Compassion of God

We're doing Jonah, that little guy, Jonah and the whale, and we

bring that series to an end today.

And I want to particularly talk about anger and the city of

anger and with all that is inside of our city and how we

take these lessons from the book of Jonah and love our city

called Pretoria. As one of the commentators says,

when we come in to preach in the city, we are not shopping centre

developers, We don't come in with bulldozers and clear a

piece of ground and build a building because in 50 years

time the building was be derelict, he said.

We come in like farmers into soil and inside of that soil is

teeming microbiology that is taking place, that is living

microcosms that are alive people who have got stories.

There's black and there's whites and there's young and there's

old and there's rich and there's poor and there's married and

they're single and they're divorced and they're, and

there's these microbiosms. And God says, go into that city

and, and, and get your hands dirty in the soil and plant

something inside of that city so that when you leave, you won't

have a derelict shopping centre, but you will have a piece of

farmland that is healthy. And as we come in here to the

city, we have many different, diverse backgrounds.

We have diverse upbringings. We have different ways of

looking at culture. And God puts us all together.

And somehow we have to work it out in a way that honours Jesus.

And, and, and that's what the book of Jonah is about.

And we see this guy who's God is trying to use him, but he comes

remarkably angry. And this is says in Jonah

Jonah 4 · chapter mention

chapter 4, Jonah's anger and the Lord's compassion.

And you just have to walk around the city and you see anger

wherever you go, you see it in, I mean, isn't it amazing?

And, and we'll, we'll show some footage of road rage, but isn't

it amazing that somebody can cut you off and your anger can be so

explosive? And yet what they did doesn't

actually match up with the deep level of frustration that you

have inside of your heart. They are just the trigger that

sends it off. Isn't it Jonah's anger and the

Lord's compassion? But it displeased Jonah

exceedingly. And he was angry that God was

kind to Nineveh and he prayed to the Lord.

He said, Oh Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my

country? That is why I made.

Haste to flee to Tarshis. I went somewhere.

Else. God said to you, they stood your

Englishman, you're going to Pretoria to omit the Afrikaans

men's of the. Versus that I got.

You've got options. Are there any other options?

God, is there any anywhere else where I could possibly go?

And they said, you know you're going to.

Pretoria, I said. Look, but I'm a shock.

You're going to the Blue Bulls, but Lord I I love Kings Park.

You're going to laughters and what about that black white

thing? You're going to where it was

architected and then you're going to go and work it out with

black and white and you're going to wrestle.

You're going to have a black guy leading the meeting and a white

guy preaching. And the last week there was a

white guy leading and a black guy preaching and, and it's a

wrestle. And we're going to sort of

wrestle it until we find a place where the anger subsides and the

compassion of God fills our hearts.

For I knew that you're a gracious God.

Say gracious. So the first characteristic that

Jonah mentions of God is his grace.

I knew you were a gracious God and merciful.

You were slow. To anger and abounding in

steadfast love and relenting from disaster.

Therefore now, our Lord, please take my life from me, for it is

better for me to die than to live.

And the Lord God said. Do you do?

Well, to be angry. Why you always?

The mukka in. Why do you want to?

Blixcottle everybody, all the time.

What has? Happened in your life that you

are so and there's and anger doesn't have to be shouting.

It can be silence. And some poor wives sit in this

auditorium living with the silence of their angry husbands

because of the upbringing that so affected them.

Jonah went out of the city and he sat to the east of the city

and he made a booth for himself there.

He sat under it in the shade till he should see what would

become of the city. Now the Lord got appointed a

plant and made it come up over Jonah that it might be a shade

over his head to save him from his discomfort.

So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant.

Or as Chris the Afrikaner read last week, de com Comer plant.

It sounded good. It sounds better in Afrikaans de

Comer plant. Is that a cucumber plant?

Com Comer, I just say yonya. I don't know what it means, but

if in trouble just say yonya. So Jonah was exceedingly glad

because of the kumkum worm. But when dawn came up the next

day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plants so that it

withered. When the sun rose.

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

head of Jonah so that he was faint.

And he asked that he might die, and said it is better for me to

die than to live. Jonah is miffed, but God said to

Jonah, do you do well to be angry for this stupid plant when

we have got a city full of brokenness that we have been

called to minister to, A city steeped in prejudice, the city

steeped in economic disaster. You know, people would go to the

city for security. That's why people left the

villages. They would go to the city and

you'd find some form of order, St. #1 #2 #3 and the streets

would be in rows and you'd find order there and you'd find

security there and you'd find jobs there.

Now our cities are invaded with red light districts and with

squatter camps. The city to which God has called

us to. Do you?

Do well to be angry for the plant, he said, Yes, I do well

to be angry, actually angry enough to die.

And the 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, in Paris in a night. And should I not pity Nineveh,

that great city? Should I not pity Charney, the

great city of Charney, in which there are more than millions of

people from Mamelodi all the way through to Moycliffe who do not

know their right hand from their left, and also many cattle

friends? The only people who don't know

their right hand from the left is children.

You say turn left and they do this, or a drunk man, you say

turn left and he does that. Or a disorientated person.

And I want to tell you that Jonah was disorientated.

He never knew his right hand from his left.

And Nineveh ended up preaching to Jonah instead of Jonah

preaching to Nineveh. I've been here 11 years now, and

I've learned more from Pretoria than Pretoria has learned from

me about the grace of God. And if we look at this just in

one scripture, anger, angry, anger, angry, angry, angry,

angry. And too many pulpits and too

many businesses are filled with angry people trying to represent

a kind God. And I never friends.

As a young, ambitious, driven pastor, I've stood in this

pulpit many times. I hope not so much in Pretoria,

but the previous city. And.

Like Jonah would. Push my finger out at people in

a moralistic way instead of standing here and representing

the absolute kindness and grace of God.

For we will not win the city with moralistic anger, but we

will win the city when we represent the love of God for

this great people. We will win people of different

culture, not when we try and correct them or belittle them or

get them up to some form of standard, but when we just love

them unconditionally. And so we're not.

On some kind of. Mission to conquer.

We're not on some kind of mission to extend our influence.

We're on a mission really of just love.

Absolute love, God, love. And so friends, the book of

Jonah as we finish these last three chapters, Jonah chapter 2

Jonah 2 · chapter mention

is the absolute essential that every man needs to end up in the

belly of a whale if he's going to count for God.

Every man, we said it, Sunday is good.

Friday is good because Sunday is coming.

Jonah, like Jesus, went into the belly of the whale and we

celebrate Good Friday and we celebrate Easter Sunday, but we

don't celebrate Saturday. Saturday is the day when you

learn how to pray, and unless you and I learn how to pray, we

will try and change the city with our personality or with our

resources. And it's impossible.

I am not. Yet to espouse.

My vision or my extravagant desire or.

Use this. Platform to promote my.

Profile. We are simply here, friends, to

talk about God and a man or a woman who has not come under any

form of restriction, who doesn't need to pray.

Who doesn't? Need God to come through for

them. Will never have an impact on a

society. I want to share 2 pictures with

you. The first one is of a knee that

is my son selected for the Junior Springboks.

And five days. Or seven, seven days.

Before the World Cup. I get a message from him on my

phone, said hey dad, I think I've done my knee now.

I've spent 19 years every single.

Day of my life. Praying for that boy, and I pray

Psalm 91 over him, he who dwells in the shelter.

Of the Lord. Will rest in the shadow of the

Almighty, I will say of my. God, He is my.

Refuge and my. Strength, my God.

And whom I trust. 1000 will fall on your right. 10,000.

On your left, but it will not come near you, for He will

command His angels concerning you to lift you up in all your

ways. You will not strike your foot

against the stone. I've preached that over my

family, and yet that's what happened to my son.

Friends and even when he sent. Me, that message and the news

went out that my son has got hurt.

People sent me you must pray Psalm 91 over him.

And I said, I've prayed Psalm 91 over him for 19 years with this

anger rising up inside of me. And then I realized, friends,

the issue wasn't me. The issue was him.

He needed to go into the belly of a whale.

He's 19 years old now. He needs to trust God.

I can't trust God for him now on the field that he has to go and

play. He has to get hold of God.

He needs to get into the restriction and live with the

thing. Am I going to play?

Am I not going to play? Am I going to make it?

Am I not going to make it? I said, son, I don't know what

to do. And we're sitting standing in

the house, a beautiful house that.

Somebody in this church lent us and we're sitting there and I'm

sitting and I'm sitting up crying God I can't do this

anymore. My wife saying we've got to

trust God. I said I have trusted God and

yet I'm living with deep disappointment.

And we SMS the doctor in the church and looked at his MRI

scans and a piece of bone and chipped off.

And then he SMS me and said hey. Dad the last time I played.

Rugby on this ground in Hamilton.

'S and Cape Town. I wore the number 20 jersey and

God. Told me I must go to Psalm 20

and it says we were on our knees and then God spoke and we stood

up and he. Asked his coaches.

For a, for for a, for a fitness test.

And he passed it on the Monday. And so when he ran on the field,

because a man who played 85 Test matches for South Africa, who's

in our church, phoned me and he said, Rory, I sent the X-rays to

a doctor and the doctor says jeopardize, he can play, we can

fix it afterwards. So when he ran onto the field

limping and losing, everybody said he had lost.

But I know in my heart that he had won because he has

transferred. His trust.

From my prayers to his and God will put every one of us in the

belly of a whale until He answers us so that we can trust

him. I had a strike in my business.

I am not a businessman. You can you can put the next

picture please. The stock in my business.

I go down to my business. About 150 people striking have

taken all the furniture of my business.

They've put it all together, they've poured petrol in it and

they've set it a light and I don't know what to do.

I don't know where to turn. I feel unbelievably lonely.

I wish I could call my dad and I.

Cry out to God. I cry out to God.

And he says to me for. I.

The Lord love justice. You'll see.

Many years ago, I wrote there, Son of Pisa and Tolo, because

the chairman of Shell Oil Company's name was Justice.

And I'm sitting in the hotel room and I don't know where to

turn and I don't know what to do.

But God says this, I love Justice.

And the next morning this man phoned me and he said, hey,

Rory, Mr. Dyer, it's Justice. His Zulu name is Lana Pisaway.

Justice. I'm total.

He didn't tell me he was the chairman of Cell, but I knew he

was the chairman of Cell. And he said this to me.

He said, I hear you're in trouble.

I said, Sir, I'm in deep trouble.

He said, I'm going to come and help you.

Three hours later, he drove down.

We're in a room of HR and PR and angry people shouting and

screaming. And he said to everybody, he

said, will you all please leave the room?

They all left the room. And he looked at me and he said,

Mr. Dyer, what's wrong? I said, I don't know, Sir.

And I said these three things. And he said, I think it's these

three things. And I opened my prayer book and

I said, the Lord told me that he loves you.

And this man got up in front of my staff, of which I had no

control. And he said, Mr. Dyer and I have

spoken. And we believe that these three

things need to be dealt with. And within 30 minutes they were

back at work and the strike was reverted.

I want to honour you, Sir, in front of your family.

When I was trying to run a church in Pretoria and a

business down in the Free State, I didn't know where to go.

I didn't know where to go. But God sent you to me and I've

always wanted to honour you publicly to say thank you.

But unless we get into the book, I don't know what your prayer

book looks like. But unless we find ourselves in

the belly of the whale that if God doesn't come through, we are

in deep trouble, we will never influence the city.

We will never impact or influence the city.

This same Scripture, the same scripture that reverted that

avoided a strike in my business in the message version says this

are the Lord and fair and the NIV it says are the Lord love

justice in the in the message it says are the Lord and fair.

I pay salaries in full on time. The message Bible, that same

verse of Scripture God gave to me in COVID and it is the same

scripture that ended up paying my staff salaries for 4 1/2

months while our business never operated.

It's the same scripture that ended the strike.

If if if you go into the belly of the whale, God will speak to

you. He will give you a word and that

word will sustain you and stop you from becoming angry.

You with me. Jonah chapter 3 is is about

Jonah 3 · chapter mention

geography and eschatology. Geography is a place.

It's a place God called us to Pretoria, to tranny.

Don't hate it. Don't hate the Blue Bulls, don't

support. Don't put on the Western

Province shirt and go to Lofters.

That's stupid. And you think, oh Rory, no, God

sent. Me here, God sent me here.

Friends almost I'm I'm at. Lofters.

Now last week I'm at Lofters. I'm sitting there in the season

ticket holder seats. I don't know why because I

bought them online and I'm sitting there and a whole lot of

season ticket holders come and they you can see they've been at

Loftus for you. I said how long you been in here

for now? We've been here for 35 years, I

don't know how many years and they all know each other and

they're sharing drinks and they open their boxes and they all

got talking and I'm sitting, I'm thinking amongst the Loftus.

So I said, how's it going? I said liquor.

I said, and and do you have children?

Yes. What do they do?

Do this. And I said, do you have

grandchildren? Yes, got grandchildren.

And I said, where are you sending them to like Menlo or

are you going to send them to like Afiz or you see, And

actually it's very strange. You probably wouldn't understand

this. We're sending our grandson to

Hilton. I said, wow, funny enough,

you've mentioned that I'm sitting at Lofters and I said

here's my son with with the knee that that he had to tape and he

was the Hilton captain and then he put him next to her and they

got talking about at Lofters because there's geography.

When God sends us to a place, he sends us to the geography.

And you know, one of the commentators says in the

geography of Pretoria is deep beauty and dark sexuality.

There's deep beauty and dark sexuality.

Sitting in this room, friends, I know you.

They're drug addicts. You're sitting here there's.

Geography. It's not all meant to be rosy.

It's meant to be the soil of our lives.

The microcosm. We're meant to get into the soil

of people's. Lives.

And it says he took the word and he went into Nineveh.

He took. One day's journey.

Into Nineveh, I sat last week after church, I was counselling,

I'm doing 6 weddings and I was counselling these six couples.

And on this side there's a couple that have had a go, they

it didn't work. So now they're having another

go. They're in their second

marriages like some of you are, and 3rd marriages and 4th

marriages. And another couple I'm marrying

is because, like David, who looked over the balcony and he

saw Bathsheba and he traded in the older model for the younger

model, Fred. That's the geography.

That's the geography. That's the geography of

Pretoria. And I can get up here and be

angry and say, hey, sort your life out, almost get inside

there and I must cry with them and say, hey, guys, can we find

a scripture? Can we find a word?

Can I somehow Incarnate the kindness of God into?

Your brokenness. I've sat with a young man this

week, He's sitting here today. He's here because he was on

drugs and I sat with him, no judgement in my heart.

I love him. I've known him since he's a

little boy. His dad is my friend.

And somehow it's worked out that he and I are sharing the

geography of Pretoria and I've got to take the Word of God, not

preach to him, not throw it down his toes, hey.

Drugs are wrong, I've got to somehow kindly friends my job.

Is not to communicate better. My job is to take the Word of

God so that we can have communion, and around the

brokenness of Christ and the shared blood of Christ, we can

have communion. So that a drug.

Addict instead of feeling judged under the.

Anger of my moralism. Would feel the love.

Of God pouring. Through me.

And thinking, oh, Rory's not. Preaching to me.

He's trying to envelope me in some kind of love that is

supernatural. And last week of the white guy

leading and a black guy preaching.

And this week of black guy leading and a white guy.

Preaching. We are trying to somehow,

instead of preaching some kind of thing, we're trying to

commune at a very deep level about the worst of human nature.

But there is eschatology. There is eschatology.

He says when he preaches, he says 40 more days and then

you're going to get overthrown. And so I'm sitting in a room

with a whole lot of people are marrying and here they're having

a second chance. And those guys are virgins and

these guys have lived together and those guys have slept

around. And I'm not sitting there with

the word of God and saying, judge, judge, judge, judge,

judge, judge, judge, judge. I'm sitting inside of that

meeting saying, hey, guys, this is what the Bible says about

marriage. But you've got to know this

eschatology. God is using marriage to

represent himself to the world. God, God is using it and, and,

and you were designed by purpose.

And so you can't just do whatever you like with your time

and with your money because there's eschatology.

There's going to be a day of account.

And so I have to live my life on purpose.

The way I treat my wife is important.

The way I speak to her is important.

The way I relate. In business is important

respect. Is that not true, Sir?

Have we not shared mutual respect?

It's the book of Jonah. And then God shows us

unbelievable mercy, unbelievable mercy to Nineveh and Jonah gets

cross and to heck with those drug addicts, to heck with those

people who have been married three or four times.

To heck with them. They don't deserve God's grace.

And so we have to go and do some.

We have to go and do some work with the Scriptures.

So Jonah says this, I know Lord God, that you are gracious.

So then Jonah, why are you angry?

I think there are four reasons for anger.

I think there are many more, but let me give you 4 reasons for

anger. Wrong information make you

cross. Inadequate understanding.

An underdeveloped heart when you act like a child and in Jonah's

case and and many times in the case of the church and I must

admit to myself in my own life, misappropriated grace.

We we are sitting in a city with deep pain, deep history, deep

history, deep experience. And we've got people coming and

sitting in our midst, or as sitting in their midst, and what

they need is a picture of a gracious God, not one who's

about to pop with anger. Two businessmen in the church

invited me for breakfast on Saturday.

On Friday, we're sitting there, we're having breakfast.

And the man next to me and his wife kept looking at me.

And eventually I thought, why do you keep looking at me?

And I eventually looked at him and he stood up and he he came

and he hugged me and he was crying and his wife was crying.

I said, what's wrong? So he said.

I never knew you were a. Pastor.

But eight years ago, you and I sat next to each other in the

Brooklyn Mall, and I was bankrupt, and you paid for my

breakfast. And I've asked God that we'd

meet again someday. But before I went to the

breakfast, I just had to pay some of my speeding fines that I

got on Pay City. And, and so I live with this.

There's a rebel in me that drives too fast and gets angry

really quickly. But God put me in the city just

to pay for people who are bankrupt.

And he just hugged me and then he sat down again.

And I was on the waterfront in Cape Town and a guy was trying

to pay his, you know. You know when you pay in your

notes, like all crumpled up and the machine kicks it out first

time and you think, OK, and then it kicks it out the second time

you think, OK, And then the third time it kicked it out.

I rent across to the 100 bucks and I stuck it in the machine

and to pay the guy's parking. And he turned on, he said, are

you not Rory Dyer? I said, yes, I am, but pay your

flipping parking tickets. He said 25 years ago I sat in

your office in Durban and you taught me about God.

Friends, it's so close between the agitation of paying for a

ticket and the representation of God.

Exodus 33, I was trying to quickly understand this.

I'm going to take another couple of them, and Exodus 33 put up on

the board. The Lord replied, My presence

will go with you, and I will give you rest.

And Moses said to him, If your presence does not go with us, do

not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you're

pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us?

What? Else.

What else? What else?

What else? Not some fancy preacher, Not

some hotshot worship, not some unbelievable big screen.

With smoke machines and. Lights, not some fancy coffee

machines. What else?

What else will distinguish me and your?

People from all. The other people on the face of

the earth. I'm not in the competition with

the church down the road to put on a bigger show.

It will not. Touch the depths of.

People's brokenness, it will not deal with the anger that is

seething inside of their hearts because of prejudice and racism

and being excluded. It will not get down to the very

brokenness of people's relationships.

What else will distinguish me and your people?

From all the other people on the face of the earth.

And the Lord said to Moses, I will do the very thing that you

have asked, because I'm pleased with you, and I know you by

name. Then Moses said, now show me

your glory. And the Lord said I will cause

all my goodness to pass in. Front of you.

And I'll proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence.

I'll have mercy on whom I will have mercy.

I'll have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

And Exodus 34 says this, and he passed in front of Moses,

saying, the Lord sayeth the Lord, the Lord compassionate and

gracious God, slow to anger. Why are you so?

Angry Jonah. Why are you so angry, Rory?

Why are you so? Why in Rd.

Why when somebody cuts you off, you want to smash his face in

with a baseball bat? Why?

Why when somebody plays slowly on a golf course do you shout at

them? Why, when your wife doesn't do

what you ask her to do, why do you flip out instead of applying

the grace of God that He applied so lavishly to your own?

Life. Slow to anger abounding.

In love and faithfulness. Maintaining love to thousands

rich, poor, young old lofters. And forgiving wickedness,

rebellion, and sin. That's seven things.

Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished.

Jonah has got two parts of God, the grace of God and the guilt

of God. And when he's under pressure, he

hands out God's guilt instead of God's grace because he doesn't

know his left hand from his right hand.

We don't have time to look there because I have to close.

But in Matthew 18, it says there was a man who owed a king

millions of dollars, millions of dollars.

It's a picture of you and I with sin.

And he went before the king. And he said to him, King, I beg

you, have mercy on me. And into this hand God said, I

cancelled his debt. I had mercy on him.

I gave him grace and compassion and slow to anger and abounding

in love and abounding in faithfulness.

Maintaining love to thousands, black, white, rich, poor, young,

old, married, single, divorced, maintaining love to thousands,

forgiving wickedness. I can sit with a drug addict and

I can have absolute grace because God has forgiven me of

my own wickedness. I can sit with people.

He takes this and the Bible says in the same verse, and the man

who owes him a few dollars, he chokes him.

He takes the mercy of God, and he chokes the man who owes him

money. If I take the grace of God in

this hand, then I must give the grace of God with this hand.

Two brothers. Luke 15.

One brother takes the inheritance and the Bible says

he squanders it in wild living, like some of you here are doing

right now. You're squandering your lives.

You're squandering them, and there is eschatology and there

is guilt, but that's not the overriding characteristic of

God. Guilt is 1/8 of God.

What you should come into is gracious, compassionate, slow to

anger, abounding in love, abounding in faithfulness,

maintaining love to thousands, forgiving wickedness, rebellion,

and sin. And there's also guilt.

Otherwise he wouldn't be God. And I was thinking about this

and I thought of this windmill. I don't know why, but this is

what I thought of. I thought of this windmill.

We're going to close now. That is the character of God.

That is what you should come to every single Sunday when you

stand here. Do you mind standing, Sir?

He's a Zulu man, the son of a domestic worker.

His father was a farm labourer who God is blessed.

He's the chairman of a board. When he meets me, instead of a

finger or an anger or a fight, he should meet a windmill that

is drawing on the character of God.

And when you come to church on a Sunday, I've got issues.

I've got big issues. Instead of living with the

frustration of a pastor, pouring out his own insecurities and

anger, and I've got them, he should come to a windmill,

gracious and compassionate and slow to anger and abounding in

love and abounding in faithfulness.

Maintaining love to thousands, maintaining love to thousands,

forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.

And there's a bit of guilt attached.

And as it all comes out, what comes out is not some angry

guilt. What comes out is the character

of God and as I treat this man with compassion and he treats me

with compassion and I treat him with grace and he treats me with

grace, we form a partnership. That not true, Sir.

You could have chosen to go to any church.

You don't go to church, but you chose to come to my church, not

my church outset. Because somewhere in that heated

moment when everybody was angry like Jonah, when I was insecure

and everybody was angry, you bought the grace of God into my

boardroom. You can't stand here, Sir.

I grew up in a privileged life. This man grew up hand to mouth.

I never qualified. He did qualify.

I've never LED a corporate company.

He has. We've got so many differences,

but we're standing here under the windmill of the water of

God, having not much in common other than finding something of

the character of God that can override our anger.

You were angry, Sir, the first time you came on my property,

were you not? And I was angry too, was I not?

And then God spoke, and he said, I love justice.

What is God saying to you? What is the word of the Lord

saying to you? What?

What is the word of the Lord saying to you today?

Because I can tell you this, we got put into Pretoria not to be

angry, but to represent the character of God, one

relationship at a time. You know how many broken

business relationships are sitting in this room today?

You know how many thousands? You know how many broken

marriage relationships are sitting in this room today?

Thousands. You know how many broken child

parent relationships are sitting in this room today?

Thousands. Because I want to accept grace

with this thing, but I want to hold them accountable with this

hand. May I say, open your hands as

you've received from God, give to others as you receive from

God. You gave to me and I trust gave

back to you. I believe we will do business

together, Sir, into the future. May this be a picture of two

people from different worlds living under the grace of God.

God bless you.