Resentment vs Forgiveness

The reading we just looked at together describes a scene of comeuppance for the enemies of God. The city of Babylon and all the people who spent their days doing whatever they wanted and ignoring God entirely have fallen, they are getting what they deserve. And when we think of that final day, it might come with feelings of vindication that justice has been served. It might come with feelings of satisfaction that we are God’s elect and we are protected from this final suffering. If we’re being honest, it might even come with a little bit of a smug feeling that they got what they deserved. But how many of us hear these verses from Revelation and feel broken hearted?

The text for this morning actually isn’t Revelation 18, it’s a reading from Jonah 4. Now to remind everyone what happens in the book of Jonah. God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh and tell them to repent, he runs away instead on a boat, God sends a storm, the sailors figure God is mad at someone on the boat, Jonah owns up to being the person God is mad at, gets thrown in the ocean, God sends a great fish to swallow Jonah, Jonah repents, God makes the fish vomit Jonah up on the shore, Jonah goes to Nineveh, tells them to repent . . . and they do. Which all leads us into this text

Jonah 4 (ESV)

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.

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.”

And the Lord said, “Do you do well to be angry?”

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.

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.

But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered.

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.”

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.”

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?”

When we hear the punishment handed out in Revelation, how often is our reaction one of vindication instead of lament? When we see people around us getting what they deserve, how often is our reaction one of smug satisfaction instead of sadness? When we see God’s grace bring people to Him, how often is our reaction one of resentment for what they did before instead of celebration that they have been redeemed?

The Source

Consider this example, I want you to image a co-worker at your job. Now you are a hardworking, dedicated employee. You are committed to excellence in your work. You don’t always go above and beyond, but you do more often than not. You’ve put in the time and you’ve put in the effort. This co-worker on the other hand, always shows up late and goes home early. They do the bare minimum with any given task they’re assigned and you frequently have to do extra work to make up for their laziness and incompetence. In all honesty, you suspect that your job would actually get easier if they weren’t there to mess up all the time. Then the pay raises get announced for the next year and you overhear that co-worker talking about their annual raise - an annual raise that is exactly the same as yours. How are we feeling about this co-worker?

You see, forgiveness and resentment originate in the same place. Both of them start when we look out at others and perceive that they deserve something bad. Whether that is a pay cut or a punishment for sin, we look out and think “that person deserves blank.”

The Experience

Where these two attitudes start to diverge is in the response and the experience. Forgiveness looks at that person and says “I hope they get better than they deserve” while resentment looks at that person and says “I hope they get exactly what they deserve.” And honestly, how we handle this situation says a lot about our faith and how it has impacted us.

In some circles, there’s this stereotype or this criticism that gets leveled at Christians that we are hypocrites. Now, that accusation has always bewildered me, because a core tenet of our faith is that we are all sinners. So when we end up doing things we shouldn’t, it’s not hypocrisy because saying exactly what we are. I think where the hypocrisy label can fairly come from though, is when we approach the world with an attitude of vindictive resentment. It’s fair to call us hypocrites if we talk about the forgiveness of sins all the time and approach everything with a resentful stance. Jesus even told a parable about it. A guy owed more to a king than he would make in his entire lifetime and the king forgave the debt instead of holding him to it. Then that same guy went and beat up another guy over like twenty bucks. The king hears about this and throws the first guy in debtors prison for his hypocrisy.

On the other hand, if we approach the world with an attitude of grace and forgiveness, we approach things much more consistently with our God - who Luke tells us “there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents” and “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” Because we are all sinners, we all deserve the kinds of punishment that Revelation describes, but God doesn’t give it to us. God forgives us for everything we’ve ever done wrong, every mistake we’ve ever made, and every good thing that we fail to do. This passage from Jonah reminds us that God graciously forgives sinners and rejoices when they come to Him.

The Result

And that announcement of grace is incredible for us and it is worth celebrating when it rings true for others as well. When people repent and are brought to Christ by the Holy Spirit, when they are forgiven and absolved of their sin, when they receive the promise of eternal life in paradise - our reaction should be nothing but joyful.

I want to pick up on the story from earlier, with the bad co-worker who got more than he deserved. If you choose to be resentful about that, at the end of the day you might be lying in bed and that frustration is boiling over. It’s hard to fall asleep and you’re just getting angrier and angrier that that person was treated with grace. But if you choose to approach with an attitude of forgiveness, you might be happy for him in the moment but by the time you get home it’s probably not even on your mind any more. There’s a saying that holds some truth here - unforgiveness is a lot like swallowing poison and waiting for the other person to die. We have been given incredible grace ourselves, it does nothing but hurt us when we hold that same grace against someone else. Let the experience of Jonah encourage us to look at God’s forgiveness for others the same as God’s forgiveness for us - as something worth celebrating. Amen.