before, there are two prophetic books that deal only with Assyria, and that's Jonah, and that's Nahum. And those are like the book ends of dealings with Assyria. Jonah paints for us a picture of a God who is patient and kind. Almost as an evil. Okay? Jonah chapter 3. Then God saw their repentance, that they turned from their evil way. So God relented concerning the evil which he had spoken he would bring. So God is so gracious that his graciousness was almost evil to Jonah, and it caused him anger enough where he wants to die.

Jonah would have loved to have given the prophecy that Nahum gave. And we're going to get to Nahum after Jonah, okay? Nahum's message, given almost 150 years later, was about the fiery anger of God toward the Ninevites. God's wrath is very much on display in Nahum's oracle. So on the surface, the God of Jonah looks very different from the God of Nahum. And it's almost as if the scriptures are contradicting themselves. Or we're thinking, and this is maddeningly difficult to grasp. And that, so if we're paying attention, we're going to see this jarring paradox in the passage of Jonah's prayer today. And there's going to be some tension and some mental dissonance as we deeply think about Jonah's prayer.

And again, the problem is not in the truths that have been proclaimed to us. The problem and the tension will lie in our inability to fully understand God's truth. Amen? So we have to just acknowledge that. So we need the Lord's help and illumination. Okay. Hardened hearts of stone have to be supernaturally replaced with tender hearts of flesh. If I'm preaching this to a non-Christian, the non-Christian says that's nonsense. Because his heart is hardened. And as 1 Corinthians will say, these are things that are spiritually discerned. The things of God are foolishness to the unregenerate heart. Okay. So scales need to be flawed fall from blind eyes. So I'm hoping that the Lord will help us to see, believe, and trust through the lens of faith.

And we're going to be looking at three attributes of God that are mentioned in Jonah's prayer. So here is the outline of his prayer. First, he is a God who hates.

Even though it has a the happiest ending of all happiest endings, it is filled with hatred. Look at Revelation chapter 22. There's a lot of casting out. Okay. We get a lot of God's hatred, like I said, when you get to the book of Nahum. And so we see God who hates. Second, he is a God who hears. He is a God who inclines his ears to the desperate pleas of vile sinners. And third, we will see through Jonah's prayer that he is a great physician. And a God who mercifully and miraculously heals. So we serve a God who heals, who saves and transforms. And Jonah, his prayer is accepted by the God who hears and saves and transforms. So you may feel tension and discomfort rising up in your hearts and your minds because those are very strong statements, and they feel like it doesn't fit.

Our brains want to harmonize them, but remember, we can't. So we're going to go through this and say, Lord, help me to understand and be in awe of you. So first, Jonah prays to a God who hates. So I'm going to read you Jonah's prayer in context, but I'm going to focus on the attribute of God's hatred. Okay, so there will be parts of the prayer that I will skip over for a moment to highlight the hatred of God towards sin. Verse 3, you had cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the current surrounded me, all your breakers and your waves passed over me. Verse 4. So I said, I have been driven away from your sight. Verse 5, water encompassed me to my very soul. The great deep surrounded me.

Weeds were wrapped around my head. I went down to the base of the mountains. The earth with its bars closed behind me forever, while my soul was fainting within me, and then he goes on to say. So those are all things that have been done to Jonah. Now, you're gonna feel like, wait, the words of Jonah chapter 2, verse 3 to 7 aren't that strong. They're not that hateful. You're taking this out of context. God's hatred is not fully on display. If you look at the front of Nahum, it's very clear. But in the book of Jonah, his hatred is more in the shadows. But we know that the God of Nahum is the same God of Jonah. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Right? So he is a God who hates. And I'm gonna get his character from the whole of the scriptures.

So in Jonah's prophecy, what is highlighted about God is his grace, compassion, and the fact that he's slow to anger, loving, abounding in loving kindness, and relenting of evil. So it's not at the very front. But the scriptures make it clear that God hates sin. Okay, and I'm gonna bring it back to Jonah. But Proverbs 6, 6 to 19, 16 and 19. There are six things which Yahweh, what's the word? Hates. Seven, which are an abomination to him, haughty eyes, a lying tongue, a hand that sheds blood, a heart that devises wicked thoughts, feet that hasten to run to evil, a liar, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who spreads strife among brothers. And so, the God who hates sin, who considers these things an abomination, an act of cosmic treason, he readies his wrath.

He is a God of wrath. Romans chapter 1. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness. So the God of the universe hates the sin of all mankind. Amen. It is a righteous and indignant and justifiable hatred. God hates sin. God hates. God's hatred toward the sinner is righteous and indignant and unbridled in rage and wrath. Now in your minds you might be thinking, wait a minute. I've always heard the phrase, God hates the sin, but he loves the sinner. That's actually biblically inaccurate. It is misleading. And we've talked about this before. The Bible clearly teaches us that God hates the sinner.

He loves the saint. He'll make the sinner a saint, but he hates the sinner. Absolutely. Okay, so I'm going to show you verses in the scriptures that show us that God's hatred isn't just towards sin, it's also toward the man. Okay. Psalm 5, 5 to 6, the boastful shall not stand before your eyes. You hate all workers of iniquity. You destroy those who speak falsehood. Yahweh abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit. Psalm 11, 5. Yahweh tests the righteous, but the wicked and the one that loves violence, his soul hates. So God hates the sinner. He hates the sinner, not just partially, but with his entire being, with his very soul.

So because of his hatred towards both the sin and the sinner in his unconverted state, the sinner is a target, an object whose sole purpose is to receive the unbridled wrath of thrice holy God. And that's how the apostle Paul describes the condition of every man, both Jew and Gentile, apart from the intervention of the grace of God. So Ephesians chapter 2, it reads, You were dead in your transgression and sins in which you formerly walked, according to the course of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience, among whom we also formerly conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind.

And we all were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. Have you guys seen this passage before? We don't just gloss over it, right? Apart from Christ, we were all once children of wrath. In other words, we were children. Some translations will translate this word as objects of wrath, targets of wrath. So basically, apart from Christ, Paul is saying, we were all doomed, because we were all objects of wrath. No matter how earnest and passionate and loud a man's religious acts are, they can't appease the wrath of God. That's why we're not saved by works. Empty religion does not satisfy the wrath of God because of their sins. So even for Israel, for whom Yahweh God made a covenant, he's preparing a funeral lament.

Okay. Amos chapter 5, verse 21. I hate, I reject your feasts, nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies, even though you offer up to me burnt offerings and your grain offerings. I will not accept them. I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings. And that's to his people. So in Jonah chapter 2, Jonah is describing the wages of his sin. So the ebbing away to death of his physical body are the consequences of his rebellion towards God. And so the tone of the book in Jonah, it's not one of rage and anger, but the actually, the whole book begins with the truth that God hates sin, and because God hates sin, the Ninevites are in big trouble.

Okay, so it's not obvious or explicit or even colorful, but the hatred of God runs through the book of Jonah. The book of Jonah begins with the God of the universe, who not only hates sin, but he sees the sin that the Ninevites have been committing. And those are vile evil sins we learned about five weeks ago, right? Jonah 1 2. Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me. And the wording is like a vile stench. So God is disgusted. So Jonah is a prophet of the hopefully that is clear through the scriptures. And this is where our minds are a little bit uncomfortable. And this is you just went the other way.

The God who hates perfectly is a good God who loves perfectly with a limited limitless compassion. So the more and more we actually meditate on this, we're gonna be confused. Oh Yahweh, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. Who is a God like you? And like David, Psalm 8. What is man that you remember him? And the Son of Man that you care for him. These are objects of wrath. Who hate God, who curse God, who blaspheme God, who shake their fists at God, what is man that you remember him and that you care for him.

So the God who regards the prayer of the sinners as an abomination, Proverbs 15, eight, who does not hear the prayers of the workers of iniquity, Isaiah 59, verse 2, hears the prayers of a broken and contrite person. So Yahweh God is a God who hears. So the God who hates the sinner and refuses to incline his ear to the sinner's prayers. The God who hates the sinner, refuses to incline his ear to the sinner's prayers, hears the sinner's prayers, and it's not a contradiction. Psalm 51, verse 17 reads, The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, God you will not despise.

Then Jonah 2, we see God hearing the prayers offered up by his servant Jonah, and this man was disobedient, he was rebellious. He is not a good guy. He had the audacity to be angry at God to death. But God still loved Jonah and heard Jonah. Jonah chapter 2, verse 2, he answered me. You heard my voice, verse 7. My prayer came to you, to your holy temple, and it is implied that he heard. Verse 9. But as for me, I will sacrifice to you with the voice of thanksgiving. So the God of hatred is a God who compassionately hears.

So in Jonah chapter 1, who does God hear? The prayer of the pagan sailors. He heard them. Jonah chapter 3. We're going to see this next week. The Ninevites repent, put on sackcloth. And he responds to their fasting and their prayer. And it is implied that he heard the Ninevites. And then again in chapter 2, he hears the prayer of a rebellious broken servant. And he answers. So Jonah is the servant of the God of the universe who answers, who hears, who listens to the prayers of his saints. And God receives with thanksgiving the sacrifices or the sacrifices of thanksgiving that they offer up with their voices.

So this isn't amazing grace. This is a grace that's actually ridiculous. It is a grace that is absurd and impossible to fully understand or even articulate. This is an absolutely stupid grace. It makes zero sense that the God who hates sin list to the prayer of the sinner. Think of your least favorite animal or insect or creature. Okay? Mine's the mosquito. Think of a disgusting mosquito that is riddled with disease. It carries malaria, it carries dengue, it carries Zika. And it kills more people every year than any other animal on the world. You know, you guys know this about the mosquito. I have never met a single person who likes a mosquito.

Ever. Hatred toward the mosquito is universal. Hatred towards mosquitoes is understandable and normal. Amen. Hatred for mosquitoes is appropriate. It is righteous even. And you would hate a mosquito. Now, mosquitoes pose a threat of great harm to an entire people. How strange would it be for us to, us who hate the mosquito, to have compassion for the mosquito. And then not only have the heart, but the ability to listen to it. To love it. So remember, what is the greater distance between me and a mosquito? If I killed it right now, nobody would call the police.

And the Son of Man that you care for him. You elevated him almost to the level of angels. What are you doing, God? Is the cosmic cry. And this is the God of Jonah. This is the God we serve and love. And this is a God who hears. So he is a God who hears. And as he hears, he remembers his promises, no matter how unfaithful his people, he is a faithful God, 1 Timothy chapter 1, too, right? He is faithful, even if we're faithless. Exodus chapter 2, verse 23 to 24, it reads, the sons of Israel sighed because of the slavery, their sin, right? They cried out. And their cry for help because of their slavery rose up to God. So God heard their groaning. God remembered his covenant with Abraham, and then he moved.

So he is a God who hears the prayers of his people, remembers his covenant, and he is a God who not only hears the prayers, but he is a God who is moved even by the sighing, the groaning of man. Our God is a God of compassion. Judges 2 18. Now when Yahweh raised up judges for them, Yahweh was with the judge and saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of that judge. For Yahweh was moved to pity by what? Their groaning because of those who oppress and suppress them. Judges 10 16 says that he could bear their misery no longer. This is the God we serve.

He could bear the trouble, the misery no longer. He is a God who is grieved by human misery. So he's a God who isn't only moved by the pity or the groaning, he is moved by even man's ignorance. And it's not just the ignorance of his children or his people that he's moved by. God is moved by the ignorance of hostile sinners. Look at Jonah 4 11. And this is the last book of this or this is the last verse of this absurd book that makes no sense. And this is God's last statement to Jonah, and it closes the prophecy. Should I not have pity on Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know the difference between their right hand and their left hand, as well as many animals.

They are so dumb, even though they're mighty fighters, they're so superstitious. Did you know that they even put sack cloth on their animals? Because they were so scared. So they don't know anything, and they are sore immoral, but God has compassion on even them. And here's an amazing thing, okay? We serve a God who hates perfectly, but can be moved. One more, 2 Chronicles 33. And when he, King Manasseh, was in distress, he entreated Yahweh his God, and he humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. Then he prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his supplication, returned him back to Jerusalem to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that Yahweh was God.

Do you see where it says Manasseh is moved by, or God is moved by Manasseh's prayer? It'll be a shock if you realize he is the wickedest king that Judah ever had. What? Manasseh prays in desperation, and God is moved. The grace of God and the love of God causes the eyes of God and the ears of God to stir and move with great compassion. And this is a great God who hates. So the gospel of Jesus Christ begins with a holy God who hates perfectly. So here's a profound truth. God's hatred springs forth from his love.

God hates perfectly because he loves perfectly.

God is love. And because of his great love, he hears. And he doesn't just hear, he moves to heal. Jonah 2, 7 to 9. While my soul was fainting within me, I remembered Yahweh, and my prayer came to you to your holy temple. Those who regard worthless idols forsake their loving kindness. But as for me, I sacrifice to you with the voice of thanksgiving, that which I have vowed, I will pay salvation belongs to Yahweh. We serve a God who heals. So when any sinner turns away from worthless idols and clings to the loving kindness, verse eight of God, the Hesed, the covenant and steadfast, compassionate love of God, is activated, and God heals and saves from sin and disease. And the means by which God did that was through a payment.

How did the God who hates appease and satisfy his wrath? He poured it all out on whom? The Lamb of God, who does what? Takes away the sins of the world. John 1 29. He put it to death once and for all on the cross. And this is what you call double imputation, glorious exchange. He took Christ's perfect righteousness and gave it to those who would believe. And he provided the means to carve out all sin and to make the sinner a saint and an object of his love. That is why we gather and sing and worship. The wrath of God was satisfied for every sin on him was laid.

So here in the death of Christ, I live. Till on that cross, as Jesus died, the hatred of God was satisfied for every sin, every vile, disgusting, hateful sin on him was laid. So now, here in the death of Christ, I live and I am loved. This is a concept that is so difficult to understand that simply just causes us to be silent. Amen. But here's the thing.

So we know the things of God intuitively, though we cannot explain it, though we cannot articulate it, even though right now our knowledge is imperfect, our understanding is limited. There's still residual sin in our lives. Even his spirit in us, not only as a DNA transplant to make us more like Jesus, but as a deposit, guaranteeing that this is going to be completed, Philippians 1 6. So we have the mind of Christ now to know and appreciate and to love God. But it says in 1 Corinthians 13, 12, now we only know in part. But then what will happen? We will know fully, just as we are fully known. The grace of God becomes even more whom he deserves, transforms the person, elevates to the position of co-heir with Christ, and gives that vile sinner because of his transformation, access to a face-to-face knowledge with God.

We are co-heirs with Christ. We are going to be in every way just like Christ, except He's the center of worship. He alone is worthy of worship, but in every moral fiber of our being, we will be like God. That is absurd. But hallelujah, that's amazing grace. Amen. If you take away the hatred of God, the cross is worthless. Are you guys following this? If you remove God's hatred towards sin, the act on the cross is just cruelty. If you take away the hatred of God towards sin. But if you know God and you know his heart, and the Spirit of God is working in you, you will gradually hate sin more and more and more, and you can't help it.

Because what grieves his heart will grieve your heart. What delights his heart will delight your heart. And what delights his heart is an expression of great love, even for enemies. Amen. We don't love because people are worth loving. There's evil people. And right now we're hearing rumors of wars, famines, earthquakes. The love of God is growing, or the love of people, it's growing cold because of the increase in wickedness. There's chaos in the world right now. Right. So we don't need to love these people because they deserve it. We love them because we can't help but loving them because the love of God through the enabled and empowered by the Spirit of God is in us to just love even the most unworthy recipients of love.

And when the darkness that hates the light shrieks, we respond in more truth and with grace and kindness and love because the love of God compels us to love, not because people are worthy, but because he is worthy and we want to reflect him. Praise God that the God who hates poured out his hate on the only one who deserved to be loved. I'm going to close with one of the most powerful prayers that we see in the scriptures that captures everything that we looked at today. 2 Chronicles 7, 12 to 15. Then Yahweh appeared to Solomon at night and said to him, and I have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice. But my people who are called by my name, humble themselves and pray and seek my face, repent from their evil ways.

I will hear from heaven. I will forgive their sin, and I will heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. The physical temple is gone. You who have Christ's DNA in you have access to God because the veil was torn, and now our prayers go directly to God. What is man that the God of the universe is mindful of us? I can't fully understand it. I can't articulate it or explain it. I don't think I made any sense today. But that's okay. But with each passing season, may the truths of the God who is totally not like us, keep us humble, keep us in awe.

May the grace of God continue to befuddle and confuse us.

Reverence and worship. John 330, he must increase, and we must decrease. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for wounding, not an inspirational illustration. The cross is where your hatred and your love met in the person of Jesus Christ. So it is for him we gather. It is for him we learn your word. It is for Christ that we love people. May the Lord come. Would you be magnified in our lives? Would you shine in and through us brightly for your glory and for our good? And pray all this in Jesus' name.