Jonah 2:1-2 Big Idea: The good news of the gospel is that God gives us himself. And the principle means that we turn to to understand the great glory of God is the Bible. “When I say that God Is the Gospel I mean that the highest, best, final, decisive good of the gospel, without which no other gifts would be good, is the glory of God in the face of Christ revealed for our everlasting enjoyment. The saving love of God is God’s commitment to do everything necessary to enthrall us with what is most deeply and durably satisfying, namely himself. Since we are sinners and have no right and no desire to be enthralled with God, therefore God’s love enacted a plan of redemption to provide that right and that desire. The supreme demonstration of God’s love was the sending of his Son [Jesus] to die for our sins and to rise again so that sinners might have the right to approach God and might have the pleasure of his presence forever.” – John Piper Psalm 34:8 (ESV) — Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! The Bible is the account of God’s dealings in history with mankind to bring a defiant people back to a joy and delight in Himself. Proximity to the Lord is far more important than your personal comfort. Two things we learn about the gospel from Jonah 2:1-2: God is the ____________________ of our ultimate delight Jonah 2:1 (ESV) — Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, Psalm 73:28 (NASB95) — But as for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord God my refuge, That I may tell of all Your works. The Lord through his circumstances changes Jonah’s heart, and that change in heart brings Jonah back to the Lord through his Word. Scripture is _____________________ to ______________ our Delight in God. Jonah 2:2 (ESV) — saying, “I called out to the Lord, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. Psalm 3:4 (ESV) — I cried aloud to the Lord, and he answered me from his holy hill. Selah Psalm 118:5 (ESV) — Out of my distress I called on the Lord; the Lord answered me and set me free. The Word is sufficient to declare the good news of God and sustain our souls as we search for joy in the midst of our troubling circumstances. Quote to Consider “The main trouble in this whole matter of spiritual depression in a sense is this, that we allow our self to talk to us instead of talking to our self. Am I just trying to be deliberately paradoxical? Far from it. This is the very essence of wisdom in this matter. Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them, but they start talking to you, they bring back the problem of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you. Now this man’s treatment [in Psalm 42] was this; instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself, ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul?’ he asks. His soul had been repressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says: ‘Self, listen for a moment, I will speak to you’. Do you know what I mean? If you do not, you have but little experience. The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself. You must say to your soul: ‘Why art thou cast down’–what business have you to be disquieted? You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: ‘Hope thou in God’–instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way. And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and what God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do. Then having done that, end on this great note: d
