Running from God? Meet the God Who Still Rescues Us Today
From the sermon preached on January 18, 2026
If you feel like you are running from God, the honest answer is that He has not stopped running toward you. The story of Jonah shows a God who chases people down even when they choose the opposite direction. No matter how far the distance feels, His rescue was never meant to be a one-time event you earn and move past.
In a recent teaching from the book of Jonah, Midtown Vineyard's pastor described how easily we convince ourselves we are doing just fine on our own. We build quiet comparisons, telling ourselves we are better than the person next to us, while avoiding the deeper truth that all of us need rescuing. This post walks through what it looks like to stop running, why God pursues us always even when we resist, and what does salvation really mean when it is something we keep needing every day.
What Does It Mean That God Rescues Broken People?
Picture jumping into a cold lake for a triathlon and suddenly realizing your wetsuit is so tight you cannot breathe. That is the image used at Midtown Vineyard to describe what it feels like when life tightens around us and we finally have to call for help. Most of us do not wait until we are drowning to admit we need rescuing; we just get better at hiding it.
This is really the starting point for understanding that God rescues broken people, not people who already have it together. It is easy to believe we are doing better than we actually are, comparing ourselves to someone who seems worse off so we can quietly decide we are fine. Even in a prison, the sermon pointed out, every person can find someone else to point to and think, at least I am not that bad.
The book of Jonah opens with a reluctant prophet who assumed he knew better than God. Before Jonah could experience how God rescues broken people, he first had to stop pretending he was not one of them. That same honesty is where rescue always begins, because God rescues broken people, not people who have already cleaned themselves up first.
Try this today: name one area of your life you have been managing on your own instead of bringing it to God, and say it out loud, even if it is just to yourself.
Why Does God Pursue Us Always, Even When We Are Running from God?
Jonah was told to go to Nineveh, a city so violent and feared that going there felt like walking into enemy territory unarmed. Instead, Jonah boarded a ship headed the opposite direction, toward Tarshish, choosing the longer and harder path away from what God asked of him. The transcript describes this as "going down," down to the sea, down into the ship, down into the belly of the boat, a picture of what it looks like when we are running from God instead of toward Him.
Here is the part worth sitting with: God pursues us always, even in the middle of our worst decisions. When the sailors threw Jonah overboard and the sea grew calm, it did not end the story; it revealed that God pursues us always, right into the depths we chose for ourselves. This is not a God who is done with us the moment we walk away, but one whose hand keeps reaching no matter how far we have gone.
That kind of pursuit does not always look like lightning from the sky. Sometimes it looks like a middle-of-the-night phone call to parents who stay on the line and pray, or a sound on the roof that stops a spiral of fear in its tracks. God pursues us always through ordinary people and ordinary moments that turn out to be anything but ordinary.
Try this today: think of one relationship, distraction, or destination you have been running toward instead of facing what God is actually asking of you, and name it honestly in a prayer.
How Is Salvation an Ongoing Process, Not a One-Time Event?
From inside the fish, Jonah finally stopped running long enough to pray. He described being hurled into the depths, seaweed wrapped around his head, and the sense that the earth itself had barred him in forever, yet he still called out to God from that place. Jonah 2:6 captures the turn: "But you, LORD my God, brought my life up from the pit."
This is where salvation is ongoing process becomes more than a phrase. Jonah had already experienced God's provision before, yet he still needed rescuing again; salvation is ongoing process, not a single transaction we complete and then move past. One pastor at Midtown Vineyard described waking up at two in the morning in a small apartment, gripped by a panic attack about death, and calling his parents because it was the only thing he knew to do.
They stayed on the phone and prayed, and something shifted that he still cannot fully explain, only that it was real. That moment did not erase every future struggle; it simply confirmed that salvation is ongoing process, something God keeps doing in a life that keeps needing it, which is really what does salvation really mean once you get past the idea that it happens only once. Jonah's own prayer ends not with certainty that he will never struggle again, but with a decision to keep turning back toward God.
Try this today: instead of asking God to rescue you once and for all, ask Him to meet you again in whatever you are facing right now, the same way He met Jonah in the depths.
What Does Jonah 2 Teach Us About Being Rescued From the Depths?
Jonah 2:6 ("But you, LORD my God, brought my life up from the pit") sits at the center of this chapter, and it frames three truths worth carrying with you.
1. God hears the cry from the deepest places
Scripture: "In my distress I called to the Lord, and He answered me" (Jonah 2:2).
What it means: Distance does not disqualify a prayer; even from inside the fish, Jonah's cry reached God.
2. God provides exactly what is needed, nothing more and nothing less
Scripture: "The Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah" (Jonah 1:17).
What it means: The fish was not a punishment but a provision, a place to survive long enough to be brought back.
3. God brings us up from the pit, not just out of it
Scripture: "You brought my life up from the pit" (Jonah 2:6).
What it means: Rescue in Jonah 2 is not simply escape; it is being lifted into a different direction entirely.
A few characteristics of God's rescue stand out across this chapter:
Present even in the darkest and most disorienting moments
Patient with people who have been running for a long time
Faithful to answer honestly, even desperate prayers
Able to bring someone up from anywhere, no matter how far down they went
Finding This Hope Close to Home
Running from God does not always look dramatic; sometimes it just looks like staying busy enough to avoid sitting with the truth about where you actually are. Whether that feeling has followed you through a season of doubt, burnout, or simply drifting from what you once believed, you are not the only one carrying it. Midtown Vineyard meets that honest tension every week in the Fresno High Neighborhood, and people come from as close as Fig Garden or Downtown and beyond to sit with it together.
You Don't Have to Stay in the Deep
Jonah's story does not end with a perfect person who never struggles again; it ends with someone who remembered to look back toward God. No matter the depth, no matter what led someone there, God's rescue reaches further than the distance anyone has run. That is the whole point of a God who calls, a God who pursues, and a God who rescues.
Take one step toward experiencing this rescue for yourself at Midtown Vineyard's page built for exactly this moment; start here.
Find your next step at an upcoming gathering where this conversation continues in person; join us here.
Frequently Asked Questions
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The sermon points to a simple sign: quietly believing you are doing fine while comparing yourself to people who seem worse off. If you have been managing pain, fear, or a habit on your own instead of bringing it into the light, that is usually the first clue.
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Jonah traveled in the opposite direction of everything God asked, and God still reached him in the belly of a fish, further from help than most people ever go. The sermon's point is direct: there is no length at which God's hand stops reaching.
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That feeling is common, but it is not the same as being true. Jonah prayed from what felt like the bottom of the ocean and was still heard, which is the whole reason his story gets told.
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It is often remembered as a story about a big fish, but the sermon reframes it as a story about a God who calls, pursues, and rescues people who run from Him. The fish is a detail; the pursuit is the point.
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No, and the sermon is honest about that. Salvation is described as an ongoing, present tense reality rather than a one time event, which means needing rescue again is not a failure, it is simply part of the process.
