JONAH (pt. 4)

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Today's message is from Pastor David Port.

I really don't like watching the news.

And yet, news seems to find me.

I could probably be in a room, padded room, probably where I need to be.

And news would still find its way in.

And every once in a while I like to bring things up in the news because it feels like such a dark world.

And I think we forget that God already knows that our world's dark.

Over the last month, we've we've heard quite a few different things.

Not even politics.

That's just, I flip channels when those things come on because they've never changed anybody's mind before.

But just the news of a couple people over the last couple weeks.

And if you watch the news or read the news, you know these names of Lindsay Clancy and Caleb Flynn.

Lindsay Clancy, if you don't know, was a mother who killed her children.

Big, big trial.

I'm not even going to go down that road.

Caleb Flynn was just found guilty for killing his wife just in the backyard in Tip City, Ohio, not far from where we used to live.

I actually know one or two people in the worship circles that knew this guy, because he was a pastor at one time.

And it's really hard to see the news in these cases in other news, whether it's the violent crimes or other crimes that happen.

But these two especially have sparked this interest and debate all around the country, probably all around the world.

And that debate sometimes is really hard to listen to.

Even in my own Christian circles, we've talked about it or we have posted on social media.

And I guess you can say rightfully so with earthly judgments, because consequences have actions.

Amen.

But what they have done is these debates have now come into this eternal debate because of such the crimes were so awful.

And I would hear or I would see questions like: are they forgivable?

Should we forgive them?

Even should God forgive them?

Where does God's forgiveness fit into this?

How am I supposed to love somebody like that?

And one of the things that I thought of this way, this week, was I'm thankful for a God whose grace has no bounds.

That I'm thankful for a God who offers his grace to all people and salvation to all people, no matter their past.

God's grace is not a reward we earn to keep.

God's grace is a gift that we are to share.

Matthew 28.

He didn't say go to the good people and preach the good news.

He said, Go to all the world and preach the good news.

And I think we see this in Jonah's, the end of Jonah's story here.

Over the last few weeks, we have seen that Jonah had that God called Jonah and Jonah ran.

And God sent a storm and got thrown overboard and then he was swallowed by a fish.

And we watched Jonah pray from the fish with thanksgiving over everything, even at his lowest point.

And finally, Jonah obeyed what God first asked him, and we saw a wicked city, an evil city, bow its knee before God.

Last week we ended, it said, God relented.

On a wicked city, that just doesn't mean that they weren't just doing little things here and there.

A wicked city usually means a wicked city.

That may be above average, because in the in the first chapter it said that their wickedness rose up, the cries rose up to God.

It was something that God took notice, and yet God relented.

And so over the last few weeks, we've woven this thread that God's storms are not punishment, they are his grace bringing us back.

That sometimes God uh gives us disturbances in our life, if you will, or storms in our life to draw us back in.

So many times we see them as discipline, and sure enough, they could be discipline, but it's not discipline like we go, you deserve this, but it's to draw us back into relationship with him.

So I don't know about you, but I when I read Jonah, I root for Jonah because I see myself in Jonah.

I want him to end well.

I've been inspired by Jonah.

I hope you've been inspired by what we've been able to read about Jonah.

I think we've all seen ourselves in Jonah.

I'm hoping, anyways.

But today, Jonah at minimum should cause you to think.

If not, break your heart just a little bit.

And I want you to hear this because I want you to be prepared for how we're how this book of Jonah that we know ends.

If you've never read this book, you you know it doesn't end totally on a high note.

This man that God pursued, this man that God saved from the sea and the fish, this man who God recommissioned even after saying no to God and running from God, this man who just watched an eternal wick or uh, I'm sorry, an entire evil city bow a knee before God in repentance, we're gonna find him sitting outside the city gate, furious, not relieved, not thankful, not praising God like in the fish, furious, furious about what had just happened.

Have you ever been so angry that even if something great happens, there's something else that just rises up inside you and causes disdain?

It pulls the joy out of it, it pulls the good out of it, drives you to contempt.

Well, they don't deserve that, or bitterness.

I don't like how they treated that person.

Why are they being blessed?

That we lose this lack of appreciation.

I I think this is where we find Jonah today.

And I think it's a warning for us that we aren't as far from Jonah in this part of the story as what we think.

So let's let's read this uh Jonah chapter four.

Um, remember last week we ended with God relenting, relenting calamity, relenting destruction.

And let's read these first four verses here.

But to Jonah, this seemed very wrong.

What?

God just saved the city.

To Jonah, this seemed very wrong, and he became angry and he prayed to the Lord.

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

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

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

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

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

Let's just hold it there.

Steve, just leave that up for a moment.

Leave that slide up because I want us to focus in on.

There's a couple questions we're going to focus in, and this is the first one.

Is it right to be angry?

In the context of what Jonah is going through right now, that God just saved not just Nineveh, but remember Israel, the kingdom's enemy, and now he's mad about it.

God asked the question Is it right for you to be angry about this?

What's Jonah's excuse for being angry?

Well, none other than God.

He's angry because of God's character, if I'm understanding this correctly, because he says, what?

Gracious, compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love.

He says, I knew this about you.

I knew this is what you ever said that?

I knew that's how you were gonna react.

That's why I didn't do anything.

That's what Jonah's saying.

I knew this was gonna how you were gonna react.

Now, Jonah's description of God, this gracious, compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love.

Does that sound familiar to you?

If you know scripture, it should, because where we hear this is on a on a mountain with Moses.

And this is how God describes himself.

I am gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, and abounding in love.

This is this is what God says.

This is how he describes himself.

So Jonah knows this.

Jonah understands who God is.

Again, Jonah knows scripture, but we also hear David saying it in the Psalms.

And now Jonah's using them as an accusation for why he's angry.

Seems kind of odd, doesn't it?

See, here's what we know now, after looking at the totality of the whole story, is Jonah ran because he didn't want God's goodness to reach people that were her his enemies that he had decided were beyond God's grace.

And maybe just maybe weren't even worth it or even his time.

And so the Lord questions him Is it right for you to be angry?

And if I may just add a little piece onto that.

I I don't mean to be adding the scripture here, but it sounds like is it right for you to be angry because I love your enemy?

Or I love the wicked city that you went to war with.

Jonah 4, verse 5.

Jonah 4:5

Here's how Jonah responds.

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

I like to sulk.

Anybody else like to sulk?

I call it processing now because I've gotten wiser in my age.

Right?

I don't sulk, I process.

I like to go to a quiet room in a comfortable place where nobody can get to me, take a deep sigh, sometimes of relief, or just like what is going on, and wait things out.

Now, does anybody like to sulk?

I think many of us do, maybe not, maybe it's just me.

But here's what I like to do is I like to shelter myself.

Maybe, maybe that's because I'm a people person, but people drain my energy.

I'm introverted, and so I need a place just to decompress and to press things out.

Sulk, call it sulking if you want.

Jonah has now created shelter, and he's just watching the city, watching from the outside.

I mean, he obeyed, he did what God said, he he preached, and now he's waiting at a distance, just seeing what's gonna happen.

Maybe, just maybe, he's hoping that God would see it his way, and maybe God would not relent anymore.

I wonder with him walking out of the gates if this is still him running.

I wonder if this is a different type of running.

I don't I don't think running from his faith, because he obviously believes in God.

Tarshish was running from God's call.

For me, this seems to be Jonah running from God's heart.

This seems to me, for me, that Jonah is running from his heart being changed more like God's.

In other words, maybe this question is rightfully asked.

Does Jonah truly desire what God does?

Is does Jonah truly desire, want, want to become more like God is?

Or is Jonah really just walking through a selfish desire and dressing it up in faithfulness?

Because I think we do that.

I think we say, This is the way I want it, because this is what I think it's like being faithful.

But it may not be what God wants or what God intends, and that's what we wrestle with in our faith.

Sometimes we do things and we say, I'm gonna do it just so that I can show people I'm faithful, but we really don't have a heart in it.

This is what Jesus talks about giving and stewardship is where is your heart in all of that?

Because that's what he looks at.

So truly, does Jonah truly desire what God does?

What's what's our shelter?

What's your shelter?

What's your desires today that might differ from God?

In other words, what is the place you have built where you can follow God safely but keep Him as arm lengths away?

Because you don't want God dabbling in everything in your life, because you built this life, you worked hard for this life.

I don't want God to mess with my life.

God, I don't want you to mess with my finances.

God, I don't want you to mess with my habits.

God, I don't want you to mess with my politics.

I don't want you to mess with how merciful I want to be or how kind I want to be.

I don't want you, God, I don't want you to mess with the media, the movies, the music, or whatever else, the books I consume.

God, I don't want you to mess with what I do late on Friday nights when nobody's watching.

We build shelters, we build silos.

And it seems like we want to wait for God to either agree with us or just to give in to us and go, yeah, they're not gonna move, that's who they are.

But here's the thing: here's what I've learned in my life that God does not give in and he won't be sheltered from.

That God will always pursue your heart and he will always want you not to stay where you're standing, because he knows we all can grow more in his grace and his mercy and his forgiveness to be more and more like him.

Let's hear how God doesn't give in to Jonah, verses six through eight.

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

And Jonah was very happy about the plant.

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

When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint, and he wanted to die, and said, It would be better for me to die than to live.

So, in all this, God gives Jonah a gift.

He gives him a plant, a plant that gives shade, a vine, a big leaf, and it gave Jonah what?

Comfort.

And scripture says that Jonah was happy because God blessed him.

God saw what he needed and God blessed him.

I want you to think about this a second.

God gives Jonah relief and he is happy, but the city of thousands of people repents, and Jonah is angry.

Jonah is more moved by his own selfish comforts from a plant serving his own needs than a whole wicked city comforted and moved by the grace of God, and God will not let this settle in Jonah.

This might be a harder lesson than the fish, if you ask me.

God provided the plant, and now he's gonna provide this worm.

Two very small items in a great big world are now being used to teach and to draw Jonah back again.

It's another small storm, if you will.

But this gives Jonah a taste of what Jonah really wanted for Nineveh.

God sends comfort and mercy.

God is the comfort, the plant, the the forgiveness.

Jonah's the worm.

The worm is Jonah.

He wants to take away his own comfort.

So God's showing this is what I'm trying to do, Jonah, is you see this comfort for you.

The comfort I'm I'm offering these, I've offered these people and given is so much greater.

The people of Nineveh, though Israel's enemies were personal to God.

Jonah saw them as enemies.

God saw them as a people that could be saved.

And so instead of destruction, his first desire was salvation.

That's why he sent Jonah in the first place.

Jonah wanted pity personally, but he wanted judgment for everyone else.

Jonah wept over a vine, but he shrugged at a city full of souls.

It's easy for us to be guilty of the same thing.

It really is.

We cry over the inconvenience in our lives, the pain in our lives, but we shrug at others, especially those that we think are undeserving of God's mercy and his grace.

Some who might be in this community that you know, maybe in this room.

Or even others we don't know, but we judge from afar.

Like Lindsay Clancy and Caleb Flynn.

It's easy for us to judge what they've done without actually knowing them, without actually giving the gospel of Jesus to them.

What thing has your heart?

What has a hold of your heart while a person that God loves has none of your heart?

Should we not care for them too?

This is the question that God's gonna ask here.

It's the question that if you will, this story ends on.

Verses 9 through 11.

Let's read through these.

But God said to Jonah, again, he asked him, this ties it back to what he asked them in the first place.

Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?

This is the tie-in.

If you're gonna be angry, you know, is it right for you to be angry about the plant?

Is it is it right for you to be angry with me for saving?

Jonah says, It is.

And I'm so angry, I wish I were dead.

He's still justifying his feelings.

Verse 10, the Lord said, You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow.

And it sprang up overnight and died overnight.

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

That's all we know.

That's the end of the story.

It ends with a question.

There's no seeming resolution.

I don't know if there's any movie goers in there, but in today's world, if you go to the movies, you gotta stay through the credits because there's a hidden scene.

Amen, movie goers.

You gotta there, there's none of that here.

We we don't have any after-credit scenes, we don't have a happily ever after.

It ends with a question: should I not care for Nineveh?

Other translations will say pity.

Should I not pity Nineveh?

So why might it end like this?

Here's what I think.

I think the question, as much as it is for the original audience that it was written for, is for us.

As much as it is, Jonah.

He's asking this, Jonah, but I think the author's writing it so that the people who's reading it or hearing it ask themselves the same question.

Should I not care for Nineveh?

Should I not care for Delaware?

Should I not care for Ohio?

Should I not care for Lindsay Clancy?

Should I not care for Caleb Flynn?

Let's push a little further.

Should I not care for the Iranians?

Should I not care for the Somalians?

Should I not care for the Palestinians?

Should I not care for the Russians?

They're all our enemies, is what we're told, amen.

And yet, God Says I desire after their hearts as well.

Should we not care for?

What about the neighbor that just irritates me to death?

Should I not care for?

I'm not talking about earthly consequences here.

I'm talking about eternal consequences because we believe two things.

We see it all over scripture, but the two passages that come to mind, Romans 3, verse 23, is all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Romans 3:23

Every single one of us, every single one of us need a savior.

Every single one of us needs God's mercy and God's grace.

And in that comes the promise through Jesus that all who believe and have faith will be saved.

All not just good people, not people from certain countries or certain ethnicities or certain um tax brackets.

All who believe will be saved.

Should I not care for fill in the blank?

But so many so many times.

So many times we ask God to be smaller than he really is.

Or even we ask him to live to give less grace than what he offers.

We want him to follow our conditions, our understanding of grace, instead of us following his.

Yes, even that person you don't like, even that person he wants to save.

I know personally I'm thankful that he even wanted to save me.

God's not done with you.

God's not done with you, just not even in this world on calling what you do.

God's not done growing you in grace in this world, and he's not going to be done growing you in grace when you leave this world and you're in heaven.

In fact, John Wesley says that he believed that we continue to grow in grace eternally.

Try to think about that this week.

God is not done with the people who have caused hurt and pain and trauma and chaos in our lives, the lives of our loved ones, the lives of people all around the world.

God offers his grace to them too, and we dare not forget that.

Because we pray in the Lord's Prayer, forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.

Every week, every day, we pray that.

How shocking will that be?

That you aren't as good as what you think you are.

At least that's what I think about myself.

A grace-filled heart will understand this a whole lot better than one that's filled with bitterness and judgment.

This all points to Jesus.

The Bible, the book of Jonah, it all points to Jesus.

That we all need a savior, that God continues to run after us, that through Jesus, Peter says that Jesus himself bore our sins in his body on the cross.

So that we may die to sins and live for righteousness by his wounds.

You have been healed.

He's writing this to people who may or may not believe.

Jonah sat outside wanting and waiting for a city to burn.

Jesus came over and wept over it.

He weeps over our world today, yet.

When we turn, we repent and we believe we are saved.

Anyone can be saved through Jesus, but that does not give us the right to restrict God's free grace from other people.

We're called to share it, not to control it.

Studying Jonah through a gospel lens, I think we can conclude this, among other things, that God will not become the God you want him to be, but he can transform you into the person he created you to be.

And for us, that's the good news.

For four chapters, we have seen God's relentless grace offered to Jonah and to sailors and even to a wicked city.

And he has done that for each one of us in this room and the whole world, all of our lives.

So the question isn't whether God is good or whether that he will be good or that he can be good.

The question is whether we desire him to offer grace for all people, even if that means that God wants to provide his grace through us to the people we don't like.

Our enemies.

God has brought you out so that He could bring you back.

God brings you back so his grace will pour out through you to the whole world.

This is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.

This is what it means to be part of his church.

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