The good news is that we serve a God who relentlessly pursues the people who do run. In this relentless pursuit, He took on flesh and became man, took our sins and became our savior, took our punishment and became our redeemer.
Jonah 1:1-6 – 1 Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” 3 But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.
4 But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. 5 Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his god. And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep. 6 So the captain came and said to him, “What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your god! Perhaps the god will give a thought to us, that we may not perish.”
How do we resist God’s Will? I ask because Jonah 1:1-6 shows that we resist God’s will when we deliberately choose our way over His Will, our preference over His providence, our plans over His purposes, and our pride over His praise.
The Problem
The culture says, ‘Follow your heart,” but the Bible teaches “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure (Jeremiah 17:9).” The Bible commands, “above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it (Proverbs 4:23 NIV).”
People need to know that ever since Adam and Eve chose their way over God’s Will, every person is born with a defective, deceitful, rebellious heart that naturally resists God’s Will and disobey His commands.
That inherited rebellious heart is the exact reason why Jonah ran away from God. Last time, in Jonah 1:1–2, we saw that God’s command was clear. Jonah 1:2 reads, “2 Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” Yet, Jonah’s heart deceived him and in his prejudice against people that he deemed unforgivable, he chose his way over God’s Will and abandoned the mission that God gave him.
The Big Idea
We choose our way over God’s Will because we are born with a rebellious heart. So, what should we do?
James 4:7 teaches, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” That means we must resist the temptation to follow our own hearts.
In Ezekiel 28:17, speaking to Lucifer, turned Satan, God said: “Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground.”
As I said last time, rebellion always costs more than obedience. That was true for Satan, for Adam and Eve, for Jonah, and it is still true for us. Today, we come back to Jonah 1:1–6 for the second time to see how a corrupted heart leads to outright mutiny against God’s mission as we continue our journey through three movements in Jonah’s story: the mission, mutiny, and mercy. Last time, we covered the mission in Jonah 1:1–2 and now we turn our attention to the next two movements.
The Mutiny (Jonah 1:3)
While Jonah 1:1-2 reveals the compassion of God, Jonah 1:3 exposes the corruption of our heart. It reads: “But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.” One single word, “but,” turned a holy mission into a human mutiny.
God said, “Arise and go,” but Jonah arose and fled. There was no confusion. There was no hesitation. This was outright mutiny against the King of heaven. Jonah 1:3 exposes a threefold pattern of every rebellious heart that resists God’s Will.
Deliberate Defiance
As a prophet of God, Jonah knew he couldn’t actually escape God’s physical presence because God is omnipresent. Psalm 139:7 says: “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?”
Jonah wasn’t trying to outrun God’s existence; he was trying to escape God’s calling. How often do we do the exact same thing?
- God calls us to forgive and we immediately build a defense for why we cannot.
- God calls us to generosity and we cling tightly to our possessions.
- God calls us to proclaim the gospel and we present a list of excuses to remain silent.
- God calls us to holiness and we negotiate with temptation.
Jonah did not misunderstand the command; he simply despised the destination, resulting in deliberate defiance. God said go east; Jonah went to the farthest place to the west he could go. Jonah wasn’t just tweaking his travel plans; he was intentionally moving as far away from God’s assignment as physically possible.
I heard a missionary share that as a young man, he felt God’s call to ministry, but he walked away because he wanted to party and sleep around. He ran for over twenty years, but he eventually realized he could no longer outrun God.
Application
Watch out for whenever God’s commands confront your comfort because our natural instinct is rarely to surrender; it is to resist. So, what starts as deliberate defiance quickly turns into:
Decisive Dissent
Jonah actually pursued what he thought to be the right thing to do. Jonah 1:3 continues, “So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.” Notice how calculated and intentional this is. Jonah searched for the ship. He purchased the ticket. He made the arrangements. He invested financially in his disobedience.
Rebellion is rarely spontaneous; it is usually premeditated. We rationalize it, we justify it, and we convince ourselves that God will understand.
But then we discover exactly what Jonah discovered: running from God is incredibly expensive.
Jonah paid the fare with his own money. What a tragic irony. He spent God’s blessings trying to escape God’s Will. That is exactly what sin does to us. We spend our peace, our joy, our integrity, our marriages, our witness, and our communion with God trying to escape the One whom our souls were created to enjoy. Satan and sin always promise what they cannot deliver, and it always costs more than you ever imagined.
The greatest example of that is Adam and Eve. I can assure you they never thought the cost of their rebellion, their disobedience, would be so high.
Application
You are entirely free to choose your disobedience, but you are never free to choose its consequences. This deliberate defiance and decisive dissent ultimately always end in:
Downward Direction
In this escape plan of Jonah, we hear a specific word that quietly echoes throughout this entire chapter: down. Jonah went down to Joppa. He went down into the ship. In Jonah 1:5, he will go down into the inner part of the vessel. Eventually, he will be thrown down into the sea.
None of this language is accidental. The Holy Spirit is painting a vivid picture: every single step away from God is a step downward— away from His will, away from His fellowship, away from His joy, and away from His peace. Jonah thought he was pursuing freedom, but in reality, he was descending into slavery.
Isn’t that exactly how sin works? No one wakes up intending to destroy their marriage. No one plans to ruin their testimony. No one sets out to drift from Christ. It begins with one compromise, one unchecked desire, one hidden sin, one delayed obedience, or one clever rationalization. Long before anyone else sees the decline, God sees the first step downward.
Over the years, I’ve watched believers who sincerely loved Christ slowly drift away. It wasn’t because they suddenly stopped believing, but because they refused to surrender completely. It usually starts with a sinful relationship, an unforgiving spirit, a hidden addiction, or an unchecked ambition. Instead of bringing those things into the light, they slowly distanced themselves from God’s people because living in rebellion felt easier than living under conviction. That wasn’t just a moral failure; it was a surrender problem. And that is exactly where Jonah found himself.
Application
We do not drift toward holiness; we only drift away from it. Every movement away from God begins in the heart before it ever manifests in your life. There will always be ships sailing to Tarshish ready to take you away from your calling. There will always be opportunities to disobey and doors that appear wide open.
But consider this carefully: Not every open door is an open door from God. Sometimes the easiest, most profitable, and most comfortable path is actually the path leading you straight away from the Lord.
But the good news is this: even when we are running from God and spiraling downward, His mercy refuses to abandon us. That is exactly what we see in Jonah 1:4–6.
The Mercy (John 1:4-6)
Jonah 1:4 says, “But the LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up.” This was no ordinary storm; it was a supernatural intervention. It was so intense that the next verses, Jonah 1:5-6, tells us, “5 Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his god. And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep. 6 So the captain came and said to him, ‘What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your god! Perhaps the god will give a thought to us, that we may not perish.’”
Notice what Jonah expected when he ran. He expected silence. He thought if he boarded the right ship, paid the right fare, and sailed far enough west, God would simply let him go. But Jonah severely underestimated the pursuing love of God.
Aren’t you thankful that God doesn’t let His children run forever? If He did, none of us would be sitting here today. Every believer reading this blog has a Jonah story. We have all wandered, we have all resisted, and we have all tried to write our own script. Yet, every single time we ran, God pursued.
In His mercy He left heaven to pursue us and went to the cross to pay the cost we couldn’t pay for our rebellion against Him. Jonah 1:1-6 is living proof that God loves runaways too much to let them keep running. The storm was mighty, but inside that storm was mercy. The wind was wild, but within it was a warning. It was a wake-up call for a man who was spiritually asleep, reminding us that sometimes God will hurl storms into our lives to shake our self-confidence, challenge our disobedience, and draw us back to Himself.
Application
Sometimes God calms the storm, but sometimes He sends the storm so that we might experience His mercy. The tempest wasn’t God’s rejection of Jonah; it was God’s refusal to lose Jonah. If you have been praying desperately for God to remove the storm you are currently in, have you considered that the storm itself might actually be God’s mercy?
Closing Thought
As I close, imagine a young child playing at the edge of a busy, dangerous street. His father yells out: “Stop! Don’t take another step!” The child might think his father is restricting his freedom or ruining his fun. But that command isn’t meant to rob the child of joy; it is to preserve his life. That is exactly how God’s commands work. We often mistakenly think obedience limits us, when in reality, it protects us. Jonah believed he knew better than God. He thought running would bring relief, but it only brought a storm.
Action Step
Ask the Lord one simple, courageous question: “Lord, where am I resisting Your will?” Then, be quiet long enough to actually listen. When the Holy Spirit brings something to your mind, don’t explain it away. Don’t postpone your obedience. Don’t try to negotiate. Take the necessary step. Make the phone call. Offer the forgiveness. Confess the sin. Restore the relationship. Begin serving. Share your faith.
Appeal
If you have been running away from Jesus, commit your life to Him today, and stop stepping downward.
The good news of the gospel is not that faithful people never run. The good news is that we serve a God who relentlessly pursues the people who do run. In this relentless pursuit, He took on flesh and became man, took our sins and became our savior, took our punishment and became our redeemer.
In Jonah’s story, the entire narrative of God’s call, man’s rebellion, and God’s pursuit beautifully mirrors the grand story of Creation, the Fall, and Redemption. Jesus left His throne in heaven to pursue sinners like us. He died so that we might have life and have it eternally. If you want that life, then stop running away, bend the knee today, surrender your heart, and commit to obey everything Jesus taught.
The good news is, you don’t have to do this in your own strength. He is here to empower you with His Spirit.
Read More
Jonah 1:1-2 Resisting God’s Will, Part 1
Listen to the Full Sermon
