God Is Compassionate And Slow To Anger

Morning.

You may have a seat unless you're a student and then get out.

I told the worship dean yesterday uh that yesterday my grandson celebrated his seventh birthday and we went to Pump It Up, which you can spell that H-E-L-L in the original Greek.

And uh it was horrifying.

But uh he had a good time.

And um uh if you're wondering whether or not you ought to have children, don't go there if you don't want them, because that would make you change the game plan.

At least not 20.

It was intense, but um praise the Lord.

Got a whole nother year before I have to do that again.

So um maybe we'll go there for your birthday.

I hope y'all have fun.

That'd be good.

Let me pray.

Lord, I thank you that we can bless your holy name, which really means that we bless our confidence that there is no one like you.

You are in a category by yourself.

Everything else pales in comparison, everything else are varying degrees of shadows of who you are.

We rejoice that we can gather in your presence.

You promise to be here, and we pray that you would do a fresh, real, lasting, life-giving work in our lives.

And we sure would be grateful if you would do it.

And we believe that you can and will.

We thank you in advance in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Before I forget it, Tuesday night.

Tuesday night at what time?

6 30.

6?

Well, 6.

Tuesday night, sometime after it gets dark.

Six.

Uh six o'clock.

Um, all you ladies are invited to go to Kim's house to play bingo.

Yeah.

And so if you want to bring a finger food, is that right, or a dessert or something, please feel free to do that, but you're not honor bound or obligated.

But um it'll be uh Larry's spinning.

It'll be a night.

So that anyway, so y'all, you you feel free to come if if you'd like to.

This Tuesday night, Kim's and you can uh go on our website or or ask Kim and Jay where it is, and it's just right over in East Mills.

Yay.

All right.

Let me uh I tell you, let me read this, and then I'm I'll turn it over to you for a minute.

I'm gonna read Jonah chapter 4.

Jonah 4 · chapter mention

We're in a little study uh in one of the smallest books of the Bible uh addressing the life of a prophet of God who what we discover is that he was the most, now there were some bad prophets, ungodly heathen prophets, false prophets.

Jonah was a true prophet of God, but he was a uh not a good guy, not anyone that we would want to emulate, not anyone that God would want us to emulate.

In fact, he's the opposite, and we'll talk about that next week, how he's the, when Jesus in Luke 14 says, people are asking him, say, give us a miracle, give us a miracle, give us a miracle, and Jesus says, I won't give you any more miracles.

What I will give you is a sign, as Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days, so I will be in the belly of the earth for three days.

Uh that's the, and then I'm gonna rise again, and that's the sign that I'll give you.

And there's a lot going on there, but just quickly, what Jesus was really saying to these Pharisees and hypocrites and the crowd was everything about Jonah, I'm the opposite.

Whatever you learn about the person or the life of Jonah, if you're wondering who I am, go to the opposite extreme.

He's a jerk, he's prejudiced, he's uh a nationalist, he's a grudge holder, he's petty and uh just a child who pouts and runs away and hides when uh he doesn't get his way.

Um everything about him, I'm the opposite.

Everything about the Ninevehites, my people are the opposite.

They responded in humility and repentance and faith.

But my people, they won't.

They won't.

And so it's a it's a powerful uh that Jesus would use that, that he would speak those words.

And so, anyway, God uses crooked sticks to make long butts.

You know, he he it's crazy.

Uh but he uses Jonah, sends him to Nineveh, and he eventually gets there, and he says the most terrible, crummy, death kind of little sermon, five-word sermon in Hebrew, danged if the whole city doesn't get saved.

And uh makes him mad, and that's what we're going to read about today, what he does in response to the salvation of this city.

Um anyway, let me let me read it to you.

Jonah chapter 4, you can follow along if you want.

Jonah 4 · chapter mention

This change of plans, the change being Jonah was warning Nineveh to reject God's offer of salvation, and what he expected, what his plan was that something was going to happen to Nineveh like he had been, like he had heard had happened to Nineveh, to uh Sodom and Gomorrah.

That's what he that's what he was hoping.

In fact, he uses the same word uh uh 40 days and Nineveh will be overturned.

And that phrase, overturned, is the very phrase that the Bible uses to describe what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah.

It was overturned.

And so Jonah probably was hoping that something similar was, and danged if it didn't happen that way.

God did not cooperate with Jonah's plans.

And so, anyway, this change of plans greatly upset Jonah, and he became very angry.

Literally, it's the strongest Hebrew wording in the entire Old Testament.

How angry he is livid, he is furious that God has done this to him.

How dare you do this, God! Um you ever get angry at God?

I hope so.

As a counselor, I counsel lots and lots and lots of people.

I'll take anger any day.

What I don't want is apathy.

You want to save your marriage?

I don't care.

I don't care.

You want to save your marriage?

Yes, but I hate him.

I hope he rights enough.

I'll take that.

Because that means there's something there.

There's something there.

And so uh but so he's angry.

Psalms are full of godly people that got angry with God.

It's okay.

It's okay.

God's a big boy, he can deal with our anger.

Uh he became very angry and complained to the Lord.

Didn't I say before I left home that you would do this, Lord?

That's why I ran away to Tarshish.

I knew you are merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love and eager to relent from destroying people.

I knew that's who you were.

Just kill me, for I'd rather die than live if what I predicted won't happen.

If you're not gonna overturn Nineveh, you told me you were gonna overturn them.

And if you're not gonna do that, I'd rather die.

Now, what's funny is that word overturned, it's a great Hebrew word.

God kept his word, God overturned it.

What it the word literally means to turn upside down.

So God turned Sodom and Gomorrah upside down.

But the Psalm says, the exact same word, God turned my sorrow into joy.

My yeah, my mourning into dancing and my sorrow into joy.

See, God can turn things upside down in various ways.

God kept his word.

He did turn them up upside down.

Jonah just was hoping it would have a negative connotation, and God said, I think I'll just make it a positive one.

Um the Lord replied, Is it right for you to be angry about this?

Jonah's response was, like any little three-year-old child, he got mad.

You ever had a three year old, ever taken a three-year-old child to the grocery store?

And you get ready to pay, and you go through that aisle where the candy's all eye-level with him, and he wants all this candy, and you say, no, dude, we ain't getting that today.

Oh, he falls out on the floor, kicking and screaming, crying.

That's what Jonah does.

Uh, let's see.

Then Jonah, he Jonah was so mad he wouldn't even respond to God's question.

Then Jonah went out to the east side of the city and made a shelter to sit under as he waited to see what would happen to the city.

He was waiting to see if Nineveh might repent of repenting.

See, that's what Jonah done when Jonah was in the fish.

Oh Lord, I'm sorry.

Oh Lord, I love you.

Oh Lord, you're the first.

You're the most important person.

Lord, I'll do anything you say.

When he got back on the bank, he repents of his repenting.

And so he came to the conclusion, maybe the Ninevites will repent of repenting.

Maybe, yeah, they repented and God said he was going to spare them.

Maybe they'll repent of that repentance and turn back to their evil ways.

So he thought he would go out and wait.

So he uh let's see, he uh went out to the east side of the city and made a shelter to sit under as he waited to see what would happen to the city.

And the Lord God provided, that's the real word, provided, a leafy plant to grow there, and soon it spread its broad leaves over Jonah's head, shading him from the sun.

This eased his discomfort, and Jonah was very grateful for the plant.

What the word really is, he was glad.

He was happy.

He hadn't been happy one time in this whole adventure.

He hadn't been happy one time.

But he's happy, he's glad over this plant that sprung up in 24 hours.

Oh, let's see, he was very grateful for the plant.

But God provided a worm, and the next morning at dawn, the worm ate through the stem of the plant so that it withered away, and as the sun grew hot, God provided a scorching east wind to blow on Jonah.

The sun beat down on his head till he grew faint and he wished to die.

Death is certainly better than living like this, he declared.

Now, don't miss an important point.

Jonah, you miss that shade, you miss that shelter.

Yeah.

Go back into town.

Go back into Nineveh, just right there.

There's plenty of shade there.

He'd rather die than take those steps back to where he's supposed to be.

Can you identify with that?

Oh, I can.

Times where I have known what I was supposed to do, where I could get shelter.

Those steps.

It's not the number of steps.

It's the destination of the steps.

To go back and admit I was wrong, that I was a rear-end, that I was a jerk, that I failed.

Oh, that's a long, long journey.

He wouldn't do it.

Death is certainly better than living like this, he declared.

Then God said to Jonah, Is it right for you to be angry because the plant died?

Yes, angry enough to die, he replied.

Then the Lord said, You feel sorry about the plant, though you did nothing to put it there.

It came quickly and it died quickly.

But Nineveh has more than twelve, I'm sorry, a hundred and a hundred, what is it, one hundred and twenty thousand people living in spiritual darkness, or the way many of your translations would say it, who aren't able to tell their right hand from their left.

That doesn't mean that they didn't know how to tell right from left.

What it means is they they had never been given the spiritual truth to know what was right from wrong.

They had lost their way.

They just didn't know what, they didn't know.

In contrast to Jonah, you've got the Torah, Jonah.

You've got a thousand years of spiritual light.

How many prophets have I sent you?

How many words from me have I sent you?

How many examples?

How many blessings, Jonah?

And you're gonna condemn these people who've never been given any light.

How dare you! That's what God's really saying there.

They're living in spiritual darkness, not to mention all the animals.

Shouldn't I feel sorry for such a great city?

Bless you.

We've studied chapters one, two, and three.

I'm coming.

I'm not in a hurry.

And um I just wanted to remind you, let me just read these to you real quick.

Five things that I hope you will not forget soon about Jonah 1, 2, and 3.

Number one, God does not offer us agreement.

God offers us truth and life.

His nature will not allow otherwise.

He will not offer us that which we want to hear, that which we are in agreement with, that which we believe.

He offers us truth and he offers us life.

Number two.

The Bible's purpose primarily is not to make us happy, not to make us good wives or good husbands, not to help us raise happy, successful kids, not to learn to be good company owners or company employees, not to be healthy, wealthy, and wise.

That's not the primary purpose of the scripture.

The primary purpose of the scripture is to reveal to us who God is.

Not the God that I wished he was.

Number three, to get a true picture of God, we've got to read all of the Bible, not just the parts that we like, the parts that we put on bumper stickers and refrigerator magnets and little uh macro or whatever little cross-stitching uh pictures on the wall.

Gotta read it all.

If you want a picture of God, a real picture of God, a true, holistic picture of God, you gotta read all the Bible.

Even the hard parts.

Number four.

We must not miss God's incredible love, passion, and pursuit of all people.

All people.

The righteous and the unrighteous.

Or should I say, the unrighteous and the self-righteous.

Those that are close and those that are far away.

The point being, no one's hopeless.

No one's too far away.

No one's too far gone.

No one's too bad.

God's pursuing everyone.

God is pursuing the president of Russia and the president of the United States.

And the homeless man that is gonna be right out here at Poplar and Ridgway or Kirby this afternoon, and he's pursuing the president of Apple computers.

He's pursuing everybody.

Number five.

I think it's incredible.

I hope that some of you, I'd love for all of you, to see the similarity between the book of Jonah and Luke 15, the story of the prodigal son.

The two story of the two brothers.

So many parallels.

It's just Old Testament story, New Testament story, same story.

And here's the question that I think is so important for us to at least be challenged with.

In the story of Jonah and in the story of the two brothers in Luke 15, who is God mad at?

Who's God mad at in the story of Jonah?

I hear all the, I don't really, I don't have time for Christianity because, you know, that's that God that's always angry.

Is that right?

The God of Christianity, the God of the Bible, the God of the Old Testament, even.

He's always angry.

Who's God angry at in Jonah?

Same question in Luke 15.

Probably go the story of the two brothers, paired with the two brothers.

Who's God angry at?

The older brother, the younger brother?

Who's the father angry at?

Neither one.

He's not angry at Nineveh.

He's not angry at Jonah.

He is a little busy trying to herd ants, but he's not angry at these people.

He loves them.

He loves them.

It's crazy how he loves them.

Okay, we're gonna look at Jonah chapter four today, today, this week and next week.

Um, you want to read us a couple of Jonah poems?

Poems?

I will.

Um, from this little book, of course.

Uh I don't know how you feel about this study.

I have been particularly moved, smitten perhaps, with the this idea that he just said, that Louis just said, that that God loves everybody and pursues everybody equally.

And of course I'm I'm quick to say, I bet I bet you are too, maybe.

I'm quick to say, yeah, but what about so-and-so?

What about so-and-so?

That that wretched person, that wretched place.

You know, there's always that one that's like I hope God saves everybody but that one.

And I think that's what what Jonah is.

He said, This one little two short little poems.

One's called a two-way conversation.

The poem says, At least Jonah talked back to God.

Often I I do not even do that.

Kind of speaks to your apathy and indifference.

Who cares?

Who cares?

We just ignore him.

At least Jonah had the courage to engage, to complain, to get angry.

I think God will take that any day over us just ignoring him.

This one's called question.

It says, I hate God's enemies with perfect hatred.

Why can't God do as much?

Wow.

That's a good one, isn't it?

Dude.

One little sentence.

And then this last one, it's entitled Coming Around.

And Jonah stalked to his shaded seat and waited for God to come around to his way of thinking.

And God is still waiting for a host of Jonah's in their comfortable houses to come around to his way of loving.

That's a good one.

It's a real good one.

Say it one more time.

And Jonah stalked, this about the plant Larry was talking about.

And Jonah stalked to his shaded seat and waited for God to come around to his way of thinking.

And God is still waiting for a host of Jonas in their comfortable houses to come around to his way of loving.

It just seems like there's always there's always parameters.

Like I I would do that, but if this weren't happening, or I would love her if she only had not.

Or but there's I would do that, but that parameter, that condition.

I think that's where Jonah sits.

You know, if they weren't so bad, if they weren't so wretched, I would, but it's an interesting place to sit.

And I I don't know about you, but I know that I sit there some.

We sit and wait for God to come around our way of thinking.

And he is sitting around waiting for us to come to his way of loving.

I I just think there's something in us that wants to fix things.

And so if I look at a problem or person that can't be fixed, or I don't think can be fixed, or I don't want to be fixed, then I just wash my hands.

And there's that's that's a natural way of being, but it is absolutely not love.

No.

At least not God's definition of love.

Right.

I want to try today for us to talk about two ideas, really, that are in chapter three and chapter four.

And I just waited for today to focus on them.

But both chapter three and chapter four of Jonah emphasize two different ideas about God, two qualities of God.

One is that God is compassionate or merciful.

Some of your translations will translate it merciful.

The Hebrew word for compassion and the Hebrew word for mercy, same word.

Same word.

Just like the Hebrew word for righteous or righteousness, and the Hebrew word for justice.

Same use that word.

God is just, God is righteous.

Some of your translations will they'll use those words interchangeably because it's the same idea.

Justice and righteous, or righteousness, compassion and mercy.

Jonah, let me let me read this to you.

I don't know if you noticed this, but in the uh up at the top of Jonah chapter 4, Jonah really says this in an accusatory way.

Jonah 4 · chapter mention

He says, God, I knew that you were merciful, compassionate, slow to angry, slow to get angry, and filled with unfailing love, eager to relent from destroying people.

Joan actually misquotes a verse from the Torah, from the Pentateuch, in Exodus chapter 34, verse 6.

Exodus 34:6

He was quoting it, but he didn't quote it exactly right.

And this is the very first time in the Old Testament that God describes himself.

This is where God describes himself to Moses in Exodus chapter 34, verse, it's actually verses 4, uh 34, verses 6 and 7.

Exodus 34 · chapter mention

And it's the most quoted, the the rest of the Old Testament writers, they quote those two verses more than any other verses about God in the whole Old Testament.

It's there, there's something very, it's sort of like the John 3.16 of the Old Testament.

The Old Testament writers, they recognize that what God said in Exodus chapter 34, verse 6 was very unique and very significant.

Exodus 34:6

And here's what God actually said to Moses.

Exodus 34, verse 6, God declared to Moses, the Lord, the Lord, let me stop there.

Exodus 34:6

You know anytime the Bible says a name twice, that means something's powerful about to happen.

When Jesus said Mary, Mary.

When Jesus said Martha, Martha, when Jesus said Peter, Peter.

There were times when God said to David, David, David.

It's very special when somebody repeats their name or their name is repeated twice.

That means this is big.

What's about to happen is big.

Pay attention.

This is significant.

And so God says, um, the Lord or Yahweh, Yahweh is literally what God says.

God of compassion and grace, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin.

I want you to think with me just for a couple of minutes about the significance that the very first thing that God emphasizes about himself when God introduces himself to his people.

The very first quality you would think it would be the God of love, or the God of holiness, or the God of rules.

But the very first quality that God chooses to introduce Himself with, I am the God of compassion.

I'm the God of compassion.

The Bible says that if you read the journey of Israel from Egypt to the Promised Land, I didn't have time to write all these out for y'all, but it says that God's compassion drove God to see Israel's pain, to hear Israel's cry.

God's compassion drove God to rescue his people, to guide his people, to forgive his people, to protect his people, to provide for his people, and to defend his people.

Isaiah 54 said it this way: With everlasting kindness, I will pour out my compassion on you.

You know, every time I read that verse, and there's a bunch of verses that would be similar to that, where God is pouring out his compassion on his people, it makes me think of Niagara Falls and just this never-ending like a flood.

A flood, thank you.

This flood, billions and billions of gallons of water pour over Niagara Falls every minute.

And it never stops.

What about in the summer still?

What about in the winter still?

What about when it's good time to Niagara Falls is unaffected.

Billions of gallons of water pour over those falls every minute.

And God's compassion in my mind is exactly like that.

It never runs out, it never stops, it's never thwarted, it never goes down to a, you know, we live in a country now where water is a big deal.

Water was never a big deal in America.

In our history, water has never been an issue.

Now all of a sudden, it's a huge issue.

All over the country it's an issue.

Mississippi River is more dry right now than it's been in a hundred years.

God's compassion, that's not the way it works.

That's not, He has such an abundance that it's never affected.

It's pouring out on you billions of gallons of compassion every minute.

I did a little study on the word compassion.

And just for those of you that would associate with me as Bible nerds, um, the word compassion has its root in the word for a woman's womb.

That's where the word compassion comes from, and what that means, the idea that they're trying to convey when they use the word compassion is it's the idea of a mother's love, a mother's passion, a mother's intense emotion and passion that is manifested in sacrificial actions.

Isn't that lovely?

The word compassion, it's from the root, a womb, and it conveys a mother's intense emotion and passion for her child expressed in loyal and sacrificial actions.

And in Isaiah 49, it says this: God says, even if a mother could forget her baby and show it no compassion, I will not forget you.

April, you ever forget your kids?

You ever you ever just say, oh my gosh, I totally forgot that I had kids?

No, of course not.

That's because it's not a relationship that you have, is it, moms?

It's your identity.

It defines you.

Not the only thing that defines you, I'm not saying that, but it does define you.

And God chose the relationship between a mom and a child to communicate how he feels about us and how he relates to us.

And in contrast, we have Jonah.

Jonah had no compassion for the lostness or the potential destruction of the Ninevehes.

And the reason why?

It didn't affect him.

Their salvation, their need, their pain, their destruction, their lostness, Jonah didn't care because it didn't affect him.

They live way over there, and I live way over here.

All he cared about one time we see Jonah happy when that plant was growing.

Because all Jonah cared about was what made him happy.

And he didn't care about anything else.

I thought about that lady that you talked with that was murdered about a month ago.

I'm not trying to start a fight with anybody in this room, and I'm not trying to argue, and if you want to argue about it, I'll say you win.

I'm wrong, you're right.

I'm just going to tell you.

But this is what I think.

I heard a lot of people say, well, the only reason that became a big national and international deal, the murder of that lady, was because she was white.

Or because she was rich.

I don't believe that for a second.

I'm not saying those weren't factors, but that's not why that became a big deal.

Especially it's not why it became a big deal in Memphis.

You know why that lady's death became a big deal in Memphis?

Because it impacted your life.

It inconvenienced you.

Wait, what?

You mean wait?

Yeah, some lady that I don't know was murdered.

Oh, that's so sad.

But wait, this is gonna affect when I run, where I run, how I run.

It's gonna affect my life.

Woo! Man, this is a big deal.

Woo! This is a big deal.

Because it affected us.

Maybe not me, but it affected it affected me through my wife and my daughter.

Do you see the contrast?

That's not.

Did God care about that?

Yes.

But not because it inconvenienced him.

God shows compassion because that's who he is.

That's what he does.

Not because, oh, if if I've got to show you compassion, because if I don't and you don't respond well, that's gonna mess up my whole kingdom plans.

No.

No, Cleo, that's not the way it works.

Jonah had no compassion for the Ninevites because it didn't, their destruction did not affect him.

Jonah only cared about the things that blessed him, helped him, made his life better, and made his life happy.

We show compassion primarily and consistently to people who impact us.

And that could not be as far from the God we claim to believe in and be inhabited by.

There's nothing more foreign than to only have compassion for people that impact us.

I can only see me and mine unless God supernaturally opens my eyes and lets me see people the way he sees them.

He can do that.

He can open my eyes, just like he opened blind people's eyes in the New Testament.

He can open our eyes so that we see people.

Are you gonna impact me?

Probably not.

I'm not high enough up on the food chain to impact you.

But I still have true, real, deep compassion for you and a desire to do you good, even though you will not impact my life.

The Bible says that when Jesus saw the multitudes, his heart was filled with compassion.

He saw the color of their eyes and the color of their skin and whether their teeth were crooked or straight.

He saw how tall they were, or how short they were, and whether they were men or women, or young or old, or rich or poor, or educated or uneducated.

He saw their marriages, he saw their children, he saw how they were reared, he saw their pains, their failures, their hopes and their dreams.

And as he saw them, as God sees them, his heart was filled with compassion.

If there's a message in the book of Jonah, it's the message that Larry Ray, and maybe you too, I spend my life running away from other people's pain.

Because it's a bummer, it's a downer.

And what is God doing in my life?

He's trying to bring me to people's pain.

Because that's where he is.

That's where he is.

Right in the middle of their pain.

Okay, we don't have time to get into this and do it service, but I just want to, I'll say what I can.

Did you have anything to say about compassion?

No, the only thing I was thinking as you were just just then was in my own life, um, I think a hindrance for me in showing compassion or even feeling compassion that I might not I might be too lazy to do anything about, um, is judgment.

You know.

Can you clarify that just a little bit?

Someone is has a need or or someone is in a situation that's hard, and I might feel called or or might be called to be to show compassion, to help, maybe just even feel compassion.

I see.

But my sense of judgment, I think this is true of Jonah, um, my sense of judgment rears its ugly head first and says, well, now you know, she asked for it, he asked for it, look what they've been doing.

I mean, you know, they should have known.

That, you know, that sort of comfortable judgment that comes from comfort.

I'm comfortable, and so I'm comfortable to.

We're more apt to help people that in our minds didn't cause the problem.

We care so much about why things are.

Yeah.

And there's there are moments that that's important.

But often that's within our very small group of like why the kid told a lie or why the kid cheated on the t.

I mean.

But but outside of that, why should we give money to, you know, blah, blah, blah.

They're just gonna blah blah blah.

That judgment stands like a stone in front of compassion, and I feel more justified because I think I know everything.

Or I think I know your motivation, so we think we know the other people's stories.

We project onto them, I know why he acts like that.

Do you?

You know why other people act the way they do?

Wow.

It didn't matter to your point about the prodigal son, it didn't matter why he took the money and went and spent all the money and then lived, you know, this right.

It's like it didn't when he came back home.

The dad didn't go, you know what, I'd like to sit down for you, son, and figure out why you did that.

He just said, come on, and make and let's let's create a uh what's the word?

There's a popular word now, boundaries.

I I'm gonna take you back, I'm gonna forgive you, I'm gonna reinstate you, but we're gonna create a strategy so that you can never hurt me again.

Never betray me again, never wrong me again.

I will not let you do that.

No, that's not what the dad did.

That's not what the dad did.

And the point is, well, are you saying that we shouldn't have boundaries and we shouldn't try to keep people from wronging us?

That's not my point.

What's the point of Jonah?

What's the point of Jonah?

To reveal who God is.

Not you, and not me.

It's not about us.

The story of Jonah reveals who God is, and God doesn't put up boundaries.

God doesn't say, now, I'm gonna forgive you this time, but I'm gonna create some criteria so that you will never hurt my feelings again.

You'll never wrong me again.

No.

When you pray, God, I'm sorry.

I know that was wrong.

And you've prayed that prayer 10,000 times.

God doesn't say, I knew you were going to do it.

I knew you were going to do that again.

No, it's as if it's the first time, every time.

God says, come home.

Let's have a party and let's start over again.

Whether we're unrighteous or self-righteous, he still is tickled to death when we come home.

He would have been tickled to death if Jonah had come home.

You know what?

We won't deal with that.

Let me just say when the Bible says that God is slow to anger, there's two important ideas there that I think it's important for us to be reminded of.

One is that God is slow to anger.

What that means is He gives us myriads of chances.

Myriads of mulligans.

Myriads of offers of forgiveness.

He is continually offering.

Just like have you ever read the story of Pharaoh and the ten plagues, and we go, man, God blasted him ten times with those plagues.

You could read it that way.

Or you could also read it like God tried ten times.

He begged Pharaoh ten times.

Please, please get out your throne like the king of Nineveh and humble yourself and acknowledge that I am God, you're not, and yield to me and cry out to me, and I will forgive you and heal you and heal your land and bless you and your land and your people.

Ten times God begged Pharaoh.

But it's a great example.

Because there is a day when God says, I'm slow to get angry.

But I do get angry.

I don't think there's any such thing as true love without anger.

If I love Chuck and I see somebody beating him up with a bat, I'm gonna get angry.

I'm gonna get angry if somebody hurt you.

For you, that's level seven.

Bother her.

And I'm gonna get on you like a bad smell.

Because love, when it sees injustice and wrong and evil, it gets angry.

This idea that God, oh no, the God of the Old Testament got angry, but the God of the New Testament didn't get angry.

That's not true.

That's not, read the whole Bible.

And I've got verses after verses after verses that talk about the anger and the wrath and the judgment of God in the New Testament.

In the New Testament.

But it's only after God has given myriads of chances and opportunities.

And we say no thank you, no thank you, no thank you.

And then God turns us over and lets us have our way.

Where I am is life.

And the further away from me you go, the more death you experience.

It's not that God's throwing lightning bolts and blasting people and zapping people.

That's not the God of the Bible.

It's that He lets us, He finally lets us, He accepts our no thank you.

And lets us experience the consequences of our own choices and ways.

I do we'll end there.

We've said enough.

Anything you want to add, friend?

Maybe next week.

Okay.

Maybe next week.

We're gonna look at chapter four one more time.

There's several other things that we need to look at.

Um okay, thank you, friend.

Um huh.

Chucky boy, I tell you what, Larry and April.

I I Lord, you wear that orange hat.

I don't know why you're wearing that hat today, but uh anyway, come on up.

Even an orange hat's okay at the foot of the cross.

Is that right?

So thank you.

Oh, Lordy.

We're gonna celebrate the Lord's Supper.

We do this each week, and we focus on different reasons why Jesus tells us when we gather together, I want you to celebrate and remember my body and my offering of that body on the cross and the shedding of my blood that was spilled at the cross.

I want you to remember that.

I want you to honor that.

I want you to rejoice in that.

At the end of the day, the word that the Bible would use to describe that event is the gospel.

We describe it with it's the death, it's the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

One of my heroes helped me see the gospel differently.

He said it this way: the gospel is the Bible's declaration that the wisdom of God has provided a way for the love of God to deliver us from the wrath of God without compromising the justice of God.

Let me say it one more time.

The gospel is the Bible's declaration that the wisdom of God has provided a way for the love of God to deliver us from the wrath of God without compromising the justice of God.

I wish I'd said that.

Yeah.

Is that your hope?

Is that your plea that we'll stand before God one day?

And in his wisdom, he is able to show you love because he has delivered you from the ultimate existence of people who tell God no thanks.

No thanks.

But he does it in such a way that he still honors his justice, his righteousness.

I invite you to come to April or Larry.

If you're an O Miss fan, you better come over on this side.

So and eat and drink and reflect and remember and give thanks for what God's wisdom and God's love has provided, and what we have missed out on because of that wisdom and love.

You come now, as God leads you.