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First Baptist Church of El Dorado - Sermons
Tune in each week as Pastor Taylor Geurin leads us into a study of God's Word.
First Baptist Church of El Dorado - Sermons
Into the Deep: Can You Love Who God Loves? | Jonah 4
Jonah's anger over God showing mercy to Nineveh reveals a profound disconnect between his theological knowledge and his heart's response to God's character.
• Jonah becomes furious when God spares Nineveh after their repentance
• Despite correctly understanding God's character as merciful and gracious, Jonah refuses to embrace God's compassion for others
• Head knowledge without heart transformation makes us "noisy gongs or clanging cymbals" (1 Corinthians 13)
• God provides an object lesson through a plant, worm, and scorching wind to expose Jonah's hypocrisy
• Loving God authentically means loving what God loves—including people we might consider unworthy
• We are all "Ninevites" who have received God's mercy despite our sin
• The history of missions shows countless believers who loved the lost enough to sacrifice everything
• Every believer is called to share the gospel with those in their sphere of influence
• We must ask ourselves: "Who will know Jesus because of my witness?"
If you've been touched by God's grace, don't keep it to yourself. Let your experience of God's mercy overflow into sharing the good news with those around you, both near and far.
1st Baptist, baptist El Dorado, will you join me now in listening to our sermon from this week? Amen, you can open with me to Jonah chapter four.
Speaker 2:Jonah, chapter four is today. We end our series in Jonah as we look at the final chapter, chapter 4,. And would you pray with me? Lord Jesus, we thank you for your word, thank you for what you've taught us already through this book, what you've taught us about obedience, what you've taught us about worship, what you've taught us about reaching out even to those that we might wonder if they could ever come to know Christ, because the reality is outside of you. We were the very ones that someone might have wondered could we ever really know Jesus? And yet, in your grace, you have come to us. And so, lord, teach us today more and more what it means to reach out to others with the gospel. Speak through me by your spirit. We ask in Christ's name, amen.
Speaker 2:Every four seconds in the United States, someone's identity is stolen and you have probably gotten the phone call, a phone call from Visa or American Express, and they've asked you, as you've sat in your home here in El Dorado, if you happen to be in Los Angeles and you've just spent $2,000 on Amazon gift cards and you've had to tell them that was very much not me. Every four seconds, someone's identity is stolen. I remember I mentioned last week, our trip to Israel back in 2016, and we were at dinner in Jerusalem and I got word I don't know if it was an email or call or what it was that our identity had been stolen and someone was trying to or successfully not trying, they successfully got into our account. And you imagine being that far ahead and trying to do all these calls in a foreign country. And I will say I was a part-time ministry intern at the time, so joke was on that individual. They did not make it very far. They picked the wrong guy. They picked the wrong guy.
Speaker 2:Jonah. Chapter 4, and really Jonah in general is really a case of stolen or maybe we could just say intentionally misplaced identity. Jonah has an identity, a title a prophet of God and yet all throughout the book of Jonah, and certainly in chapter four, what we see is that identity that he's supposed to be the prophet of God. His real life looks nothing like that Identity theft and really an intentional running away from his own identity. And we see it very clear at the beginning in verse one of chapter 4. I'll bring us right up to this moment, because last week what we saw through 310 is that the people of Nineveh, those evil people get the word from Jonah that destruction is coming in 40 days. And what do they do? They put themselves before the mercy of God, they repent of their sins and sackcloth and ashes from the king all the way to the lowest. Even the animals are repenting and they turn from their evil ways. And in verse 10, what we see is that God saw what they did and God turned from this destruction. God did not bring destruction upon him. And now my question is chapter 4, verse 1, how should that verse go? How should it be read? What does the prophet of God do in response? Because maybe we've read enough of scripture to know how this should go. There should be a celebration.
Speaker 2:I think of Luke, chapter 15, a passage. I bring up. Every other sermon really, but there's three stories in Luke, chapter 15. Number one there's a lost sheep. A shepherd has 99 sheep, but he loses one and he runs after the one and when he finds the one, he comes home and he throws a party, invites all the neighbors, and the text even says in the same way there is celebration among the angels in heaven, among one sinner who repents, who comes home. The very next story there's a lady that has 10 coins. She loses one. She turns the house upside down, she finds it, and when she does, she brings the neighbors in, throws a party. And it says in the same way the angels rejoice in one sinner who repents. In the third story we see a prodigal son says in the same way the angels rejoice in one sinner who repents. In the third story we see a prodigal son that runs far from home. When he repents and comes back home, what does the father do? He gets the robe, he gets the ring, the shoes, he gets the fattened calf. And they throw a party. Why? Because the one who was lost is now found. There's reason to celebrate. And so, with the model of scripture before me, my thought is that the whole trajectory of chapter four should simply be this. It should be the story of Jonah calling in all his Ninevite neighbors now and them throwing a big party that he gets on Amazon or goes to party city and there is a celebration that is now about to happen.
Speaker 2:But as we read chapter four, we realize that's not what happens. In verse one we see this, but it displeased Jonah exceedingly and he was angry, jonah's mad, about what has happened. This people of Nineveh. What the text says 120,000 people have repented, have, in the mercy of God, avoided destruction. And Jonah is furious Not just furious at the people of Nineveh that they could do something like this how could you repent at the final moment but furious at God for allowing it to happen. How could you do this?
Speaker 2:We read that in verse two, and he prayed to the Lord and said oh Lord, is this not what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you were a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster. Basically, in Jonah, chapter four, verse two, jonah looks up at God and just says this God, I told you so I told you way back in Joppa that this is exactly what was going to happen. That, god, I know enough about you to know this that you just can't help yourself. God, you can't help, but showing grace and mercy when people cry out for your grace and mercy, you won't seem to follow through with your destruction when there are people crying out for mercy. God, I knew this would happen. Mercy, god, I knew this would happen.
Speaker 2:What's interesting about Jonah's response here and his anger is that his theology it's not bad. In fact, what he says in verse two about the character of God is exactly right. It's interesting how his theology is so spot on but his heart and motivation are so far from the things of God. It's interesting that what we know in our head can sometimes struggle to get to the heart. Because again, jonah is not wrong here.
Speaker 2:In Exodus, chapter 34, we see a moment when God speaks to Moses about who God is. So this is God writing his own testimony of his character and it says the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. This is God explaining who God is and faithfulness, this is God explaining who God is. That I am merciful, that I am slow to anger, that I abound in steadfast love. Jonah's theology is right about who God is, but again, his theology about who God is has entered the head but it has not moved to the heart. His theology has not led him to love the one who God loves, to care for the one whom God cares for. It reminds me so much of 1 Corinthians 13.
Speaker 2:Maybe you've been at a wedding, and rightfully so. You've heard those beautiful words from 1 Corinthians 13, the passage about love. Again, we hear it about at marriages, but really it's not a passage strictly about marriage though certainly is but it's just about Christian love in general. And it says this in these first three verses if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I am a noisy gong or clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and knowledge and if I have all faith as to remove mountains but I don't have love, I'm nothing. If I give away all I have and if I deliver up my body to be burned but have not love, I gain nothing.
Speaker 2:It's interesting Paul understood in 1 Corinthians what Jonah missed that theology that just stays in the head and doesn't move to the heart and to the hands, knowledge about God that does not lead us to imitate God, pursue the holiness of God. It really doesn't mean a lot that we may have the right answers, that on a certain test we could fill in the right blanks and maybe get a decent score, but in the test of life, as far as how we love one another and those around us, it's clear that God really hasn't affected the heart and the hands. It's so interesting that Jonah knows the character of God and through knowing the character of God, that makes him furious. It makes him furious that God would act in the very way that God has always said that he would act. And really, jonah wants God to operate on his terms, on Jonah's terms. And that leads me to the first point in just a second. And before I put it out there, if you've ever wondered why First Baptist Church made me the senior pastor and put my name over the door, it's because you can get points like this. Let's put it on the screen.
Speaker 2:Loving God means loving God. I know we're going deep today. Loving God means loving God. You say, taylor, how long did it take you to get to that? But it really is deeper than what it looks like. Loving God means loving God as God says that God is. Loving God means loving the accurate picture of God, the true God, not the God that I've made in my image, not the God that I've made so that he will operate on my terms and he will surely always keep me comfortable and keep me right where I want to be, not the God that I get from the outside world, but the God, as scripture proclaims that God is.
Speaker 2:Loving God means loving and serving accurately the true picture of who God is as he has revealed himself. And that was the problem with Jonah. He wanted to love the God that Jonah had made in his image, the God that will operate exactly like Jonah wants him to operate. The God that when people like Nineveh commit to years of evil and sin, that God will then come, no matter what repentance they might try to do at the last minute. That God will then come and wipe them out. That's the God Jonah. That's not accurate. Loving and serving God means that we love God on God's terms, that we come to grips with who he is.
Speaker 2:Cs Lewis says that God is the great iconoclast, one who smashes our icons, smashes our idols. So, continually, god has to come and tear down our own pictures of who we've designed, of God as we've made him in our own image, and he's got to replace the inaccurate picture with the accurate picture of who God is. In his word, god gets to define who God is. God gets to have mercy on whom he will have mercy. God gets to have the final say.
Speaker 2:Jonah didn't like that God and because of that Jonah's going to get an object lesson from God. And really, verse three through 11 is all about this lesson that God's going to teach Jonah. Verse three, therefore. Now, o Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. This begins the pity party from Jonah on a hillside. God, if this is who you are, if this is how you operate, if I'm going to come all the way to a place like this and not at least get the firework show at the end of the day, god, just take me now. Verse four. And the Lord said do you do well to be angry? Jonah went out of the city verse five and set to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there, and he set in the shade till he should see what would become of the city. He goes up to the hillside, he looks back at the town of Nineveh and says maybe again, god will change his course of action. Maybe, just maybe, it's my lucky day and God has heard my cries and my argument and my plea and he'll actually realize. Jonah, you know what, even though I'm the sovereign God of the universe, you bring up some great ideas and I will destroy the city of Nineveh. Maybe that could happen. Jonah says. But God's got a lesson to teach him.
Speaker 2:Verse six now the Lord, god, appointed a plant. We've seen throughout the book already, and we'll see more that God can appoint and use anything he wants. He appointed a fish to be right at the perfect location for Jonah. He appointed that same fish to spit Jonah out onto dry land. Now, verse six God 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. So not only is Jonah on the hillside now, but, in God's grace and mercy, god has this plant grow up that provides shade for Jonah. So now Jonah has this hillside seat and he gets to be in the shade.
Speaker 2:Verse 7, but when dawn came up the next day, god appointed a worm. There he is again appointing things, appointed a worm that attacked the plant so that it withered Again. Let's keep track here. God gave a plant for shade. God sent the worm. It attacked the plant. It's now gone, it's withered.
Speaker 2:Verse 8, then, when the sun rose, here's God appointing. God appointed a scorching east wind. Earlier in the book. He appointed the waves to rattle the boat and now he appoints the east wind. He's even sovereign over the weather. 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. But God said to Jonah do you do well to be angry for the plant? And he said yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die. God gave a plant for shade. God took the plant away. The sun shone on Jonah. He grows faint and he says God that's enough, just send me on my way, just be done with all of this.
Speaker 2:And here comes the lesson, verse 10,. 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 and perished in a night, and should not. I pity Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle. If you're catching the lesson, it's really this Jonah, you love that plant. When it offered you shade, when I grew it up from the ground and it provided that shade for you. You celebrated, you loved that plant so much. But here's what's interesting, jonah you had nothing to do with the creation of that plant. You had no way to make that grow, no part of you had anything to do with that plant being there. And yet when that plant was gone, you were sad, you were upset, you were even angry at me.
Speaker 2:And then the Lord says this. And then the Lord says this can I not be sorrowful over 120,000 people that I created, that I actually invested into that I and compassion, even in their evil state? Am I not allowed to love my creation? If you can love something so much you didn't create, can I love something that I created? Can I show mercy on these individuals that don't know their right hand from their left? Am I not allowed to be God and operate in the gracious mercy that I have forever operated within Jonah? Am I allowed to do this? And that leads me to my second point, which is really just this Loving God means loving what God loves. Loving God means loving what God loves. Serving God means serving the one whom God loves.
Speaker 2:It's interesting that after that verse, once the Lord lays out this lesson, after verse 11, the book ends. It's somewhat a cliffhanger, because we have no idea what Jonah does next. I hope and pray that he completely gets the message and he completely repents and says Lord, I have been off this whole time. I understand it now. Praise God, nineveh is saved. It could be, though, that Jonah takes his pity party to the next level and never really gets over his anger. We don't know how it ends, but we have this cliffhanger, and I just wonder if the author gives us this cliffhanger to put the ball in our court so we can say this what do we now do with this text?
Speaker 2:What do we do with the story of Jonah? Not? What is Jonah's next move? What is our next move? Can we love the things that God loves? Can we love the ones whom God loves?
Speaker 2:And I'll ask this question what is it, or should I say who is it, that God loves? Well, it's certainly all people. And now let this blow our minds. Let this blow our minds who does God love? Sinners, the broken, the sinful, the Ninevites, the outsiders, the one who are running away in sin? I just want to ask each one of us do we have love for sinners? Do we have love for people that not only don't know Jesus but don't want to know Jesus, go out of their way to not know Jesus. Maybe even go out of their way to let you know just how much they do not know Jesus. Do we have love for those people? Do we have love for those who are on the outside, who are living a life so different from what the word of God calls each person to live, because they don't know the authority of the word of God and they don't know the Savior whom the word of God speaks to?
Speaker 2:It's so fascinating to me when I look around the world, whom the word of God speaks to. It's so fascinating to me when I look around the world and every day, if you look at the news, if you look at the local news, if you look at the national news, the world news, what you're going to see. So often you're going to see some good stories along the way that make you happy. But oftentimes, when you watch the news, guess what you're going to see. You're going to see sinful people. Oftentimes, when you watch the news, guess what you're going to see. You're going to see sinful people. You're going to see some sinful people that have done some sinful things. You don't have to look at the news, when you just look around town, when you just look let's be honest in the mirror as well I'm not picking on anybody else but when you just look at the world, sinners often act like sinners.
Speaker 2:I don't think that surprises us today, and sometimes I just it hurts, and certainly hurts all the time, really to see when sinners act like sinners and are so far from the things of God. But I got to tell you what scares me, what keeps me up at night, is not simply that there's sinners out there acting like sinners Lord, would it be that we can go spread your gospel? But what really scares me is that there are believers not acting like believers. That there are believers in this lost and broken world who every day live around lost and broken people, and those lost and broken people don't get word from that believer that there is a Savior. They don't hear the gospel. That every one of us, if we're honest every one of us, if we're honest sometimes we go around town and the gospel of Christ is not on the tip of our tongue that sometimes we interact with lost people I'm not picking on you, I'm telling my story too.
Speaker 2:Sometimes we are around lost people and in our mind we think they don't want anything to do with this. I know them and if I brought up Jesus, at best I'd just get made fun of. At worst they'd say done with this guy. Or certainly, hey, listen, they need a lot more than little old me telling them you know a little Bible story. They need more than that. No, no, what they need is someone in their lives who has been radically transformed by the grace of Christ, that can just tell them there is something about this Jesus that changed my life and I just believe he can change yours too.
Speaker 2:When Jonah looked across at the city of Nineveh, all he saw were evil people that he would say they're a lost cause and they've got no hope. When God looked at the city of Nineveh, he saw creation that was just waiting to hear that there is hope, that there is a God who saves. And who is it in your life, in your sphere of influence? And who is it in your life, in your sphere of influence? Who is it? Students, as you I'm sorry to bring it up start school in a week and a half. Who is it in your classroom this year? Who is it as you're about to start the fourth grade that's going to be sitting at the desk beside you and on day one of school does not know Jesus. But on the last day of school they know Jesus. Who is it on your football team that's going to know a little bit more about Jesus? Who is your coworker that you meet at the water cooler? And usually you're talking about the football games from the week before, and that doesn't have to stop. But with that you're also going to talk about the gospel. Who is it around town at the coffee shop? Who gives you your coffee? Who's behind the counter? Who is it that needs the hope of the gospel? Let me tell you you don't have to wait on someone else to tell them about Jesus. You're the one. Nineveh is out there and if you've ever wanted to be encouraged this morning, let me just tell you you can do a better job than a guy in scripture who's literally a prophet of God. A prophet of God, and you can go out and I bet you can beat him at his own game, because you can tell the gospel of Jesus and you can actually celebrate when people hear the gospel and, lord willing, respond to the gospel.
Speaker 2:I love the history of missions for Christians, really, since the Lord, jesus Christ, gave the commission after his resurrection in Matthew 28,. He said go make disciples of all nations, and there from there the history of missions went forward. I was reading this week about John G Patton. He was a missionary in the early to mid 1800s in the New Hebrides Islands, today called the Vanuatu Islands, and I smiled at Katie because I spent all weekend working on pronouncing both of those terms. He was a missionary to the New Hebrides Islands in the South Pacific in the 1800s, sent out from London, and in his autobiography he's kind of given an account of the history of missions to the New Hebrides Islands up to this point and he has a fascinating story. These are his words giving the history of missions to this island. He says this. A glance backwards of the story of the gospel in the New Hebrides may help to bring my readers into touch with the events that are to follow. The ever-famous names of Williams and Harris are associated with the earliest efforts to introduce Christianity amongst this group of islands in the South Pacific seas.
Speaker 2:John Williams and his young missionary companion Harris, under the sending of the London Missionary Society, landed on Irremanga on the 30th of November 1839. Alas, within a few minutes of their touching land, both were clubbed to death, and I won't read the next sentence about what happened with them even after being clubbed to death. Thus were the new Hebrides baptized with the blood of the martyrs, and Christ thereby told the whole Christian world that he claimed these islands as his own. His cross must yet be lifted up where the blood of his saints has been poured forth in his name. The poor heathen knew not that they had slain their best friends, but tears and prayers ascended for them from all Christian souls wherever the story of the martyrdom on Irmanga was read or heard. Those were the first two missionaries to the New Hebrides Islands, and I might think what happens next If you're the London Missionary Society and you've sent two missionaries down to the South Pacific and before they could get a word out, they were martyred for their faith.
Speaker 2:What happens next? I might think about this. I might say what happens next? Nothing happens next, we're not sending the next crew. I think in 2025, those little islands in the South Pacific would be a remote group of islands that we could probably just forget about Much more in 1839, if we just don't talk about them. They're not even there.
Speaker 2:What does the London Missionary Society do? They send the next two missionaries Again. Therefore, in 1842, the London Missionary Society sent out Turner and Nesbitt to pierce the kingdom of Satan. They placed their standard on our chosen island of Tanah, the nearest to Irmanga. In less than seven months, however, their persecution by the savages became so dreadful that we see them in a boat trying to escape by night with their lives. Two more missionaries are sent down. They get a little further, but persecution leads them to have to escape by night. But here's what's interesting they're alive. That looks like progress to me.
Speaker 2:So what does the London Missionary Society do? They send the next two missionaries down to the New Hebrides Islands, for the sake of the gospel and what we see by these two men, getty and Inglis. They go down and they saw about 3,500 savages it says their words throwing away their idols, renouncing their heathen customs and avowing themselves to be worshipers of the true Jehovah God. And those two missionaries, along with the people of the New Hebrides themselves, they save up all of their money. They all put their money together so that they can pay for a new translation of the word of God in their original language. So now the people of the New Hebrides have a copy of God's word that they celebrate. That now penetrates the darkness in the New Hebrides, and what is the history of missions in that place? It's a history of people saying I will go to the darkest of places, I will go to where the gospel has not been preached.
Speaker 2:I think of Paul as we return to Romans next week. Why does he write the book of Romans In one part? Because he wants the church at Rome to be a home base, a sending place that the gospel could go even further, even into Spain, and that would be the church at Rome, the sending agency. Because what does Paul say? I want to preach the gospel where it has not yet been proclaimed. I think of John Patton.
Speaker 2:I think of the Moravian brethren. I think when they would go out on mission, they would pack all of their luggage in coffins and they would go to this place because they knew this I need my luggage and I need my coffin because I'm not going home. And the motto of the Moravian Brethren was this get a load of this. This was their motto. Preach the gospel, die be forgotten. That was their motto. Preach the gospel, die be forgotten. I think of David Brinard, who was a missionary even in the 1700s to the Native Americans here, before we were even a country. I think of Lottie Moon, a young woman leaving everything behind to go to China and seeing people come to the gospel. I think of one who is in this room right now, maybe a child among us, that one day will drop everything and will go to the nations and will make much of Jesus on the other side of the globe. I even think of the missionaries in this room who tomorrow morning are going to go to their workplace, next week to their schools, that are going to go to their homes and they are going to make much of Jesus.
Speaker 2:Do you love the things that God loves? Do you love the people that God loves? Do you know the gospel that God has given? Here's the gospel that you are, in the truest sense, a Ninevite, in the truest sense, a Ninevite. That you are, in the truest sense, lost and dead in sin, and yet Christ came to you Through the cross, the resurrection, our gospel. There is forgiveness of sins and there is life. If you know that gospel, don't be like Jonah, who loves mercy for himself but no one else. Be someone that understands so deeply what Christ has saved you from that. Now you can't help but tell the greatest news to the world, to those who are close by, maybe next door, and those on the other side of the globe Do you love the ones whom God loves?
Speaker 2:I'm going to pray for us and after that I'm going to invite you, if you desire, to come down and respond. If that means you want to join this church or talk about baptism, or even talk about coming to know Jesus for the first time, I'd love to do that. As always, our altar is open. If you just need to come and pray, if you want to come to me and I can pray with you. However you want to respond, now is your opportunity. Let me pray and then we'll worship together.
Speaker 2:Lord Jesus, thank you so much for the gospel.
Speaker 2:You have saved us from sin and so, lord, let that lead us to share the good news with others. Lord, how awful it would be if I sat here keeping your love all to myself, your grace all to myself, loving the fact that you've saved me, but not loving others enough to share the gospel with them. Lord, may it not be. Let your love in my life overflow, lord, in each one of our lives overflow in such a way that out of that overflow, lord, your gospel goes forth to those who are very close and those who are very far. Lord, I pray that it would be, lord, if there's any in the room this morning that just need to respond in any way, whatever that may be. They may be in the room and they don't know how to respond, but they know your spirit's stirring in some type of way, lord. Maybe they just need to come talk to myself or someone. Lord, would they do so even now? I ask this in Christ's name, amen. Would you stand as we worship together and I'll be down front.