By Anthony Lucarini

In the Book of Jonah, God calls Jonah, a prophet of the Lord, to go to the wicked, ungodly city of Nineveh and tell the people there to repent. But instead of going to Nineveh, Jonah runs from the Lord and boards a boat going in the opposite direction to Tarshish. As Jonah is on this boat, the Lord causes a raging storm on the sea. Jonah sleeps through the storm while the other men on the boat cry out to their gods for rescue. The captain of the boat wakes Jonah up and asks him why he was not praying to his God. Jonah confesses that he was running away from the Lord and that he is the reason for the storm. He told the men to throw him into the sea, and when they do so, the sea stopped its raging. But perhaps the most remarkable part of this story comes in the last verse of Jonah 1:

And the Lord designated a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish for three days and three nights. – Jonah 1:17

We are never any place where God is not. When Jonah was in the fish, he looked up to God because God was always there. Read Jonah 2.

Imagine what is going through Jonah’s mind while in the belly of the fish. Imagine the stress and the fear. He was on the verge of drowning. He was on the verge of giving up. But worst of all, he knows his life is about to end while running from his God.

BUT this miracle happens! He realizes that his life has been spared and that God’s presence had not left him after all. God was with him even in the belly of the fish. Jonah realizes that the massive fish is a picture of God’s abounding grace.

Grace can’t be earned. We don’t deserve it. It’s simply the kindness and favor of God. God’s grace is woven all throughout the story of Jonah. Let’s take a look at what this story tells us about His grace.

1. God’s grace puts a comma where there may have been a period.

We certainly see this in the story of Jonah. If the Book of Jonah was just one chapter, and Jonah is thrown into the sea and he dies:

We could still learn of God’s holiness.

We could still learn of God’s strength.

We could still learn of God’s heart for all people, not just an exclusive group.

But God is pretty clear here, He’s saying,

“Jonah, I’ve chosen you for this task.”

“I’ve created you for this mission.”

It may not have looked like it for a minute … “But I’m not done with you yet.”

Maybe you have made mistakes, and since then, your relationship with God hasn’t been the same. Remember, God’s not done with you yet.

2. God’s grace can look like discipline.

When we hear Jonah’s story, your first thoughts might be: God, you’re kind of harsh. You caused this storm and make Jonah get thrown overboard. And now he gets eaten by a fish?! I thought you were loving.

Let me say this: The most loving, gracious thing God could do is save Jonah from himself. The worst thing God could have done to Jonah is to let him go to Tarshish.

God’s got something so much greater for Jonah than what Jonah chooses for himself. So we see the Lord’s loving discipline as an act of grace. Proverbs 3:12 says, “For whom the Lord loves He disciplines, just as a father disciplines the son in whom he delights.”

This tells me that if God is disciplining me, that means He cares for me. Because God is good, he doesn’t let Jonah continue down this path of mediocrity and go to Tarshish.

3. God’s grace deserves a response.

As Jonah sees God’s grace over his life, he can’t help but respond:

“Those who are followers of worthless idols abandon their faithfulness, but I will sacrifice to you with a voice of thanksgiving. That which I have vowed I will pay. Salvation is from the Lord.” – Jonah 2:8-9

This is a turning point in the life of Jonah. He has one of those moments of “I don’t deserve to be alive, God has given me life, so I’ll give what I’ve got back to Him as an act of worship.”

When Jonah says, “that which I have vowed I will pay,” commentators believe that this is Jonah vowing to fulfill his initial mission that God has given him to go to Nineveh.

When we see God’s goodness and experience God’s grace, we can’t help but respond.

We need a fish.

It took Jonah being hurled into the sea and swallowed by a fish to recognize his disobedience and dwell on God’s grace.

What I’m saying in this blog post is: We need a fish! And by that, I mean we need God’s grace:

We need a grace that loves us through our mistakes.

We need a grace that calls us home when we stray.

We need a grace that fills in the gap between our humanity and God’s holiness.

We need a grace that meets us in our sinfulness, brokenness, and disobedience and calls us up to God’s best for us.

We ALL need God’s grace. If we try to place ourselves in the story, we’re all Jonah. We have all sinned. We have all strayed. We have all fallen short of the glory of God. Lucky for us, God’s grace abounds. And the greatest picture of the grace of God is the fact that He sent His son Jesus:

To meet us in our brokenness

To meet us in our humanity

To step foot on this earth

Dwell among us

Live a perfect life

And to die a perfect death

A death that covers my sin and yours … when we accept His gift of grace.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.”  – Ephesians 2:8

Anthony Lucarini is the student pastor at LowCountry Community Church in Bluffton, South Carolina.

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