Preparing a Man to Grow

Thesis: If we are ever going to see true growth in our lives, we must learn to see God for who He truly is.

Introduction

This may not be what you are used to thinking as an exegetical preaching sermon; however, one thing I have learned is that exegetical preaching is about preaching the intended message of the author and many times you cannot do that without taking a look at the big story: the theme and lesson that the author is trying to present in the entire book. In fact every exegetical detail is going to tie back to this main point at some point somehow. Especially in the story of Jonah, the whole thing is intended to drive one big point.

The overall application that I would like us to see in this text is that the storms of our lives are intended to grow our understanding of ourselves and our God. Jonah was a prophet of God. He had been used of God previously and yet He did not understand fully the heart of God. He knew his theology but he did not draw it out to its logical conclusion. Throughout the book, we see God’s process for teaching Jonah that lesson.

God had to teach me a similar lesson when we were missionaries in India. I have talked about this before, but I had begun to derive my identity, my value, and self-worth from my occupation as a missionary. So when God took that away, it shook me. I plunged emotionally, and spiritually. God had to take me through a storm to reveal something about myself, but over time, that same storm allowed me to learn that God is all I need. God is my sufficiency. God is my pursuit and God has the right to determine my worth and value. God had to become the source of life for me.

As we look at the story of Jonah, we will see God take Jonah through a similar process by which he reveals a big problem in the heart of Jonah and a marvelous truth about the heart of God.

I. The man vs 1

A. Jonah was staunchly nationalistic- Jonah had been used by God to give a message of national deliverance even under a bad king. It is highly likely from this fact and evidence in the book that he was staunchly nationalistic. Jonah had reason to hate the Assyrians and more specifically the Ninevites, but reason does not make something right. Loyalty to nation and people is not in itself wrong. What made this so wrong for Jonah is what he did with it.

2 Kings 14:25 “He restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain, according to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet, which was of Gath-hepher.”

B. Jonah was racist- he hated all the Ninevites and did not care if there were innocent people in their midst. To Jonah every Ninevite was a bad Ninevite. To assume everyone of a certain ethnic background is exactly the same way is racist. Jonah thought all Ninevites deserved to be destroyed because they were all evil. If you doubt this, consider that God points out how many innocent children were in the city in the very last verse of the chapter.

Jonah 4:11 “And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?”

Jonah even thought it was evil of God to forgive the Ninevites. Jonah 4:1 The literal wording behind this phrase “it displeased Jonah exceedingly” is “great evil.” Jonah thought that it was a horrible evil that God would forgive the Ninevites.

Ill Jeffrey Dahmer

C. Jonah was selfish- consider the story of the gourd. Jonah was more concerned about his own comfort than the people of Nineveh. We also see this in the first few verses. When Jonah fled on a ship to Tarshish, he knew god was going to punish him. Jonah wasn’t that stupid. In doing so Jonah put the lives of all the men of that ship in danger. Jonah 4:10 “Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:” Sometimes innocent people end up suffering because of our selfishness.

1. Sometimes it is the selfish acts themselves that cause others to suffer.

A father really wants a new custom built $3000 computer so he spends more money than he has and now his wife and kids can’t buy clothes that they need. A selfish wife wants time to herself so she ignores the kids and play on her phone for hours not realizing the damage she is doing to her relationship with her children.

2. Sometimes it is the chastisement we have to go through that causes others to suffer

A husband cheats on his wife and is caught. The almost inevitable consequence is that she divorces him. Now he only gets to see the kids on the weekends and it seems like they don’t want anything to do with him. The kids have gotten caught in the cross hairs of the consequences and correction of the Lord.

D. Jonah was disobedient- Jonah had a clear command from God and instead he tried to run away. I don’t think Jonah thought that running would thwart God’s plan, but maybe he hoped someone else would do the job. Jonah made himself sovereign. If God told him to do something he didn’t like, he would just run away. That shows a heart that says I make the rules. God isn’t going to tell me what to do. What has God clearly told you to do but you are refusing to submit to it.

CS Lewis used to say about his dogs “He doesn’t really obey me, but sometimes he agrees with me.”

Aren’t we just like this? We gladly submit to God when it is something we want to do, but as soon as it is something we are uncomfortable with we shy away. What about evangelism? Jonah was glad to preach a message that promised prosperity to Jereboam II, but when that message meant offering forgiveness to people he hated, he ran away.

E. Jonah fled- It doesn’t take long before we see Jonah running from God. Jonah 1:3 “But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.” Jonah was not ready to do what God told him to do. How do we flee from God? Do we avoid him? We don’t want to be around people who are passionate about God. We skip church. We don’t spend time in His word. Running from God often looks like running from church and other believers because we don’t want to be convicted about our sin.

II. The Message vs 2

A. God’s Sovereignty

God sent out a wind- Vs 4 In the wording here we see God being an active agent in sending this storm into Jonah’s life. The word “sent out” is literally to hurl. Jonah ran from God and God threw a storm at him.

The Lord has done as it pleased him vs 14 The sailors acknowledged in this whole scenario that God had done what pleased Him. God was sovereign over the wind and the seas.

God prepared a whale vs 17 Then throughout the book we see a word used over and over again. The word is prepared. Some have debated whether there is any type of whale or fish that could swallow Jonah and keep him alive for three days and three nights. The discussion is a worthless waste of time because this fish was prepared by God. God made it possible whether it is biologically impossible or not. God could have chosen any fish and it would have done what He wanted it to do it. God could choose a guppy and it could have done the task because God prepared it for the task.

God prepared a gourd 4:6 This word is repeated three times in the next story after Jonah has been delivered. God set up a situation to again show Jonah the lesson he was still missing.

God prepared a worm 4:7

God prepared an east wind 4:8 In all of this, we see that God is sovereign. He does what He pleases and He works behind the scenes to accomplish his will. But that is only half the story of Jonah. God is also gracious and merciful.

B. God Grace and Mercy- In one of the most seminal verses in chapter 4 Jonah says, Jonah 4:2 “And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.” Jonah tells us exactly why he fled. He fled because He knew God was kind and wanted to show grace and mercy. Everyone in this story needed to see that grace in their lives.

The Ninevites needed God’s grace 1:2 The Ninevites were known for their cruelty and immorality. They worshiped the sex god and practiced temple prostitution. When nations were conquered, they would often behead the ruler and post his head on a spike during a feast and then let it rot over the walls of Ninevah. The Generals were often skinned alive and while they waited their turn had the heads of others hung around their neck. Wickedness is an apt description of the people.

The sailors needed God’s grace 1:5,14,16

Jonah needed God’s grace- the whale was God’s grace, the gourd was God’s grace. Jonah deserved death just like the Ninevites because of his disobedience.

God is sovereign over who he show grace to. This is the whole message of the book of Jonah. God can show grace on whoever He wants to. God is God of the Gentiles as well as God of the Jews.

Jonah 2:9 “But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord.” Salvation is from the Lord. He has the right to whom he gives it. God chose to show grace to the Ninevites. After all they had done, why did He choose to show them grace?

Why did God show grace?

Because he created them and loved them Jonah 4:10 “Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:” The implication is that I am having pity on that which I have labored to create and have grown. God created men and loves them and thus desires to show mercy. Jonah knew this: Jonah 4:2 “And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.”

Because there were 120,000 innocent children in the city. Some have proposed that this is the total population and God was saying they don’t know better, but I believe the description fits children better. Do you really think that God looks at the death of children and it does not affect Him? The phrase cannot discern between their right hand and their left refers to those children. How many of your kids are like Levi? You ask him which hand is his right hand and he holds up the left hand. God loves children. The Children are still in a stage of innocence barely knowing right from wrong and God desires to have compassion on them. Matt 18:10 “Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.”

III. The Method vs 3-17

A. The Storm- In order to teach Jonah this lesson that God is both sovereign and merciful, he first brought him through a storm. Jonah thought he could just run away from God, but God is sovereign over winds and waves. The first method God used to teach Jonah this truth was to bring a storm into his life.

Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

Not all storms are corrective but all storms are beneficial. Just because you are going through a storm does not mean you have sinned, but all storms are intended to accomplish the sovereign purpose of God. They are chances to grow.

God sends storms to teach us something about ourselves. Jonah needed to learn that God is sovereign and you cannot run away from God.

Storms don’t inevitably make us better. It is our response to the storm that allows us to grow. Jonah responded by acceptance and repentance.

a. Acceptance- Jonah let them throw him out of the boat. Jonah threw himself into the center of God’s justice and found God in the belly of the whale.

b. Repentance- involves getting your mind on to something bigger than you. Its a change of perspective. If I were to hold a letter up to my face, the letters look huge, but its only when I pull the paper away and get some distance that I see the meaning of the letters and I see them for what they are tiny little letters on a page. Our problems are just like those letters on the page, we can’t read them now but they will make sense when we get some distance. Jonah needed to see the problems for what they were and he needed to see how big God was.

B. The Gourd- He obeyed God, but we see from the story of the gourd that Jonah did not fully learn the lesson. The gourd was a second chance. How many times does God have to teach us the same lesson over and over again? You have probably heard kids when talking with adults say, “I already know that” but if they already know that why are they still acting the way they do. This is why it is important to here preaching sometimes on topics we have already heard before. We haven’t fully processed the lesson in our lives or we just need a reminder from time to time. In teaching Jonah the lesson of the gourd, God questions Jonah twice with the same question: Doest thou well to be angry? what right do you have to be angry.

The lesson of the gourd was that it is natural and right for God to care about the Ninevites because He created them.

Conclusion

Jonah was stubborn. It took Him awhile to see that God is sovereign over who He chooses to show mercy. God had to take him through a storm and then use an object lesson to show him this truth. I believe Jonah must have learned this lesson in the end because he is most likely the author of the book. You don’t write such a condemning story about yourself unless you truly believe you were wrong and want to share the truth you learned with others.

What storm has God brought into your life? What lesson might He be trying to teach you about yourself and about Himself through this storm. I think it would be helpful to conclude with a passage from

James 1:3-5 “Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.”

The challenge here today is to let the storm produce the lesson it is intended to teach. To do that, you are going to have to accept it and get some perspective on it.