Jonah (Part 4)

Who’s Worthy?

Jonah 4:1-11

Scripture

Jonah 4:1-11

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly,[a] and he was angry. 2 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 and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. 3 Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” 4 And the Lord said, “Do you do well to be angry?”

5 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, till he should see what would become of the city.6 Now the Lord God appointed a plant[b] and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort.[c] So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. 7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. 8 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.” 9 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.” 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. 11 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?”

Pray

Less concerned with actions or “success” than heart

Story 1

I’m a sucker for a story with a good twist ending:

grew up reading Agatha Christie novels

The Usual Suspects

Fight Club

Sixth Sense

What’s crazy about these movies is they force you to stop, look back at the whole movie and realize you were watching a totally different story than you thought you were!

Application 1

WE

Tonight: looking at the final week of Jonah.

Last week: resolution. God told Jonah to deliver message Jonah runs away but eventually God gets him back the whole city repents.

This week: we’re going to find out this story doesn’t have as clear a resolution as we thought. As a matter of fact, the ending is going to make us go back and completely reinterpret what happened before.

And what’s crazy is that what we’re going to find is that this story, ultimately, isn’t a story about Jonah, or even about Nineveh. Ultimately it’s going to be a story, that when the twist hits, makes us reexamine OUR lives in a pretty radical way.

Jonah is UPSET. This is our first “huh?” moment. This isn’t the story we were expecting to read. Not really the point of tonight, but God’s salvation is for everyone, not just the people we like.

not by race

not by gender

not by sexuality

not by who we like/who our enemies are

A LOT of stuff going on here, but we’re just going to focus in on the end … that’s the end of the book of Jonah. Like we said before, how a story ends often determines the point of that story. And it’s not until the end of Jonah we discover what this book has really been about.

Jonah, digging his plant first and only time in the story he’s happy

Like before, God has to speak twice to get Jonah’s attention. And like before, Jonah ignores God the first time, so again God gets his attention. Originally that’s getting swallowed by a fish. This time tries something a little more subtle. Plant, worm, wind, etc.

Jonah cares more about having shade, than he does 120,000 people who were separated from God.

And this is where the story turns its eyes on us. The story ends with God asking “shouldn’t I feel sorry for such a city?” And then it waits for a response … it demands the reader to answer the question.

Story 2

Me judging a show by its trailer

Supporting Scripture

1 Samuel 16:7

7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

Application 2

YOU

And our answer, of course, is yes!

The popularity of “loving everyone”

trendy causes

no “bad guys”

But the problem I see is that we get really excited being a part of causes that simultaneously require little to nothing out of us.

We get upset about injustice in politics … we need more gov’t., less gov’t. Better immigration laws. On and on and on.

And then we turn around and proceed to be elitist and judgmental toward the people we work with. We ignore people we don’t know. We turn a blind eye to the people we actually see in our day to day life.

CHRISTIANS

We believe that we are all born into this world separated from Jesus. And we believe that means that for all of eternity, starting now, people around us are unknowingly at war with the God of the universe.

We talked last week about telling people about Jesus. How anything could happen! And yet, if we’re honest, for most of us that didn’t make one bit of difference in how we lived our life this week.

Why?

Because we’re comfortable. I’m comfortable. This is how we live.

Neighbors – head down, don’t make eye-contact

Classes – no idea who is sitting around you.

Friends – keep the conversations safe

Family – don’t get all “religious”

And when we do this, Jesus is asking “should I not care about them?”

C.S. Lewis quote: "It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no 'ordinary' people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously -- no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love …

Pray

Help us to give our judgment and see people through Your eyes