Forgive

Jonah 4:1-11

Last week I had you recite every morning a phrase do we remember what that was? The Lord our God is merciful and gracious”, I even had you make it personal. by changing our to my. A statement to describe the character of God as God continues to share his story through His spirit. In my opinion, I believe it is the overall summation of who God is. Mercy protects us from the death we deserve and grace secures our eternal salvation.

Introduction: The book of Jonah is not about the big fish, it's about Jonah running from God. He was not running from His wrath but from His mercy. Have you ever tried to run or Hide from God? When God is putting you in a place so that His mercy may rein? In these 4 chapters, Jonah experiences all different types of feelings and emotions from crying out, to fleeing, obeying God, and being mad at God. Feelings that I believe we have all encountered in our lives or better yet, just keep living. The book of Jonah presents the prophet in a negative light as it highlights his disobedience to the Lord, leading us as readers to reject Jonah’s attitude and actions. Now don’t get it twisted, Jonah was a believer, as matter of fact, he was a prophet that was called to the ministry in the year 8 B.C.Jesus used this story of Jonah as an analogy of His own impeding death and resurrection. ( Matt. 12:39-41) 39 But Jesus replied, “Only an evil, adulterous generation would demand a miraculous sign; but the only sign I will give them is the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For as Jonah was in the belly of the great fish for three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.

41 “The people of Nineveh will stand up against this generation on judgment day and condemn it, for they repented of their sins at the preaching of Jonah. Now someone greater than Jonah is here—but you refuse to repent.

Here we run into another “Typology” Jesus’s is saying I can truly relate to Jonah and here I’m am doing the same thing for undeserving generation. Jesus needed prayer in the garden of Gethsemane to get confirmation after all that he had seen and wanted to make sure this is what His father really wanted. It shows How merciful and gracious of a God we serve and who blesses us. I can only imagine how many times God had heard from prophets, priest and His own son if this is really worth it? The question we need to ask ourselves are we worthy? Jesus’s analogy depends on the recognition of two historical realities, 1) the historical experience of Jonah in the belly of the great fish, and 2) the historical experience of the repentance of the people of Nineveh based on the preaching of Jonah, Luke 11:29–32. Indeed, the phrase, the sign of the prophet Jonah must have been a reoccurring phrase in the teaching of Christ, as it is found on more than one occasion in Matthews account of Christ ministry see Matthew 16:4. Why because we see how man could not do what Jesus could do.

Jonah’s response to God’s mission was the total opposite of Isaiah’s who said to the Lord, “Here am I; send me” (Isaiah 6:8) . He instead fled and disobeyed. God caused a large fish to swallow Jonah (1:17), and Jonah has three days to reflect on his behavior and prays to God (1:17b-2:10). God again tells Jonah to go preach to Nineveh (3:1-2), and this time Jonah obeys (1:3).

Surprisingly (at least to Jonah), the Ninevites listen and repent (3:5-9). Nineveh’s king uses similar language to Joel: “Who knows? God may yet relent...” (3:9). And indeed God does relent (3:10).

Jonah, however, is not pleased with the turn of events. How could God actually show compassion to people as wicked as the Ninevites? God can’t forgive them! In other words, He thought the people were too wicked to be converted. Something else here that I want to share. We think that the Ninevites are the ones who won’t change their heart, but in reality the question is can Jonah change his Heart? Sure he obeyed but did it get to his heart? This is a good question for us, Do we serve the Lord because we should, or because we want to? something to think about. Remember, Jonah hated the Ninevites they were cruel and violent people Nahum 3:15. They were also long time enemies of the Israelites. So how will he react when God shows mercy to the wicked?

chapter 4 verse one “ But to Jonah This seemed very wrong and he became angry” Jonah is not having it. it’s easy to say that Jonah is angry. The idiom for anger in the Old Testament literally means “ the nose that burns” or the nose that becomes hot” (Gen. 30:2; Ex. 4:14). The Hebrew idiom for “ Patient or Slow to anger” is literally “ long nose” ( Ps. 86:15; 103:8). The nose is symbolic of anger because an angry person breathes heavily and noisily. Just imagined someone who is mad and their nostrils are turning red. Yet a child who is angry they are crying, nose red and even snot bubbles coming out. I’ve also seen a few grownups like this. God‘s mercy seemed very wrong. Why because grace isn’t fair it’s better than fair. No one deserves mercy. You can’t earn grace and Jonah wants justice.

Read Jonah 4:1-11

Look at verse two, “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.” Apparently, Jonah had this conversation with God once already before he fled he knew God might forgive the wicked and he ran from it and now we see Jonah hasn’t changed. The wicked sinners changed just like that but the religious guy wouldn’t believe that this was right. Have you ever said those words it’s just not right, I can’t believe this is happening. Just stop and think about where this series has been. God took them out of captivity, built a wall, the read from the book for 3 hours a day and then confessed for 3 hours and then Joel keeps preaching to prepare their hearts for repentance and now it’s time to bring in the evangelist who can bring them home to glory and He won’t do it. WOW Verse 2 I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God, who relent from sending calamity”

Wow, this is a phenomenal revelation of who God is. Jonah knows God‘s nature and willingness to forgive sin when there is a true change of heart, but Jonah is angry . Have you ever wrestle with that? do you wonder if God is not exactly what you thought him to be? oh, He’s good, but we don’t get to mold Him to our liking.

Look at who God is here. He is gracious he gives good things that we do not deserve, He’s generous with it. Compassionate, He feels, He hurts with the hurting and cares for the suffering while all being slow to anger. God‘s patience is phenomenal and abounding in overflowing and never running out of love, a God who relents. think about that, God the unchanging creator of the universe, doesn’t change his nature, but he does change direction. He allows wrath to give way to mercy. He relents when we repent That’s God‘s nature, but it isn’t what Jonah wants. Look at verse 3 now Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live. Wow Jonah is ready to die. Game over man what happened to Jonah inside the fish the man who took a vow. Jonah said, I have vowed I will make good I will say salvation comes from the Lord, where’s has that vow gone? Vows made in the pit are easily forgotten in the sun, and there’s a serious lesson here for us. Maybe you don’t like God‘s mercy or maybe you don’t like God‘s wrath, but God is God and we are not.

Verse 4, but the Lord replied is it right for you to be angry perfect question Plain and simple Jonah is it right to be angry? Christians it’s so easy to get mad at sin and claim our righteous anger, but is it right? James Warren says that the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God”

Can we produce righteousness from anger?

Verse 5, Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in the shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. This is amazing. Jonah set up a viewing area outside town to watch the fire and brimstone show. I think he was still convinced that God‘s gonna take them out and he wants to see them go down. Gill Irwin tells the story here imagine a Ninevite father and son go hiking near Jonah. The boy asks why is that man so angry it’s OK son he’s just upset because we are alive. Do Christians ever act that way Do we wish some people where dead or that something bad happens to them? I asked this question about my kids or my granddaughters who I love dearly. If something happen to them what would I do or think about the person who harmed them, and then If I have to go minister to them?

We quote the scripture that “whatever is in the dark will come to light” Watch how many times God‘s mercy is proclaimed, and the countless people who get saved Yes, there is judgment and here in the Old Testament, you will find many prophecies of God‘s wrath upon the wicked, not unbalanced not unfair, but just and righteous, and the God, who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah is the same God, who spared Nineveh, and the God, who is slow to anger, will not delay, his wrath forever, and it is not for us to choose one God over the other. The merciful, or the wrathful is one of the same. The Key is to remember that “Vengeance belongs to God and not us.” He will repay and we can leave it to him so God has a lesson for Jonah. Though Jonah knew that God is slow to anger (v. 2) he still wanted the Lord to execute His wrath swiftly. Yet God, hesitant to be angry with even His prophet, sought to reason with him. God asked the sulking messenger whether his anger was justified (cf. v. 9). This question implied a negative response: Jonah had no right to be angry. A person should never angrily question what God does, even when it differs from what he expects or wants

Think of someone you really dislike. Perhaps this person has caused legitimate harm to you or someone you care about. Maybe this person is just constantly an annoyance. Maybe this person is so immoral that you believe he/she is irredeemable.

What qualities of God do you secretly hope God doesn’t show to this person?

If this person is not a Christian, think of how you’d react if this person suddenly became one. Is it ever ok to hope that a person will never find God?

More broadly, how do you feel when a person (other than yourself) seems to get undeserved mercy? The story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-31) echoes these themes. While we often want to make this a sentimental story about how we can always return to God, remember the context.

Jesus is telling this story to Pharisees, who as Jews were already supposedly close to God. They weren’t worrying about “running back into the arms of God.”

Jesus adds an element to this story that helps us see the main point. Jesus tells about the older brother who resents the warm welcome his younger, irresponsible, wild brother receives upon returning home.

The older brother’s response to the festivities for the younger brother echoes Jonah: “Look! All

these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!” (Luke 15:29).

The Pharisees were in danger of becoming like the older, resentful brother. They had been part of God’s people for so long, and now they resented the impure, irresponsible Gentiles having access too!

You may encounter someone like this on your job, in our churches and our families.

Why do we so strongly desire “fairness” when it comes to how God deals with people?

In what ways is God fair? In what ways is God not fair?

Do you think we want the same “fairness” for ourselves as we do for others? (In other words, if we resent others receiving mercy, would we oppose the same mercy being shown to ourselves?)

2 Chronicles 7:14,- If my people who are called by my name, will humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and time from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and heal their land.

Even more clearly Ezekiel 33:11 As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.

Jonah wanted to be shown mercy from the belly of the whale but didn’t want mercy and deliverance for the Ninevites.

Moral of the story, we should strive to have a HEART like God for the lost and the wicked to be saved. If we don’t have a heart like God for His people, then what’s our purpose.

Church God has set it up for us to do His good work. If everyone was sinless we would not have a purpose.

You can purposely and intentionally be forgiving today and saved today by repenting ......