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The Sermon for Sunday, August 9th, 2026, the Tenth Sunday after Trinity
The Lessons: Psalm 29; Jonah 2:1-10; Matthew 14:22-33
The Text: Jonah 2:1-10
The Topic: God rescued the prophet Jonah in answer to his prayer
INTRODUCTION
James David Ford, who was chaplain of the United State House of Representatives for two decades, told this story about prayer to Leadership journal:
‘In the spring of 1976 I sailed the Atlantic Ocean with a couple of friends. In a thirty-one-foot vessel, we sailed from Plymouth, England, to New York – 5,992 miles. During the trip, we hit a real hurricane – some of the waves were thirty-five feet high – and frankly, I was scared. My father had said, “Don’t go. You have five children. Wait till they’re grown.”
The hurricane went into its third day, and I thought of my father’s words about the children. I thought, Why am I out here? Was this thing that I thought was courage and adventure really just foolhardy?
The skies were black, and clouds were scudding by. I wanted to pray for God to stop the storm, but I felt guilty because I’d voluntarily gotten into this. I didn’t have to go across the ocean….
Finally I came up with a marvelous prayer, seven words: “O God, I have had enough. Amen.”
Within half an hour of that simple prayer, the clouds in the west lifted like a screen in a theater, and there was blue sky. Was my prayer tied to the opening of the sky? I don’t worry about it. One thing is certain: simple, sincere prayers are sufficient.’[1]
Psalm 107:23-30 is one passage that comes to mind as one ponders God’s mercy in hearing the prayers of sailors, for that passage explicitly tells us that sailors “see the works of the LORD, and his wonders in the deep” (Psalm 107:24, 1928 Prayer Book), for he brings them through the storm to the port to which they were sailing. Therefore they should praise the Lord for his goodness and proclaim the wonderful miracles he does for people (Psalm 107:31). The stilling of the storm by the Lord Jesus Christ on the Sea of Galilee is another example.
THE PROPHET JONAH’S PRAYER
But in our First Lesson today we find the prophet Jonah’s prayer for deliverance and thanksgiving to God for it. Jonah had rebelled against God, refusing at first to go to Nineveh and warn its inhabitants to repent before God brought destruction upon them. From Joppa he took a ship bound for Tarshish (in the opposite direction to Nineveh), thinking that he would escape the Lord by so doing. But God brought such a heavy storm to the ship at sea, that the sailors had to cast off the cargo, and they all called on their gods, but when the captain found Jonah sleeping in the hold he woke him up to pray to God. When the sailors drew lots to try and find out which person might be the cause of the storm’s being inflicted on them, the lot fell to Jonah. He had previously told them that he was escaping the task the LORD had laid on him, and he explained that the only way for the storm to abate would be to throw him overboard into the sea. When they did so, the storm abated, and the sailors were all gripped by the fear of God, so that they even offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows (Jonah 1).
A great fish, probably a whale (here we are not told it was a whale, but in Matthew 12:40, Jesus refers to Jonah being in the whale’s belly for three days and three nights) swallowed Jonah, and the prayer he prays is contained in Jonah 2. Though Jonah’s rebellion against God’s prophetic purpose was punished through this ordeal, Jonah became a prophetic sign of the Lord Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection.
The prayer is Jonah’s cry to God to rescue him from the depths of the sea and from the belly of the whale, which to him was “the belly of hell” (Jonah 2:2). He knew he had been cast out of God’s sight, yet still had faith that he would again see God’s temple in Jerusalem (Jonah 2:4). Although he was so deeply submerged, he began to thank God for bringing him out of this torment, darkness, and destruction (Jonah 2:6). Remembering the Lord even when he is ready to give up living, he prays to God and the prayer comes to God’s holy temple (Jonah 2:7). In the midst of this, he realizes that those who “observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy” (Jonah 2:8). By worshipping false gods, and believing alluring lies, their worshippers abandon the possibility of God showing them mercy.
Jonah promises to sacrifice to God with a voice of thanksgiving and pay what he has vowed to God. This would be what he vowed to pay God for rescuing him from a miserable death. As Christians, we can understand this to mean the thanksgiving we should always offer God for the wonderful gifts of salvation, forgiveness, eternal life, and the Holy Spirit through the Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed, Jonah confesses, “Salvation is of the LORD” (Jonah 2:9c, KJV). The LORD then causes the whale to vomit out Jonah on the dry land (Jonah 2:10). The result of this was that Jonah obeyed God’s word when the command came to him a second time to go to Nineveh and warn them of destruction coming upon them in forty days unless they repented of their evil ways.
CONCLUSION
Jonah’s prayer has been compared to some of the psalms of deliverance, but what does this prayer teach us today?
- Firstly, we should not rebel against God when he calls us to fulfill a special task or mission.
- Secondly, we must pray to God in faith even when the ordeal to which we have been subjected is a result of our own disobedience to God’s call and will.
- Thirdly, we must give thanks to God for his deliverance from all evil, and fulfill any vows or promises that we made to God so that we might be rescued.
- Fourthly, we must recognize that there are periods of great trial that God calls us to endure even if we are not disobedient, as the Lord Jesus Christ himself was in “the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40) for nearly three days before rising from the dead. We must pray to God in faith during such periods of our lives, trusting that God will deliver us from all evil.
[1] p. 419, Craig Brian Larson and Leadership Journal: 750 Engaging Illustrations for Preachers, Teachers, and Writers. Grand Rapids, Michigan: BakerBooks, 2002, 2008.