June 21, 2026 - Grace in an Ugly Wrapper

Jonah chapter 2. I want you to think about the strangest place you've ever prayed this morning. The strangest place you've ever prayed. Jonah chapter 2. From inside the fish, Jonah prayed, I think it'll be on the screen, from inside the fish, Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. He said in my distress, "I called to the Lord and He answered me, "and from the deep in the realm of the dead, "I called for help and you listened to my cry. "You hurled me into the depths "and to the very heart of the seas, "and the currents swirled about me. "All your waves and breakers swept over me. "And I said, I have been banished from your sight, "and yet I will look again to your holy temple. "The engulfing waters threatened me, "the deep surrounded me, get this picture. "See weed was wrapped around my head. "It's like insult to injury. "To the roots of the mountains, I sank down. "The earth beneath barred me in forever, "but you, Lord my God, "you brought my life up from the pit. "And when my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, "and my prayer rose to you to your holy temple. "Those who cling to worthless idols "turn away from God's love for them, "but I, I with shouts of grateful praise, "I will sacrifice to you. "When I have vowed, I'll make good, "and I will say salvation comes from the Lord, "and the Lord commanded the fish, "and it vomited Jonah onto dry land. "That's the word of the Lord. "I wanna start with a question this morning. "Have you ever been in a low place? "I don't mean a geographic low place. "I'm not talking about, oh, we went to the Grand Canyon, "and we went to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. "If you did that more power to you, "I have not been to the Grand Canyon. "If I go to the Grand Canyon, I will see it, "and I'll say it's good. "I don't need to go to the bottom of it "to see what it looks like from down there, "but maybe you've been to the bottom of the canyon, "I don't know, but I'm not talking about a low place on a map. "I'm not talking about a geographic low place. "I'm talking about an inside kind of low place. "Have you ever been to a low place? "Have you ever been to a place where you wake up "in the middle of the night, "and it's like the rich mull and song used to say, "you wake up in the night and you can feel the dark. "Have you ever been in the low place? "Have you ever been in the low place "where you just are going through the motions "and people ask you how you are. "I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine." And inside you're drowning. Inside you're like you got water coming in through your nostrils, but you're in a low place. I remember when my mother died, that was a low place in my life, a really low place. And when my mother died, I remember that there were people that the funeral that came through and they met well and they really did, they met well and they were kind people and they loved Jesus and they loved our family and they loved my mom, but they all wanted to say, how are you, how are you, how are you, how are you, and I told one person, I said, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, and one person put his hand on my shoulder and he said, you know what fine means, right? My foot is fine, it means feelings inside not expressed. And I literally almost was like, if you don't take your hand off my shoulder, I'm gonna express my feelings right now. You know, like I'm fine. Have you ever had a health scare or a phone call that changed everything? Or a relationship that collapsed? Or a job that disappeared? Or a habit that took over? Or a grief that settled in like a fog and it has never fully lifted? Maybe your low place was last year. Maybe it was last week, maybe it's right now, maybe it's on the calendar for a couple of months from now. I don't know, but we all will experience a low place. Jonah is a story about a man who went to a low place. It's a story about a man and a storm and a fish and one of the most honest prayers ever recorded in the Bible. Jonah is a preacher, God gives this preacher this prophet and assignment, go to Nineveh, tell them I love them, be near to hear it, tell them that I want them to follow me. And Nineveh, there's the capital of Assyria and the Syrians were not good people. They were feared and brutal, they were the enemy. They were Jonah's worst enemies. Every good Israelite would have understood what God was asking and Jonah doesn't want anything to do with it. God says to Jonah, go love your enemies and Jonah says, I'll take a pass on that. I'll take door number two and he runs. He runs as far and as hard and as long as he can in the other direction and he ends up in a storm and the storm lands him in the sea and landing in the sea, lands him in a fish. And here we are in Jonah chapter two and he's inside the belly of a whale and that's where our story begins today. Jonah found himself in the lowest place, not just the low place. Jonah found himself in the lowest place. Jonah chapter two verse one, from inside the fish, Jonah prayed to the Lord. Now you have to understand where Jonah is. He's not just inside a fish physically. He's on the run from God spiritually. He's on the run from God emotionally. You've heard me say it before. Everything that's happening in the book of Jonah keeps going down. It keeps going down. The Hebrew word is the word Yarrad. It means to go down. It says that Jonah went down to Japa. It says that he found a ship and he went down into the ship. It says when the storm hit, he went into down into the bottom of the ship, the hole of the ship and he fell asleep. He gets thrown overboard. He goes down into the sea. He goes down into the deep and then he goes down. Even verse six says to the very roots of the mountains and then he's down inside the belly of a whale. Jonah uses some pictures to describe where he is. He tells us these will be on the screen that he's in the deep. It says you hurled me into the deep and to the very heart of the seas. You ever been in the very heart of the seas? I mean the deep of the seas. Jonah wasn't on the edge where he could tread water. Jonah wasn't on the edge where you could kind of just kind of fake it a little bit. No, Jonah was in the middle, no land and sight. And he's hurled into the deep, the very heart of the seas. And there's no help coming from anywhere. There he was in the middle of the deep and nothing could fix it, nothing could stop it. You hurled me into the deep, the very heart of the seas. And then he talks about the waves, the waves. He says all your waves and breakers swept over me. It was like being in a wave pool and the waves are just crashing over him and Jonah can't get his breath because water is going up his nose and down his throat. All your waves and your breakers swept over me. There's something inside of Jonah that's just like, I'm just getting pummeled here, God. Then there's this. Now I think this is more than just the waves. This is an inward thing. There's this feeling of being cut off. Jonah says I've been banished from your sight. God, it's like you don't even see me right now. God, it's like you don't even know what's going on right now. It's the feeling that God doesn't see you, God doesn't know you. It's the feeling that God has given up on you. It's the feeling we've all asked this question sometimes. It's the feeling when we ask God, where are you right now? I have been banished from your sight. Many years ago, I was pastoring in a little town in Burnham's, called Burnham's Mishig. And I've told you about it before. And we love living life in Burnham's Mishigan. Burnham's Mishigan is the kind of town where you knew your neighbors, you knew everybody, you knew the sheriff, you knew them all. You knew the guy who sorted the mail at the post office. You just knew everybody. And so one morning I was at the church in my cell phone rang and it was the sheriff on the other end of the line. And he said, Chad, you're going to need to get to such and such an address. And this young man, this family, attends your church. And in the night, this young man overdosed. And you're going to need to go. You're going to get called this morning. You need to go now to be there. The man, the young man was there. But the family hadn't gathered yet. And he said, you need to be here when the family gets here. And so I hopped in my car and I drove up to that house. And when I walked into the house, the man said to me, the sheriff said to me, he said, Chad, the young man's in the basement. He overdosed in the night. He's in the basement. And he said, you do not want to go in there. And I said, "You don't have to ask me twice. Like I won't go in there." And so I was content to sit in the living room with the grandparents and others as they gathered. Well then the father arrived and the father would attend our church. And the father said to me, "I want to see my son." And then he looked at me and he said, "And I want you to go with me." And I almost was like, "I was told not to go in there." But he said, "No, no, no. You're going to go. I want you to go with me." And I remember it, friends. I remember being in that room with that man when he saw his son passed and he lost it. I mean, wheels off, lost it. Stuff you don't say in church, lost it. I mean a rope of words and emotion and snot bubbles and tears and anger and rage all at the same time. And I remember what seemed like five minutes he kept saying, "Where's God now?" He turned, he is in my face. Where's God now, preacher? Where's God now? Where's God now? You want to know how Jonah felt? That's how he felt. Bannished from the sight of God. You want to know what I told him, don't you? I told him that day. I can't tell you why this happened. I can't tell you that we live in a broken messed up world. I can tell you that. But I can tell you that God's right here. The Bible says that God is close to the broken heart and any rescues those who are crushed in spirit. And if God's word is true, then he's right here today. But I'll tell you that, that guy felt cut off. Sometimes we feel that way. And then not only does Jonah feel cut off, I think this is interesting here in the lowest place, he talks about seaweed. And he says, "Seaweed will wrap around my head." I love this detail. I thought about this one little detail more than any of the other details in this sermon this week. I kept thinking about the seaweed. I thought why is it that Jonah would highlight the seaweed? Why is it? I mean, he's out in the middle of the ocean. He's out in the middle of the Mediterranean. Why is it that he would be so specific? And so you know that seaweed wrapped around my head? It's so specific. It's so particular. There's nothing vague about this. It was like the seaweed. You could picture it in your mind. In fact, I did a Google search. I don't have a picture. Because I did a Google search. I was like, picture of a man with seaweed wrapped around his head. And I didn't really find anything. But you can picture it in your brain. A whole bunch of seaweed wrapped around a man's head. You can imagine the way it smells. Can you smell the seaweed? You can imagine like the panic that he had trying to get the seaweed off of his head. This is how low he felt. Maybe you've experienced some seaweed in your life before. It's a specific moment. It's a smell. It's a specific room when you walk into a certain room. It's like, this is the room where the seaweed was wrapped around my head. Or a conversation. Or a moment. All of us, the bottom is different for everybody. But the seaweed, the seaweed is something we all encounter. And then Jonah found himself not only in the lowest place, but there he found himself barred in. He felt barred in. The earth beneath barred me in forever. Jonah was like, I got no way out. I can't swim out of this. I can't think my way out of this. I can't talk my way out of this. I'm not good enough or gifted enough to try hard enough or pray hard enough or long enough to get myself out of this. Have you ever felt barred in? Jonah is in the lowest place. And I love this. Jonah found himself in the lowest place and God was already there. God was already there. He says, but you, Lord, my God, you brought my life up from the pit. Two words, but you, but you. It's like all the descending stops. It's like the direction reverses and the bottom becomes a place where he begins to rebuild. Not because he got stronger and not because things got easier, but because they're in the belly of the whale. He realized, God, you, you are the Lord, my God, and you bring my life up from the pit. God doesn't say in the midst of that. You know what, Jonah, you made your bed now sleeping in it. God doesn't say to Jonah, you know what? You, you, you got yourself in this trouble. I'm going to let you drown. No, no, no, no, no. Jonah chapter 1 verse 17. The Lord provided a great fish. The Lord prepared a great fish. Rescue was ready before the prayer was ever prayed. I love that. I love that no matter how low Jonah went, God was already there and God met him there. God sent a fish, a big, dark, ugly, smelly fish. A thing that looked like it would end his life was the very thing that rescued his life. God sent Jonah, read, met Jonah in the depths where everything felt empty and heavy and hard and God is already there. It reminded me of Psalm 139. If I go to the valley, David says, "You're there with me." And if I go to the mountain top, you're there with me too. Wherever I am, if I'm in the heavens or if I'm in the depths, God, you are there. God is all ready there. So in that room that day, where's God now? Where's God now? Preacher, where's God now? He's right here. So what do you do then when you get to the lowest place and you realize that God is already there? What do you do? I think you do this. I think you do what Jonah does. He prays. He prays from inside the fish, Jonah prayed. From inside the fish, Jonah prayed. I think it's interesting. This is the first time we have record of Jonah praying in this passage. He didn't pray on the dock like, "Help me find the right boat." He didn't pray when the storm started. He was sound asleep during that. He didn't pray when the sailors were all freaking out around him and throwing stuff into the sea and worshipping their gods and trying to call out to their gods to get help. He didn't pray then. He didn't pray when the captain shook him awake in the middle of the night. He didn't even pray before they threw him into the water. He prayed in the fish. He prayed when all of his other options were gone. He prayed when he had nothing left to try. He prayed when he was out of ways out. The only direction that was left was here I am in the belly of the fish. And there he was and he prayed. He prayed. He comes to God in the belly of the whale and he prays. And there's a few ways that he prays that I think are really interesting. First thing, he prays from his actual location. I don't know if this will make sense. I hope it does. He prays from his actual location. He doesn't clean it up. He doesn't put on his Sunday morning prayer voice. He doesn't have three points in a poem and everything begins with the same letter. No, he prays and he says, "In my distress," I call to the Lord. He prays from where he really is. He prays from where he actually is in that moment. Actually, we're not going to skip to those slides just yet. I promise you we'll get to them though. Second thing, Jonah prays as God even though the rest of you hasn't already come. In the middle of the fish, he hasn't been spit out. He can't see the beach. He doesn't know where the end is. And he said, "God, you heard my prayer and you answered me. You listened. You listened. God listened." Here's what I want you to know. If you're at the lowest place today, God hears your prayer. It doesn't matter how dark the room is. It doesn't matter how long it's been since you prayed last. It doesn't matter how far you feel from God or how many questions that you carry. It doesn't matter if the words came out wrong or don't come out at all. God listens from the lowest place. God listens. Verse 7 says, "When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord. And my prayer rose to you to your holy temple. God, I remembered you." Right there in the middle of it. This is more than just thinking about it. It means I turned back to you, God. It means I'm running back toward you. The memory is moving me toward you. I remembered you." Here's the last thing. The lowest place wasn't punishment. It was grace. You see, the fish was the thing that kept Jonah alive. That the fish was the thing that held Jonah there in a dark, uncomfortable place. terrible smelling place, but it held him, it held him long enough that he was able to call out to God. The fish is grace. The fish is grace. Jonas three days in a fish point directly to the three days that Jesus spent in the grave. Through Jonas three days in the fish point directly to the fact that Armassaya rose after three days as well. So what do you do now? This is where we'll get to the slide. Sorry for being confusing. When I skip around in my notes it makes the slide seem to be really confused. What do you do now? Let's bring it home first. Here's the first one. Pray from where you really are. There we go. Have you ever noticed we try to clean our prayers up sometimes? We try to pray the way that we think we're supposed to pray. Our Father is who are in heaven, if hallowed be, or nameless. We try to pray in a way that we think God will hear us better. When I read this story, Jonah chapter two, I read about someone who is as low as they can go and he prays from where he really is. He didn't use any special language. He didn't even, I don't know if he can kneel inside a whale, but they're inside the whale. He didn't have to clean it up. He could just talk to God and say, "Here's where it is." And here's what I'm dealing with. One writer says, "God's not impressed by our fancy prayers. He wants honest prayers." So just pray from where you really are. Don't pray from where you wish you were. Don't pray in borrowed language. Be honest to God. God this scares me. God this is something that I'm upset about right now. God I'm frustrated. God I feel overwhelmed. God I'm tired. I don't know what I'm going to do with this. Just pray from where you are and start talking because God is listening. There is no depth too deep that God does not hear your prayer. Here's the second thing. In your prayers, remember. Remember. And let the remembering move you. Just as Jonah, just like shifted his brain and he began to remember God and who God was. Let the remembering move you to remind you of what is true. Even though it may not feel like it's true. To remind you of what you've come through, even though you realize you've been through a lot of hard. Yet you remember the faithfulness of God. One writer says the record of God's faithfulness is the ground under your feet when the present moment feels like it has no ground. So hold fast to the faithfulness of God. Here's one. Say this one sentence out loud. This is what he prayed. Salvation comes from the Lord. Jonah didn't pray. God, I'm going to figure this out. God, I got some ideas on how we can get out of this mess. He doesn't pray that. He doesn't say, God, I'm going to try harder. That's what I'm going to do. I'm just going to grip my teeth and pull myself up by my bootstraps and try hard. He doesn't do that. He doesn't even say, God, if I can just do the right things, I'm going to m'geyver my way out of this story. He doesn't do that. He says, no. Rescue comes from the Lord. God, you're the one that provides salvation, rescue, and I am in need of rescue. So I'm not going to play your part, God, salvation belongs and comes from the Lord. Those five words open up this whole story to Jonah ending up being vomited on the beach by this whale. But I want to close with this today. As I put together this message this week, the last thing I ever do when I put together a message is I give it a title. And I'm not very good at titles. I'll be really honest. I honestly don't even like giving things titles, but you just do. That's just what you're the things you do. And when I got to the end of this one, I said, I know what the title means to be for this one. And it's this. It's that sometimes grace comes in an ugly wrapper. That's what it said to me. I was thinking this week, this story is drenched with the mercy and grace of God. I was thinking, even the part about Jonah being vomited out on the beach is grace. It's the grace and the mercy of God. I was telling somebody about this passage one day and they said to me, well, that's really gross that Jonah got vomited out on the beach. And I want to remind you, friends, I want to remind you, there's more than one way out of a fish. There's more than one way to leave the fish. God chose the best possible way to get Jonah out of that fish. Trust me. You might feel like you're in the fish. It might just feel like an ugly wrapper. But right in the middle of it, I want you to know God is with you. You might feel like God has gone quiet. And I'm not going to tell you that it's going to be easy and I'm not going to tell you that the way ahead is going to be smooth. I'm not going to tell you that everything's going to be up into the right and when you get home, you have a brand new pickup truck in your driveway. I'm not going to tell you that. But I will say that the God who heard Jonah from the bottom of the sea, from the roots of the mountains, from the heart of the deep, is the same God who is present with you right now. He's present with you right in the midst of the mess. Right now in the fish. So I'd like you to bow your heads with me if you would. And I'd like you to know that God has not forgotten you. He has not forgotten you. And I'd like you to know that not only has he not forgotten you, but God is listening today. He hears you. He hears two AM prayers and he hears two PM prayers. He hears you. And I'd like us just to talk to God a little bit maybe from the belly of the whale today. Father today, we come. We come like Jonah came. We come from inside the fish. We come. Your rescue, your hope, your way out God, it all comes from you and God, you're here. And I pray today for people in this room that might find themselves feeling like they're in the belly of the whale. I pray that if they find themselves in that place that you would remind them, that you would remind them God that you're there, that you're here. Help us to call on you from where we really are. Help us to remember your goodness and your faithfulness and your kindness and allow that remembering to move our hearts, to draw our hearts to you. And God help us to remember that sometimes grace comes in an ugly wrapper. Trust you today and we love you. In Jesus name, amen.