Danny ChaiPastor Eugene gave a great sermon on Sunday. Maybe the best sermon I’ve heard this year.
It was the second in his series on Jonah. He had a lot of insights, but the one that struck me in particular was this. He notes that when Jonah runs from God and hides in the ship, and the captain comes to talk to him, Jonah says all the right things, saying “I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.” But at the very time he’s saying this, he’s running away from God.
The point being, we also can be outwardly saying all the right things, but in fact be running away from God. I don’t know if insightful is the right word, but it hit me.
He had other insights as well, maybe not insights in themselves, but insightful in showing how Jonah demonstrates these things. Like, the wages of sin is death. As he runs from God he progressively goes down, first “down to” Joppa, down into the boat, then down into the sea, which represents death, according to Jonah’s prayer in 2:2.
And the upshot, that God is the God of second chances. And third chances. And so on. I dunno, it was a good sermon for me.