God’s Unrelenting Grace SeriesOur Need for Grace February 4, 2018 Jonah 1:1-4, 7-8, 15-17 1 The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 "Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me." 3 But Jonah ran away from the Lord 4 Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. 7 Then the sailors said to each other, "Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity." They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. 8 So they asked him, "Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?" 15 Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. 16 At this, the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him. 17 But the Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights. NIV. Introduction: For the next several weeks we are going to be studying the book of Jonah together. It’s a fascinating book of the Bible about a reluctant prophet. But just before we look at the text from that perspective let me tell you about a little girl and her pastor’s discussion about the book of Jonah. A little girl was observed by her pastor standing outside the pre-school Sunday School classroom between Sunday School and worship, waiting for her parents to come and pick her up for "big church." The pastor noticed that she clutched a big storybook under her arms with the obvious title, "Jonah and the Whale." Feeling a little pernicious, he knelt down beside the little girl and began a conversation.  "What's that you have in your hand?", he asked." This is my storybook about Jonah and the Whale," she answered. "Tell me something, little girl," he continued, "do you believe that story about Jonah and that whale to be the truth?" The little girl implored, "Why of course I believe this story to be the truth!" He inquired further, "You really believe that a man can be swallowed up by a big whale, stay inside him all that time, and come out of there still alive and OK?  You really believe all that can be true? "She declared, "Absolutely, this story is in the Bible and we studied about it in Sunday School today!" Then the pastor asked, "Well, little girl, can you prove to me that this story is the truth?" She thought for a moment and then said, "Well, when I get to Heaven, I'll ask Jonah." The pastor then asked, "Well, what if Jonah's not in Heaven?" She then put her hands on her little hips and sternly declared, "Then YOU can ask him!" I want to make it clear – I believe the story to be true!!! But focusing on the whale swallowing Jonah alone misses some of the important messages and principles God wants us to understand! You see not only is it about a reluctant prophet is most importantly it is a picture of God’s Unrelenting Grace towards mankind. Studying the book of Jonah, we ought to see… We are in need of God’s unrelenting grace because We try to run from God (v.3) 3 But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish.I heard the story of a lawyer who was trying to deliver an important paper to someone. Thinking it was some kind of a subpoena, the intended recipient avoided the attorney constantly running from him. But this was a very persistent attorney, and he would not give up. This went on for 14 years, until …. (more about them until in a moment.) Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2017/01/running-from-god-good-luck-with-that/#wr8RTdA8SmCWi1FA.99 I think Jonah’s running from God reveals the truth about all of us when we run from the Lord its for one of two reasons. First, we run from the Lord …. Because we don’t like what he says (v.2) The background of this is that Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh because they were a ruthless, wicked and cruel people! They, in a nutshell, were his enemy