2 Corinthians 1:9-11 and Jonah 2:1-10

As we progress through the sermon series in Jonah, we have gained an understanding of grace. Understanding grace informs us in how to pray within God’s plan. Prayer connects us with God’s plan. Jonah’s time spent inside the fish teaches us something about the Lord to whom we pray. This message will lead us to know that the Lord hears, because he is the Lord who helps, since he is the Lord who holds us and all things together for his purposes. Prayer that trusts these truths about the Lord results in deliverance from the lowest of circumstances through the most unimaginable of events, i.e. a fish’s vomit.    

The Lord’s plan and the Christian’s prayer work together. Praying is essential to the Christian’s walk through life. Praying that is informed by the word of God, leads us to knowing God, knowing our world, our place in it, and God’s plan for our deliverance through it all.  A plan for deliverance that is demonstrated in the Table of our Lord. The Table reminds us that according to God’s plan, Christ died for us, was buried for us, and that the grave, likened to Jonah and the fish, spit him out alive for us. 

Now, if God does all of this for our deliverance then there is not a place so low that one can sink in which the Lord will not descend from his heights to help lift us and hold us by his grace.