Power in the Pulpit | Jonah 4

Intro: Tonight we are looking to conclude our series on the book of Jonah. As I said a few weeks ago, the book of Jonah is a story that a lot of us were probably familiar with. But as I said on the first night, you probably thought it was really just about a man that was swallowed by a whale. There is some truth to that. Jonah was told to go and call out against Nineveh. Instead, he tried to flee by boat and God sent a storm that only stopped when he was thrown out. While on the verge of drowning he called out to God, and God sent a fish to rescue him. He was in there for three days and nights, the fish spits him out. God calls him again, this time he goes and the people of Nineveh repent from their anger. Great story right. But the story doesn’t end there. The story ends with us seeing why God sent Jonah. It ends with us seeing why God sends us. We see in tonight’s text that God has granted us grace and mercy so we should desire others to know his grace and mercy. As always, please stand with me as we honor the reading of God’s Word.

Exposition: So, chapter three ends with verse 10 where the narrator writes, Jonah 3:10 “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.” Now, our wisdom and commons sense tells us that in this situation, Jonah would be experiencing a lot of positive emotions, right. He should have been rejoicing at what God through Him. It’s plausible to think he would have to fight arrogance and a feeling that he was the reason they weren’t being destroyed. But when we pick up in verse one of chapter 4, that’s not at all the response we see from Jonah. Verse 1 says, “Jonah 4:1 “But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.” In the Hebrew it literally reads “It was evil to Jonah.” Jonah thought it was evil that God would save the people of Nineveh from destruction. Jonah wasn’t celebrating that these people had avoided destruction, he was fuming because of it. It isn’t one of those angers that he keeps to himself and asks God why secretly. He has the nerve to confront God about it. Look at what he says in verses two and three. It says Jonah 4:2-3 “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. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”” What Jonah says here completely changes our thoughts of what he did in chapter one when he ran from God. In verse two we get a little bit more detail of what all happened when Jonah ran from God. He tells us that when he was in Israel and God called him to go to Nineveh, he didn’t just pick up and run without telling God anything. He says, “Isn’t this what I said when I was in my home country? That is why I made haste to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster.” This last part is a description of God that is found throughout the Old Testament. It was well recorded that God was a God of mercy and grace. When we read chapter one, it is very easy to think that Jonah ran because he was scared. It’s very easy to think that he ran because he was scared. The people of Nineveh were a people known for their evil. They worshiped false gods. It’s easy to think that Jonah ran because he thought they wouldn’t be receptive to his message. But what Jonah tells us, is that the reason he actually ran was because he was worried they WOULD be receptive of his message and God would show mercy and not destroy them. His disdain for the people of Nineveh was pretty unbelievable. In fact, he is so angry about God showing them mercy, he says in verse 3 that it would be better for him to die. He is so angry about the people of Nineveh being allowed to live that he wishes he was dead. But here is the irony in Jonah’s response, the only reason he is alive is because God had given him mercy. Remember, when we read in chapter 2 Jonah’s description of what happened when he was thrown off the ship by the sailors, we see that he was on the verge of drowning when he prayed to God and God had the big fish swallow him. Jonah was ok with how he had received grace, but he didn’t want the Ninevites to receive it. He’s like a child telling on another child for having his or her eyes opened during the prayer. He wants others to experience a punishment he avoided.

Application: It is really easy to look at Jonah’s actions here and be appalled. How could somebody want so badly for people to not be given a chance at life. How could he not want people to experience God’s mercy. But let me ask you this, are there people in your school that you think don’t know Christ that you wouldn’t in a million years invite to church? Are there certain groups of people that you judge every individual in that group and that if they were to start coming to church you wouldn’t like it. How many people are there that when you see them just give you a bad reaction in your stomach. You see, it’s very easy to read the book of Jonah and judge his actions and his attitude as wrong. But we are very quick to rationalize why we aren’t agents of God’s grace to those we don’t like. We don’t get to chose who is and isn’t worthy of God’s grace and mercy. Romans 3:23 tells us Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” We are all are sinners. None of us are worthy to have our sins forgiven, but God has done it anyway. What I’m not saying is that if somebody has committed an egregious personal harm against you that you are now mandated to be the person that shares the gospel with them. Maybe God will call you to that for his glory. But I am not asking you to go and put yourself in harms way with somebody that has already hurt you or to relive past trauma for the gospel. I think it is good for you to pray for those people and hope that God could change them. But we cannot refuse to take the gospel to people who we just don’t like. We cannot view ourselves as being better than other people because we are sinners also.

Exposition: The reason for this is because what we end up doing is what Jonah did in verses 4-5. Verse 4 says Jonah 4:4 “And the Lord said, “Do you do well to be angry?”” Jonah doesn’t even answer the question. He just avoids it completely. The question God asked Jonah is only three words long in Hebrew. He asked him a simple question. Do you do well to be angry? and Jonah doesn’t even answer it. In fact, look what he does instead. Verse 5 says Jonah 4:5 “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.” A booth was a temporary shelter made out of anything somebody could find. Nineveh was very much a desert so Jonah would have had twigs and shrubs and maybe some rocks. These temporary shelters were common and would have been something easy for Jonah to make. But he goes and builds a place to stay and just waits outside the city. We don’t know what the time periods were on all these events. But what we do know, is that Jonah just went out and watched, hoping that maybe God would still destroy the city.

Application: Are there people we wish bad on? Are there ever people that for whatever reason, maybe jealousy, maybe an old grudge or unforgiveness, that we want to see bad things happen for. If so, how is that different than what Jonah is doing here? Shouldn’t we hope for their salvation? Shouldn’t we hope to see their lives changed?

Transition: We see Jonah is throwing a temper tantrum and God just calmly asks Jonah a question. Jonah doesn’t answer but just goes outside the city and waits to see what God is going to do. Maybe he will still destroy the city. But what happens, is God starts to teach Jonah a lesson.

Exposition: We read in verse 6 Jonah 4:6 “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.” Remember, Jonah was in modern day Iraq. If there’s one thing we all know about the weather in Iraq, is it gets really really hot. It’s like hotter than sitting in a field or in stadium bleachers in the summer time hot. Jonah’s tent was only going to be capable of providing so much cover from the sun and heat. So, God causes a plant to grow up and shade Jonah from the sun. The language here is similar to when God appointed the big fish to swallow Jonah. God, in his power, caused the plant to grow up and shade Jonah. And Jonah is happy. He’s got that feeling of when you a cloud goes over the sun and you realize you’re not going to die of heat exhaustion times about 100.

Explanation: But there’s a special little quirk with the language here. The writer uses a phrase in verse six that when he says the plant saved Jonah from his discomfort, it can also be translated his evil. He is saying that the plant saved Jonah from his evil. It seems that the narrator is using word play to make a point. Jonah’s predicament, is because of his evil desire to see the people of Nineveh destroyed. That’s the reason he is sitting out in the sun in a temporary shelter.

Exposition: But this plant would not last. In verse seven we read Jonah 4:7 “But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered.” So just as God made the plant appear, he had a work attack and destroy the plant. So the plant that Jonah had as shade dies and things only get worse from there. Verse 8 tells us Jonah 4:8 “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.”” These winds are common in this region during certain time periods. They bring heat from across the land. So think of how a breeze cools you off. Instead, this one brings more heat. My guess is that it would feel like opening an oven. Jonah is begins to experience what appears to be heat exhaustion and asks that he may die. But God then begins to get to the point of the lesson he’s trying to teach. He says in verse 9 Jonah 4:9 “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.”” God asks him the same question he already asked him, but this time about the plant. God is like, Jonah totally takes the bait and responds that he does do well to be angry. in fact angry enough to die.” Then God reveals to Jonah why he cares about the people of Nineveh. He says in verses 10 and 11 Jonah 4:10-11 “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?”” God tells Jonah, you didn’t create the plant. You had nothing to do with it. And in fact you didn’t even have it but for a day. And then God makes his point in verse 11. I want to do this a little backwards. Let’s start with how God mentions the animals. This is a weird phrase for sure. But what God is probably telling Jonah, if you aren’t going to be concerned for the people, shouldn’t you be concerned at least about the animals like you did the plant. But God’s ultimate love is clearly about the people. After he tells Jonah that Jonah is angry about a plant he had not personal connection for he says Jonah 4:11 “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...”Jonah 4:6-11. There is some debate on whether the number here represents all the people of Nineveh, just heads of households or what. But at the very least, it’s a minimum. In Nineveh there were at least 120,000 people who were lost. There were 120,000 people who did not know the way in which they should walk and because of that were living apart from the repentance that brings forgiveness of sins. But there weren’t just 120,000 people. There were 120,000 individuals who were uniquely created by God. There were at least 120,000 people whose names God knew before the creation of the world. There were 120,000 individuals that God had brought into the world at birth and had seen every step of their life up until that point. If Jonah loved a plant that he saw for a day and hated to see it perish, then why wouldn’t God feel that way about the people of Nineveh whom he created. 2 Peter 3:9 says 2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” God cared about the people of Nineveh because he loved each individual person and did not want them to experience the wrath that comes from sin.

Application: Do you know why God calls us to proclaim the gospel to those who don’t know him? It’s because those people that don’t know him are people he cares about. Whenever somebody leaves for a mission trip for the first time, the focus is on where they are going. For example, when I was assigned to be a summer missionary, they say where they are going, but once they get there they find out it is not a place they are going to, but a people. See, when I left in 2014 to serve as a summer missionary, I went to New York. But when I left, I left Jayden, Molique, Nnmecka, Chigizeum, Kamali and others. God didn’t send me to a city with a bunch of buildings and cool bridges. No, he sent me to a city full of people that he loved and he desired to see come to know Him. Young people, please he hear this, we should not have an attitude that we go on mission and share the gospel because it’s what we are suppose to do. No, if our heart is going to look like God’s, we must go on mission and share the gospel because there are billions of individuals with names, families, stories and everything else that makes them human who do not know Jesus. There are many that do not act in a way we would approve of, but it is because they do not know the truth of the gospel. They haven’t been made new by the blood of Jesus. And these people, that could be any of us if circumstances were different, do not live each day with the joy that comes from knowing God’s love or the eternal hope of the gospel. No, they live without those things. Places without the gospel are not lost or unreached places, they are places with lots of lost and unreached people. In a minute we are taking up our Annie Armstrong easter offering. But I want to read to you some statistics from those cities first.

New York: There are almost 8 million people within New York City. Only 4% are believed to be born again believers in Jesus Christ. That means over 7.6 million individuals do not know Christ.

San Diego: Only 9.8% of the 3 million people are believed to be evangelical Christians. That’s 2.7 million people with names families and stories that do not know Christ.

Application: Those are just two examples. There are countless other cities in the United States that are desperately in need of people to bring the gospel. God has chosen us to be the messengers of his grace. He has chosen us to go to those that don’t know Him and tell of his great love. That’s why we give, so that those of who God has called to go can be supported by those who go. But, what if God has called you to go? Do you feel a burden in your heart for those individuals that don’t know Him? Do you feel that God has called you to go with the gospel where there is such great need. You can’t go tomorrow, but you can start preparing. But no matter what God calls us to, it starts with having a heart for the people that God loves. Do we have that heart?

Conclusion: What we see in the book of Jonah is that God loved the people of Nineveh. That’s because he loves those he has created. And God loves you too. He loves you so much that he sent Jesus to die on a cross and rise again so that you could have grace and avoid eternal judgement. He also loves those in our lives that are hard to love. And he loves those across the world and country we don’t know, but that he does. Have you accepted the gift that God has given us in HIs love? Have you taken the step of obedience in placing your trust in Him. Maybe you have accepted Christ, but now you are feeling a love for those far from Christ that wasn’t there before.

Tonight we are doing things how we did them the first week of the series. We are going to start with our time of response. Up here on the table is an offering plate. If you brought money for the Annie Armstrong offering tonight, I want you to bring it forward and place it in the offering plate. But I also want to give you time to respond in prayer. In the back, I have turned some of the booths around to make them easier to kneel at. If you feel that there is somebody you need to pray for or you need to pray about what God is doing in your life, take the time to go back there and pray. Maybe you are ready to pray to receive Christ or just need somebody to pray with you. I will be standing in the back. But if God is calling you to act tonight, I pray that you will respond.