Running From God
5/4/202647 min
Words like sin, sinner, heathen and heretic have been used for centuries to exclude and oppress people. That’s one reason we need the book of Jonah.
Jonah gives a concept of sin that can’t be used to oppress people. In fact, it shows that it’s one thing to believe in sin and another thing to understand it in your own heart. Jonah was a prophet, but there was a kind of sin in his heart that flew under his radar—until it blew up.
Let’s look at four features in the narrative that each tell us something about sin: 1) the coming word, 2) the running man, 3) the deathly sleep, and 4) the stormy hope.
This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on September 9, 2001. Series: The Church in the City. Scripture: Jonah 1:1-10.
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First 90 secondsSpeaker 00:00
[outro music] Welcome to Gospel and Life. Where do you turn for reassurance in a crisis? When life feels out of control, we can quickly discover that the things we turn to for our deepest security don't actually have the power to help us. Today, Tim Keller looks at the story of Jonah to explore how life storms reveal what we're really trusting in and how our fears are calmed when we look to Jesus, who faced the ultimate storm on our behalf. [outro music] "The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: 'Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.' But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord. Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened, threatened to break up. All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. The captain went to him and said, 'How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us and we will not perish.' Then the sailors said to each other,