Amazing Grace, How Sweet The Sound!

We’re continuing our series in the OT book of Jonah, chapter 3. The title of the sermon today is Amazing Grace, How Sweet The Sound.

Let’s start with some questions. These questions will be participatory.

If that song has meant something to you over the course of your life, would you indicate that by raising your hand?

If you feel that song sonehow connects you to someone you loved or a previous time in your life, would you indicate that by giving us a good strong amen?

Now, if Amazing Grace brings you joy because it reminds you that God is in the business of second chances, indicate that by standing and saying amen.

Amazing Grace Is a song that touches us for many reasons. It's that last reason I want you to zoom in on. For the moment, put aside the memories and nostalgia, and focus with me on the God of second chances. Focus with me on Amazing Grace.

Grace = here, a second chance

God gives us second chances when by His help we start over

#1: God shows grace to Jonah by giving him a second chance to __________ (vv. 1-3)

Previously, on Jonah and the fish: God said to Jonah, “Get up and go to Nineveh and preach, because they are a wicked city and I will have to destroy them if they don’t change.”

Jonah said “nope”, and he got up and went 2000 miles across the ocean in the opposite direction. But you can’t hide from God, and God caused a storm to overwhelm the boat. Jonah ends up overboard and is swallowed up by a huge fish.

(We saw last week that there are sharks so large in the Mediterranean that they could easily swallow Jonah whole without injuring him.)

In the belly of that fish, Jonah has time to think and to pray. Jonah has repented. Jonah wants a second chance. Jonah wants to start over. So that’s exactly what God does for Jonah. Jonah is ejected from the stomach of that fish on to the beach.

And that’s where we pick up in verse 1 of chapter 3, where we see that God shows grace to Jonah by giving him a chance to start over.

But before we see that, turn over in your Bibles just a page to the left, to the very first three verses of the book: “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.” 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.”

How different things are this time!

“Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, ‘Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city and proclaim to it the message that I tell you’” And then verse three, just the first part: “So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh.”

Too often, we imagine an angry response from God: “Why did you think you could run from me? How could you be so foolish? This time you better do what I say!”

Now most of us probably read this story of Jonah being vomited up by the whale and then God recommissioning him, and we misunderstand it. We think God is saying something like this:

“Alright Jonah, did you finally learn your lesson? Let’s try this again, and I would suggest that this time you do what I say.”

“Jonah, why did you think you could run from me? How could you be so foolish? This time you better do what I say!”

“Well, well, well, here’s Jonah, the prophet who tried to run from away me! You should’ve known you could never outsmart me.”

But God doesn’t kick us when we’re down

God could have said all of that. And all of it would have been true. But God isn’t like that. God doesn’t kick us when we’re down. God doesn’t throw our failures in our face.

Are you the kind of person who just cannot someone’s mistake go unmentioned?

They’re apologizing to you sincerely and in humility and repentance, and you are continuing to tell them how terrible they treated you.

I’m going to tell you this as your pastor: Stop it.

They are humbling themselves, they are owning their sin, they are wanting to make it right. That is not the time for you to kick them while they’re down. That is the time for you to humble yourself and say, with no reminders of the crime, “I forgive you; we’re good”.

Don’t say: “Forgiveness is not my spiritual gift.” That’s nonsense. Forgiveness isn’t anyone’s spiritual gift.

Don’t say, “Well it’s God’s job to forgive.” Forgiveness is your sacred duty given to you by the One who has forgiven you.

“Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matt 6:12 NASB). “Judgment will be merciless to the one who has shown no mercy” (James 2:13 NASB).

God disciplines Jonah. The discipline has passed. It has had its intended effect. Jonah was hardened and calloused before, far away from God in his heart. And he ended up at rock bottom.

But the experience of rock bottom has shown Jonah that there is ultimately no pleasure in trying to be free of God. Now Jonah’s heart is renewed and softened. He wants to obey. He wants a second chance.

And instead of saying things like, “Jonah, Did you finally learn your lesson?”, God says, with a totally different tone, “Jonah, would you like to try again? Okay, then get up, and go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.”

And this time, because Jonah has repented, and because Jonah has received grace, because Jonah has been given a second chance, verse three says that this time instead of getting up to go in the opposite direction away from God, now in obedience to God Jonah gets up and goes to Nineveh, “according to the word of the Lord”.

God’s grace is what motivates us to obey. “The kindness of God leads you to repentance” (Romans 2:4)

Why couldn’t Jonah just have done the right thing the first time? He didn’t want to. Well, why not? Why was the commission God gave to Jonah was so hard to obey?

We need to understand the enormity of what God is asking Jonah to do, so let’s take this command God gives Jonah and paraphrase it — or, really, contextualize it — for us.

Imagine God speaks audibly to you one morning:

“Good morning. I want you to get up, get dressed, pack a bag, go to Charlotte, get on a plane to Los Angeles, that great city. When you get there, start on one end of the city and make your way through it, preaching about the wrath of God and the cross of Christ. Call people to repentance and faith. I want you to do this in the most violent communities. And while you’re at it, go to USC — the University of Southern California — and preach the same message to the college students encamped and protesting.”

Now raise your hand if I lost you with “go to Charlotte”? How many of you did I lose when I said “get on a plane”?

The point was, it was inconvenient and intimidating. Nineveh was a big city. It was a dangerous city. But there was a deeper reason why Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh. In asking Jonah to go to Nineveh, the Lord was asking Jonah to confront all of his prejudices — not just his, but the nation of Israel’s too.

We don’t like to think of ourselves as having prejudices. There are some people, some classes or groups of people, that we do not want to see God give second chances too. And we are told that education overcomes prejudices. It does not. It would, if prejudice was a matter of ignorance, but it’s not. Prejudice is moral, and it is inborn into our fallen hearts.

Jonah confronted his prejudices. The Lord wants us to confront ours too.

We need to ask ourselves some question:

When it comes down to it, the people we see as the worst of the worst, do we really want to see them come to God and repent and be given a second chance?

The groups of people we just cannot stand, the people we now think are responsible for all of our nation’s problems — do we really want to see them in heaven?

Would their presence in heaven cause you to rejoice at how merciful God is?

Or would their presence in heaven make heaven less heavenly for you?

Only the love of Christ is able to overcome our ____________.

Our prejudices can stand in the way of other people hearing about the God of second chances. We become a stumbling block to them.

We should ask God to show us the truth about ourselves, so that as Prov 28:13 says we might confess and forsake our transgressions so that we might obtain mercy — a second chance! Only the love of Christ; only the grace of God — as we see with Jonah — is able to overcome prejudice that is in all our hearts.

God shows grace to Jonah by giving him a chance to start over.

#2: God shows grace to Nineveh by giving them a chance to __________ (vv. 4-8)

You could say Jonah is the mute prophet.

He said nothing when God called him to go to Nineveh the first time.

He said nothing when he boarded the ship headed for Tarshish.

He said nothing when the storm raged around them and the waves threatened to break up the ship.

He said nothing when the sailors who didn’t even care about living for God actually prayed to God.

He said nothing when the captain had to wake Jonah up and beg him to pray for their safety.

The prophet of the Lord, the only one with a word from the Lord, will not open his mouth and let that word out.

Jonah finally opens his mouth in verse 4: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” (ESV). And God instantly honors his obedience. Where do we see that? Verse 4: “Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey” just a day’s journey! He barely traversed one third of the city, and all he had to do was open his mouth and they responded.

Look at Jonah’s message: “And he called out, ‘Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” That’s Jonah’s sermon. How many words was that? Go back with me and count: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown” That’s eight words. God backs up His word with His own power. [See Redmond, Curtis, & Fentress, Exalting Jesus in Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, p41] He can do the same thing with one word as he can do with 5000 words.

(I know, I know what you’re thinking: pastor Dustin, eight words was good enough for Jonah — don’t you think you should try that too?” I know who you are!)

Here’s the point. “And the people of Nineveh — here it is — believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them” (Jonah 3:4-5 ESV). Fasting — refraining from food — and putting on sackcloth, sitting in ashes, these are ancient symbols of grief and sorrow. Nineveh has repented!

Didn’t take much. Jonah only went one third of the way into the city! Preached only an eight word sermon! And God blessed it! God gave disobedient Jonah a second chance to proclaim His message to Nineveh, and it’s almost as though Jonah has barely gotten the words out of his mouth before the city explodes in revival. Jonah takes the first steps of obedience, and God honors those first steps and blesses His ministry overwhelmingly.

God is pleased when we take the tiniest, weakest, most pathetic steps in the right direction!

Write this down. Friends, our God is pleased when we take the tiniest, weakest, most pathetic steps in the right direction!

Nineveh receives a second chance from God because they repent. They repent.

Repentance is a change of _________ that leads to a change of ___________.

To repent is = to turn over a new leaf, make a new start, do an about-face.

Not all of us know what it means to repent. It just means to turn over a new leaf. Make a new start. To do an about-face.

Repentance is experiencing a change of mind that leads to a change of behavior. Say that again with me: What is repentance? A change of mind, that leads to a change of behavior. Biblically it is changing your mind to agree with what God’s word says about sin, and then to have that change of mind result in a changed life.

We know this already, it’s common sense. “The proof is in the pudding” — right? “I’ll believe it when I see it.” It’s one thing to say “Oh I have repented.” To which God says: “Show me”.

The citizens of Nineveh display a beautiful picture of repentance. We said repentance is a change of mind first, right? So we see that in verse 5 at the very beginning: “And the people of Nineveh” — what? “The people of Nineveh believed God.” And then “they called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.” And there’s the behavior that demonstrates, the changed life resulting from the changed mind.

One way that we see how God blessed Jonah’s obedience is that even the king of Nineveh repents. How often do you see the leader of a global superpower publicly convert to Christianity? The King of Nineveh — who by the way was a major player on the world stage because Nineveh was the capital of the mighty nation of Assyria — the king of Nineveh issues this decree. Not only does the king of Nineveh take off his robe put on sackcloth and sit in ashes — demonstrating that not only has the lowest of the low repented in Nineveh —so has the highest of the high.

But the king of Nineveh also issues a decree to everyone in the kingdom. How often do you see the leader of a global superpower provide spiritual leadership to his peopl?

He commands everyone to fast — to refrain from food. He calls everyone to cover themselves with sackcloth. But he also says two other important things in verse 8: “Let them call out mightily to God.” — He tells them to pray. Then he tells them to clean up their act in the second part of verse 8: “Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.” Because repentance is a change of mind that leads to a change of behavior.

God shows grace to Nineveh by giving them a chance to start over.

#3: God shows grace to Nineveh by withholding ___________ when they repent (vv. 9-10?)

There are certain laws in the natural world.

The law of gravity means that if something goes up, if nothing hinders it, it will come back down.

There's the law that says for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

There’s the second law of thermodynamics which says that

There are certain spiritual laws as well, ways that God has chosen to relate to us, and one of them is this:

A spiritual law: God _____________ when people repent.

God is holy and He must punish sin.

God is Creator, and He has the __________ to be Judge of His creation.

God relents when people repent. God is holy and He must punish sin. This is not because God likes to be angry and to judge. It's because He must be true to his nature and uphold moral government in the world. God is Creator, and God has the right to be Judge of His creation.

When the sin of humanity prompts God to act in judgment, if they repent, God will relent.

The Israelites know this. Jonah knows this. The king of Nineveh does not know this. But get this — and we see this in verse 9 — he hopes it's true. He says, “Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.”

This is the natural light of reason, God’s image at work in a man who doesn't know the true God but still he has these faint hopes and half-true assumptions about the true God. “Let’s do everything we know to do amend our ways and reform our lives. Let's put away the violence that has so often characterized our city. And maybe, just maybe, this God — whoever He is — will see, and take note, and spare us.”

Preaching the wrath of God is a good and loving thing to do if the wrath of God is _________.

Jonah preached the wrath of God. Which by the way is a good and loving thing to do if the wrath of God is real. Jonah preached. Now let's test our statement of the spiritual law. How does God respond?

Verse 10: Did God even see their repentance? “When God saw what they did” — he did take note! What did he take note of? Going on: “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way.” He took note of their repentance. What's the spiritual law again? When people repent, God relents. Nineveh repented. God took notice. And then? Verse 10: “God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.”

God shows grace to Jonah by giving him a second chance to obey. God shows grace to Nineveh by giving them a chance to repent. God shows grace to Nineveh by withholding judgment when they repent.

Call for response

The way to receive grace, the way to be given a second chence, is repentance.

There's a true story about a man who made his living cutting down trees. He was a logger. He had just finished cutting thr a three foot wide oak tree, which unexpectedly fell back in his direction onto his left leg, pinning him to the ground. He had no one with him, no cell phone, no help nearby.

He tried and tried to get himself unpinned. He dug out the dirt under his leg but ended up hitting rock. Meanwhile he's bleeding profusely.

And he makes a calculation. He can stay there and hope help comes. Or he can unpin himself by cutting off his leg with the same chainsaw he used to cut down the tree.

This man didn't want to lose his leg, but his leg was literally going to kill him. He made the difficult decision to part with what he could live without, so that he could go on living.

This is repentance. When we part with the sins we love so that we can have Christ who loves us.

This is the pathway to mercy.

Church, believer, are you in need of mercy today? How does a second chance sound to you? Are you interested in that?

Jesus is not angry with you. If you've trusted in Him, if you belong to Him, He is not angry or disappointed with you. To you He holds out His hand and says, Are you ready to try again?

You have to repent. Jesus loved Jonah too much to make peace with his sin. He loves you too much to make peace with your sin. Cut it off. Amputate your sin. Sever it from you and throw it away. It hurts and it's hard, but Jesus is better.

This area down front is open for you. Come and call out to God for mercy. God relents when we repent.