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    Dec 10, 2017

    Enter into the Belly of Grace

    Enter into the Belly of Grace

    Passage: Jonah 1:17-2:10

    Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

    Series: Enter In: An Advent Series in Jonah

    *Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, this week's sermon recording is not available.* As the modern world continues to gather reasons to think Christian faith irrelevant, if not dangerous, it still refuses to jettison entirely the idea of salvation--that no matter how skilled or industrious we are, we find ourselves in need of something beyond us to rescue us. Despite the revulsion many have for the Christian’s offer of salvation, what if its nature is more compelling than typically thought of? What precisely is the nature of this salvation? And how does Jonah’s personal experience of it as compellingly told in chapter 2 translate into a more universal experience of salvation?
    *Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, this week's sermon recording is not available.*

    Order of Worship

    Call To Worship (Advent Candle Lighting): Isaiah 11:1-10
    Reading: Old Testament: Psalm 115:4-9
    Reading: New Testament: Matthew 12:38-42
    Central Text: Jonah 1:17 - 2:1-10
    Sermon: Enter into the Belly of Grace
    Benediction: Psalm 3:8 (ESV); Jude 22:22

    Readings/Scripture:

    Call To Worship (Advent Candle Lighting): Isaiah 11:1-10
    The second candle on the Advent Wreath is called the Bethlehem candle. It is a symbol of the preparations being made to receive and cradle the Christ child.

    LEADER/LIGHTER:11 There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. 2 And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
    the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. 3 And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, 4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. 5 Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins. 6 The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. 7 The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. 9 They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. 10 In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—

    PEOPLE: of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.

    Reading(s): Old Testament: Psalm 115:4-9
    4 Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. 5 They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. 6 They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. 7 They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat.8 Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them. 9 O Israel, trust in the LORD! He is their help and their shield.

    New Testament: Matthew 12:38-42
    Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” 39 But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. 42 The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.

    Central Text: Jonah 1:17 - 2:1-10

    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.

    1 Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish, 2 saying, “I called out to the LORD, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. 3 For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me. 4 Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.’ 5 The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped about my head 6 at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever; yet you brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God. 7 When my life was fainting away, I remembered the LORD, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple. 8 Those who pay regard to vain idols
    forsake their hope of steadfast love. 9 But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you;
    what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the LORD!”

    Jonah 2:10 And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

     

    Benediction:
    Psalm 3:8 (ESV)
    8 Salvation belongs to the Lord;
    your blessing be on your people!

    Jude 22:22 And have mercy on those who doubt;

    Post-Service Text: 1 John 5:21
    Little children, keep yourselves from idols.

    Related Scriptures:
    Job 1:20-21
    Psalms 18, 30, 120, 130
    Psalms 3:8; 31:6
    Isaiah 40:19-20
    Luke 15:11-19
    Colossians 3:5
    Jude 22

    Discussion Questions & Applications:

    1. Retell the chapter in your own words. What happens? What strikes you as important, odd, or even hard to swallow (ha!)?
    2. What is motivating Jonah’s psalm-like language?
    3. How from what you know of Israel’s history would help you understand how Israel would have heard and interpreted this story?
    4. What is an idol? What are some examples?
    5. How do you know when something you properly cherish has nevertheless become an idol? What are the signs? When have you noticed one (or more) in your own life?
    6. Of what does Jonah become convinced as an alternative to idolatrous loves? What follows from his discovery?
    7. How does the grace of God in the gospel of His Son work to displace the idols of our heart?

    Quotes:

    • Advent reminds us: human incapacity is the condition in which we find ourselves—our inability to gain any lasting victory of light over darkness. It is from beyond human capacity that the announcement comes: “Behold, I am doing a new thing.” Fleming Rutledge
    • I have long feared that my sins would return to haunt me, and the cost would be more than I could bear.  Benjamin Marin in The Patriot
    • The real question is: of what is this fish the sign? Jacques Ellul
    • An exceptional Jewish rabbi who lived two millenniums ago, Jesus of Nazareth, spotted this problem [of how religion can nurture arrogance]. Those practicing Pharisees who are “confident of their own righteousness and look down on everybody else,” he declared, are not really righteous. Sinners who regret their failures, he said, are more moral than the pious who boast.  Mustafa Akyol
    • For as in the case of little children, when the child eagerly desires childish playthings, we hide them from him with much care, as a ball, for instance, and such like things, that he may not be hindered from necessary things; but when he thinks little of them, and no longer longs for them, we give them fearlessly, knowing that henceforth no harm can come to him from them, the desire no longer having strength enough to draw him away from things necessary; so God also, when He sees that we no longer eagerly desire the things of this world, thenceforward permits us to use them. For we possess them as freemen and men, not as children.  John Chyrsostom
    • O Father! — mortal or immortal, here I die. I have striven to be Thine, more than to be this world’s, or mine own. Yet this is nothing; I leave eternity to Thee; for what is man that he should live out the lifetime of his God?  Father Mapples in Melville’s Moby Dick

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