Jonah and Jesus- Part 6 5.31.26

This is the final episode in this sermon series.  In this episode we study the heart of God and God's invitation to Jonah to reflect compassion, love and mercy.  

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Would you stand as uh I read the last chapter of Jonah? Jonah chapter four. But to Jonah this seemed very wrong.

SPEAKER_00 0:14

He became very angry. He prayed to the Lord, Isn't this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, you're slow to anger and 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? Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade, and waited to see what would happen to the city. Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant. He 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. And when the sun rose God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah's head, so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, It would be better for me to die than to live. But God said to Jonah, Is it right for you to be angry about the plant? It is, he said, and I'm so angry I wish I were dead. But the Lord said, You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and it died overnight. And should I not have concerned for a 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. You may be seated. And that is how the story ends, uh, which is an interesting ending. This weekend, Don and I went. Uh we were at the National Cathedral for a Christian festival for the last couple of days, and gathered there were a thousand people from all over the country and all over the world. There were scholars and there were artists and there were uh clergy and lay people and people from all these different disciplines, both Christian and non-Christian. And one of the questions that was being asked all throughout this festival was what is struggling to be born? In this time in history, what is struggling to be born? Which it's an important question, and it's a really hopeful question. That something new is going to be made out of what's happening in this moment in history. And so we we get to the end of the book of Jonah, and we feel this real deep tension in the conversations. There's a tension between Jonah and the people around him that's been going on for the whole four chapters. There's this tension between him and God, a deep tension between the two of them. And something seems to be struggling to be born in Jonah's life. Something must be coming up from Jonah, something new to be born. And will Jonah surrender to it? Will Jonah give in to it and allow it to happen? Will Jonah allow what he knows to be true about God, about God's heart, to be true of his own heart? It's really complex and disruptive and messy when what we believe about God collides with what we see around us and what we think we know about this world. In the story of Jonah, God sends Jonah to warn Nineveh to stop their violent way of life, and it ends with this description of Yahweh being compassionate and gracious and slow to anger and abounding in love, that he's a merciful God, even to those whom Jonah does not think deserve it. So are there beliefs that you and I hold about God that collide with how we think life should be? Like when Jesus says, Love your neighbor, and someone in the crowd says, Well, who all do we include in the category of neighbor? And then we're wondering, are there boundaries to who I should love and not love? And so here we are in Jonah chapter four today. Jonas walks out of the city and he's fuming. He's so angry. And and the Hebrew word would be his nostrils are flaring. That's how he's feeling. And so he's have you ever been really angry? Like, I mean, angry to the point that you are you are losing rationality, like you are not even being rational anymore. Have you been there? Okay. So here he is, he's so angry. And we've seen it a few times. He's like, I'm so angry, I want to die. That's an interesting way for him to share how angry he is, that he wants to die himself. And he tells God the reason why, and we read the reason why. He's so angry and he's upset about uh what God has been doing and why he ran away. In summary, God is too merciful, God is too compassionate, he's too patient, which is an ironic thing.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

He is too merciful, especially with his enemy.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

And then Jonah builds this little small shelter. He sits on the side of the hill and he watches. The text says he watches it and waits to see if the city is going to be destroyed. And as he waits, God cares for him patiently. He allows this plant to grow. He grows this plant to give Jonah a little bit more shade. And this is the only time in the text where Jonah is happy. It says that he, in Hebrew, it would have been he had great joy. This is the only time he was not joyful when the people all turn and said, We're not going to be violent anymore. He wasn't joyful then. He's only joyful when something happens that only benefits him. Where he is comforted and that he is benefited. And in a comedic sort of way, God sends this little worm and destroys the plant that gives him shade. And Jonah just goes mad. He's so livid. And Jonah, we see his heart's more concerned about a dying plant than 120,000 people who have been violent to each other, or that possibly God's judgment would come upon. And even there, Jonah is not really concerned about the dying plant. He's concerned about his own comfort being taken away from him. So, graduates, congratulations. I believe it's already happened. Sam, did you already walk? Congrats. Evie, you already walked, right? Nice. And Victoria's about to walk, as uh as Dean said, she'll walk uh this Saturday. So, graduates, I want to I just want to pose a couple of things to you this morning, a couple of questions for you to consider. And maybe you could hold on to them the rest of your life, because those who are older in this room can attest that these questions are really important as you walk through your entire life. And these are questions that just kind of surfaced as I was reading Jonah chapter four and the whole story. And so let me go through three questions for you. Number one, are things becoming more important to you than people? I think it's a question that we all have to hold on to as we walk through this life. And I have to like assess what evidence would show that things are more important than people, or are people more important than things in my life? And there are different things that could could reveal that as I walk through this life. One person would quip that uh so often we're tempted to uh to love things and use people when we should be loving people and using things. But there's this temptation to love things, and we see that here in Jonah, who loves this plant or at least the shade from the plant more than the people that are around him. Consumerism is going to tell you that material possessions are the thing that's gonna make you happy, and we see that all the time. And productivity is gonna tell you that accomplishments and career choices are gonna be the most important thing in your life. And they are really important in the human experience, but they're not the most important because they'll fall short in many ways. Uh I worked, uh I've been in hospice, many of you know that. I've worked in hospice situations, and I've sat beside bedside uh next near people who've breathed their very last breaths, and the most wise people that I have sat beside have concluded that relationships have been the most important thing in their life. And it was super evident in the room as that person took their last breath, that the relationships were the most important in their life. And Jesus would summarize it in this way: there are these two important commands. The first one is to love God, to have this relationship with your creator, and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself, to have that relationship with the one next to us. And so to resist that things become more important than people, uh that's the first question. The second question that we should consider is what questions is God asking you in this current season of your life? I think throughout our whole life, God asks us questions. And he asked Jonah three different questions in this short passage. First, he's like, Why are you so angry? Is it right for you to be angry? And I think a lot of us need that question specifically asked of us. We are in a rage-ridden world right now, aren't we? I mean, we we have people who are addicted to rage. We just enjoy, for some reason, going at it on uh uh against somebody else. And so Jonah's being asked, why are you so is it right for you to be angry? Jonah ignores the question. Then God asks him again, is it right for you to be angry about this plant? And Jonah then responds, it is right. I am I am justified in my anger. But Yahweh is so good about asking questions that get to the heart of issues. God asked a lot of heart-searching questions of people throughout the Old Testament. He asked Adam, who was hiding, where are you? He asked Cain, where's your brother? He asked Abraham, is there anything too hard for the Lord? He asked Job, where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? He asked Isaiah, who are we gonna send? Jesus picks this up and he and he asks a blind man, what do you want me to do? He asked the disciples, Who do you say that I am? He asked a grieving sister named Martha, do you believe I'm the resurrection and the life? And he asked the shame-filled Peter, oh Peter, do you love me? And so, church, I encourage you to pay attention to the God-sized questions in your life. What question is God asking you in this moment, at this time of your life? What questions are you wrestling with about your creator? He asks at the very end, uh, the whole story ends like an indie film, where he just this question is put out there and no one answers it. And uh, and we don't know what happens with Jonah, we don't know what's going on with Nineveh. We do hear about it about a hundred years later from another prophet named Nahum, but but it just kind of ends there, suspended, almost like the reader, hey reader, this is about you. Let's consider this. And he asks Jonah, he says, but the Lord says, You've been so concerned about a plant, though you did not tend it, you didn't make it grow, it sprang up overnight, it died overnight, and then he kind of reveals his own heart. And should I not have concern for a 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 so many animals, which I appreciate that last phrase. Ultimately, Jonah, do you really want God to be like you? Or do you, or is it better for you and for everyone else for you to be like God? Do you really want God to take on your heart, or or is it better for everyone involved that you take on God's heart? That's basically what's being asked here. Will you be compassionate, Jonah? Will you be slow to anger? Will you abound in love and be merciful?

SPEAKER_01 13:44

Which takes us to the last question. Do I desire mercy more than judgment on others? Do I desire mercy more than judgment?

SPEAKER_00 13:59

We have this tendency to seek judgment and hold on to judgment more than we do mercy if we were to be honest with ourselves. Um I think I I give often the uh uh road analogies because there is rage on the road. And uh but I also think there's a lot of judgment on the road happening too. If you and I were driving down the road on the freeway and somebody passes, just flies by at 90 miles an hour, and and you kind of have this feeling towards them, and they they just a little ways down the road, you see them pulled over by state patrol, you kind of have this little satisfaction, like, oh yes, this feels really good. Um but if you are the one driving 100 miles an hour down the road and you get pulled over, you are begging for mercy, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:46

Uh this uh two weeks ago I got news about a really good friend who's making very destructive decisions. It's gonna have lifelong damage to his whole family. The the his three children will for the rest of their lives, this will impact them.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

And he's willfully choosing this decision. And I'll tell you, I turned to my wife at one point, and mercy was not in my mind for him. And oh that I said, oh, how do we pray for that? How do we pray, Lord have mercy? We've been praying, God, would you change his heart? But also to pray, Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy on him, have mercy on his kids, have mercy on his wife, have mercy on the community around him. But I'll tell you, judgment comes up so much better and easier in my mind uh so often. That's why Jesus tells this great prodigal son story. And at the end of it, just like uh Josh read, the father is so merciful to this really self-righteous older son who just thinks, hey, I am deserving more here. And my brother, my youngest brother, he's done all of these things, and what are you doing? You're celebrating him, becoming back. I mean, he just used up all of your money and he treated you shamefully, and I mean, all of these things. And the father just so patiently stands with the son and he says, My son, you're always with me. And everything I have is yours. I mean, in the midst of his self-righteousness, the father's just being merciful on him. But we had to celebrate and be glad because your brother, he was dead and is alive again. He was lost and he's found. So as you walk through life, especially graduates, as you're on this front end, hold loosely your desire for vengeance and vindication and judgment on others. It doesn't mean we ignore wrongdoing. I think uh we, or to avoid seeking justice, I think those are important. Consequences for wrongdoing and justice are needed. That's why when Jonah talks about God and he says this part where God is slow to anger and compassionate and full of love, he's referencing there's this hyperlink to Exodus, to the Exodus story. He's repeating something that happened between Moses and God, something that was uh talked about between Moses and God. And it's a passage that's repeated at least 20 times throughout scripture. And I want to read it to you just again so you can catch a couple of things. And I want you to notice God's character in this. The Lord, the Lord, compassionate and gracious God. He's he's uh and he passed, I'll read it up here. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God. He's slow to anger, he's abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness and rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished. He punishes the children and their children for the sin of their parents to the third and fourth generation. What did you notice about his character in there?

SPEAKER_01 18:15

What stood out? Go ahead and call back. What did you see in there? He's slow to anger. Okay, we've got this slow to anger God. Anybody else? What'd you notice? He's compassionate. What's that? He's loving. What else? He's forgiving. Did you notice anything else? He's merciful. Ah, so there is a just side there.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

It's an interesting. See, all of us, we would expect justice to happen, but we expect wrongdoing to be taken care of too. He is both merciful and just. But you notice that his mercy, he's he's first merciful. He continually invites and pursues hearts. He just wants, like in the story of Pharaoh, he could have just gone after Pharaoh for holding a million people in slavery. He could have just taken him out right off the front. But how many plagues did he send to get his attention? Does anyone know? Higher, we're getting close. Nine. So he sends nine different scenarios to get Pharaoh's attention. But then he ultimately does bring justice. But he's first merciful. And there's this call to Jonah, Jonah, be merciful. Yes, there may be justice may need to happen, but we're going to pursue mercy first. And that just any wrongdoing, God will take care of it. And we see that in this passage. There's a really great, a couple other pieces I don't have time to highlight. But but this merciful God, this God who is merciful to Cain, who murdered his brother, with Jacob who lies to everyone, with David who takes Bathsheba and kills her husband. He's merciful to a prostitute named Rahab. He's merciful to a mouthy man named Peter. He's merciful to the violent Saul who turned Paul. He is merciful with me. He is merciful on me. This story of Jonah can be summed up in Peter's words in 2 Peter 3.9. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, he's patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. And Jesus is desirous for us to carry out the same posture to the world that we would hold mercy like his little brother James says, mercy triumphs over judgment.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

Oh, that we would constantly live that out. Would you pray with that? Jesus, all we can say is thank you for your mercy on us.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

Oh, help us to pay attention to you as we walk in this life. Help us to pay attention to the way that you want us to see others. And help us be reminded of how you see us.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

Father, thank you for your mercy. Help us to be merciful to others. In Jesus' name.