The Book Of Jonah • Part 3 with Gavin Adams

Welcome to the Southside Church Podcast.

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Join us each week for a message from one of our fantastic communicators that provide practical ways to grow our faith, challenge ourselves, and to love others more.

And now, this week's message.

All right, all right.

Here's the scenario.

If you're a parent, you are gonna know exactly what I'm talking about.

You're watching online or any of our church locations, Noonan, Fayetteville, Chat Hills, like you're you're gonna embrace this immediately.

Here's the scenario, you ready?

You have a kid, they're probably three, four, five, maybe somewhere in there.

Um, almost said six or seven, terrible idea.

So three, four, five somewhere in there, and um they they've done something that they shouldn't do, right?

They they hit a kid, you know, they stole a toy, uh, or as you would say, they did something out of character for them.

They would never do that.

I don't know what happened, right?

Of course, right?

So, but they did the thing.

And and and now somebody's crying, and you're standing there with your kid, and what do you, as a parent, you you look at that child, and what do you say to them?

You say, Any guesses?

Go say you're sorry.

You ever done that to your kid?

You go say you're sorry.

And and this is probably good parenting, but then what does the kid do?

Right?

The kid walks over and goes, sorry.

You know, and you you're watching, you're like, I don't think they meant that, you know.

And then in fact, they say sorry, and you go, no, you say I am sorry, and they go, I am sorry, you know, like, and you're watching the kid and you're like, well, like, I mean, they said it, they they did what they were told to do, but I'm looking at their face and their body language, I don't really think their little heart meant that.

Like, I don't think they, and you know they didn't mean it because you left and then two minutes later they have stolen the toy again, or they've hit the kid, or another out-of-character moment, which is happening frequently all of a sudden, right?

So you you you can force them to do the thing, but like there's something happening outside of the surface, right?

There's something kind of internal that doesn't seem to be changing.

Like, technically, you know, they obeyed, but you know this if you're a parent, right?

Compliance does not change character.

Like you can force somebody to comply, but you can't force them to think differently or to be differently.

You you can force a kid to say, I'm sorry, but you can't force a kid to actually feel sorry.

You can't force anybody to mean the thing that you force them to do.

And that's what compliance, you can force compliance, right?

But you can't really change how they feel.

You know, those kids, they also grow up, they become us, right?

They become adults.

And and to be honest, we're not really much better, right?

Like, we've just learned to hide our compliance a little bit better.

Like, we've learned how to comply because we want to get by, but we're not really surrendering our heart any of this, right?

Like, we've learned how to do the right thing or say the right thing or smile when you're supposed to smile, even if nothing in you feels like smiling.

We've kind of learned to do that.

And there's a word for this, and you probably know the word, it's just behavior modification.

You know what behavior modification is, right?

Behavior modification is changing what a person does without necessarily changing what a person loves.

That's what behavior modification is.

Now, behavior modification, you know, gets a bad rap, and it probably should, but it's not all bad.

I mean, there's some things about modifying your behavior that could eventually change some things about you.

Like, I don't know, think about probably the easiest example is going to the gym.

Like the first time you went to the gym, well, you may have been excited, but the second time you were definitely not excited.

You know, you were sore, it hurt.

Like you're like, why would anybody do this?

This is painful, right?

And then you were wearing spandex and you saw yourself in the mirror and thought, no one should see this.

And so, you know, you went the second time, third time, you are modifying your behavior and your heart is not in it.

Now, two months in, you quit.

I'm just kidding, two months in, you felt a little better, but your character wasn't necessarily better.

You had just developed a habit.

And so behavior modification can be good for habit forming, but when it comes to the internal part of our lives, behavior modification, it doesn't really change much.

You can kind of think of it this way like behavior modification, it can change conduct, but by itself, right?

It cannot by itself really change who you are.

It doesn't really change your character.

So, like as an adult, think think about it this way: like um behavior modification can make you quit yelling, but just because you don't really want the consequences.

Like behavior modification, um, it can force you to apologize.

Mostly, though, just because you're tired of arguing and fighting and you just want it to end, you know?

Or or maybe behavior modification, it can make you go to church, but only because your spouse expects you to go to church.

You're just doing it for a reason.

You're doing it for the benefit, but it's not really changing anything about you, right?

Like behavior modification can't force you to love people.

Behavior modification can't force you to uh love God.

It certainly can't force you to become more merciful, which brings us to the third and fourth chapter in the book of Jonah.

When we've been talking about Jonah for the last couple of weeks, we're gonna conclude the conversation today and look at chapter three and chapter four.

And it really is, if we were to like label chapter three and chapter four, part of the label would be behavior modification doesn't work.

Because by the time we get to Jonah in chapter three of the story, right, Jonah finally does the right thing.

The question we got to figure out how to answer is is he becoming the right kind of person?

I mean, he does the right thing finally, but is it changing him?

Or is he just modifying his behavior?

So, very quick recap.

If you're coming in at the end of the story today, missed the first two weeks, I would you should definitely go back and watch online.

Just the whole story is so fascinating.

And if you thought like the story of Jonah, oh, that's that fake story about the whale, definitely go back and listen.

We've addressed all of that.

So we're gonna be past the whale today in chapter three and chapter four.

But just quick catch up.

So far, God comes to Jonah.

Jonah is a prophet.

Prophets in the Old Testament would speak to the uh nation of Israel, to God's chosen people, on behalf of God.

God would give them a message, they would distribute the message.

Jonah was one of those prophets.

And so God tells Jonah he has a message for the Ninevites, these people who live in Nineveh, part of Assyria.

And as we've learned, these Assyrians are not the best people.

They are horribly evil.

They've uh destroyed and conquered 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel at this point.

They are skinning their enemies alive.

I mean, these people are the worst of the worst.

Jonah, if I could use the phrase, hates these people.

He hates them.

And God tells Jonah, go to the city of Nineveh and preach against them.

And Jonah's like, nah, I don't think so.

And it isn't because he's scared of them.

We're about to find out.

He does not want them to learn about God because he wants them to experience the wrath of God.

He doesn't want them to have grace and mercy.

He wants them to experience the opposite, God's wrath.

And so he flees in the opposite direction.

God sends a storm.

Jonah is in the boat.

He's like, This is my fault.

The sailors eventually are convinced they don't want to do it, but they throw Jonah overboard because Jonah would rather die than go to Nineveh and see anything good happen there.

This is where Jonah is at in his heart, his character.

So he chooses death, and God goes, not so easy.

He sends a big fish to save Jonah's life.

And again, I know it's a whale of a tale and it's hard to believe.

But as we said last week, Jesus talked about the story.

So I don't know, maybe it actually happened.

And by the way, if God can speak light into existence, pretty sure he can redirect his course using a big fish.

So anyway, he's in the belly of this fish apparently for three days, uh, three nights.

He does what you and I would do.

He prays.

But as we learned last week, he did not pray a prayer of repentance.

He did not pray about changing his mind.

He just kept telling God, thank you for remembering me.

And I think God's going, What about me?

Remember me?

And he doesn't.

So we ended last week with Jonah being tossed back up onto the shore on the kind of uh beaches of Assyria and Nineveh.

That's where we're gonna pick it up today.

You ready?

All right, here's where we go.

This is the end of Jonah chapter two.

And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

And as we said last week, hashtag gross, that's disgusting.

All right, beginning of chapter three.

Now Jonah is covered in whale or fish vomit.

He cleans himself up, I'm guessing, a little bit.

And here is what happens next.

Here we go.

Um, then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, which is really cool that God is like, he's all he's okay with second chances and third and fourth.

God will give you as many chances as he needs to for you to eventually trust him and to follow him.

So he comes to uh Jonah a second time.

Go, he says, to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.

The same message.

He's like, hey, I tried to send you already.

You chose not to go, you tried to drown yourself, I saved you because I want you to do this.

And so now Jonah's got to make a decision.

This time, Jonah obeys.

He obeys the word of the Lord, and he went to Nineveh.

Now, this is where this gets so interesting.

Now, Nineveh was a very large city.

It took three days to go through it.

I mean, this is he's walking through the city.

It is not like a couple of hundred people.

It is a big, big, evil city.

Took three days to walk through it.

Jonah began by going a day's journey into the city, proclaiming, and here's his message he's preaching on behalf of God to all of these Ninevehes: 40 more days, and Nineveh will be overthrown.

Now, just keep in mind, Jonah, he's an outsider.

He's not an Assyrian, he's not a Nineveh, he's a Jewish person.

They have real beef with Nineveh.

He's now smelling a little bit, walking through the city, proclaiming, if you don't change your ways, God will destroy you in 40 days.

Are you ready?

Did you hear me?

And they are, you know, you would imagine they would just well, you would imagine they would just kill this guy, right?

Just stomp this guy out.

He's just annoying, right?

So here's what happens.

This is exactly what Jonah was afraid of.

The Ninevites believed God.

They believed God.

A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.

Now, that's kind of, we don't do that now.

Sackcloth, um, you know, when when there's a tragedy, you know, maybe you would wear black, or if you're going to a service, you know, to celebrate, you would wear black just in reverence, right?

This is what it means.

A sackcloth.

It was like a public sign of repentance or humility or mourning.

You would see it then, or desperation, usually before God.

So when you would see someone in a sackcloth, it meant that they had recognized and they were repentant.

And that's what's happening.

I mean, it's unbelievable.

The Ninevehes are wearing sackcloth now because the fish-smelling prophet has been walking through the roads proclaiming that God is going to destroy them in 40 days if they don't change their ways.

The story continues.

When Jonah, uh, Jonah's warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat down in the dust.

Then he makes a proclamation.

This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh.

By the decree of the king and his nobles, do not let people or animals, herds, or flocks taste anything.

Do not let them eat or drink.

They're going on a fast because of God's wrath, right?

But let people, but let people and animals be covered with sackcloth.

I mean, this is crazy.

The king of Nineveh, who is like the evilest of the evil, is now saying, put sackcloths on your dogs, your cats, your gerbils, the cow, I mean, the goat.

Like, we're we're sackcloth in this place up.

Like, we are all fasting, we are all repenting.

I can't believe God is so merciful to allow us a second chance.

This is what the Ninevites and the king is declaring.

It's incredible.

Let everyone call urgently and not on your God, on the God that you've been following, on the capital G God.

Let everyone call on God.

Let them give up their evil ways.

And they had a lot of them, and their violence.

As I said, these are the most violent people around, the most vile people around.

And then he says, Who knows?

Who knows?

God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.

I mean, the king goes all in.

He hears from a Jewish prophet, and he decides that the entire country, the entire city, is going to repent in hopes that God will show them compassion.

Now, what do you think God does when you repent?

When we repent, what does he do?

Well, you can guess, right?

When God saw what they did and how they turned, that's repenting, right?

Turned from their evil ways.

He relented.

You know, repentance and relenting from God always go together, right?

God, he relented, and he did not bring on them the destruction that he had threatened.

This is unbelievable.

I mean, you would never believe this.

You would never have imagined that, except for Jonah, we would never have imagined that a prophet from God could march into this place, say in 40 days God's going to destroy you to the most powerful country, city around, and then them decide immediately we are repenting and we are going to fast and we are going to pray and we are going to just hope beyond hope that God, the one true God, is going to show mercy on us.

By the way, this is to make it more incredible, they have destroyed 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel already.

Right?

And back then, I mean, when you destroyed a country or a city, you just assumed that your God was better than their God.

And now the Nineveh king is like, no, we believe in the one true God.

And look at our sacklos and our desperation and our calling out for Him.

I mean, what we're seeing in Nineveh, and this is really important, what we're seeing in Nineveh is not just behavior modification.

This is full-on heart transformation.

This is heart transformation.

Quick pause in the story for a minute.

Um, a lot of you, if you grew up in church or been around church or studied anything around church, you've probably heard of this word called legalism before.

Legalism is an it's an interesting thing.

It comes from about the law.

It's about following the law, but not changing your heart because of the law.

Jesus was constantly battling legalism, mostly with the Pharisees in his time, the religious leaders, because they would see the law and God as the exact same.

And if you broke the law, then you were breaking God and breaking his heart, and God doesn't love you as much, and so you gotta make amends with God.

It was this whole legal thing happening.

So we call it legalism.

Here's what legalism is, okay?

Legalism is external obedience detached from inward or internal change.

Okay?

And this is important.

This is a religious conversation.

But legalism really is when kind of obedience becomes a way for you to try to earn God's love or God's mercy, or maybe to impress others who you think are religious and you're trying to impress, or to just avoid actually surrendering your heart.

That's really what legalism is.

It's a way for you to look real good on the outside and not really be any different on the inside.

This is exactly what Jonah has been doing.

This is exactly what a lot of Christians do today, right?

I mean, think about it this way: it's like religion.

Religion really kind of plays the part, but it never changes the heart.

We know people like this.

Like they know what to say, they know the behaviors, they know the rhythms, they they know the words.

Like when you hear this person pray, you're like, whoa, those are big words.

God must really be listening to you, right?

All that stuff, right?

They even wear the sackcloth, whatever the version of that is, right?

I mean, they look so good on the outside.

Jesus called these people whitewashed tombs.

Because on the outside, it looks really good.

But on the inside, the character, nothing has changed.

It is untouched, right?

This is Jonah.

Jonah is very religious.

Jonah knows the words, he he knows how to dress, he knows how to act, he knows all the things, but it was only skin deep for Jonah.

And in a very real way, and this is a huge part of the story today, religion can get Jonah to Nineveh, but it cannot force Jonah to care about Nineveh at all.

Like religion could force the issue, it could modify behavior, religion could get him there, but it couldn't change anything about his heart.

And this is so abundantly evident as you open up to chapter four of the book of Jonah.

Like when we get to chapter four, you have seen Jonah has performed the mission.

He did what he was told to do, even though he didn't want to.

He goes into Nineveh, he preaches against it.

Everybody, you know, hears the story.

Like they begin to repent.

God decides, you know, to withhold his wrath.

And Jonah is not happy about it at all.

In fact, Jonah has been angry for a very long time, and now he is even more angry.

This is how chapter 4 begins, verse 1.

Um, but Jonah, but to Jonah, this seemed very wrong.

And he became angry, and I would say angrier.

He's been angry the whole time.

And what seemed wrong to Jonah was that he preached against them and God withheld his wrath.

That seemed so wrong to Jonah.

Remember, Jonah was trying to kill himself to avoid these people not being killed.

Jonah would rather die so that they could die.

Like he was willing to sacrifice his life so they would experience the wrath of God.

This is how much how angry Jonah was, how much he did not want grace, mercy, love for the people of Nineveh.

So Jonah, in all this anger, begins to pray to God.

So now remember, he prayed in the belly of the fish and he didn't repent.

He just prayed, Thank you for saving me.

You know, I now recognize that you are a savior.

He never once repented.

And again, he is praying to God.

And this is a similar, in a way, prayer.

Isn't this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home?

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

I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love.

A God who relents from sending calamity.

He says, Now, now, Lord, take away my life.

I've already tried to do it myself.

I tried to drown myself in the sea in the storm, and then you sent the dumbfish and saved me.

Now, take my life.

For it is better for me to die than to see those people live.

That's basically what he's saying.

It is better for me to die than to see your grace and your mercy extended to the people who I don't believe deserve it.

You get that?

I would rather die than see other people who I don't believe deserve your love, experience your love.

Imagine being God in this moment.

You've got this prophet.

I mean, you just want to like, you know, like if I'm God, he's like, just kill me.

I'm like, okay, cool.

You know, you're so annoying, I'll find somebody else, you know?

It's not what God does.

When God hears this, he responds to Jonah with a truly incredible question.

And it's a deep, it's an introspective question.

This is in verse 4.

He says to Jonah, but the Lord replied, Is it right for you to be angry?

Think about this for a minute.

This is a deep question.

Jonah.

Basically, what gives you the right to be angry?

Is it right for you to be angry?

Now we're gonna we're gonna play around with this for a minute.

The the story continues.

We're not gonna read the rest of chapter four.

I would love for you to do that.

Maybe today when you get home.

Uh, it's incredible.

Here's the the gist of the rest of the chapter, okay?

Um, Jonah doesn't change his mind, he doesn't get happy, he goes and sits and pouts by The beach, but it's really hot.

And he starts praying to God, I'm so hot, you know, I need some sunscreen.

And so God has a plant grow up and give him shade.

And then the next day the plant dies and he's whining again.

Okay?

And this is so amazing.

And then the chapter ends, and that's the end of the story.

Like there is no bow on the end of Jonah's story.

Jonah never at one point goes, and now I trust God.

Like there's no moment where the story kind of wraps up in a good way.

It just ends.

And it really ends with the question.

And the question it ends with is this question like, is it right for you to be?

That's the question it ends with.

And I think it ends on purpose with this question.

Because I think it's an introspective question that the author of this book was hoping that we would all ask ourselves at some point too.

Like, is it right for us to be?

Is it right for you to be?

If you're a believer, if you're a Jesus follower, which Jonah claimed to be, a God follower, if you're a Christian, let me just ask you, like, is it right for you to be angry?

We are angry at a lot of things, aren't we?

As Christians, you know, we're called to be set apart from the world.

But if you watch, not all the time, but if you watch us at times, maybe too much of the time, we don't look that different.

We're just as angry as everybody else.

Like, is it is it right for you to be angry?

Because God has shown mercy in a place that you would rather see judgment?

Is it right for you to be angry?

Like, is it right for you to be bitter?

You know what bitterness is?

Bitterness is basically anger that has settled in and built some furniture and made a dwelling place.

That's what bitterness is.

I think Jesus would say to you, is it, is it right for you to be bitter?

Is it right for your anger to have taken you to a place where now you're just bitter at her, at him, at those people, at them?

And if you told us your story, again, I mean, we say this all the time.

If you told us your story, we'd go, oh yeah, that's that's horrible.

And I think Jesus would also look at you and go, yeah, that's horrible.

But is it right for you to be bitter?

Is it right for you to be resentful?

Like, is it right for you to resent the other person?

And this is a hard one, right?

Because uh resentment is usually built in comparison.

And maybe you you you have someone in your life and they did all the wrong things, and life has been great, and you did the right things.

And it hasn't been easy.

And you and if in your heart of hearts, if you were to admit it, you would say, Yeah, I'm resentful of that person.

Jesus was to go, I understand, but is it is it right for you to be resentful?

Is it right for you to be offended?

I mean, Jonah is so offended by God's mercy to Nineveh, completely ignoring God's mercy towards him, thinking that he deserved it, but they didn't because they were so much worse.

But where do they really?

I mean, is there a grading scale of sin and worseness, you know?

Is the thing that you've done so much better, even though it was bad, than the thing that they did?

I mean, I think in our human world we try to kind of grade and scale these things, but we read in Scripture that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, that there is no, you know, grading scale of wrongness and sin.

It's just sin and not sin.

That's it.

There is no worse than others.

Or maybe Jesus would say to you, is it right for you to be comfortable?

Like, I mean, sometimes we're just really comfortable, right?

And comfort can really numb our compassion, can't it?

Like, we can just become so comfortable in our own little echo chamber, in our own little bubbles, in our own little worlds that we just lose compassion for the things that aren't in our bubble.

I mean, we're not gonna focus on this much, but just for a second, like I think we see this politically so much now.

And it's probably been this way for a very long time, but um it does seem heightened now, doesn't it?

And I'm not saying that the other side, and I don't even know what side you are, so it doesn't matter.

Whatever the other side for you is, I'm not saying that maybe their views are right or, you know, that they are right, but I don't know that you and I are right either, at least about everything.

And but we could become so comfortable in our space that we lose compassion, empathy for anybody else that lives in other spaces.

It's kind of like being indifferent.

I mean, Jesus, I think, would say to some of us, is it right for you to be indifferent?

You know, is it right for you to like say, I mean, I don't really hate them, but I mean I don't really care what happens to them.

That's indifference.

Jesus would say, You don't have a right to be that way.

Just give you one more unforgiving.

You know, do you have a right to be unforgiving?

And again, tell us your story.

Like, I mean, I some of you would tell us a story, and we would, uh, I'll say this all the time, but you know, we wouldn't say you should forgive them.

Like, we would go, where are they?

I will kick them in the throat for you.

You know, like if you tell us your story, but Jesus would never say that.

He would say, Do you have a right to be unforgiving?

After I have forgiven you.

You know what unforgiveness does, right?

It keeps you emotionally loyal to the wound that was created by somebody else.

Forgiveness, I mean, it's about them, but it's mostly about you.

It's releasing that grip that the grudge has created.

So, is it right for you?

I don't know what your blank is.

And listen, this is important.

Like, this question that God's asking, this question is not about condemnation.

Like, none of us should feel bad that we have these thoughts at times.

It's not that.

It's really about an invitation.

The question is an invitation to begin to see our lives in the light of how God has shown us grace and mercy, and at the same time for us to allow that same love, that same grace, that same mercy to be extended through us to others.

So when you think about Jonah, right, you know, the question isn't, well, did he finally get to Nineveh?

You know, good job.

That's not the question, right?

Like the real question is what did Jonah carry into Nineveh?

And what did he bring out of Nineveh?

And it seems pretty obvious when you read the story that what he brought in is the same thing he brought out, a lot of anger.

He brought out a lot of bitterness and resentment.

And maybe most importantly, he brought out a heart that was completely untouched by the mercy that had saved him.

I think that's why this book of the Bible is such a mirror.

I've been saying this for three weeks, but it is a mirror for us.

Take away the details, but the principle and the moral of the story.

It's just a mirror for us.

Because we all have a tendency to fill in the blank, don't we?

We all have a tendency to think that we have a right to.

And Jesus would say, Well, what gives you the right to do that?

Why do you feel like you have a right to do that?

Now, let me let me be clear.

This is not a message of like, well, show grace to everybody and keep yourself in a bad situation.

Or, and that is not.

This is not forgive and forget, right?

We're called to forgive, but you don't have to go back to the abusive relationship just because you forgive.

So don't confuse grace and boundaries.

This is not what we're talking about, okay?

But but what we are talking about, at least from the perspective of the story of Jonah, is that when you really understand God's grace and mercy, you don't sit out the side of the city walls hoping judgment will fall on them.

That is not what we are called to do.

And we all have a way to fill in that blank.

Me too, by the way.

We all have tendencies that allow us to feel like we have the right to, and I think Jesus would push back on all of those.

Because none of us are really better than anybody else.

We're all we're all sinners in need of a savior.

The only real difference in life isn't is your thing worse than somebody else's thing?

The only real difference in life is that some of us are saved and some of us aren't.

Some of us are forgiven by the blood of Jesus and some of us aren't.

Some of us have placed our faith in the saving grace of Jesus, and some of us haven't.

That's the only real difference.

And for those of us that are followers of Jesus, that we have placed our faith in Christ, we are forgiven.

We are made perfect, we are washed white as snow as we read in Scripture.

But here's the part that I think we can sometimes just forget.

And it's the part that Jonah struggled with just so much.

That God's mercy, listen, God's mercy is not meant to stop with your rescue, it is meant to reshape your heart.

We talked about this a little bit last week with the big fish.

The fish wasn't punishment, it was salvation.

And God sent the fish to reshape Jonah's perspective, but it didn't really do it because he wasn't willing to repent.

So the prayer that we're supposed to be praying isn't, you know, God, you know, help me to look like I care.

That's a religion thing, right?

The prayer really is like, God, help me to change.

Help my heart to change.

Help me to love the people that are hard for me to love.

Help me to forgive the thing that's hard to forgive.

Help me to be like you.

In fact, a relationship really with Jesus should move us to becoming more like him every single day.

It's called Christ-likeness.

I mean, the questions that we really, as Jesus followers, should be asking all the time are things like this Am I becoming more like Him?

Do I love what He loves?

Do I grieve what He grieves?

Do I want mercy for me and for others?

See, religion asks the question, did I comply?

And that's not the right question.

A relationship, this is why we call it a relationship with Jesus.

A relationship with Jesus asks, is my heart being transformed?

Is my character changing?

Am I becoming a new person?

I mean, we said this earlier, but like religion got Jonah to Nineveh, but only mercy can make Jonah care about Nineveh.

And those are very different things, you know.

And as I said earlier, this is where the book of Jonah leaves us.

It just leaves us with this question.

It leaves us with this big God-sized question.

Is the mercy that God has shown to you changing you?

Is the mercy that God has shown to you changing anything about how you see others, how you treat others, how you live this life on this side of eternity?

What is God's grace and his mercy, his love doing to you on the inside, not just on the outside?

Because God doesn't want you to have a religious experience with him.

He wants you to have a relationship with him, the kind that changes everything about your heart.

And we get to decide how we respond.

We get to decide what we're gonna do with that.

We get to decide.

In the same way Jonah had an opportunity to decide.

You know, when you think about, and again, don't elbow anybody or whatever, but we know people like this.

You know, we know people who are very religious and who are also just very, very mean.

We know people who on the outside wear the God shirt, you know, they have the WWJD bracelet still, you know, from eighth grade, you know, and yet there's no WWJD in their entire less what would Jesus do for those if you're not a church nerd.

Um, you know, like there's nothing about them.

You see them, you're like, I don't think Jesus would do that.

You know, I don't think Jesus would post that.

I don't think Jesus would talk to that person that way, you know.

And I'm not saying that we're gonna get that right a hard, we're forgiven, right?

But is the aim that for us?

Because the people we know who claim it and don't live it, we've talked this before.

It's hypocrite's hypocritical.

And it's the most dangerous thing to faith, isn't it?

I mean, think about it.

The most dangerous place, the most dangerous place is doing the right thing with a heart that is still untouched by mercy, because it teaches you the wrong thing about God, and you try to earn his love and you try to earn his grace, and you're never sure where you stand because you haven't allowed his mercy to deeply touch your heart.

Here's what I want you to know as we kind of wrap up the story of Jonah.

When God looks at you, he sees a child of God.

And when you have placed your faith in Christ, you have been washed by the blood of Christ.

You are clean, you are saved, you are perfect.

There is nothing you will ever do to make God love you more or love you less, which means that you are 100% free to love everybody the way Jesus has loved you.

You are 100% released to go show grace and mercy, even when it doesn't make sense, because that's what God has done to you.

I mean, the invitation of this story of Jonah, listen, it is not merely to behave better.

That is not the story of Jonah.

It really is to let the mercy of Jesus go deeper.

That's the invitation.

So let me ask you just one more time.

Is it right for you to be?

And I don't know what your blank is, but is it right for you to be?

Jesus would say, it's not.

It's not.

And here's why.

Because God's mercy is not meant to stop with your rescue, it is meant to reshape your heart.

And that's really the story of Jonah.

Can I pray for all of us before we leave today?

Father God, um, thank you for Jonah.

Thank you so much.

Just for loving him the way that you did and not just abandoning him.

We learned so much.

We can run as far as we want, and you're still gonna pursue us to win us back.

You're gonna give us chance after chance after chance to follow you, knowing that that is what's best for us, even if we don't see it that way yet.

You're gonna keep giving us chances to do it.

And it doesn't mean we won't experience consequences, but one of the consequences will never be the loss of your love and your grace and your mercy.

God, I know we all, we're just at different places with you.

We're at different places in our relationship with faith and with you, Jesus.

We're at different places in our background and church hurt and religion, and there's so many complications of this.

So, God, well, here's what I pray.

I just pray that you will give us wisdom to see through all that, to see past all that, to not allow us to define our relationship with you based on how other people have defined it.

That we'll allow you to define it.

And then give us courage to truly do this, to follow you, to believe that your mercy covers all of this for us, and that we are truly loved and accepted.

And there's nothing we need to do to earn it.

But now we are free to release it and give it to other people.

Just God, wherever we are with this, I just pray that you give us some wisdom to know what to do with it.

And uh and thank you for this story, Father.

We love you, Jesus, and we pray all this in your name.

Amen.