God's Majesty and Mercy

I particularly enjoy watching spy movies and mission movies. But there is something particularly unusual and a little bit perverse about spy movies. I mean, after all, we are supporting and cheering for the guy whose task it is to lie, to steal, and to manipulate others with the purpose of killing the bad guy, blowing up the evil place, or stealing the important thing. We still support him. We encourage him to succeed in his lying and his manipulation. And in fact, not only do we support him, we pay money to watch him do these things. And we immerse ourselves in the world that's created for us. In fact, and this may be particularly peculiar to men, but we like to imagine we're the guy on the screen. We are the hero. We're watching. We out-fight. We out-run. We outthink the enemy, because after all, the safety of the world is on our shoulders. The hero we're watching, he has a mission. He has a purpose. But imagine if at the very start of the movie, James Bond is sitting and being debriefed by M, and he says, you know what? Not this time. It's all good. Or imagine if Tom Cruise had said, you know what? That mission actually is impossible. Let's not bother. It wouldn't be an heroic story, and you'd feel somewhat shortchanged, wouldn't you? Well, the hero we're going to learn about today is none other than Marine Commander of the USS Big Fish, Admiral Jonah. He was given a mission to complete with repercussions that really would resound across the world. And we're going to zoom into four scenes in his life of that after he'd received his mission. But the point of the Book of Jonah is more than simply a guy and a fish. It's to show us that we're just like him. By looking in at these scenes in swift detail, we're going to be reminded that we, too, have a mission to complete. But too often, just like Jonah, we refuse to accept the mission, and we disobey. And the mission we have, we acknowledge it is difficult. We're called to love the unlovable. We're called to forgive those who hurt us deeply, to serve those who hate us, to live our lives sacrificially. It is hard. It can be excruciatingly painful. And too often, I think, when we read historical accounts in the Bible, we like to do what we do with spy movies. We think we're the Joseph. We're never Judah. We think we're David. We're never Goliath. We're always Peter. We're never Judas. But in the book of Jonah, we're left with no options. The only human character there is that we can project ourselves onto is Jonah. And we look at Jonah and we say, you're a coward, Jonah. And I do not respect you. But I see myself most clearly in you. So as we come into the four snapshots of Jonah, there are some preliminary questions that we do have to address very briefly. Because if we're honest, when someone says the word Jonah, all we think about is fish. We think about the Middle Eastern guy having the worst vacation ever. And when a child hears a story for the very first time, the only thing they have is two questions. First of all, did this really happen? And secondly, what kind of a fish? So let's briefly address those two things. I want to convince you this is an historical account. It actually happened. And I think we can see this very clearly from scripture itself. 2 Kings 14 mentions Jonah. Don't turn there, but let me read to you the verse, and you can look it up later. 2 Kings 14. He, this is King Jeroboam II, restored the border of Israel from Nebuchadnezzar as far as the Sea of Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel. which he spoke by his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet who is from Gath-Hefer. Did you hear that in the text? Jonah was a prophet to the king whose prophecies were fulfilled in his lifetime. He was the son of Amittai from the town of Gath-Hefer. In one verse, the historian who's writing Two Kings wants us to know that Jonah was a real person with a real lineage, with a real hometown, and a real occupation. That's more than most of you know about me. And also, in the New Testament, Jesus, as we heard earlier, he mentions Jonah, and he specifically mentions the event we're going to study today. Listen to the words of Jesus from Matthew 12. But he answered them, that's Jesus answering the Pharisees. An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, So will the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Again, do you grasp the importance of what Jesus is saying? He himself would pattern the greatest sign in redemptive history on Jonah's vacation in the fish. This happened. It's an historical event. So then the question we want to address for the young people is, what kind of a fish was it? Well, the first thing we need to realize, it doesn't have to be the typical fish you'd see in the Mediterranean today. At the end of chapter one, we're going to read that God specifically provided a fish for that time. The word is appointed, which we'll see in chapter four as well. It's of things God specifically ordains for that moment in time. But the second thing is that there are fish out there that could easily swallow a human being. For one example, the sperm whale. In 1955, A 405-pound giant squid was removed intact from the belly of a sperm whale. A human being would be about half of that size. If you're not yet convinced about either of those things, come see me afterwards. I have much more evidence. I can convince you. So do come and see me afterwards. But let's turn now to the account of history's first submarine commander, Jonah. Take your Pew Bibles and open it up to page 774. And as you're looking that up, let me introduce the current series. We've just finished our series in the church last week with Matthew 28. And this new series is an overview of the minor prophets. And the purpose of this series is to help us understand where the prophets stand in history and how in relation to one another they interact and how we can learn from them in line of the coming of Christ. So let's read from Jonah chapter 1, verse 1. Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me. Let's just stop there briefly. The first scene we're going to look at begs us to ask our first of four questions this morning. The first question is, how grand is your gospel? How grand is your gospel? See, the gospel that God presents is for the entire world. This has actually been the message to the world from heaven from the moment of the fall. All the way back in Genesis 3, God promised that once sin entered the world, there would be a serpent crusher. He would come, defeat sin, destroy death, and would bring about a new creation. This was further expanded upon in Genesis 15, 17, and 22 with the covenant that God made with Abraham. God promised that Abraham's descendants would bless the entire world. Then when God brought these descendants out of slavery in Egypt, he gave them a law and a rule to become a nation. He established them as a nation and he reiterated that promise. Through their obedience to the law of the Lord, other nations would look in and see a picture of holiness and a picture of success and blessing because the Lord would bless the people who worship Him. They would see how life ought to be and they would be driven to Israel to worship at the Lord's temple. That's the vision that the Lord had from Genesis 3. So this message that the gospel is for the world shouldn't be a new message to Jonah. But verse three, let's read verse three. But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish away from the presence of the Lord. You just note in that one verse there are six repeated phrases that tell us Jonah is going the wrong direction. Six times the author says Jonah is not going the right direction. So we are left with the question, why did Jonah run? Why was he disobedient? It could be he was ethnically racist. After all, these Ninevites weren't a nice people. They didn't like the Jews or anyone else for that matter. It could also be that he was religiously intolerant and didn't want to share his God with these pagans. But there's actually something a little bit more sinister lurking behind Jonah's disobedience. See, Jonah was a prophet at the same time as Hosea and Amos. And in Hosea chapter 9, we can read today that God's message to Israel was a promise of punishment. Let me read to you again from Hosea 9, verse 3. They, this is referring to Israel, Jonah's people, they shall not remain in the land of the Lord, but Ephraim, another name for Israel, shall return to Egypt, and they shall eat unclean food in Assyria. So Jonah, therefore, also knew, almost certainly knew, that God would punish Israel for their disobedience. And who did he promise to use? he just told us, the Assyrians, who in about 70 years after Jonah would make Nineveh their capital city. Ultimately, therefore, Jonah knows that Israel is going to pay the penalty for his obedience. If he goes to Nineveh, Nineveh will repent and then God will use Nineveh to destroy Israel. Now, as a church, I think we can be encouraged that we do go out to the nations. I mean, Ben prayed for all the various things that we do as a church corporately. We're going to Mercado. We work in Southwood. There is the prison ministry starting up in the near future. That's very exciting, and we should be commended for that and encouraged for that. But for many of us as individuals, our gospel fits very comfortably inside these four walls, just as Jonah's fit inside the borders of Israel. On a given Sunday, the majority of us may all come from a similar lifestyle, a similar economic background. We may all share similar interests. In fact, on a given Sunday, we may all be supporters of UVA. Friends, if that's how grand your gospel is, your gospel is deficient. Jonah was told to go and prophesy, to tell, to warn, to proclaim God's message. And this was not new to Jonah. Remember, he was a prophet. He got to tell King Jeroboam, you're going to win that battle. Fight hard. He got to tell Jeroboam, the Lord is going to give you Israel back to the size it was when Solomon was king. You're going to be successful. That's a nice message to give. We like giving those messages. You don't really need to stop doing that. God's love after all, isn't he? That feels nicer. And in those circumstances, we actually feel that our gospel is very big. We also feel very big. But what about when we have to speak the truth lovingly, when that truth is painful? When telling someone that God will judge sin means we might get smacked in the face. laughed at, spat upon, even fired. How grand is our gospel in those situations? Jonah wasn't told to cross the office and talk to the creepy guy or the annoying girl. He was told to cross the desert to talk to rapists, murderers, and warmongers. The nearest equivalent I think that we have in today's society would be ISIS in Iraq. When God was telling Jonah to go, therefore, to Nineveh, he was telling him to go to a people who would gladly chop off your head, put it on a stick, stick that stick on top of the gate to warn the next guy not to bother coming in. And not only that, the message he was giving to the Ninevites was that God is going to bring destruction. He's going to destroy you for your evil. It's not a good first conversation to have with a homicidal maniac. But that was his mission. And even though it was difficult, God expected him to do it. If that's Jonah's mission, therefore, why is it so hard for me to talk to the guy sitting next to me in an airplane? And literally, on an airplane, he cannot move for two hours. He is stuck there. And he cannot wield anything worse than a toothpick because he's gone through security. In that moment, my gospel is smaller than my own ego and my own pride. What about you friends? Where's your Nineveh? Who's your Nineveh? Is it the coworkers you share an office with? You're afraid of being called the Bible basher? So they don't even know you go by the title of Christian. Is it the Supreme Court after their recent ruling? You disagree with their decisions and so you gleefully await God's wrath and God's judgment. Is there someone in your life who has hurt you almost more than you can bear? You're unable to pray for them? You're not even sure you want them forgiven? Friends, how grand is your gospel? Let's read verse four. But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his God. And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship, and had lain down, and was fast asleep. So the captain came and said to him, what do you mean you sleeper? Arise, call out to your God. Perhaps the God will give a thought to us that we may not perish. And they said to one another, come, let us cast lots that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us. So they cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. Then they said to him, tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation and where do you come from? What is your country? Of what people are you? And he said to them, I am a Hebrew and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven. They made the sea and the dry land. Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, what is this that you have done? For the men knew that he was fleeing from before the presence of the Lord, because he had told them so. God's gospel is for the world. That's how grand God's gospel is. Jonah has forgotten his gospel. He's chosen to ignore the call, the message that God has given to him and to Israel to proclaim God's mercy to the world. So what does he do? He runs. and hides. And when the Lord tries to communicate with him, get his attention in a very dramatic way, he doesn't listen. And he instead goes down below into the hole and falls asleep. It's kind of like you've had a great day. You come in, you want to tell the person you've co-invented to spend the rest of your life with. You come in, you see them sitting down there, a smile breaks over your face. You begin to talk, but they're not listening. There's this little thing in their hand. It's glowing at them. Not sure what it is. There's news on it, maybe sports. They're not listening to you because their attention is somewhere else. It's the same thing. But one question, did you hear what Jonah said? that he fears the Lord, in verse 9. I mean, really Jonah, you're fearing the Lord? Where are you at? God said, go east. You're running west. God said, cross the desert. You're sailing on the ocean. God said, preach to the Gentiles. You're hiding at the bottom of the boat, refusing to even talk to the Gentiles on deck. At what point, Jonah, are we to believe that your witness speaks of your worshipful obedience? At what point are we meant to believe you worship the Lord? Jonah, waken up. Christian. Waken up. God says to us to love our neighbor. So why are we fighting, perhaps even with the person sitting beside you in the pew? God says to value purity. So why do we find solace in pornography, empty relationships, and even fantasy literature? God says to forgive others. So why do we poison ourselves with bitterness and resentment? Christian, can you identify the points in your life where your gospel proclamation is being undermined by your worldly living? and your worldly loving? At what point is your gospel proclamation being undermined by your worldly living and your worldly loving? Let's read verse 11. Then they said to him, what shall we do to you that the sea may quiet down for us? For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. He said to them, pick me up and hurl me into the sea. Then the sea will quiet down for you. For I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you. Nevertheless, in verse 13, the men rode hard to get back to dry land. But they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. Therefore they called out to the Lord, O Lord, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you. So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. God's gospel is for the world. Jonah has forgotten or chosen to ignore his gospel. But the sailors find the gospel. I hope you're picking up on the irony and the contrasts that come across in the book of Jonah. These pagan sailors are contrasted with Jonah in the first chapter. And they come off very admirably. Jonah does not come off particularly well. He, being the prophet to the Gentiles, wouldn't tell them anything until they aggressively questioned him. And yet they responded admirably. He told them to throw him overboard and they said, let's try to get back to shore. Let's try one more time. Let's try and save your life. The beautiful thing I think we can pick from this and to be encouraged as Christians is that even in Jonah's selfish weakness and even in his deliberate disobedience, God is still sovereign. He is still in control. And he uses even the disobedience of his prophet to reveal his glory to these Gentile sailors. Because what's the result of the storm? Well, in verse 16, we read, They feared the Lord and they offered a sacrifice and made vows. These rough, pagan, experienced sailors fell to their knees and worshiped the Lord of heaven who made the sea and the land. Christian, we will mess up. Often we'll mess up spectacularly. Watch for how God will use your situation to reveal his glory. In His glorious mercy, He will use even your weakness, even your deliberate disobedience for His glory. And He will offer you mercy if you repent. That is not a justification to sin, but as a comfort when we do. Because Jonah's disobedience brought a moment of grace for those sailors, but he's about to realize that he's in very deep water. Pardon the pun. So the second question we have to ask comes from chapter 2 today. How genuine is your repentance? How genuine is your repentance? So let's read verse 17 of chapter 1. And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, saying, I called out to the Lord out of my distress, and he answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the floods surrounded me. All your waves and your billows passed over me. Then I said, I'm driven away from your sight. Yet I shall again look upon your holy temple. The waters closed in over me to take my life. The deep surrounded me. Weeds were wrapped around my head at the root of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever, yet you brought me up, my life up from the pit. Oh, Lord, my God. When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple. Notice one thing about the end of chapter one. Jonah should have been dead. He was thrown overboard, possibly even as a last ditch attempt to avoid going to Nineveh. And we, I think, we typically see the fish as punishment for Jonah. There's God up in the hilltop with his magnifying glass, spiting Jonah for being disobedient. That's not the case. This fish is grace. This fish is redemption for Jonah. The fish is God telling Jonah, I'm not done with you yet. I don't know if you remember when you learned first how to swim, or perhaps more accurately, when you were first thrown into a pool and expected not to drown. For me, I can remember flailing around, arms and hands and legs going every direction, water spraying into my mouth, choking, gasping for air. At that moment, this fish, not the worst option. The fish actually gives Jonah hope. And it's from the belly of the fish that he writes this psalm of repentance. But he doesn't really repent, does he? He acknowledges a little that God, in some sense, is punishing him. But he's not owning his own sin. He definitely seems sorry, doesn't he? This is a very flowery, a very well-written prayer. But he hasn't confessed his sin. He's looking around himself. He's pulling seaweed out of his hair. He's spitting salt water. He's smelling, digesting fish. And he says to himself, I don't like this place. He's sorry about where he is. He may even be sorry that he ran from going to Nineveh, but he is not sorry about the root cause of his disobedience. He hates the Ninevites, and he refused to go to them. There are three things a repenting sinner must have, and the first is confession. Friends, later on today, read through chapter two again, or this week in your quiet time. Read through chapter two of Jonah and reflect on your own prayer life. Is there so much Christianese, Christian language, that you're not actually sure what you're saying? We must confess our sin, and that requires us owning our sin. When we confess our sin, we need to realize the seriousness of what sin is. Sin's payment brings death. When we sin, we're pushing God off the throne of our lives. We're saying, we don't need you, and we don't want you. So when we confess our sins, we shouldn't just turn up with a shopping list and say, I did these, I'm sorry. We must humbly confess that we have willingly, gladly, and at times even deliberately done things we knew would anger, hurt, and displease God, and even those around us. We must confess our sins. We must seek forgiveness. This comes from a heart that recognizes the horror of what our sin has done. Remember that your sin is first and foremost a sin and a crime against the Lord. When you confess and seek forgiveness, therefore, read scripture to see what God feels when we sin. In the Psalms, you can read of God's anguish. In the Gospels, we can read of God's requirement for sin. Apologize for your sin with integrity and with sincerity. If you cannot mean it, don't apologize until you do. Instead, pray for the grace to be shown the seriousness of your sin and the humility to be able to repent. And then the third thing, we must repent. Repentance stems from a true confession, an awareness of the seriousness of our sin, and a desire to be forgiven. And too often we use the word repentance for that whole process, and I think that's a little unhelpful. When we turn and repent, it's more than us just simply saying sorry. It must lead to an active desire to change our sinful behavior. A child saying sorry for drawing on the walls is only repentant if they give you the pen and refusing to draw on the walls afterwards. This does not mean that we never sin again. Certainly not. But it does mean that we come to a realization, a realization that we're at war. We gird ourselves up. We prepare for the battle. We engage with our flesh that wants to commit sin, wants to offend God, wants to be lord of our own lives. Perhaps you're here for the first time at Jefferson Park. Perhaps you're here for the first time in a church building, and you're still where Jonah was. You're imprisoned by your own sin, bashed about by the waves of guilt and drowning in shame, knowing that your sin has offended and hurt other people. Perhaps for the very first time, you're becoming aware that your sin is an offense to God. Listen to verse eight. Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. Friends, if that's you this morning, worshiping vain idols such as sex or relationships or politics, money, power, knowledge, or whatever it is your culture teaches you you find your identity in, heed the words of Jonah. Confess your sin. More often than not, we know we're sinners. Just consider how you react when the Internet goes down. We're sinners. We lie. We cheat. We steal. We curse. We fight. We worship anything but the true God. Know your identity. If found in society, found in a culture alien to God, will lead to your death. Own that, know that, confess it. But remember Jesus' words, the sign of Jonah? For your sake, he went to the cross. He was nailed onto that tree by other sinful men and held there because we're sinners. And on that tree, he experienced the fullness of God's anger and hatred and judgment and justice. for our sin, for your sin. He died so that you don't have to. And then he was buried in a tomb for three days, just as he had prophesied about Jonah's sign. You don't need to be oppressed by the prison of sin. You can be free. Confess your sin and then seek forgiveness. and know that the Lord is mighty to save. Listen to verse nine. But I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord. Seek forgiveness and know that the Lord hears you. He offers you forgiveness because of Jesus' victory at the cross. He offers you mercy. So confess your sin. Seek forgiveness and repent. turn away from your sinful lifestyle and follow Jesus. Leave those vain idols that, when we're honest with ourselves, we know don't satisfy. Leave them behind and worship the true God. As we've seen in Jonah's life, sin leads to death, and only the mercy of God can bring you from death to life. As verse 10 says, and the Lord spoke to the fish and vomited Jonah out onto the dry land. If you become a Christian, when you place your hope in the promises of Christ's work at the cross, what he's done for you, you are vomited out of the prison of a sinful death and you are raised to life as a citizen of heaven. You're vomited out of hell and raised into the presence of the Almighty himself. Friends, do not miss the sign of Jonah for the picture of a prophet and a fish. The sign is to point to something so much bigger, something much, much greater. Our third question comes from chapter 3. How willing is your obedience? How willing is your obedience? Let's read from verse 1. Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you. So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey, and he called out, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. and the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least of them. We see here that despite Jonah's disobedience, despite his sin of running away, his mission remained. His commission was still standing. And that's a helpful reminder to us, I think, that when we sin and when we repent, we must come back to where we went wrong and continue from there in obedience. God expects our obedience. And even though he is merciful and corrects us when we go wrong, we still have a mission to undertake. In fact, we're actually known as his children by how we attend to that mission. Jonah's mission was to obey the word of the Lord and go to Nineveh and preach the gospel there. We have the same message. We must listen to the word of the Lord and we must obey his commands. As we heard from Matthew 28 last week, Jesus commands his disciples, that's you and I, to go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. That's our mission. So how do we do this? How do we do this? Well, I think it's clear we don't do it the way Jonah did it. He was obeying through gritted teeth. And there are many reasons that we obey, aren't there? We can be obedient because we respect the authority of the person telling us what to do. the doctor gives you medication, you're typically going to take it. We can be obedient because of the person has authority over us. We may be angry when we get a parking ticket, but we're still going to pay it. We obey because we don't want to get caught in the wrong. We don't cheat on an exam, for example, because that will mean we'll fail if we're caught. With all of those and many more reasons we have for obeying, we ought to be asking what our heart should be thinking when it comes to obedience. We as Christians, we obey the words of Christ because we trust Him. His words have weight because of His love for us. He proved He wants the best for us by coming down and dying on our behalf. So when He tells us to do something, we can trust it's for our good. It's for our best. We obey the words of Christ because of the mercy we've received. He gave His life to purchase us from sin. Therefore, because we know the cost of what our sin is, why would we continue to sin? We obey the words of Christ because obedience is right. We were made to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. He tells us how best to fulfill our purpose effectively. We obey the words of Christ because we love our neighbor. We know the mercy we've received. We know that God loves all His people, not just us, and therefore we want to love others as He has loved us. And perhaps the most poignant is that we obey the words of Christ because obedience is beautiful. You're not a musician simply because you own the instrument. You're a musician when you obey the rules of music to play something beautiful. Therefore, when we obey Christ, we're the most beautiful we can be. In fact, I would go farther. We're the most human we can be when we obey Christ. So we must figure out what that looks like. How can we put obedience into practice? Well, obedience in the large temptations is made much easier by obedience, a pattern of obedience in the smaller temptations. Let me give you an example and you can apply this out to where this would most apply in your life. You'll be able to resist the urge to steal when you daily trust God that you have enough every day to satisfy your needs. You'll be able to resist the urge to steal when you daily trust God that you will not find your identity in the latest gadget, the latest car, the bigger house. You'll be able to resist the urge to steal when you trust that God is true when He says He's faithful to provide. Therefore, when the tax deadline looms over us, we won't feel the need to fiddle our accounts because we've trusted in the Lord. that we find our completeness and our provision in Him. We will not need to listen to the false promises the allure of money and glittering things provides. Children, obey your parents. They love you and they are for you. They are not against you. Give glory to God in your obedience because you love Christ. Adults, be obedient at your work. Even in the mundane tasks of making coffee or photocopying a large document. Even to a boss who doesn't respect you or even thank you for your hard work and diligence. Be obedient. Work to the best of your ability because you're giving glory to the Lord. Verse six, chapter three. The word reached the king of Nineveh and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes. Just note, the king is dethroning himself. He's enthroning the Lord. When we sin, we dethrone God and we enthrone ourselves. This is true repentance. We give up the vestiges of our self-rule and we give them over to the Lord and ask him to reign inside of us. And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his nobles, let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn from his fierce anger so that we may not perish. This is weird, I get that. But this is how one visibly showed the world in that day that they were repentant for their sin. They humbled themselves. But don't get caught up in the oddness of what's happening. Consider this repentance to Jonah's very flowery but relatively empty prayer in chapter two. The king, this leader of this evil city, He flays people alive. He's praying humbly, aware that God has no reason to forgive him, but clinging to the hope that God is merciful. And what's the beautiful thing we read? In verse 10, we hear that God hears the prayer of a repentant sinner. Verse 10, when God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way God relented of the disaster he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it. Repentance from their sin led to their forgiveness, led to their redemption. But did you notice the little phrase in verse 10? God saw how they turned from their evil way. They repented and they followed him instead of their own desires. The king dethroned himself and enthroned the Lord. And we're going to contrast that in chapter 4, just now, in the next scene of Jonah's life, that he was not repentant as the king was repentant, even though he may have said sorry. So let's read chapter 4 for our fourth question, which is how generous is your mercy? How generous is your mercy? Chapter 4, verse 1. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed to the Lord and said, O Lord, is not this 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 are a gracious God, a merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster. Therefore, now, O Lord, take my life from me. For it is better for me to die than to live. And the Lord said, do you do well to be angry? Take a moment. Let that sink in, what's just happened. We've read that passage earlier in the service, in Exodus, that Jonah quotes here in verse 2. That is the magisterial revelation of God's character in the Old Testament. This is who God identifies himself as. Jonah takes that and throws it in God's face and says, that's why I disobeyed, because you're merciful. He is so filled with hatred against the Ninevites that he admits running away because he knows God would forgive them. He knew they'd receive mercy and he could not stand it. How grand is Jonah's gospel? He doesn't even have one at this point. How genuine was his repentance? Not at all. How willing was his obedience? It wasn't. How generous was his mercy? He had none. Remember the context. He knows that when he returns to Israel, having secured the repentance of Nineveh, God would raise up Nineveh to be a city of judgment against God's own people, against Jonah's people. But does that mean he has a right to be angry that the Lord shows mercy? Verse five, Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade until he should see what would become of the city. Now the Lord 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. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant so that it When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, it is better for me to die than to live. 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. 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. Should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 people who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle? There's a lot of symbolism going on here in this passage. I don't have time to go into it right now. But just know that the picture, the overarching narrative in Jonah is that God is rejecting the people who are rejecting him. He's cutting the covenant. And that's what Jonah is so angry about. He's saying, you have disobeyed me. You refuse to repent. Punishment is coming. That's what we see when we see the image of the vine, the plant. We must ask ourselves how generous our mercy is. Do we delude ourselves at times by thinking that our anger is justified? That somehow we are wronged when God does not smite those who offend us? Remember that sin is an offense to God, much more than it ever could be to us. And we are sinners as well. We share the gospel with other people because we know what we have been saved from. That is our motivation for sharing the gospel. Is our mercy in line with God's? Or is it in line with Jonah's? Remember, I asked from chapter one who your Nineveh might be. Jonah's Nineveh was this people who would eventually destroy Israel. What is your mercy level for the Nineveh you identified earlier? Will you pray for them? Can you love them? Can you proclaim to them in love, hoping for genuine reconciliation? Or do they see you as someone who hates them, as a hypocrite? If we're understanding the gospel correctly, we will remind ourselves and unbelievers, we'll remind those of us we're closest to and those of us we don't know very well of the hope we have in Christ when we repent. We don't tell people when we don't understand the gospel properly. We won't tell people of the hope in Christ and the mercy of God when we don't understand the gospel correctly. And in our hearts, though we may never ever voice it, there are people that we would rather didn't come to know the Lord at times in our lives. We may never say it, but they're there. We might hope they never know the hope of the mercy of God and a life, an eternal life with Christ because of how deeply we've been hurt by them, which is a very real, a very painful, a very almost at times overwhelming hurt. Friends, that is how depraved, deceitful, and dangerous our hearts are. We're just like Jonah at times, aren't we? We're sitting on our hill, we're looking over the city, joyfully, gleefully expectant. Christians, we need to repent of that attitude. We need to be broken. for those who are lost, be it next door or be it in Ethiopia, be it across the street or in Iraq. For whilst Jonah stood outside the city awaiting judgment on a sinful people, a number of centuries later, another Jew walked outside of a city. Only he left that city to go up onto a hill and await the judgment of God upon himself. Jonah carried nothing but his own anger and his own bitterness, Jesus carried a heavy wooden cross and the burden of all humanity. Jonah sat on the heat of the sun delighting in the expected wrath of God on one city. Jesus hung throughout the heat of the day experiencing the eternal wrath of God for all. Jonah refused to give any mercy to the Gentiles But Jesus' perfect mercy offers us forgiveness, even to us who sin nailed him there. Jonah left the hill to walk back to Jerusalem, disgruntled and furious, but alive. Jesus was carried off the hill, pierced and broken, abused and killed. Jonah was furious that mercy had dared to be granted. Jesus, he was the reason mercy can be granted. Christian, this mercy has been given to you with the expectation of obedience that you do the same. Sacrifice your comfort. Sacrifice your pleasure. Sacrifice your very selves. for the gospel because we have eternity in view. That's your mission, Christian. Will you accept it? Tomorrow at work? Non-Christian, we're delighted you're here. This mercy you've just heard of, that can be yours. But you must take it. And that does bring with it the mantle of obedience. And that is not always easy. To obey the words of Christ can be extremely difficult, but it is entirely worth it. This can be your mission. Will you take it? As the camera zooms out of our final scene after Jonah's mission, we leave him sulking on a hill. a successful failure. But we can be thankful that our hope does not rely on this bitter man on a hillside. Our hope relies on the majestic mercy of the Son of God nailed to the cross, placed in the tomb, yet raised from death and reigning on the eternal throne. Don't miss the sign of Jonah for the picture of a prophet in the fish. The sign points to something bigger, something much, much greater. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we confess all too often that we are holding a diminished view of the gospel, that we do not remember that we were sinners once until you rescued us through Christ. We seek your forgiveness for that. We realize that when we refuse to love people by telling them the truth, the hope and mercy of God, that we are really hating them. We ask your forgiveness. help us to turn away from that, to identify ways in which we can be more