Yielding to God is essential to following God.
The concept of yielding in driving is giving someone else the right of way, letting them go first before you. The concept of yielding to God is similar, it's giving someone else the priority or the right of way in your life...setting aside your schedule or goals in deference to theirs.
How do we do that? Enter Jonah...specifically Jonah 2, his prayer in the belly of the fish.
4 stops in the process of yielding.
1) Understand reality. Jonah 2:1-6
- God is in control of and owns everything. All kinds of "your" language in these verses. It is clear that Jonah is coming to grips with the fact that all this is God's and he'd better get with the program of reality.
We operate in our own little fake reality so often, where we are in control and God is living to serve us...untrue and just like simply denying that a brick wall is there and trying to run head first through it is painful, damaging and impossible...so is not grasping that all this, including me, was created for God, not the other way around. - We are hopeless and helpless without God.
We can't even see what God has given us without Him
12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.
1 Corinthians 2:12 (NIV)
There are 4 sources of authority in everyone’s life and everyone's decisions are made under one of these authority structures.
1) Scripture 2) Experience 3) Tradition 4) Reason -
At some point, if you are going to follow Christ, Scripture has to become the authority structure that trumps everything.
2) A recognition of our personal situation. Jonah 2:7- Jonah realized that his life was ebbing away...he had forgotten God, he had not prayed to God (only guy on the ship that DIDN'T pray, fyi), and he had turned away from God's presence (the Holy Temple is symbolic of God's presence in Scripture).
- BUT here's the biggest recognition personally for him...vs. 8
“Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them."
He was clinging to an idol of his standards and prejudices against the Ninevites for their reputation in cruelty...He was clinging to his own idols instead of God.
3) Jonah’s response to his situation Jonah 2:9
But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’”
What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’”
- Praise right where he is...don't wait to get out of the fish.
- Sacrifice his standards to God's...God first
- Act on his commitment to God. In the dark, act on what God has told you in the light.
- Become a verbal and life example of God's salvation.
God spoke to the fish (still in control of his fish) and it spit Jonah out.
Couple of things:
1) When you come out of the storm of life or the belly of your fish, you won't be where you were when you came in...no going back to what it used to be.
2) You'll be prepared for what God has for you next. Some say that even Jonah's "bleached" appearance from the gastric juices inside the fish, may have "augmented" his appearance to make his message to Nineveh more noticeable when he got there.
While many say that Jonah 2 is a prayer of repentance, and inside the fish IS where Jonah turned it around with hints of repentance in vs.7 and 9, the overall theme isn't repentance...it's a prayer of thanksgiving. The fish saved him physically from drowning in the storm and it also saved him emotionally by forcing him to realize where he was and to respond.
Imagine the worst thing, the most traumatic thing in your life, at some point, God having healed that to such a degree that you thank Him for it...in all things give thanks...28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28 (NIV)
Romans 8:28 (NIV)
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