Jonah and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Mercy of God | Lawrence | June 7, 2026

All right.

Well, good morning, Spring Lake.

All right.

Y'all are awake.

I didn't even have to do that twice.

I know I sometimes make it awkward.

I'm like, no, you gotta be louder.

Um, it's it's good that we're we had that video because I think we're gonna spend a case study today talking about what it looks like to not love your neighbor in our text today.

So um, no, it's a really awesome, I think, opportunity.

Um, we often miss those moments to I there's a theologian that once said that every moment has the potential to unearth holiness.

And so to unearth something sacred.

And I think that that really taps into the opportunity to intentionally love someone around you who maybe you haven't taken the chance to really see.

And we're actually gonna talk about that a little bit today.

Um, if we haven't met, my name is Jeff Letter.

I'm the care pastor here.

Um, as I mentioned earlier, um I get to lead our G4 care groups on Monday nights at Bellevue, um, as well as the biblical care mentoring team, and then our congregational care teams as well.

Um, this is my first opportunity to preach down here.

Um, I love it.

Um, it's still got the Lawrence still got the new church feel, the new church smell.

And so I'm excited for us to continue and to really kind of land the plane on our Jonah series today.

It's been a quick one, but I pray it's been rich for you.

There's something about it.

Um really, I think, narratives in general is the story element that it just allows you to kind of jump in and immerse yourself in a way that it's different than texts like Paul's letters, where you're given thought-provoking and like theological ideas to consider.

I think sometimes we can kind of like step back and be removed by some of those texts, but there's something about a narrative in a story that kind of forces you a little bit to enter in, to imagine you are in the story, you're one of the characters.

And I think generally we like to kind of picture ourselves as the hero or the main character imagining, hey, how would we respond if we were given the same scenarios?

Um, which is not really a it's not a bad or wrong inclination.

I think the book is actually asking us to do that.

We just have to always remember that I think um God is the actual main character.

And the preciousness of God's word is its revealing or its revelation of him and his purposes to his people.

And so that's really the focus of every story as we read God's word is what is God doing?

Like how is he moving in and through his people?

How is he relating?

And I think if we're honest, uh we also need to recognize that sometimes in stories, like for example, David and Goliath, we imagine that were David slaying Goliath when really we're much more like the terrified Israelite army needing someone to come and rescue us.

And Jesus becomes the better David.

In uh Jewish tradition, the story of Jonah was often read on Yom Kippur.

It was read on, it's read on the Day of Atonement, and then usually it's followed by a liturgy in which the congregation says, We are Jonah.

And that way I heard as one pastor comment, um, Jonah really is a mirror more than a window for us.

And I think we're gonna see that clearly as we engage our text today.

In many ways, we're gonna see that we are indeed Jonah at times, but we're also Nineveh, given wild grace and mercy beyond what we truly deserve.

And thanks to the better Jonah and Jesus, who chose to enter into the ministry, he chose it to enter into the deliverance of his enemies because that is what we were without Jesus.

We were enemies of God.

We were separated from his covenant people, we weren't in right relationship to him.

So let's dive into our text today.

We're gonna be in Jonah 4.

If we want to go ahead and turn there, you can either do it in a Bible or the Bible app.

You can also follow along with the points and text there.

But let's see how the story wraps up.

We'll be in Jonah 4, starting in verse 1.

But to Jonah, this seemed very wrong.

And he became angry.

He prayed to the Lord, Isn't this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home?

That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish.

I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.

Now, Lord, take away my life, for it's better for me to die than to live.

But the Lord replied, Is it right for you to be angry?

Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city, and there he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade, and waited to see what God what would happen to the city.

Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah, to give shade for his head, to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant.

But at dawn the next day God provided a worm which chewed the plant so that it withered.

When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint.

He wanted to die, and said, It be better for me to die than to live.

But God said to Jonah, Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?

It is, he said, and I'm so angry I wish I were dead.

But the Lord said, You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow, it sprang up overnight, it died overnight.

And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and also many animals?

Church, let's pray.

Father, as we um get a chance to consider your texts, it is our desire to not stand over and above it and dissect it, but more so allow your word to read us, that our hearts would remain tender and humble and um seeking ultimately what you have for us.

What does faithfulness look like for us as we consider your truths and the way you've interacted with Jonah and his narrative?

I pray, Lord, your Holy Spirit would move.

You can make your word come alive to enter into our hearts and our minds and bring transformation.

And we want to first and foremost encounter you, the God of the Word.

So we want to submit this time to you.

It's in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Now, if you'll remember, we just wrapped chapter three with the most successful eight-word sermon in English, uh, five words in the Hebrew that we've ever seen.

And we have uh essentially 40 more days, and no, no, Nineveh will be overturned.

That's that's the entire sermon.

It's not a detailed, like impassioned plea from Jonah.

And maybe even as we just read, maybe it's a clue into what Jonah actually kind of hopes will actually happen.

But God has a funny way of redeeming even our poor choice of words, though.

Because that word for overturned, as Pastor Ryan, who's our resident like ancient languages expert here at Spring Lake, he pointed out to me that that word has some nuance in the Hebrew in the sense that Jonah may have meant the word for Nineveh's total destruction, but it can also hint towards transformation or other texts that use this same root or sometimes translated turn or change or transformation.

So, in one sense, it could be understood that Nineveh will be overturned in the negative sense if it is not overturned in the positive sense of transformation.

We know reading it that the repentance displayed in chapter three stretches to every living thing, even the animals are in sackcloth and ashes.

The last verse reads that God saw their repentance and relented from bringing the destruction that was threatened.

And this is where we were as we stepped into chapter four.

Jonah witnessed their response and God's mercy, and our text says that it seemed very wrong to Jonah, which I think it's kind of a it's a kind translation, since it literally is in the Hebrew so strong that it reads with a double emphasis of this word Ra'ah.

That is the same word used in the beginning of the book to describe Nineveh's wickedness.

Jonah's not just disagreeing with God's relenting, but he sees it as evil or as wicked, and his anger is literally burning hot in the Hebrew.

So when the NIV says Jonah sees it as very wrong, it's an understatement to Jonah's internal state towards the Lord at this moment.

It's in this moment that we're going to get the first real look at where Jonah's heart, his motivation was back in chapter one.

And it's honestly the first back and forth we see between God and Jonah throughout the book.

Jonah's accusation is against God is essentially you are too full of grace, love, compassion, and mercy.

And I did not want you to be you to them.

I ran because I know who you are.

I know your kindness, I know your patience, and I wanted no part in these people getting a chance to see just how good you are.

Matter of fact, I can't even bear seeing this happen.

So please just take my life now and put me out of my misery.

Now, what's beautiful about what happens next is you get to see, again, God's character on display towards Jonah, where he could have chastised him, he could have really ripped into him.

He simply asked him a question.

Is it right for you to be angry?

Literally, is it right for you to burn this hot over what happened?

I've mentioned it before, but always notice in scripture when God asks a question, because he doesn't need to know information.

This isn't a data-seeking inquiry.

Like a good counselor, he's inviting Jonah to do some inward self-examination here, which is something we all need when it comes to our emotions.

See, I think we as believers, we often don't know what to do with our emotional lives.

We tend to drift towards extremes.

Emotions don't matter.

Facts over feelings.

They're not reliable, they shouldn't be paid attention to for fear of really drifting toward the other extreme, which is follow my feelings wherever they lead.

My emotions determine my reality.

You shouldn't be the emotions and feelings shouldn't be questioned or looked into.

Or if you want the Disney version, follow your heart.

The truth is somewhere in the middle, which is that emotions are simply information.

They are the dashboard indicators of your heart, like a check engine light.

You can ignore that light.

You could take out the bulb so you don't have to look at it, or, or if you're on the other side of it, you could become so paralyzed and unable or unwilling to get somewhere or someone that could help you because of the cost it might incur or how hard it may be.

Either way, we need to take the time to understand what is actually going on under the hood of our hearts when our emotions reveal themselves.

Anger itself is not a sin.

Paul in Ephesians even says, be angry and don't sin.

Because it's the substance of what you're angry about and how you choose to express it.

That's the part that often drifts us into sin.

Sometimes it's good and right to be angry about the things that would also anger the Lord.

And then express that anger in a way that honors God and loves those around you.

Sadness or anxiety in themselves, they're not sins, but they're information.

If I'm grieving what should be grieved, like the death of a loved one or a deep loss of relationship, then it is rightly placed.

We see this with Jesus in Gethsemane.

He's rightly overcome with dread and anxiety about what is about to take place, and then he takes it honestly to the Lord.

He invites others to pray for him and with him, and then he fights to trust God while walking in faithfulness to God's leading.

Now it doesn't mean that all that internal turmoil just disappeared in those moments, but God was enough to meet him there with strength and grace in his presence.

God is desiring in this moment to enter into what is going on with Jonah.

So you're burning hot, mad at me.

Is your anger rightly placed and expressed in this moment?

Or is this revealing an area of your heart that's not fully yielded, that's not fully aligned with me?

Jesus says, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

So we're getting this picture of Jonah's heart and what might be at the center as a treasure.

And unfortunately, it's not God and it's not God's will.

In many ways, this is like a diagnostic exercise in which God is seeking for Jonah to see that his heart is not aligned with God because of what is coming out, which is really our first point.

When our hearts don't match God's heart, we resent mercy for others.

This is the idea of it being all about mercy for me, but desiring justice for thee.

As if I deserve that mercy, but others don't.

One commentator rightly noted, Jonah should have perished miserably inside the great fish.

He had renounced God.

It would have been only proper if God had renounced him.

Yet God had shown him great mercy first in bringing him to repentance, and then in saving him and recommissioning him to preach in Nineveh.

And man's memory is short.

Jonah had forgotten God's mercy and was therefore ill prepared to appreciate it when God showed this same mercy to others.

Oh, how short our memories often are of the mercy that's shown to us.

Time and time again, God is having us recall the ways in which he is faithful.

And faithfulness is just not just about what God does.

Revelation shows faithfulness is what he is.

It's even tattooed on the thigh of the returning Jesus, faithful and true.

Our forgetfulness is why we see so many festivals and calendars worth of holy days in Israel's history.

It's also why Jesus institutes the Lord's Supper with the simple command: remember.

Do this to remember.

It is in remembering that continually softens our hearts from the inside out.

It's God's love and kindness to us as people that enables and frees us up to love others in return, no matter how close or far away they may be.

Paul Tripp is known for saying all the time, the people who give grace best are the ones who know they need it most.

Let me say that again.

The people who give grace best are the ones who know that they need it the most.

Sadly, Jonah is simply unable or unwilling to truly hear and ponder God's question as it goes unanswered in the next few verses.

Jonah instead sets up a booth on a hill, almost like a tailgate watch party, to see what God was going to do.

And honestly, I think hoping that God would decide and just go ahead and destroy Nineveh, anyways.

In some way, it taps into also a modern fascination we have with calamity coming upon those who we think deserve it.

There's a wickedness and delighting or desiring to see calamity come upon fellow image bearers, even when it's deserved.

Yet if you take a look at our culture, how obsessed are we with being entertained by revenge?

Princess Bride, my name is Anigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die.

Maximus and Gladiator, I will have my vengeance in this life or the next.

In the Godfather, revenge is a dish that's best served cold.

We have actually even found a connection neurologically that revenge itself activates dopamine in ways similar to addiction, bringing pleasure and joy and satisfaction, even if that's fleeting.

One study with a few hundred adults on revenge found that people found stories where revenge was accomplished were the most enjoyable, they were the most entertaining.

Even though the same study did note that stories with forgiveness, they were found to be more meaningful, they just weren't as entertaining.

There are entire movie franchises like Taken and John Wick and Kill Bill and Count of Monte Cristo.

This is not me recommending these movies.

These are just examples.

Among others, they feature not just justice, but they are desiring to see vengeance taken.

We like to see the bad guy get his come up in, do we not?

The hard part is what happens when we realize and we're the transgressor that could be avenged.

It's then that we want mercy, is it not?

So Jonah has his watching perch set up for the show after ignoring God's question.

But notice what God does in verse 6.

Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant.

Once again, God, rather than smite Jonah, chooses instead to offer him a kindness.

And our text says to ease his discomfort.

Other texts say ease his misery, but it is again this root raw.

And the word ease can also be translated as deliver or save.

So God sprouts this plant up in an effort to deliver him and continue to get a hold of Jonah's heart.

And we see Jonah happy for the first time in this whole book because of this little plant that's giving him shade.

He's happily shaded, he's ready, he's hoping to see Nineveh's demise happen right in front of him.

Jonah sits with eager anticipation.

And then we see what might look cruel on the surface, but I believe again is God's desire to get to Jonah's heart that is hardened.

It says God provided a worm to chew that plant so that it withered, and then he provided a scorching east wind, which is a dry desert wind, along with the sun that ends up making him faint.

And Jonah's response to this discomfort is again that it would be better to die than to live.

Now, I want to pause real quick because we've now seen Jonah talk self-harm or suicide in our texts will end up being three times today.

And I don't want to gloss over this without a remark.

I know very well that there are people in this room, or perhaps people in this room who know others who have been here, who have gotten to the point where they see no purpose for their lives, it'd be better not to live than to go on.

I want to say to those who may be here personally or have been there, please invite someone in on where your heart is dwelling if you've had thoughts of self-harm.

It is a devinating, permanent solution to often temporary problems, and it leaves a trail of wreckage and heartache for those left behind.

Recognize that while not every problem has a spiritual origin, every problem does have a spiritual aspect to it and the healing.

There's a very real enemy that wants you isolated will whisper and repeat lies over you and seek your destruction while God means joy for you.

And if that's it, you in here, I want to speak these truths over here, over you.

You are not alone, even though you may feel that weight right now.

That may be your felt reality.

We have countless individuals who have been there and been brought back from that hopeless place in our care ministry.

And even more than just people, God is not absent from your struggle, even though that may be what you're sensing right now.

David says in the Psalms, whether I rise to the highest heights or I go down to the depths of Sheol, which is death, God, you are there as a constant presence in my life.

You have value, you are greatly loved.

And maybe you don't have anyone in your life saying that to you right now.

And if so, hear me say, I love you.

And God does too.

You are his child, an image bearer formed with purpose and meaning.

This is a moment in time that will pass, and you will not always feel this way.

God desires good for you, and he has provided a way for your flourishing if we step into that.

Take steps to invite others into your struggle, and if you're willing to come talk to us in the care ministry, you will not be put to shame.

The worst thing you can do right now is to mirror Jonah, who stays in isolation, venturing deeper and deeper into himself.

Now, notice what God does and what he says next again.

Rather than leave Jonah in this miserable, kind of this self-focused place, God says, Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?

Since Jonah didn't respond to this first question about his anger in general, God goes specific to the situation about the plan, hoping to just snap Jonah out of this self-focus, to realize that the object of his anger centers on the appearance and the disappearance of a plant for shade.

Unfortunately, Jonah is so self-focused on his anger and situation, he can't get outside of himself to see himself or others accurately.

And we see him double down again that it's right for him to be good and angry and again to wish for death instead.

And this really highlights our second point.

Not only does misalignment with God's heart make us resent mercy for others, but it also makes ourselves, our comfort, our situation, the center of the universe.

And everything else in existence exists to serve us.

We prioritize ourselves over and above others.

There's a way in which we make ourselves God when our hearts are not aligned with God's heart.

We become the thing in which we and others serve, and despite the lies from the enemy, we make terrible gods.

In our fickle and constantly changing standards, we put everything and everyone else under our reign.

Others become an annoyance to us in accomplishing what we deem most important.

We get frustrated if we have to wait in the checkout line at the grocery store a few extra minutes because they couldn't find the price tag on that barcode.

We lose our minds when the line at our favorite drive-thru is having issues getting people through quickly.

We get angry when we text someone and we don't get an immediate response.

Especially when you see that they read it, like they got one of those read replies and they still didn't respond.

We dread the reality of calling customer service to be on hold for an indefinite amount of time as they research the issue.

How many of us like have lost our minds, gotten frustrated when our favorite like streaming service starts buffering and is not working?

Or what if we go to a web page and it doesn't like load in a millisecond?

Like you're like, ah, forget it, this isn't even worth it.

It was I don't have a second or two.

We become the center of our own universe, and sadly, others will pay the price of that focus.

And I would say those closest to you are often the ones who pay the price.

And so if you're like me, I hadn't heard it before, and I definitely hadn't heard it in this sense, but um, the way it was introduced to me was it describes the moment you realize everyone around you is living a life just as complex as your own.

It's that moment when you're driving and like you look over and you see someone crying or despondent, and rather than just being background fodder in your life, you choose to kind of pray and kind of consider how they got there.

Like what's going on in that person's life.

It's that moment when you realize that people around you are carrying their their own burdens, their own traumas and stressors, and they they have their own complex web of relationships and and they have Own desires to see their life flourishing.

It's making eye contact with a person at Quick Trip, your your waiter at a restaurant, or when you see your neighbor struggling with something.

I do believe God is trying to get Jonah to sonder in our text today, especially as it ends with these last two verses.

But the Lord said, You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow, it sprang up overnight and died overnight.

And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and also many animals.

Essentially he's saying, Jonah, your concern for the plant is ultimately because it affected you and your comfort, even though you had really nothing at stake in its development, its growth, or its withering.

At the same time, you're so focused on your own angry and misery at the situation, you can't even see the 120,000 image bearers who would perish without my intervention.

There is something that happens when we put people into a category or a group that we decide we don't like, even if there's good reason for not liking that group.

Because honestly, the Ninevehites, it truly does some wicked things, horrific violence that Jonah could have seen, he could have heard about, he could have witnessed personally potentially.

When we stop seeing the individual as complex with dignity and value as a person made in God's image, we lose the ability to show them compassion, which is really our third point.

How many of us put people into groups that allow us to no longer care about the individuals in those groups?

Liberal, MAGA voters, illegal immigrants, LGBTQ, homeless, evangelicals, progressives, Christian nationalists, Muslims, atheists, boomers, millennials, Gen Z, Charismatics, Calvinists.

Literally the list could go on and on.

Now, my hope is that if those represent a groups you don't like, you don't necessarily wish for the destruction of those people, but ask yourself if you've shown them compassion, if you've prayed for them, if you've considered their individual stories and seek to show them the same kindness that God showed you.

Sadly, the the rage bait, the clickbait of sites like YouTube demonstrate that having titles like watch this liberal get destroyed, watch this conservative lose their mind, watch this apologist annihilate this atheist and this argument, like they work, which is why people keep having these titles because they know we're gonna click on them to see what happens.

Jonah, in so many ways, sees 120,000 individuals as one group that he hates and desires only destruction for, without seeing any of them as individuals with whom God desires to reach and show compassion towards.

Jonah cares more about the plant than even the animals in the city, and we end our book on that note.

Question mark.

You notice we don't get a conclusion, we don't get a resolution where Jonah finally sees the airful error of his ways, he repents, and he shows compassion and mercy for all people who deserve God's love and mercy.

It doesn't happen like that.

It simply ends with a question, and this is on purpose.

It is meant to provoke the reader to answer the question themselves.

Now, historically with Jonah, there's a tension there because it would only be about a generation, 40-ish years, after the writing of this book, that the Assyrians, which are the Ninevites, would conquer, capture, and destroy the northern kingdom of Israel.

Many commentators have asked whether part of Jonah's concern is that as a prophet in the northern kingdom, Jonah could see the idolatry, the unfaithfulness of God's people, along with God's ability to use other nations to discipline Israel for their lack of covenant faithfulness.

So that when Jonah sees God do something extremely out of the ordinary and desiring to speak and deliver a people outside of the covenant, there's a possibility that Jonah sees the writing on the wall and God possibly using Nineveh to bring this consequence to Israel, which does happen.

Regardless of whether this is the case, the sheer reality is that Israel was not meant simply to enjoy the privilege of covenant faithfulness for themselves, but also to be a light to the nations of the God of Israel, that they would reveal God to the rest of the world.

God's promise to Abraham was that all the families of the earth shall be blessed and get a picture of God through the holiness of God's people, who were also commanded in the law to show kindness to sojourners.

Remember that love your neighbor as yourself is a law from Leviticus and not just the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus quotes it.

So this book would have been extremely provocative to read, to hear as an Israelite on the other side of Assyria's conquest to destroy Israel.

The truth of Jonah too, from his own prayer, still rings true, though.

Salvation belongs to the Lord.

And does not the Lord have the right to distribute what belongs to him?

As prophet, Jonah's job was not to question whether God's word and command was worth proclaiming or deciding if he agreed with it before saying it.

He was the mouthpiece of the Lord, who seemingly knew in his head what was good and right, but his heart had other ideas.

In addition to that, the question extends through the ages to us as God's people as well.

The question of whether our hearts truly match the Lord's, or whether we've put ourselves, our wishes, and our will above the Lord's.

And that remains for us to answer.

And it might be the focus of some of our anger and our discontentment.

When our hearts align with God, we begin to want what God wants, be delighted by what delights him, be grieved by what we see grieves God, and that transformation begins to show up as fruit of the Spirit in our lives.

If you want a quick diagnostic to see how aligned you are, you have only to look at Galatians 5 and see how much love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control, how those are showing up in your life.

These are the fruit of a spirit-filled life because they look like God.

And the more these show up in our lives in an increasing manner, the more our hearts begin to match his.

It would not take long for me to ask all of us in this room, how many of these attributes, these fruit of the spirit, do you see in Jonah's life to see just how mismatched this prophet was with God's heart for others?

I want to leave you with just a few quick application points before we go.

Because if you're like me, you may be asking, how do I grow in this area?

And so that my heart does begin to match God's.

And the answer is simple and difficult at the same time.

It's simple because you likely know it.

It's difficult because I think we struggle to implement the simplest obedience.

In order to become like him, you have to stay close to the God whose heart you want.

So the first thing is stay close to God in his word.

This is not just a, hey, brush your teeth type regimen like good spiritual practices.

Getting in the word is about getting to know the God of the Word.

It is about actually entering in and hoping that the Holy Spirit does something to reveal more of him to you.

It is an act of spiritual intimacy, not just so you have a bunch of truth statements and aphorisms and things to show out, to throw out and impress others or in a moment of trial.

Yes, it's it's it's used for those things, but ultimately this is about getting to know the God of the Word, to commune with Him.

Number two is worship until your heart softens.

There's this uh famous, he did a theologian as well as he's done a number of like Bible reading plans.

His name's William Murray McShane, and he used to say that for every glance at yourself, take ten glances at Jesus.

There's something about getting our hearts aligned, our eyes focused on God that begins to transform us.

There's a scriptural truth that we become what we behold.

And when I say worship, I don't just mean singing and songs.

That's absolutely an aspect of it.

I mean every aspect of our lives, the affections of our hearts, the words that we speak, our actions, all those would go to his glory as we behold him and seek to become more like him.

Three is pray for the people you struggle to love.

There's something about praying for those who you may be really frustrated with that helps you begin to see them as God sees them.

And I would encourage you to use that prayer as when you're praying for those people.

Lord, help me see them as you see them.

When you're praying that God would get a hold of them, that he would reveal himself to them, that he there's something that just begins to dissipate as we approach the Lord and place them before the throne of grace.

And the last part is let God shape your heart through life and his family.

There's something about community that sharpens us.

It's also going to reveal the fleshy parts of us, those prickly parts that come out, because you have to be around others to often see those things happen.

You begin to see, oh man, like I like I'm losing my frustration.

I have a desire for this to happen, but this person desires something else to happen.

The Bible assumes that we're in community, the type of community that can practice the one another's, that we're known enough that we can actually encourage one another, spur each other on, bear each other's burdens.

All those things begin to make us all look more like the Lord.

And I know none of that was groundbreaking, but I think we often underestimate the importance of these ordinary means of grace.

They're not merely practices for like good spiritual health, but rather they are opportunities for intimacy with a God who loves us and is for us.

We cannot help but become like those we spend time with.

If we want hearts like God's, we don't start by trying harder, we start by staying closer in his word, in worship, and prayer with his people because our hearts don't expand in isolation, they expand in communion with God, whose hearts whose heart never stops expanding towards us.

So, church, let's pray.

Father, we uh so much of us we want to um we want to look more like you and less like us.

We want to we want to be um that image of your grace, your compassion, your mercy to others.

And I know that there's likely we may have things that were stirred in us uh individually, but there may be also names that are popping up in our head, faces, people with whom we desire to show or we need to show compassion towards.

Maybe there's grace and mercy that needs to be extended, even if it is egregious wrong, what's taken place, that we we need to step into.

I pray, Lord, that you would remind us, as you're so faithful to do, of how much grace and mercy you've given us.

That that might soften us in our reactions and our hearts for others.

Help us remember where we were when you saved us.

And for those who don't know you, I pray, Lord, that that would the mercy of the forgiveness of sins.

It's not something they have to live up to or earn, but something that they can step into as they place their faith in you, that you cover that bill completely and then start that right relationship, having the Holy Spirit come in and renew them and transform them in the inside out.

Or maybe there's just one step we need as we leave from here.

I pray, Lord, you'd make that crystal clear what that looks like.

And may we have hearts that beat for the things that you're passionate that you desire to see happen.

We love you, Lord.

We need you.

I pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.