Jonah: The Prophet Who Preferred a Fern | Pastor Rod Gomez

Well, I wonder if you heard the story about the guy that

was swallowed by a whale.

Ever heard about that one before?

No.

I mean, it, there's a story about it.

A guy literally got swallowed by a whale recently.

It happened.

It really happened.

It was just a few months ago.

These two guys were hiking, father son duo, or not hiking, kayaking in Chile.

That'd be more impressive if they were hiking and they respond by a whale

whole different ball game at that point.

They're kayaking and the son is sitting there mining his own business, and out

of nowhere this large whale comes in.

Are you able to see that this large whale comes in?

Yeah.

There's your video.

He comes in and he opens his mouth and just takes the guy whole.

Oh,

unbelievable.

Well, of course this guy's name is Adrian.

He thinks at this point in time, I'm gonna die.

This is it.

This is how I die.

I die like Jonah.

He didn't die, though I die.

Well, surprisingly, as you're able to see here, the whale let him out.

So surprising and twist of fate here, his father said to him, stay calm.

Stay calm in Spanish.

He tells him that, and Adrian safe in sound begins to.

Make his way back to shore.

Both father and son are safe.

All things are fine.

Everything ends nicely for them now, thankfully, even though Adrian didn't

die, uh, we do know that this story is found not only in real life in 2025, but

also in the Bible about 2 2800 years ago.

This story is a famous story.

It's a familiar one.

It's one that you might already know.

In fact, that's actually a problem for us because you're coming at

it with a, an understanding about it that might be different than

where we need to go with it.

Jonah's story is truly about not the whale, not the fish that swallows

him, but about his heart before God.

In fact, it's probably the most important thing that we're gonna learn about Jonah.

It's gonna teach us how to respond to God, what God is looking for

from us, because Jonah was in fact swallowed by a great fish, but he was

also swallowed by a few other things.

He was swallowed by pride.

He was swallowed by prejudice.

He was swallowed by a nationalistic, uh, focus for his people, Israel.

He was swallowed by a, a lot of other things, a cold heart.

He was swallowed by more than just a great fish.

The fish just happened to be representative of God's working

in Jonah's life, and that's what the story's really about.

We're often fascinated with the spectacular and, and rightly so.

We're, we're visual creatures.

We see things or hear things, and that's what really grabs our mind.

But I think God wants us to focus on something more important this morning.

Even though Jonah and the Great Fish is gonna be a part of what we look

at this morning, I want you to think about maybe God is asking you to focus

on your heart and less on the fish.

Maybe God wants you to raise the question, okay, what's the

similarity between Jonah and myself?

You see, because a lot of people, if you're to ask them, what makes

a mature and godly Christian, how do you know that someone is making

progress in their faith toward God?

And a lot of the times you might get answers like, well, they're studying

their Bible every day and they're going to church, and they're doing

the right things, or maybe getting money to the church if they're

really on, on fire for the Lord.

You might say that they do a lot of things and, and those are certainly helpful.

Jesus says, if you love me, you'll keep my commandment.

So there's certainly validity to the idea that if you're growing

in your walk with Christ, there is gonna be evidence about that.

But what Jonah teaches us, even though he's teaching it by contrast, is

that there's more to it than that.

While God does want obedience, he doesn't just want obedience.

In fact, this is gonna be a theme that we're gonna see all

throughout the minor prophets.

This is a constant refrain that God sends to Israel and to Judah.

I don't want your sacrifices.

I don't want your outward righteousness.

What I really want, what I really, really want is this.

How does he answer that?

What do you think he says there?

I think that's the focus of our book.

Jonah's example for us, or his counter example, is showing us what

God really wants from his people.

And what's interesting about Jonah is that he's a prophet.

He's got this great platform, this great gifting, but what we

see is that great gifting doesn't always mean great godliness.

It's fascinating because Jonah is a prophet.

By contrast, he's an, he's an example for us by contrast, that is, and God is

giving you an opportunity this morning to confront yourself in the story of Jonah.

That really is the punchline, even though I haven't gotten there yet.

Jonah chapter four is gonna turn the page around and look at you.

He's gonna hold a mirror up and say, what about you?

Where are you in this story?

And that's the most exciting part about Jonah.

That's what we need to see this morning.

We're gonna see that what God really wants from us is to share

his heart by showing his mercy.

God wants us to share his heart by showing his mercy, and

that is a big idea to unpack.

But before we jump in there, let me just give you a quick sketch on the

prophet Jonah as we make our way there.

Again, I know you guys know this story, but I need to make sure that

we're oriented the same direction.

First, let's start with this here, Jonah.

The theme of it is God's mercy.

On the on the repentant, we're gonna see God's mercy on the

repentant, and that really is the outline of our story as well.

You're gonna see the story of Jonah broken off into really two

major pieces, his first commission and his second commission.

First time God sends him out.

He doesn't go.

Second time, God sends him out.

He goes, but it's broken down into two pieces.

God's mercy on Jonah, excuse me, and God's mercy on Nineveh.

There's your rough and dirty sketch.

Now, the writing of it is a bit debated, but we're just gonna

say for the sake of our purposes here, he's writing about seven 80.

Give or take seven 80.

Now that's a date.

That may not mean a whole lot to you, but maybe it should, uh, in fact.

And the date of Jerusalem, the date of Israel's fall is 7 22, so we're

writing about 50 years before the Northern Kingdom falls to Assyria.

Now, those are two things that should be important to you because, uh, Jonah is

sent to Nineveh from the Northern Kingdom.

He is a northern kingdom prophet.

He is squarely in the middle of what is called the Northern Kingdom.

Now, let's just remind ourselves here.

What the Northern Kingdom is and about nine 70, uh, rather nine 30, uh, you have

the Northern and Southern Kingdom split.

And so God's people used to just be called Israel and Judah.

That was the way they were known.

But during the splits where the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom are

suddenly two different entities, now you have this looming threat of Assyria.

You see them over there in the east.

At some 0.7

22, Assyria gets strong enough to overcome Israel and he takes him out.

God judges Israel by using Assyria to come and tear them down.

It's a terrible story.

You can read about that in In Two Kings chapter 1617, thereabouts.

That's the, that's the backdrop here.

So Jonah is sent to those people.

He's a Northern Kingdom prophet who's interacting during the time of Jira ii.

This is about 150 years after the division between United and Divided Kingdom.

He's sent to Nineveh, and God is saying, Jonah, I want you to go to these people.

And Jonah knows we often give him flack for this, but he knows that

these people are not good people.

The Assyrians are violent, oppressive people.

They're known for their brutality.

They're not good people.

It just so happens that at the time that God sends him, this is a period of

relative peace and weakness for them.

They're in between strong rulers and so they're uncertain about their future.

Jonah is sent to them, and of course, you know, Jonah has an issue with this.

A few more things about Jonah that are helpful for you to know.

First of all, uh, Jonah's the only prophet who Jesus likens himself to.

He's the only one that Jesus says I, I'm gonna give you the sign of Jonah.

It's gonna be like Jonah.

He uses himself, uses Jonah as a reference to himself.

Furthermore, he's the only prophet, in addition to Nahum that

ends his book with a question.

And interestingly, both are about Nineveh.

They're, they both end on a question and both are about Nineveh.

That'll be important soon.

Furthermore, he's the only prophet whose book focuses on himself.

As we, as we make our way to book five of 12 in the minor prophets, this is

the only book that we have where the prophet, his message is not the message.

He gives a message that's five words in the Hebrew to the Ninevites, but

really the story focuses on Jonah.

Jonah is the centerpiece of the story, not Nineveh.

Which is interesting because the other prophets are focusing

on the northern kingdom.

Israel or the southern kingdom of Judah or mayhem is promising

judgments on the Ninevites.

This is a few years later, and this is the only prophet that we

have is saying, this is my story.

This is what happened to me.

Who wrote, John, we don't know.

But this is certainly, uh, a, a difficult biographical sketch

because it doesn't look good on him.

In fact, of all the characters in the story of Jonah, he's

the only one who doesn't obey.

Everyone in the story of Jonah does what God says.

Even a plant, God appoints a plant.

The plant does what God says.

Jonah's the only one who's supposed to be the holiest man in the story.

He's the only one who flees runs away from God.

Those are all the backdrops to this story here.

With that said, we have a lot of ground to cover and I'm excited about

all of it, so let's jump into it.

Jonah, chapters one and two, Jonah's chapter, Jonah, chapters one and two,

and we're gonna start in verse one.

It's a helpful place for us to begin.

That's where the beginning is.

Here's what it says.

Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amite, saying,

arise, go to Nineveh, that great city and call out against it for

their evil has come up before me.

Now this is expected.

This is something that Jonah would've been okay with.

In theory.

God wants to judge Nineveh.

Fantastic.

I'm on board, except in verse three we have a surprise.

But Jonah rose and fled to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

So instead of doing what God says, Jonah is gonna go south to Joppa, make his way

all the way across the sea to the furthest known part in, in the known world at this

point, for his people to, to tar Tarshish.

He's trying to re relieve himself from the presence of the Lord.

And so he flies, he flees about 2000.

He's attempting to flee 2000 miles west instead of 600 miles east to Nineveh.

He went down to Joppa, found a ship going to Tarshish, and he paid the fair, went

down into it to go with them, to Tarshish away from the presence of the Lord.

Maybe you saw the repetition there and he's trying to get away from the Lord.

Now, you might say to yourself, well, he isn't.

He kind of a prophet.

He should know that you can't get away from God's presence.

Can't really flee from God's presence, and yet this is his mo.

He's not leaving.

He knows God's omni presence.

He's not confused about that.

What he's trying to do is flee from God's call for him to do what he's called to do.

And so he's running away from his call lest his presence and more

what that presence refers to.

He's hoping he can get far away enough from God's call that he'll

send somebody else or just send.

Better yet, nobody else notice verse four, but God.

But the Lord, these are one of the, the great buts in scripture.

It contrasts something against something else.

And in this case, even though Jonah's on the run and in the background, in

your mind, maybe you hear the cop song, bad boys, bad Boys, what you gonna do?

What you do I gonna do When The Lord Comes for You?

The Lord stops him in his tracks by hurling a great wind upon the sea.

And so there was a mighty tempest on the sea so that the

ship threatened to break up.

So this is more than just a natural occurrence.

This is God's supernaturally intervening into Jonah's life.

In order to stop Jonah from doing what he's trying to do, he's sending

him an obstacle so that perhaps the prophet might say, you know what?

This isn't working out so well.

Maybe I should stop what I'm doing and go do what God says.

But surprise again.

Here's another interesting feature of the text.

While the Mariners were afraid calling each to his God, they're starting

to hurl 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

laid down and was fast asleep.

Jonah snoozing, the sailors are aware, they're spiritually aware

that something's happening.

That's beyond normalcy, and so even though ballast in the ship helps it to

stay stable, they're tossing it out.

What's that about?

Instead of keeping the ship heavy, to give it some more stability on the

rough waves, they're throwing stuff out.

Hard to know for sure, but maybe these sailors are spiritually attuned to the

fact that there is a God that's angry and maybe they're trying to appease the

God of the sea, throwing their cargo out.

Maybe they're trying to say, we recognize something's amiss here.

Let's give this God a sacrifice and hopefully he'll turn away his fears.

Anger, Jonah on the other hand.

He went down to Joppa, down to Tarus, down to the ship.

He's going down, down, down.

And so he needs a pagan sailor, a sailor who has no connection to Yahweh.

He needs the captain to come to his attention.

Verse six, the captain came and said to him, what do you mean you sleeper a rise?

Call out to your God and perhaps the God, whoever he is, will give a thought

to us in that we may not perish.

It's interesting that verse six, the captain.

Says the same words that God says to Jonah.

Arise, arise, and go.

In this case, he's saying, arise.

Call out to your God.

He's trying to help Jonah help them.

So the sailors do something interesting here.

They cast lots, they take the dice.

I.

Uh, two rocks, essentially.

One black on, black on one side, white on the other side, and they cast the rocks.

Two whites mean yes, two blacks mean no.

They cast these rocks into their ship and they're saying, whose fault is this?

Oh God, whoever you are, you're reminded of Proverbs chapter 16.

Proverbs 16 · chapter mention

The lot is cast into the lab, but it's every decision is from the Lord.

Again, these are pagans.

These are not Yahweh followers, but they understand something, so they say,

let us cast lots that we may know on whose accounts as evil has come upon us.

And so they cast lots and the lot fell to Jonah.

And they say to him, tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us.

What is your occupation?

Where do you come from?

What's your country?

Who are you?

Essentially, they're trying to get a sense of, is this right?

They're double checking their lots, discerning whether or not this is the

problem, and here's what Jonah says.

Notice how he starts in verse nine.

I am a Hebrew, and by the way, I fear the Lord.

Do you feel the irony in that?

I'm a Hebrew, I'm one of God's people.

You may have heard about us, we're the ones whom God delivered

from Egypt, and I fear the Lord.

Does anyone feel the dripping sarcasm?

I, I fear, do you really, Jonah?

Why are you on this ship running from the Lord?

Then I fear the Lord.

Okay.

I fear the Lord, the God of heaven who made the sea.

The sea.

They're saying, oh no, your God made this sea.

Okay, well then why are you here?

What's happening?

He made the sea.

He made the dry land, and then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to

him, what is this that you've done?

Where the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the

Lord because he had told them,

verse 11, they said to him, what shall we do to you that

the sea may quiet down for us?

How?

How do we fix this problem that it seems like is here on your account?

They note for the sea grew more and more tempestuous.

The sea grew more and more tempestuous.

This is again, the direction.

We don't know exact exactly know how long Jonah made it.

We don't know how far along the Mediterranean they actually made progress

in, but Jonah and these sailors are struggling pretty quickly after departure.

And so he's on his way.

They're now saying, what do we do?

We've, we, we've jettisoned all of our cargo.

How do we fix this?

We've made a sacrifice to the God of the sea.

It doesn't seem to be responding.

And so Jonah says, verse 12.

Pick me up and hurl me into the sea, then the sea will quiet down for you,

for I know it is because of me that this great campus has come upon you.

Isn't that interesting?

Jonah's saying, just kill me, sacrifice me, throw me into the sea, and then God

will bless you guys by protecting you.

Why couldn't you just throw yourself into the sea?

Why couldn't you have them just turn around and go back to land?

It seems like what's happening here is Jonah is saying, I would

rather die than do what God says.

I'd rather just not put me into the sea.

Better that you do it than that.

I do it.

I don't want to go.

Please kill me.

Verse 13 again, you have these pagan sailors who are, they have a better

ca calibration than Jonah does.

Nevertheless, these men rode hard to get back to dry land, but they couldn't.

Because the sea grew more and more tempestuous, so you have

escalating circumstances here, God sends the wind and the waves.

Now things are getting from bad to worse to worse, and things

are continuing to get bad here.

So bad that they're saying, okay, therefore, they call out to the

Lord in verse 14, oh Lord, this is the, the name of Yahweh.

Oh Yahweh.

Let us not perish for this man's life and lay not on us.

Innocent blood for you o Yahweh, have done as it pleased you.

And they're basically asking, God, please don't hold this against us.

We see no other recourse in order to spare our lives.

And so they pick 'em up, they hurl 'em into the sea, and the

sea see sits from its raging.

That was the answer.

The sea stops as soon as Jonah's feet touch the water, presumably, which

suggests then that maybe Jonah could have swam, could have at least pad

paddled some water for a minute or two.

Maybe he could have swam back to dry land.

Who knows?

We, we will pick that up in a second.

Verse 16, notice here, then the men feared the Lord exceedingly and they offered a

sacrifice to the Lord and they made vows.

Things get from bad to worse for Jonah, for one, clear and obvious

reason, and I think it's important that you and I spend a few minutes here.

I need you to see in, in your life and your connection.

As you look in the mirror and you think about Jonah's life and your

life, I need you to see a clear connection between his and your life.

Here's what it's point number one.

I need you to expect rebellion to have increasing consequences,

increasing consequences in your life.

That is when you do the opposite of what God wants you to do.

In this case, Jonah go to the Ninevites.

He says, no thank you.

I'd rather do something else.

He is stopped almost immediately because God cares about him.

God says, no, you're not going.

I'm gonna put everything in your way to make your life hard so that

you humble yourself before me.

And so all of this is intentional.

God is trying to get his attention.

And the same thing works in your life and in mine.

When God's trying to get your attention.

Often, although not always, often it is through a multitude

of increasing consequences.

Increasing consequences, trying to run away funny.

'cause even though we could look at Jonah and say, Jonah's

so silly, we do the same thing.

We do try to run away from God, although not usually physically.

We could still come to church running away from God, but we

can still do the same routine.

We can open our Bibles running away from God.

We evade his conviction.

We're looking for ways to make sure that we don't, maybe silence his voice

entirely, but severely minimize it.

There's a group of people called, uh, the Jitsu.

Actually, there's a, there's a term for people that are running away from society.

Um, there's, there's services that you can buy now, like

delete me or, uh, or incog me.

They're web services that will delete your data from online.

So if you have your personal information on your, on your

Google, you see, oh, there's my address, there's my phone number,

there's my spouse, there's my kids.

How does the internet know all this stuff about me?

Our services that will go and scrub your data on your behalf.

It'll call these services, these data brokers and say, we'd like to get

this person's information off of your website so that they don't have access.

There's another service.

Where they're called night movers, and I guess they're popular in

Japan these night Movers will help people disappear entirely.

They'll leave their families, they'll leave their, their workplaces, they'll

just up and be gone, and they're, they're called night movers because

they do this all in the dark of night.

They'll come to the person's house, they'll pack everything up and then

help them leave so that they can start a new life somewhere else.

It's kind of a witness protection program, but for people that are electing to do

it and not those who have to do it in order to escape some kind of danger.

And so the jitsu.

A word that means evaporation refers these people who do this, one of the founders,

uh, said what we do is help people.

Here's it.

Normally the reason for moving is something positive, entering university,

getting a new job or marriage.

But there's also other reasons like dropping out of university, losing a job,

or escaping from something dangerous.

What we did was support people to start a second life.

We're helping people start a second life, and that's exactly what Jonah tries to do.

I wanna start a new life.

I'm gonna get away from the Lord.

We do the same thing.

We try to evade God by starting a second life.

Even in the midst of our normal life, this is called compartmentalization.

We can say, I'm serving the Lord God here.

I go to my church, I, I do my churchy things.

But on the inside we're saying, I'm gonna guard my heart from being

penetrated by God's convicting gaze.

And, and we go about our normal lives and say, Lord, I don't

wanna feel your your pain.

And so I'm gonna try to keep my mind elsewhere.

And this is our active disobedience.

What's interesting about all these things is that disobedience, every

disobedience, as one scholar put, it has a storm attached to it.

Every time you disobey God, when you are consciously aware of your

disobedience to God, God has every incentive to make life painful for you.

And why?

Well, because God cares about you.

God cares.

God cares enough to make life difficult for you if you choose

to evade his word and his will.

This is part of the problem for us.

It's not just that we're trying to disappear here as we're expecting God

to, uh, insert these consequences.

There's lots of consequences that we see in, in this particular book of the Bible.

First of all, you'll notice God uses the storm to get Jonah's attention.

So God uses natural disasters.

He uses natural disasters to get our attention.

And if we're paying attention, it's not just our own natural disasters.

Maybe there's disasters in other people's lives that we ought to

be closely paying attention to.

God is saying.

Life is fleeting, it's fickle, and you better be sure that you're right with me.

Every time I go down Preston and I see an accident, I'm always reminded,

Lord, thank you that that's not me.

Thank you that that's no one I know.

Please help me to drive safely and please let me live life aware

that it could be done shortly.

I don't wanna have a long account with God.

It's important for us not to be like Jonah and try to flee.

Natural disasters happen all the time.

Right.

We live at the very bottom, most part of tornado alley, which means where

all of us are susceptible in some way.

If it's not a tornado, we've got these other severe storms, things

that could happen to us, that could honestly just destroy us.

We're so vulnerable, and yet we rarely remember that.

Jonah.

Jonah has given his given awareness.

He's vulnerable.

He's trying to sleep it off and trying to just get himself through it.

He's doing something called bed, bed rotting.

He's just sleeping it off, trying to get through the day

without even thinking about God.

That's a really good way to try to ignore God, but God's

stronger than our ignorance.

He's willing to do whatever's necessary.

He can use natural disasters.

He can also use people.

He uses unbelievers to show Jonah.

Look, dude, you should be shamed by these unbelievers.

There's more spiritual than you are.

These unbelievers are living a better life, at least at that

moment than you are Jonah.

God's trying to get his attention through people, and I wonder if maybe you've ever

had the experience where people in your life make you feel ashamed that you're

not doing half as much as they're doing, even though they're not a believer, or

maybe they're part of a cult, or maybe they're part of some other religion and

they just look like they're better people, man, they have their families together.

They're doing it better than I am.

I, I'm ashamed by that.

It could be, not certainly, but it could be that God's getting your attention.

God is showing you.

Look, the Pagans, the the Mormons, the Jehovah's Witnesses, whoever it is.

They're doing it better and, and maybe they are, maybe they're not.

That's really not the point.

The point is God is using people to showcase what he's up to.

And maybe if you're sensitive enough to say, Lord, help me.

I don't, I don't wanna, I don't wanna be a bad husband, a bad father, a bad mother.

Help me to do the right thing.

God uses these pagan LERs to get Jonah's attention.

A couple things.

Another Deuteronomy eight, three and four.

Write this one down.

I don't need you to go there, but this is a section where Moses

tells the people of Israel, God humbled them and he let them hunger.

God made them hungry.

He made their bellies gurgle with hunger.

In order to humble them.

You catch that God is withholding from them a basic necessity food in

this case in order to say, I want you to be humble and respond to me.

God may use that uses all kinds of circumstances.

He also uses death.

This is the last card.

God obviously can play with you, but if you're going to rebel against God's

word and God's will, you should expect that because God cares about you.

He may have to take you out.

This is what scripture says.

Jot down one Corinthians 1129 and 31 Corinthians 11, 29 and 30.

Paul is telling the Corinthian church, those who are taking the Lord's, the

the Lord's Cup in an unworthy fashion.

He says this, this is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have even died.

He's saying God is willing to take you out if necessary, if

that's what's gonna prevent you from sinning yourself into aposty.

God cares, God cares that we care.

If you wanna jot down Acts chapter five, you, you'd be reminded of anani of fire.

Some people question whether or not they were believers.

Seems fitting, but it seems like if, if they are, God disciplines

them with death as well.

Adrian Rogers once said, the most miserable man on

earth is not an unsaved man.

The most miserable man on earth is a saved man out of fellowship with Jesus Christ.

Couldn't agree more.

Jonah's pretty miserable right now.

He's struggling because he's trying to evade a God who cannot be deterred,

and I need you to know that if, if you're gonna do the same thing, you

should expect increasing consequences.

God is willing to turn up the heat on you in order to get your attention.

The question is whether or not you're paying attention.

If God has to take you out, he'll do that, but you should expect God to give you

opportunities, steps along the way for you to turn around and do it differently.

After these first two chapters, we find out the reason behind Jonah's

departure, why he runs, and it's startling and difficult to read.

Let's go there together.

Jonah chapter three.

Actually, let's read out the, uh, uh, let, lemme read Jonah

chapter one, verse 17, and then we'll jump to Jonah chapter three.

I'll, I'll quickly summarize for you Jonah two, uh, verse 17, chapter one.

The Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah.

And Jonah was in the belly, the fish, three days and three nights.

Notice here, God's the one who appoints it.

God sends the fish.

God is making sure that that fish is there at the right place at the right time.

Um, note, it's not a whale.

It's very likely not a whale.

Uh, it's a great fish.

That's what the word is there.

It's the belly of a great fish.

He swallows Jonah and he holds him there for three days and three nights.

Jonah then in chapter two, prays to the Lord and he, he gives thanks

to the Lord for his salvation.

But what are you missing in chapter two?

You notice what's not there.

I read it to you during our scripture reading.

There's no evidence of repentance.

There's no evidence of Jonah saying, Lord, I was wrong to run.

Lord, I was so foolish and stupid to, to leave and to try to escape you.

I repent.

I will go.

It doesn't say anything.

In fact, in fact, he says here, um, he, he says.

Verse four.

He says, uh, in Jonah chapter two, sorry, I know I'm going backward.

Let me just point this out.

Jonah, chapter two, verse four.

Then I said, I am driven away from your sight.

Is that true?

I am driven away from your sight.

No, Jonah, you left.

You're the one, you're the guy.

You left me, Jonah.

I'm trying to rewrite history here.

Jonah has time in the, and the, and the great fish to think

about what's happening here.

And it's a beautiful poem.

It's a beautiful psalm.

It's, it's fantastic.

It's true as far as it goes.

And in fact, the way that he ends in chapter two verse nine,

salvation belongs to the Lord.

We would echo that and say Amen.

Verse 10.

I'm not the first to notice this, but others have noticed.

We wonder if the fact that the great fish vomits Jonah out is evidence of

the fact that maybe the fish was sick to his stomach by what Jonah said.

Come on man.

Come on, get it together, Jonah.

Even the official obeys, God,

there's no evidence of his repentance in chapter two, but there is obedience.

Look at chapter three verse one.

The word of the Lord came to Jonah second time saying, arise.

Go to Nineveh, that great city and call out against it.

The message that I tell you, this is almost verbatim, chapter one, verse two.

Almost.

Almost with one major difference, and it's a subtle one, but perhaps it has.

Enduring significance.

He says, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city and call out against it.

The message that I tell you the word for against in verse two is

actually the word to call out to it.

The word is against in chapter one, verse two, call out against it.

But there is a subtle change in chapter three, call out to it, which suggests

that there's a difference between call out to versus call out against.

Let's see what he means.

So Jonah arose, went to Nineveh, according to the word of

the Lord, as he should have.

Now, Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days journey in breath.

Um.

People will often say, well, Jonah, this isn't, this is incorrect.

Nineveh actually wasn't that large.

We have excavations that are showcasing that the city actually was not that big.

Uh, you could walk around the city gates seven or eight miles.

We, we don't think it's actually that big.

Uh, but perhaps here what is being said is that this is not Nineveh

proper, but this is the Nineveh region.

It's like when someone says, okay, where do you live?

I live in North Texas.

Um, oh, north Dallas?

No, north Tech.

I guess you could call it north of Dallas.

It's not quite true.

We don't live in North Dallas proper, but I guess you could say for the sake of

ease of understanding, north Dallas, sure.

North Texas is a region.

In a similar sense, this could be saying go to the Nineveh area and

preach to all of its different peoples.

And so that would be a three day journey.

The city itself, the city proper, maybe not that.

In any case, that's not his point.

It's a great city to God.

The the city is great in God's eyes.

Verse four, Jonah began to go into the city going only a day's journey, and

he calls out five words In the Hebrew, 40 days in Nineveh shall be overthrown.

Many times scripture will abbreviate the words that are being said.

A lot of times, scripture does this.

There's no problem with that.

Uh, it's saying this is the gist of what he said.

Uh, one wonders though, if this is more accurate.

Here's why.

He only goes in the city a day's journey.

So instead of going in three day's journey to get everybody to talk to

all the people, he only goes in a day.

We wonder if we're seeing begrudging, begrudging, obedience.

Like, I'll do it Lord, but I'm not gonna do it the way that I should.

I'll do it.

Fine.

You're gonna twist my arm.

I'll do it, but I'm not gonna do it all the way.

He goes in one day and then maybe he preaches, but he doesn't preach

the way that God wants him to.

All he says is, you're, you guys are gonna go down.

If God said, 40 days, you're going down.

That's it.

He's like, all right, I'm, I'm done.

Mic drop.

I'm walking.

And yet for all of that, Jonah is the most successful preacher

probably ever to walk the planet.

Look at verse five.

The people of Nineveh believed God, they called for a fast.

They put on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least.

No one's eating.

Guys, we need to take this seriously.

Jonah has given us a word of destruction.

It is our wisdom to respond to that.

Let's put on, uh, rough, itchy clothing to symbolize our repentance, and let's

make sure that none of us eats anything.

We're not even about the animals eat.

We're gonna make sure the animals also sit in ashes and in sackcloth.

We're not gonna feed them.

We're gonna feel the pain of our repentance.

And so it gets up to the royalty.

They hear about it, they declare, uh, let neither man nor beast

herd nor flock, taste anything.

Let them not feed or even drink water.

This is a serious fast, verse eight, but let man and beast

be covered with sackcloth.

Let them call out mightily to God.

Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.

Who knows?

He says, perhaps with the shrug of the shoulders, maybe God will

turn, he'll relent from his fierce anger so that we may not perish.

Which tells us that what Jonah said, at least is represented accurately.

You're gonna be judged 40 days, is it guys?

And you're done.

Nothing about mercy, nothing about repentance.

And yet, verse 10, when God saw what they did, how they turned from

their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he has said he would

do to them, and he did not do it.

Did God change his mind?

Well, no.

No, he didn't.

He didn't change his mind because in every, in every time that God sends

judgment in it is always baked into it.

A mercy that says, you will be forgiven if you repent.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and

to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

This is God's Mo.

This is how God operates.

It doesn't have to do it this way, but this is what he does.

God is saying, I will forgive you if you'll repent.

That's always the offer on the table.

And that's the offer for all of us this morning.

If you're walking in sin, if you repent, God will forgive.

Notice how quickly God does this.

When God saw what they did, how they turned, God relented.

It didn't say, well, God stood back from his throne and said, let's just give

it a few days and see how things go.

Humans might need to do that.

We, we do that all the time.

We're looking at our family members and when they repent, we're like,

okay, well we're gonna watch.

We're gonna wisely sit back and see how you act in these next several

days and see if your behavior truly is changed as evidence of repentance.

God doesn't need that.

He knows your heart inside and out, and he doesn't need time

to weigh you and consider you.

He knows exactly, so when you repent toward God, he says,

all right, I can let you go.

I can legally dismiss your case.

Put all of your judgment on Christ and let you go.

That is the gospel in a nutshell, and thank God we have that.

Thank God we have that.

This is what God does to Nineveh.

He lets him go.

Now they don't know anything.

Why?

They don't know why that God can do this.

We know now 2000 years later, rough and dirty, he would send Jesus to

live and die in their place and take on the penalty that they deserve.

But in this moment, God dismisses their cases.

I'm gonna relent.

I'm not gonna do what I said I would do.

And he lets them go.

Chapter four takes us into a stunning and surprising, and for this is

probably the point of the story.

By the way, chapter four, this is the point.

Everything besides this was leading up to this moment.

Nineveh is basically incidental to this story.

Jonah chapter four, but it displeased Jonah exceedingly.

And he was angry.

He's mad about this, uh, verse two, and he prayed to the Lord and said, oh

Lord, Yahweh, covenant name for God.

Is this not what I said when I was yet in my country.

What did you say?

This is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish for I knew

that you are a gracious God and merciful, you're slow to anger.

Now, bounding instead of as love and relenting from disaster,

God, I knew you would do this.

I knew you'd forgive these scoundrels.

Oh God.

It's almost like Jonah is just sticking his finger right in God's

face and saying, you are the problem.

This is an issue.

How do you do this?

These guys are enemies.

They're a threat to Israel.

Earlier I pointed out to you that when the sailors asked who Jonah was, what was the

first thing that he said, I am a Hebrew.

It wasn't his identity as a prophet.

It wasn't the fact that he was right with God.

It was his Hebrew status.

Maybe that's a hint that what Jonah was most identified by was

not his relationship to God, but his relationship to his people.

You understand that, right?

Uh, if someone asks you, Hey, who are you?

You might say, oh, I'm American.

You know, I live in North Texas.

There's a lot of descriptors you would use to say who you are, but here we wonder

if Jonah's allegiance wasn't primary to the Lord, but to his people, his national

identity with the covenant people of God.

So God challenges him and he says, look, God, this is your fault.

I knew that you would do this.

Exodus 34, 6 tells me that you would be this way.

Joel chapter two, verse 13.

When Pastor P just recently preached that, I knew that you would act this way.

You're gracious and merciful.

This is a problem in you.

This is not a good thing, and so I knew you would relent.

Therefore, now, verse three, please take my life from me.

It's better for me to die than to live.

And notice how God responds.

Verse four, highlight this.

God gets angry at Jonah and calls him out and says, what is your problem?

You knucklehead highlight that part.

Let's put that in there.

It doesn't say that God's response to Jonah is probably the most res,

the the most surprising thing to me.

The Lord said, do you do well to be angry?

It's almost like this gentle patient, father just saying, dude, you're,

you're all worked up about these things.

Is that, is that really the best response for you?

Is that right?

We don't know how Jonah responds.

Maybe he doesn't respond at all, but in verse five, Jonah goes outta

the city, goes east of the city and made a booth for himself there, sat

under it in the shade till he should see what would become of the city.

And the Lord appointed a plant.

Here's that word a point again.

God appointed the fish.

Now God a points the plants and made it cover up over Jonah that

it might be a shade over his head to save him from his discomfort.

And so Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant.

God appoint a fish.

Jonah is mad.

God appoint a plant.

Jonah's happy.

That's what's happening here.

But notice God is not only asking him inviting questions, God is the

one who appoints a plant so that it would be a shade over his head

to save him from his discomfort.

The word there can mean from his own evil, the word for discomfort, there

is a word that can be appropriately used to say His evil, to save him

from his rah, his evil disposition, or maybe even further evil in his anger.

Verse seven.

When the dawn came up the next day, God appointed God again.

Here's sovereignly intervening in Jonah's life.

God appointed a worm that attacked the plant so that it

withered when the sun rose.

God appointed a scorching east wind and the sun beat down on the

head of Jonah so that he was faint.

And he asked that he might die again.

He said, it's better for me to die than to live.

But God said, do you do well to be angry for the plans?

And he said, yes, I do well to be angry.

Angry enough to die.

God, get rid of me.

Just take me out.

Adding a little bit of emotional drama for your sake.

Hopefully that makes sense.

We don't know if that's the way he said it, but clearly he's, he's

flabbergasted, he's angry, he's upset at this whole situation.

He's upset that God showed mercy to his least favorite people.

To put it mildly.

And I wonder if we know a little bit of something like that.

Maybe you're not angry at a certain people group.

Maybe you're not threatened by their existence in North

Texas and they're growing.

Uh, maybe you're not in that place.

But I do think all of us know what it is to want to deny others the

same mercy that we ourselves receive.

And so I'm gonna say that for point number two.

Don't deny others the same mercy you depend on Jonah's fatal flaw and mistake

here was that he was unwilling to give others what he himself had received.

So often, especially in his own book, he received the grace and

mercy of God, but he was unwilling.

He was even begrudging, stingy.

He didn't wanna give it to them.

It's for me, it's not for thee.

Driving in North Texas is always an experience.

You know, that take your life in your hands every day.

You pray.

Hopefully you make it down the road.

How do you feel?

Excuse me.

How do you feel when someone cuts in front of you?

You're driving, you're doing what you should be doing.

When you're driving.

You're 10 and two, you're doing your thing, and someone just

goes, err right in front of you.

Maybe you're like me, you throw your hands in the air and say, what do you do?

Why?

Like, why is this necessary?

Just drive like a normal person.

Why do you gotta drive like this?

But how does your opinion change?

How does your thinking change when as you see that person cut you off, you see

that little yellow magnetic sticker that says, please be patient, student driver.

Okay.

Don't let it happen again.

Forgiven.

But I'm not, I'm not happy about it.

Still, you shouldn't be doing that way and you, and maybe you're like

me, you wanna get around 'em to see if they're really a student driver.

Look and see, are you really who you say you are?

Occasionally I'll see an adult in there.

I'm like, are you really?

I don't know if that's you.

If it's you and you're not a student driver.

Well, now I'm angry again.

She shouldn't be driving like that.

But it's that sticker that really kind of dismisses or, uh, at least

it, it decreases our anger in that moment or our drive for justice.

Our drive for you shouldn't be driving this way.

Why does it do that?

I thought about that.

'cause it's happened to me several times because, and I think what's

behind it is that I recognize that I've been there before.

I used to be a bad driver.

For a week, and then I was great.

I know what it was like to be terrified behind the road and to be 10 and two and

looking at all my mirrors and just anxious and trying not to just kill anybody.

Now, today when you're driving, if you're like me, maybe you're doing

a lot more than driving, answering a couple phone calls, text messages,

typing out an email, you know, sending first class mail at the same time.

You're just doing everything.

Your body is taking over most of the time.

I'm not saying if you should do that or not.

I'm just saying it's you, you know, between you and the Lord.

We remember that what it was like to be a, a, a first time driver and

to feel the, the scariness and, and just hoping that no one kills you.

Especially in Texas where carrying is not illegal here.

You just hope no one kills you, so you remember.

Oh, that's what it feels like.

I get it.

Okay.

Let me give you grace.

'cause I needed that too.

I need that too.

That's.

That's exactly what we need today.

We need to be able to look at people around us, who sin against us, who maybe

say bad things about you, and to be able to say, look, I remember what it

was like to not be right with Christ.

I remember the desperation.

I remember the sorrow.

I remember what it was like to, to feel like my life is

lost and without direction.

I remember that.

I'm not saying that what they do makes it right.

It's not suddenly okay when they do things to you or say things about you.

But Jonah is angry at these people.

He's saying, I don't wanna give them God's grace.

I don't wanna give 'em God's mercy.

How dare you even offer that?

Your job is to remember where God took you from always.

You have to keep this at the forefront of your mind, lest you

forget, because when someone cuts you off on the road, you, you forget.

You forget in that moment, oh, I was there before.

Instead, what we need to do is reconnect to what God has done for us.

Don't deny others the same mercy and grace that you depend upon.

Two terms that we use interchangeably, but they are different.

Mercy is not getting what we deserve.

Grace is getting what we don't deserve.

Mercy is not getting what we deserve.

I deserve punishment.

God says, I'm not gonna give it to you.

Grace is getting what I don't deserve.

I get a good gift from God and it's something I don't deserve.

Notice that for both mercy and grace, what's the common factor?

I don't deserve?

I don't deserve it.

And sometimes as Christians, we get to a place of saying, man, I do deserve good.

I do deserve God to do differently.

I do deserve God's preferential treatment, but we never outgrow our

need for undeserved, mercy and grace.

You're never gonna be at a level where God suddenly says, great.

You're now operating on works and not grace.

And from this point forward, I'm gonna treat you like you're a perfect person.

Thank God he never does that.

What we need is to do is live on God's mercy and grace all throughout our lives.

We need to recognize how much we've been forgiven.

And remember, God wants us to give to others as we ourselves have been given.

This is what's gonna provoke us to make a difference in our communities.

The moment we forget and become amnesia, uh, am am the moment we

forget, I'm gonna stick with that.

The moment we forget is the moment that we're in danger of living

our lives as though we are no longer debtors to God's grace.

We'll become calloused and hardhearted toward people.

This is exactly what can take place at a church like ours.

We are exactly like the church and Ephesus, we have a high view

of scripture, high view of God.

And this is a good thing.

It's not a bad thing, but God says, but you've left your first love.

You have the head knowledge, but is your heart along with me?

This is what God wants from Jonah.

I want your heart with me.

Do you do well to be angry?

Jonah, do you do well to to respond in these ways?

No.

I want your heart, Jonah.

I don't want just your obedience.

I want your heart.

I want you to feel the same things that I feel.

Remember that you don't deserve God's grace and his mercy.

That's the whole point.

We never get to that.

We never deserve it.

We never have earned it and we still need it.

These last few verses here, I narrowed it down to these final,

because I, I think these final verses really make the point for us.

Look at verses 10 and 11.

Lord said, you pity the plant for which you did not Labor.

Nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night.

In other words, is a temporary verse 11 and should not I

pity Nineveh, the great city.

That great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who

do not know their right hand from their left and also much cattle.

God is making a few points here.

Notice God is saying, you pity the plant, but you didn't labor for it.

You didn't make it grow.

And it came into being in a night in perished.

It's temporary.

You didn't labor forward the plant?

I labored for Nineveh.

You didn't make the plant grow.

I made Nineveh grow.

It perished in a night.

It's temporary.

Nineveh has immortal souls that are on their way out who don't know.

I.

And also they got animals.

They got cattle, which tells me again, this is not Nineveh proper.

This is Nineveh in the surrounding region.

'cause there's cattle involved.

You don't keep cattle inside the city.

You keep cattle outside the city where there are pastures

and places for them to to roam.

So God is saying, look, you care about this, this plants, and you're really

glad about it, but you're missing the whole forest for the trees.

Jonah.

You should care about the people that I care about.

God leaves it here with the question and we never know Jonah's answer.

And that's intentional by the author of Jonah because he's putting the finger

in our chest and say, what about you?

What about you?

Do you care?

Do you care about the 120,000 of the Ninevites?

Who 50 years later are going to overthrow Israel?

Destroy them?

Do you care about them?

Do you care about the people who don't know their right from their left hand?

Do you care about the animals?

I think the last point here that we have in our sermon on Jonah is God's

allowing you to ask yourself the question, do I care sufficiently about people?

Do I care enough?

That's a tricky question to answer.

'cause there's, it's like, well, okay, what, what number, at what

point do I, do I care enough?

How do I know?

And I don't think there's a, there's an answer to that.

I don't think there's an answer.

I, I think there's multiple answers that God wants us to feel, but

he, he really wants us to ask the question, do I care about people?

We sometimes talk about the people around us as the lost, and that's true.

We should care about the lost, but what about people in here?

There are lost inside our building.

Do you know who they are?

We should care about Christians.

We should have compassion and energy for Christians.

That's not the point here, but he's saying, do you care about people?

The Ninevites are one of God's set of image bearers, and I want you to care

about them, to do this, to do, to care the way that God wants us to care.

We, we just can't go through the motions.

We just can't.

We have to disrupt our thinking because I'll tell you what happens when I drive

and I'm driving past Costco, I see a massive people, and here's what I see.

I see traffic and I see inconveniences.

How long is it gonna take me to get in Costco and get out?

Well, if there's the parking lot's, 85% full, 90 Oh, it's

gonna be a long time at Costco.

I'm missing the point, aren't I?

I'm missing it.

I'm missing.

I see, I see people, but only incidentally to my problems.

And you're, you're adjacent to my thinking here.

You're, you're really an inconvenience on my life.

The traffic on El Dorado, the traffic on DNT, all the construction

that's happening around us to make room for more and more people.

Uh, I know a lot of people are like, oh, here we go.

Get ready for the traffic, get ready for all the construction.

And I understand that.

I get it.

I'm not, I get it, I get it.

But here's, here's, here's the reality.

Right now we are 8.7

million people in North Texas.

Just, just about give or take.

And this is hard for us because humans aren't meant to

think in these abstractions.

We can understand 10 people, 20 people, 30 people.

But when we start talking about 8.7

million, it's now like, okay, well I, it's, it's a statistic.

Uh, we, we struggle to feel those numbers.

And I get that too.

I get that too.

Which is why I'm gonna encourage you with this last point.

When you're asking the question to discern whether I sufficiently care about

people, I'm gonna ask you to be specific.

Think about your neighbors, their faces, their problems, their

think about them when you're walking around your neighborhood.

Think about those people specifically.

Be specific.

Think about them.

One of the things I, I did recently is I went to the local temple.

This is in Frisco.

Do you notice this one?

Have you recognized this one?

Have you been there yet?

I've been there a few times.

Um, 'cause I was interested by the architecture driving by.

I'm like, oh, what is that?

Lemme take a look.

It was closed and I've been there twice when it was closed.

And this last time I got to go and it was open.

So I went inside, um, and I went to their worship center.

And in that worship center, it was packed and it was packed to the gills.

Lots of people there, they were chanting and worshiping, and they

were doing all sorts of things that I know God says is wrong.

They're bowing down to idols and they're, they're, they're singing things.

I don't know what they're saying.

It was in their own language, but they're saying things that I know

God does not want them to do.

What happened is that, A, I became more aware of what they're

doing, how, how they operate, and then BI began to feel for them.

Because I'm seeing faces pass by, they see me, obviously.

I stand out.

Kristen and I are there and they see her.

We both stand out like sore thumbs, but they're looking at us and I'm

looking at them and we're like making awkward faces at each other and I'm

saying, I'm praying for you right now.

I care about you.

Suddenly the ethereal and the difficult to wrap my mind around became real.

They became real flesh and blood people, families with kids and grandparents.

You know, and they're, they're, they're literally bowing down

to idols inside their temple.

They had three temple structures, maybe more.

I actually didn't go inside that part.

But they're bowing down, they're chanting, and, you know, they're, they're doing

all the things that are related to their Hindu ideology, and it became real to me.

These are people, this is not just theology.

These are people.

I care about the people.

So even though there's 8.7

million in North Texas and we're growing.

I need you to start thinking specifically, disrupt your

thinking, get off of autopilot.

And when you're driving down precedent and you see all the traffic, and

you see all the construction, take that, take that quick feeling of I'm

annoyed to, Lord, help me to care.

And maybe the people that are driving next to you, you look at them and

you see them thinking about whatever they're thinking about their, their

life and their kids and their marriages.

And you see the other person next to you who's driving the near the lifted

truck and he's whoever, whatever he's doing, maybe he's a construction worker.

Think about that guy.

Say, what's going on in that guy's life?

Lord, Lord, please bless that guy.

If he doesn't know you, help him know you.

See people don't see masses.

See people and ask us, Lord, do I care enough about people?

'cause that God cares.

God cares.

And, and God asked Jonah, do you, do you do well to be angry?

Should I not pity Nineveh, that great city?

And which there are more than 120,000 persons, God cared about 120,000.

How much does God care for?

8.7

million?

We need to discern whether we sufficiently care and care the way that God cares.

The way that God cares is detailed in Matthew chapter nine.

Lemme just read this and, and then we'll end in prayer together.

Matthew chapter nine.

Jesus is preparing to commission his disciples to go out, and he

says this, when he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them.

Because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

And then he said to disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send

out laborers into his harvest.

Jesus application for the masses that we see as man, start praying,

pray that God send laborers.

And what will happen inevitably is that you'll begin to share

God's heart about these people.

And you're gonna say, I, I want to be part of the answer to that prayer.

Lord, open up doors.

Help me love them.

Well.

Let's do what Jesus says.

Let's pray together right now.