Sermon Tone Analysis
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Emotion Tone
Anger
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Disgust
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Fear
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Joy
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Analytical
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Openness
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Conscientiousness
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Extraversion
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Anger
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Introduction
You know what I struggle with as a pastor.
When you hear about a church that seems to be doing well.
Joe Stole hit me with this many years ago.
About praying that God would bless churches.
I want to be the church that gets blessed, not the other church.
How dare God show mercy and grace in such a way to those people.
They don’t deserve it.
They haven’t worked hard for it.
Yet, God’s words to Jonah ring true to me today: Do you do well to be angry?”
There’s a big difference between righteous and unrighteous anger.
FCF: When it comes to growing in God’s grace, none of us are set up for life.
Transition: Jonah had an unrighteous anger that caused him to think life with God is not worth living.
Unrighteous Anger can make you think life with God is not worth living (4:1-4)
In this prayer, we find a reversion of the “old Jonah” who ran away from God’s command.
We need to see the selfishness of this prayer.
In the original language, the personal pronoun is used none times.
It shows an extreme selfishness, but also shows Jonah’s shortsightedness.
But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.
What was he angry about?
What God did in 3:10.
RECAP
In this prayer, we find a reversion of the “old Jonah” who ran away from God’s command.
We need to see the selfishness of this prayer.
In the original language, the personal pronoun is used nine times.
It shows an extreme selfishness, but also shows Jonah’s shortsightedness.
Vs. 1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly.
Displeased = had a moral problem with God’s decision.
He thought it was gravely wrong.
You read this story and you’d hope that Jonah, who has received so much of God’s mercy and forgiveness for his own evil would be exceedingly happy for God showing his mercy to Ninevah.
Jonah had a problem with the character of God.
(Vs.
2b)
Jonah was scandalized by the inclusiveness of God’s mercy.
God’s mercy isn’t reserved for an ethnic group, but for all those who repent and believe.
That’s it.
Vs. 2 For I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.
Jonah’s selfcentredness is astonishing here.
He even takes language from of one of the darkest moments in his own people’s lives.
When they built a golden calf and bowed down in worship.
It is in that context that God forgives his sinful people, that is the first time we see that he is a God who “relents from disaster”.
God’s mercy isn’t reserved for an ethnic group, but for all those who repent and believe.
That’s it.
But for some reason, when God shows this same mercy and grace to others, Jonah is displeased.
If God is going to forgive people who Jonah thinks are too wicked to deserve it, Jonah does not want to live in such a world.
“ ‘Over my dead body’ is his vehement reaction to God’s grace.”
Jonah was angry with the freedom of God to be God.
(vs.
2b)
If God is going to forgive people who Jonah thinks are too wicked to deserve it, Jonah does not want to live in such a world.
“ ‘Over my dead body’ is his vehement reaction to God’s grace.”
These words are a reason to praise God, but Jonah uses to tirade against him.
Even though Jonah had become obedient, he still lacked a spirit of submission to God.
Sklar, J. (2018).
Jonah.
In I. M. Duguid, J. M. Hamilton Jr., & J. Sklar (Eds.),
Daniel–Malachi (Vol.
VII, p. 417).
Wheaton, IL: Crossway.
Before we go all judgey on Jonah, we really need to remember who common this is amongst us all when we murmur against God’s sovereign will.
As you flip through the pages of history, believers have stood in direct opposition to God’s revealed will and sought the implementation of our own wishes.
Vs. 4. And the Lord said, “Do you do well to be angry?”
In other words, is this really the right attitude?
The Lord responds with a searching question: “Do you do well to be angry?”
(v.
4).
In other words, “Is this the right response?”
In this context in particular, the issue is clear: “Is it right to be angry that the same mercy and grace you yourself have received from the Lord is shown to other people?”
Unlike most people, who sin in ignorance of what God is really like, Jonah’s heart rebels precisely because he knows the truth about God, and because the truth conflicts with his own heart’s desires.
Sklar, J. (2018).
Jonah.
In I. M. Duguid, J. M. Hamilton Jr., & J. Sklar (Eds.),
Daniel–Malachi (Vol.
VII, p. 417).
Wheaton, IL: Crossway.
Phillips, R. D. (2010).
Jonah & Micah.
(R. D. Phillips, P. G. Ryken, & I. M. Duguid, Eds.) (p.
115).
Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.
Transition: What Has Jonah been forgetting here?
That God has been gracious to him.
Even in this story.
God broke him so he could heal him through the fish.
He delivered him from the fish.
And then put him back in his presence.
FCF: When it comes to growing in God’s grace, none of us are set up for life.
Just in these first short verses, Jonah is showing he’s got a few problems with God.
Jonah had a problem with God showing mercy to anyone else but his own people.
“My own country” (vs.
2)
Jonah’s objection reveals great pride.
How else could Jonah presume to think better of things than God does?
Yet many object to the Bible’s doctrines of grace in just this way.
When Paul wrote of God’s sovereign grace in , he rehearsed two objections.
The first demanded, “Is there injustice on God’s part?” ().
People frequently object this way to the doctrine of election: the Bible says that God sovereignly chose his people from all eternity (; ), but people object, “Isn’t that unfair?”
Paul rejoined, “By no means!
For he says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy’ ” ().
Paul reminds us that when we are talking about the salvation of any sinners, the proper category is God’s mercy, not God’s justice (or fairness).
To claim injustice when it comes to grace is simply to confuse categories: no one deserves to be saved; if anyone is saved at all, it is only because of God’s mercy.
The second objection to sovereign grace is equally wrong: “You will say to me then, ‘Why does he still find fault?
For who can resist his will?’ ” ().
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