We Plan, God Guides

This morning, however, through this story, through this passage we'll be reading, we talk about a part of Christian theology, and we'll draw that from the story, which I think is becoming increasingly talked about and perhaps controversial. It's a topic that in the Christian world is actually shuffling a lot of people around churches, especially, I think, on the Gold Coast. What I'm referring to is the area of theology that has to do with the interplay between human responsibility and God's sovereignty, or more accurately, the theological concept of human free will and God's predestination. Now this is an area that can be hard to wrap our heads around, but this is a theology that is found all throughout Scripture. It is there, and what we have to do as Christians is try and deal with it.

Proverbs 16:9 gives us a helpful, I think, sort of concise summary about what this looks like in reality. Proverbs 16:9, and you've probably heard this, says, "The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps." The heart of a man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. Or in other words, we plan, God guides. Now in many ways, as a Christian, we can be content with this theology.

We are content that God has all the power. We are happy to accept that. That's why we pray, don't we? That's why we ask God for our daily needs, our daily bread, to provide for us, to give us what we need, because we know and we believe that He is sovereign, that He is powerful. We know that He is the one who gives what we need.

In many ways, we are satisfied that God can also change our situations to provide us what we need. Yet, when it comes to God changing not simply our situation, but changing us, that's when we get uncomfortable. That's when it gets controversial, and that's where churches and theologies and practices can differ massively in the Christian world, especially when we start talking about God's sovereignty in the area of faith and salvation: faith, belief in Him, and salvation as a result. When it comes to accepting the truth that the Lord Jesus Christ is God and is who He says He is and receiving that salvation, well, people start getting uncomfortable with that bit.

I don't know what church tradition you all may be coming from, but I've heard things and people saying, well, the Lord's a gentleman. The Lord is a gentleman. He will lead the horse to the water of His grace, but he can't make it drink. He, in other words, may reveal all he needs to about the gospel to someone, but he'll stop short at overriding the heart so that they may accept the truth. He'll stop short there.

And we do this because we get anxious when we think that God has the right to override our will. This morning, we're going to examine, like I said, a wonderful story where we see God doing just that. We're going to see how a man by the name of Jonah can have his entire life turned upside down by the sovereign will of God, whether he wants to or not. In this, you probably know the story. In this short book, in a section of the Bible called the minor prophets, we find a four-chapter story of a man called Jonah, the son of Amittai, it begins.

And Jonah, it seems, is about to become a prophet. The word of God, it says, comes to him, and God says, "You will speak on my behalf to mankind." But God tells Jonah not to go now to Israel, simply as the other prophets of his time did. Jonah is to go to a place called Nineveh, the capital city of the Assyrian Empire, the sworn enemies of the Israelites, his people at the time. Jonah is so fearful of this calling and refuses to go because he believes his preaching is going to be too effective.

He thinks that he will preach, and so he's got tickets on himself, obviously, his preaching style. He will preach, and the Ninevites will repent. The Ninevites will become believers in God. They will turn from their wickedness and give their lives to God. And then God, instead of destroying Nineveh, which Jonah wants, God will save Nineveh.

So Jonah, he makes a plan. He attempts to flee. In fact, the Bible points out very, very humorously that if you knew the area, he goes indirectly the opposite direction of Nineveh. He is about to get on a boat to sail to Tarshish across the Mediterranean, which is directly west of Nineveh. Let's see how that goes for him, this incredible plan of Jonah.

Let's have a read from Jonah 1, and we're going to read from verse 4. Jonah chapter 1, verse 4. Jonah has gotten into a boat, a ship to Tarshish. Verse 4: "But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea and there was a mighty tempest on the sea so that the ship threatened to break up." Then the mariners were afraid and each cried out to his god.

And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had laid down and was fast asleep. So the captain came and said to him, "What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise. Call out to your god.

Perhaps the god will give a thought to us that we may not perish." And they said to one another, "Come, let us cast lots that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us." So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. Then they said to him, "Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation, and where do you come from?

What is your country and of what people are you?" And he said to them, "I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land." Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, "What is this that you have done?" For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord because he had told them. Then they said to him, "What shall we do to you that the sea may quiet down for us?

For the sea grew more and more tempestuous." He said to them, "Pick me up and hurl me into the sea. Then the sea will quiet down for you. For I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you." Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they could not.

For the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. Therefore, they called out to the Lord, "Oh Lord, let us not perish for this man's life and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, oh Lord, have done as it pleased you." So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. So far, our reading.

The first thing we see in this story, and there are four points that we're going to be looking at, is how we can often forget God's patience with our decision making, and yet we have to realise that He doesn't let things slide forever. I think it's sometimes easy to read about the stories of men and women like Jonah and the other prophets, for example, in the Old Testament, and we find enough evidence to distance ourselves from their realities. We look at Jonah, and we marvel at the idea that God can so clearly and dramatically speak to someone, and that Jonah can so disobediently reject God. We can't imagine that. How silly is Jonah?

We think, "I would never disobey God if he spoke so clearly to me." But we also know, don't we, that God has told us that all we need to know about him and all we need to know about his will, we find in his word. In fact, we, as the church now, have more information about who God is than any of the people in the Old Testament ever did. In fact, many of the people in the gospel accounts with Jesus did. We hear God's voice the clearest of all generations, and yet we do the same thing as Jonah, don't we?

You may think you've survived a deviation from God's plan, a deviation from God's will. You've heard the gospel perhaps, the message again and again, and you keep your heart closed to Him. Your husband or your wife or your son or your daughter keeps their heart closed to Him. You hear how God wants you to live your life. You hear how God has an ethic that you are to live by, a morality that you are to adopt.

Jonah thought that he had been successful in executing his own plans, deviating from God's revealed will. Jonah had reached the port city of Joppa safely. He heard God, and he decided he was going to head the other way. And perhaps he thought that God's eye was only ever on the geographical nation of Israel. Perhaps his theology was that, well, God has given this promised land to us.

If I leave, God will miss me. God won't see me. If I somehow get into international waters, I escape God's law. And so with his ticket in hand, Jonah hops onto a ship heading to Tarshish. But we have to hear what God says, and we have to think again because we see in the story that the Lord knows and He waits.

You may convince yourself that this doesn't apply to you, that His will can be changed or doesn't rightly fit into your life. You may decide to flee. You may decide to choose another way that will make it safe for you. You may head to your so-called port city of Joppa. You may feel like you've gotten away with things for years even.

But Jonah was so sure of it, he fell asleep in a boat. He was so sure that he had escaped God. But that last step for Jonah into the belly of the boat was the last step before all hell broke loose. It's as if you can hear the door to God's furnace clicking shut as he steps off that dock into the boat. Months or weeks of travel for Jonah, and he thought he'd gotten away with it.

And all the while, he was walking into God's trap. There may be things in your life that you've done neatly and organised well in direct rebellion against God, and the possibilities, friends, are endless. We, with our two-faced natures: one church face and one rest-of-the-week face, one Bible study face and one Facebook face. And we may know that this isn't God's will for our lives. We may know the Bible really well, and we may know it so well that we think we can use it to justify why and how we live.

Or maybe we just don't even get that far, and God is just not a factor in our lives. But whatever the situation is, the story of Jonah shows us that we aren't really getting away with anything. In fact, we may just be given enough rope to hang ourselves with, whether it's in this life or the next. I remember reading an article about some pastors who had been caught in the act of adultery. Pastors.

It's not uncommon enough. Nine out of 10 times, however, when they were caught, it's only then when the porridge had hit the floor and everyone knew about it that they sought help, that they admitted that they have a problem, that they admitted that there was sin in their life. Nine out of 10 times, 90% of the time. Otherwise, they were content to keep quiet, these men who know the Bible so well. We think we are clever.

We think we hide things very well. God is patient, but one way or another, He will get you to yield. So the first point: we forget God's patience, but He doesn't let things slide forever. The second point we see in the story is free will isn't always free. We talk about this idea of free will, that we were created as human beings to have the right to choose, our choice to obey God ultimately or to disobey God, but this is the irony as well.

And that's all true, but this is the irony. Though we have the capacity to choose God, we don't. Jonathan Edwards, the great preacher and theologian of the eighteenth century, put it this way. He said, "We are free to choose, but we always will choose our greatest desire. We are a slave to that desire."

In other words, apart from the renewing work of the Holy Spirit, whom we receive when we become Christians, we will always choose to disobey God and love ourselves and our sin. The book of Romans explains it excruciatingly well. There's only two conditions of the human heart. It says, you are slaves to sin or you're slaves to righteousness, but you are a slave to something: slaves to sin or slaves to righteousness.

Before you meet Christ, Paul says, you will always choose to serve yourself over God. But when you become a Christian, this reality changes. Your heart has been overridden by God. Paul writes in Romans 6:17. We read Romans 5, and in Romans 6:17, Paul says this: "Thanks be to God that you," he's talking to the church, "you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart.

So your heart has been changed. Not your hands and your members that fall into sin, your heart. You've become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed. And having been set free from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness." You are now chained to God.

As a slave of righteousness, your heart now, as a Christian, is able to have true free will. True free will for the first time. Like Jonah, a Christian may fall back into the trap of pride and selfishness because of their struggle with sin, but the difference is that because of the power of Christ's work in us, the unrelenting hold of sin that never gave us the option to choose God has now been broken. And now for the first time, that process that starts leading to right decisions, that starts leading to holiness has begun in us. There is no instant holiness, but our free will has indeed become free, and we start living and desiring to obey and honour God with our lives.

Now the Christian is free. The human being in Christ is truly the human that was created to have free will. Thirdly, this is something we also have to understand: God's sovereignty is good. God's sovereignty is not something to fear or to feel as a burden. God's sovereignty is good, and His grace is irresistible, even though it happens in very uncomfortable ways.

Jonah goes, and he heads onto the boat. He grabs his earphones from the stewardess, you know, just standing at the dock, handing them out. And he goes and puts his bags in the overhead compartment, and he relaxes. And while we've talked about man's responsibility in life, this is where we start seeing God's sovereignty in life starting to sort of mess with our plans. A terrifying storm comes upon the sea, but notice where it comes from.

Verse 4. It's not simply a storm came up. Verse 4 says, "the Lord sent a great wind on the sea," hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the ocean. The poor sailors on the boat realised that they're in trouble. In fact, verse 4 says they are very aware that the ship is about to break up.

This is how bad the ocean is. The ship is going to disintegrate in the ocean. And all of them start praying to their own gods. They go down and they wake Jonah up as well in the belly of the boat because somehow he's still sleeping. And they say to him, "Get up and call out to your god so that maybe we cover all the bases and one of these gods we are praying to will save us."

They're willing to give every available god a go. That's how desperate they are. But interestingly, they realise that someone is to blame for this storm. Someone is responsible. And so they begin casting lots, verse 7 says.

Now scholars aren't really sure what this looks like. If it was literally like sort of straws that you pull and the shortest straw was you, or pebbles or stones, or even physically a die that you rolled. Whatever method is used, they get a definitive answer, however. Notice again: the God who starts the storm is limitless in His sovereignty, because Jonah thought luck and good fortune had brought him all the way into the boat, but God chose that even the smallest bit of luck, like a roll of a dice, is within His power. The lot falls on Jonah.

The lot falls on Jonah. Maybe we should just put a pause button here. This is part of the reason Christians are wary of gambling. Many worldviews, many religions out there have this idea of luck, have this idea of karma, have this idea of universal fortune, some impersonal system that allows you to win or lose in life. Christians believe that God has control over every aspect of life, even the lotto numbers.

And so every punt we take, we are really just testing God in determining our future. And the question comes down to this: Is it okay to test God with our desire to be wealthy? That's a question we have to ask ourselves. The underlying problem with gambling, therefore, is that we are serving not God. We are serving an idol of wealth or lifestyle.

It is the breaking of the tenth commandment, which is coveting. God, I am not satisfied with what You've given me. I want more. I want what is different. Now the irony, of course, is, and there've been many studies done in this area, that those who do win these massive jackpots and this amount of money, inevitably, they remain unhappy.

You wouldn't think so, but it's true. Many times, marriages break down, families are destroyed, addictions are started when this money comes into their life. Why? It's like God gives them enough rope to hang themselves. Unpause.

Whether we like it or not, the sailors cast these lots to determine who is at fault. The sailors find out it's Jonah, and they ask him this question. "Who are you that you have displeased your god? Where are you from?" They ask him.

"What is your occupation? What do you do?" Jonah replies, and this is perhaps the most important text of this chapter. It's sort of the key text. He says, "I am a Hebrew, and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land."

And this terrifies the sailors. They probably were content with a god of the ocean that they would have worshiped personally, like many sailors did in that time, to give protection and so on. This is the God who overrides it all, who reigns not only over the sea, but the land as well. This is the God of all creation, and He is angry at Jonah. They are terrified.

And they ask, "What should we do to you to save us from this storm?" Jonah replies, "Pick me up and throw me into the sea because I'm the reason you're in this mess." Now there are few significant things that happen here. Firstly, Jonah says, "You can pray to your idols all you want. You can pray to your gods, but really, there is only one God.

It is the Lord Yahweh, and He is the God of this sea and of the dry land. He's made everything, and therefore, only my God can change this situation." Now I don't know if Jonah was feeling particularly pious or holy when he said this, but this is his true faith. He just simply testified that this is the God who owns and created everything. We see another thing.

We see that the sailors have an immediate belief in this God. Incredible. They believe that this God is real, and they are terrified. And, again, the irony is huge. Jonah, a Hebrew, as he calls himself, didn't fear God and seeks to run away thinking he can, and the sailors who don't know this God are immediately in awe and fear this God.

They're willing to do whatever God is asking them to do. But secondly, notice the cause and effect of sin and what that can have on those around us, what effect that can have. Jonah's disobedience doesn't simply result in his own suffering and his own pain. It's not because you disobeyed God, therefore, you get punished. This rebuke by God puts an entire boat's crew and passengers at risk.

Other lives are affected by Jonah's obedience or lack thereof. Our decisions to depart from God's will may not necessarily simply damage us, but can damage our families. It can damage our workplaces. It can damage our friends. Jonah is responsible for placing these lives in danger, and he realises it.

And he says, "It is my fault that this storm has come upon you. Therefore, you must throw me into the sea." But again, the irony, the irony is, and it just keeps building, that these heathen Gentile enemies of the Israelites, they try their hardest to row back to shore. The Bible says so. Instead of just saying, "Jonah, see you later," they row back. They try and get there without killing Jonah.

But it is to no avail. They can't beat the storm. And so they pray to God and say, "Forgive us, Lord. Please don't hold this against us. Please don't hold the blood of this man against us."

And they throw Jonah overboard, and immediately the wind dies down. At this, the Bible says, incredibly, they feared the Lord. It's not like they thank God, but whatever. They feared with reverent awe this God, and they made burnt sacrifices, and they made vows. They gave their hearts to the Lord in response to this.

Isn't it amazing? Even in the midst of Jonah's rebellion, God is able to save souls. Jonah's disobedient heart doesn't want to see Gentiles saved, but he can't stop being used by God to reach these souls. This is the sovereign power of God at work, friend. This is not random chance.

This is not simply leading the horse and saying, "I hope you make the decision." This is God in the furnace of this storm, in the absolute fury of it, not giving these sailors a chance to reject Him. This is the sovereign power of our God. He, the one who can make a dry rock produce water in the desert for Moses. The one who can set fire to a drenched altar for Elijah, is the God who can overhaul the hearts of nonbelievers.

God isn't finished with Jonah just yet. In fact, we would love for Jonah in the water there to realise what he's done, but he doesn't. And God has to send a fish, and we know the rest of the story. There are actually three more chapters of refining that has to happen for this disobedient Jonah. And I'll encourage you to read that, but we see God is not going to wait for Jonah.

God is not going to wait for these sailors. And the incredible thing is, you know, we wonder about these people that are so lost out there. No missionaries to get them. No nothing. We wonder how God will do that.

Surely, you know, surely, if they haven't heard, then they won't be judged by God. But God uses whatever means to get His word there. He may use the disobedience of a Jonah to get to Joppa, to get these low-ranking blue-collared workers the gospel message. We can't fathom the mystery of God's bending of our wills to accomplish His sovereign plan. These men were God's people.

They were the elect, these Gentiles, and God rescued them and saved them. And now our last point. We are also reminded this morning, aren't we, to entrust our lives and our plans and our will to God? Because in this story, we are reminded of another time when incredulous men, clasping their hands over their mouths in the aftermath of a storm, said to one another, "Who is this?" Many hundreds of years after Jonah, a man came and spoke to wind and wave, and wind and wave listened.

A day when men also put their trust in God. But this time, it was God in flesh, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in a boat with them. Who else but the Creator Himself could rebuke the sea? Who else but the Creator Himself could yell and speak harshly to the sea and the sea and the wind die out like a whimpering dog? If God had done this for Jonah, who then was this Jesus?

He was God. He was God with a mission to save, just like Yahweh in Jonah. It is the same Jesus who all of us will ultimately call upon, and we will do so to put our trust in Him. It is the same Jesus who tells us of a sovereign God and God's electing grace for His people by saying in John 6:39, "This is the will of God who sent me, that I should lose none of all that He has given me. Not us, have given ourselves.

God, the Father, has given the Son." He says, "But I will lose none of them, but raise them up on the last day. Whoever comes to me, I will never cast out." And therefore, friends, we come. We come to Christ, the crucified and the risen Lord, to receive a new life.

Trust that He holds your life. Trust that He loves you. Trust that He is powerful. Trust Him with your ambitions. Trust Him with your goals.

Trust Him with your dreams. And then feel peace because God is powerful. Trust that He is in control. And so yield to His plan. Yield to His will, and you will find the fullness and the happiness that He desires for you.

Let's pray. Father, we thank You for an example of how Your will overrides even our dumbest plans. Father, we trust and we acknowledge that You are sovereign. We trust and know that You are at work in our lives. And this mystery of our daily choices and how it all works is part of Your overall plan, Father.

We don't understand. Not here, not now. But as a choice of faith, as a decision we take, we know that nothing that happens and is happening right now in our life is not part of what You want for us, is not part of what You are planning for us, is not part of what You will ultimately accomplish in us. Father, we trust. We entrust our lives to You, oh God.

And then we do pray for those lost ones in our lives. Those helpless sailors caught in the turbulence and the tempests of this life, who seek for an answer in all the wrong places. Our Father, will You save them? Oh God, will You bring them to that point of reverent fear? Father, we intercede for them, knowing that You are the one who already knows who they are, who already knows their numbers, but You are the God that can override and change their heart.

And so we implore You. We plead with You, God. Have mercy upon them. Father, then give us the grace in a much better and more profound way than Jonah did to testify, to point them to the God who is the God of both land and sea, the God who is ruler and king overall, and the God who has become our King. Help us to be courageous in that.

Help us to do that winsomely, engagingly, sensitively. So we pray, Father, use us in this incredible, majestic plan of Yours. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.