Grace and Mercy

Psalm 78:37-39 (Opening) 37  Their heart was not steadfast toward him; they were not faithful to his covenant. 38  Yet he, being compassionate, atoned for their iniquity and did not destroy them; he restrained his anger often and did not stir up all his wrath. 39  He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes and comes not again. Introduction There’s been a lot of hate in the news lately. People getting confronted, verbally or physically assaulted, simply because of how they look or how they dress. A friend of mine was verbally assaulted yesterday because of a hat he was wearing. But the hate seems to go both ways. It’s hard not to hate a group of people who seem to want to spend every waking moment expressing their hate to you and at you. When someone confronts you in a scary way, it’s hard to be nice back to them. It’s not something new. People have been hating since Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden. Anger and hate caused the first murder. Not a great precedent. People are divided over all kinds of different things. Some are obvious like gender or race. Some aren’t so obvious, like different religious or political beliefs. A lot of the problems with divisions like this are caused by fear. People are afraid of other groups of people who look or think differently than they do. It’s a normal reaction. If something is different, you should be cautious around it until you understand it. A little fear is a good thing. It causes you to be cautious. Like me with electricity, for example. I have a healthy respect for electricity. I know how to do electrical wiring and such in houses, but I also know from experience what can happen if you touch a live wire. Because of my experiences, I know to be careful around electricity. I know to turn off a circuit when I’m working on it, unlike some of my friends. Turning off a circuit is an easy way of avoiding unnecessary pain and injury. Unfortunately, you can’t turn off the differences between people. Sometiems, you can’t even avoid triggering the reaction of people who believe differently than you do. All you can do is try to mitigate the damage caused by their reaction to you, or your reaction to them. Watching This is our fifth week studying the book of Jonah. Jonah seemed to have some of these problems dealing with people and groups who were different than he was. Jonah was sent by God to warn the city of Nineveh, the capitol of the Assyrian Empire, that He was going to destroy them, but I guess Jonah didn’t want them to have any warning, so he headed in the opposite direction, and got on a ship for Tarshish. God sent a storm to stop Jonah, and the crew of the ship threw him overboard. But God didn’t let Jonah drown, He sent a giant fish to rescue Jonah and bring him back to shore. When Jonah was back on dry land, God told Jonah again to go to Nineveh. This time he went, and he warned them they only had 40 days to change their ways or God would destroy them. To Jonah’s surprise, they repented, fasting in sack cloth and ashes. You’d think their response would make Jonah happy, but it didn’t. Jonah 4:1 1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. Actually, Jonah was fuming. He didn’t understand how these heathens could so quickly respond to the warning from a foreign God. But that’s exactly what they did. They repented, and God relented of the disaster that He was going to send against Nineveh. God asked Jonah if he had a good reason to be angry. God was trying to gently remind Jonah that he had just been on the receiving end of mercy and grace. I don’t think Jonah got the hint, though. Jonah 4:5 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. “Maybe, just maybe, God will destroy the city, because of their evil.” So Jonah kept hiking east. Jonah’s home in Gath-Hepher was west of Nineveh, so he had been headed to the east since God’s second message sending him to Nineveh. He started crossing the suburbs of Nineveh and was working his way across the city to the far side. Then he continued east, up a hill, to find a place to sit and watch comfortably. He wanted to have a good vantage point to watch the fire and brimstone fall on the city, but not be so close that he’d end up in the mess himself. So, once he got on the hill, he built himself a small shelter. This shelter was probably similar to the ones built by the workers in the vineyards during the harvest; temporary shelters to keep the heat and rain off as much as possible, but not a permanent building. More like a lean-to with a roof of woven branches. Just enough to keep the sun off for a while. It’s important to be in the shade during the heat of the day in the area around Nineveh. The winters get down to the low 60s, but in the summer, it can get up over 120 degrees during the day. Shade would have been a necessity, not a luxury. The booths were usually roofed with woven branches, and those branches usually still had their leaves on them. As the days went on in the scorching heat, the leaves would shrivel up and stop blocking the sun as well, not providing Jonah the shade he needed to stay cool. Jonah 4:6 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. God knew Jonah’s needs, so He provided a plant that grew up and added to the shade his meager shelter provided. God appointed this plant, just like He appointed the great fish that swallowed Jonah and brought him to dry land. Scholars have discussed for millennia what kind of plant God caused to grow to protect Jonah. The Hebrew word just means a kind of garden plant. Many ancient scholars believed it was a kind of gourd plant. But others believed that it could have been a castor bean plant, which also has huge leaves and would have been able to provide shade for Jonah. I think it’s important to note that this is the first time in this book that Jonah is said to be happy. In fact, he was positively giddy. The Hebrew translates literally to something like “Jonah rejoiced over the vine with great rejoicing.” For Jonah, the vine God provided was the best thing ever! Maybe he thought “Well, God wants me to be comfortable, so I’m going to settle in and watch and see what happens to Nineveh.” Scorching But Jonah’s joy was to be short lived. Jonah 4:7 7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. The early bird may get the worm, but the early worm gets to eat Jonah’s vine. Like Job said, the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Jonah got to experience the joy of having the shade from the vine for a day, but that next morning a worm ate it and killed the vine. Jonah’s extra shade was taken from him. But at least the day was young, and it hadn’t gotten too hot yet. Maybe it would be a nice day and Jonah wouldn’t have to worry about having the extra shade. Jonah 4:8 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.” Not only did God take away the leafy vine He had provided by sending a worm to kill the plant, He also sent a wind from the east to cause more suffering. East of Nineveh is a lot of barren desert. In fact, most of the area around Nineveh was barren desert, except the shores of the Tigris river, and anyplace nearby they were able to get water to. This area of Iraq is hot and dry, with very little rainfall. And like I said earlier, the temperatures can rise to up to around 120 degrees in the summer. Add to that the scorching east wind God sent off the desert east of Nineveh, and it was just hot and nasty. It wasn’t worth sitting there to see the destruction of Nineveh. Jonah was overcome by the heat. He was probably dehydrated, and on the verge of heat exhaustion. “That’s it. I’m done. I don’t want to live anymore.” Jonah was even angry at God now. Jonah 4:9 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.” I think it was more than the plant. I think the plant was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. First, the Ninevites repent and fast in sackcloth and ashes, then God relents of the disaster He had planned for Nineveh. And now, God takes away Jonah’s comfort; first the plant, and now adds on the scorching east wind, making his life miserable. Jonah thought he was right to be angry. All these things God did were unfair. If God was being unfair, of course Jonah had a right to be angry! But the question Jonah should have asked himself was, is God being unfair, or was Jonah just misunderstanding what was going on. Compassion Jonah didn’t understand why God would relent from the disaster He had planned for Nineveh, even though they repented. After all, this was Nineveh, the capitol of the Assyrian Empire. This was the nation that was going around conquering all their neighbors, expanding their empire and enslaving the citizens of the nations they conquered. These people were evil. God saw it differently. Jonah 4:10-11 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?” God had used the plant as a parable for Jonah to learn from. Jonah didn’t do anything to make the plant grow, it just showed up. Gardeners would call that a volunteer. No one cultivated it, it just grew there because that’s what God wanted. Jonah didn’t have anything invested in the plant, why should he be upset when a worm eats it? God, on the other hand, had an investment in Nineveh. After all, they were people, they were created the same way Jonah and any other Israelite was created. They were part of God’s creation, and God cares for everything in His creation. Some scholars understand the point of verse 11 differently. Some think God is saying that the people of Nineveh were so lost, so confused, they may as well not have the ability to determine left from right. But some scholars believe God is saying there were 120,000 children in Nineveh and the surrounding area; children who hadn’t learned left and right yet. Shouldn’t Jonah have compassion on these children who didn’t know right from wrong yet, so they shouldn’t be held accountable for the evil their parents were involved in? Then God goes one step further. What about all the cattle? All those animals who had fasting in sackcloth inflicted on them by their owners. Why should all those animals suffer the same fate as their evil owners? Is that right? Jonah doesn’t answer God. In fact, that’s the end of the book. Not an ending by today’s standards. There’s no resolution; no closure. What happens next? Does Jonah repent? Does he go home? Does God grant his desires and let him die there in the desert? We don’t know the answers to those questions. But it seems that the book ends with a question to force us, the readers, to answer the question for ourselves. We need to put ourselves in Jonah’s sandals. We need to answer God’s question. Are you right to be angry? Jesus taught about compassion, which is what God was trying to teach Jonah about. That’s the whole idea about loving your enemy. Matthew 5:43-45 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. It doesn’t matter if you’re good or you’re evil, the sun rises on both every day, and God provides for everyone the same. Evil people don’t have clouds following them around with the occasional lightning bolt zapping them to make them feel miserable. The gardens of bad people grow just like the gardens of good people. We all have air to breathe. God provides that for all of us. Good or bad, right or wrong in God’s eyes, we all have our basic needs met by God. Jesus’ point is that we should be like God, being compassionate toward people who don’t treat us nicely, or may even hate us. That’s what God was trying to teach Jonah. The Ninevites were part of God’s creations too. They lived and died like the Israelites. They had families, they had crops, flocks, and herds. But in Jonah’s eyes, they were evil; they were the enemy. But Jesus continued: Matthew 5:46-48 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. It’s easy to love people who are like you, people who love you. That’s easy. Jonah could do that. We can do that, too. That’s something we’re accused of doing every Sunday; that we’re a private club that meets here and you have to be “one of us” to be here. I can see why people would think that, because it’s partially true. We want people to be saved, to follow Jesus, but that’s not a requirement for coming here. Or at least, it shouldn’t be. Just like what God was trying to teach Jonah, we need to understand that everyone has the capacity to reflect God in their lives, to be perfect like their heavenly Father. Every human was made in the image of God. But reflecting God in our lives takes more than what we can do on our own. Reflecting God’s love, being the image of God to others, requires having His spirit in us, so we can be more like Him. Jonah didn’t love the Ninevites. He went to Nineveh because God told him to; well, the second time God told him to. Jonah went there to deliver a message of doom: forty days until destruction. He delivered the message and sat down to watch the show. He didn’t deliver the message out of love, he did it because it was required. He’d already faced the consequences of not doing it once. Conclusion We need to be better than Jonah. We need to deliver the message God has given to us, and we need to do it out of love, not out of a desire to see a negative outcome when that message is ignored. Not everyone will hear our message about Jesus. Not everyone who hears our message will believe it and take it to heart. Not everyone who believes it will have enough faith in Jesus or in that message to do something about it. And unfortunately, not everyone who does something about it, acts in faith and is immersed into Christ, will continue in Him; some will wander off and not come back. Even so, we need to be vigilant. We need to keep being the watchman in the tower, like God told Ezekiel. Ezekiel 33:7-9 7 “So you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. 8 If I say to the wicked, O wicked one, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked person shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. 9 But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, that person shall die in his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul. Jonah was like Ezekiel; he was sent to tell the evil people of Assyria they were going to be punished if they didn’t change. They changed, and even though Jonah wasn’t happy about it, he did what God told him to do. We need to do the same thing; God wants us to tell people about Him. Part of having compassion for other people is warning them about their sins. We need to let people know the consequence of sin, but that someone has already paid the price for their sin, as long as they are willing to accept it and have faith in Him. Jesus died for everyone’s sins, but you have to believe it to accept it. His blood won’t cover your sins if you don’t have faith in Him as the Son of God. Many people stop with just faith. They think faith is enough; but it’s not. You have to obey Him. Part of that obedience includes learning His will. To do that, you need to get yourself into God’s Word, the Bible, and study it. Not just read it, but actually study it, learn what it says and how the Bible is its own best interpreter. Another part of His will is that those who have faith and believe He is the Son of God be immersed to wash away their sins and demonstrate their faith in Him by reenacting His death, burial, and resurrection. After that, we need to keep obeying Him, and also encouraging other Christians to stay on His path. But we also need to keep warning others, being watchmen. If you’re not a watchman, you’re being warned by one. Disobeying God has consequences; earthly consequences, and eternal consequences. We all face the earthly consequences of our behaviors, but if you don’t have faith in Jesus and obey Him by being immersed, you will certainly face the eternal consequences of your actions, too. If you want to do something about that and start with a clean slate, we’re ready to help. Colossians 3:12-15 (Closing) 12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.