Repentance is Never Over

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?”

5.5 years ago we bought a 100 year old home in Quarryville… it’s a great little house… we love it… please don’t hear ANYTHING I’m about to say as complaining...

There are times when our walk with Jesus is really close… where we are abiding in him strongly...

And then there are times when we feel distant… dry… maybe even experiencing the effects of some remaining sin…

Is that accurate, those of you who know Jesus?

(if you don’t know Jesus, let me just say, none of us claims to be perfect, but we do recognize that Jesus has saved us and redeemed us and wants to work powerfully in our lives)

And if you know Jesus, I think you know what I’m talking about...

So did you ever have this experience: you are having a really good week...

You just got done with some time in the word…

you had a prayer time when your heart was just really moved by God to cry out in passion…

Maybe you have a disciple-making moment that goes really well (you teach a class where the Spirit’s movement is really evident… you have a conversation with a friend about Jesus… whatever it is…)…

You are walking on cloud 9 with Jesus...

I hope you have that experience, by the way… it’s good to be near to our God...

Feeling good about my walk with the Lord, “How could I ever NOT be THIS in step with the Lord??? I’m never leaving this spot!”

But has the thought ever crossed your mind in that moment, like, “What was I ever thinking when I was walking FAR from the Lord? How could I have EVER wanted to be in that place? I’m NEVER going back there again!”

I don’t know if I’m the only one that has that thought pop into my head sometimes, but as soon as I think that thought, I realize that I am in a danger zone…

and I have to be really careful about my thoughts...

I have to guard against spiritual pride and self-sufficiency...

So when we bought it, we had rented small apartments and a townhouse up until that point… and the thing we were most excited to do was paint the walls...

Because inevitably something enters that challenges that moment of spiritual high.

My wife is an artist… and I’m one of those guys who actually cares about what things look like...

It could be a circumstance that is hard...

And so we got in there for a week before we moved in and painted all the walls the colors we wanted...

But for me, it’s usually it’s a relationship… generally where I see that I’VE fallen short… sometimes where I need to show someone else grace…

And that thrill satisfied us for a little while...

and in my inability to do so, I reveal even more of my own need for grace.

Until we realized all the other things we wanted to do… and then all the other things that we needed to do...

The steam heating system went bad soon after we moved in…

We saw the porch that needed repaired (which happened last year thanks to so many from Oak Hill who helped)...

We saw the carpets that needed replaced… and our garage needs repaired…

And I’m even starting to notice that I need to repaint what we had done when we moved in...

And the longer we are homeowners, the more we have learned as any homeowner does that the projects are never over.

There’s always something new revealed that could be improved or refreshed or upgraded...

And you’ve got to stay on top of it, right? If you don’t, you get behind… and even more things spin out of control...

And our lives are a lot like that: even as much as we grow in faith in Christ and grow into his image, there is ALWAYS room to grow more...

And the truth is that even as much as we grow in Christ, there is ALWAYS room to grow more...

Because our God is PERFECT… and his righteousness reaches to the heavens… and his steadfast love never fails and his grace is immeasurable…

Because all that is true, repentance is never over.

I think we like to think of repentance as having an end point in this life.

Maybe when we come to salvation… then the need to repent will be over.

Or maybe once we repent once of each particular sin we struggle with… repent, check that one off the list, move on...

Or maybe once we reach some mythical level of spiritual maturity we can stop repenting...

But the longer you are a Christian, the more you realize that repentance is never over.

Now, on the one hand, we’ve turned from our sin and trusted in Christ for salvation… and we stand perfectly righteous before God… there is nothing we can do to make God love us more… there’s nothing that we NEED to do to earn our salvation…

And at the same time, in our experience, we have a whole lot more repentance to go...

Because our sins that once separated us from God now must still be removed from our lives.

And God’s goal for you is not that you would just escape hell by the skin of your teeth…

not just for you to tweak your life a little bit so that you would become a better person...

And

God’s goal is for you to be conformed to the image of Christ through the power of the Spirit...

And his goal is to use you to help others do the same.

And so as we turn to the final chapter of Jonah… one that shows us the messed up messenger’s continual need for grace… I believe God wants us to see the need to...

Repentance is never over… but that’s because ultimately God’s grace knows no boundaries.

And so as we turn to the final chapter of Jonah… one that shows us the messed up messenger’s continual need for grace… I believe God wants us to see the need to...

Big Idea: Keep repenting until your heart expands to the size of God’s grace.

Big Idea: Keep repenting until your heart expands to the size of God’s grace.

We are in Jonah chapter 4 today… our goal in this study has been to allow God to work on the messes that we are through the mission that he gives (I hope you’ve been allowing God to do some work in YOUR heart this summer… and I hope you’ve been getting after the mission he’s called you to because that’s HOW he wants to do that work)...

Let me just remind you of where we’ve been in the book of Jonah...

In chapter 1, we are introduced to Jonah… he’s a messenger of God… he’s a prophet… And Jonah reveals that his heart is pretty messed up (just like all of our hearts are at times)...

And we see God working on the mess that Jonah is through the mission he gives him.

The mission actually reveals the mess and is God’s tool to work on Jonah’s heart.

That’s been our vision in this series: to allow God to work on the messes that we are through the mission he has given.

God totally knew Jonah’s heart when he called him… I believe that is WHY he called him… because God wanted to reach Jonah just as much as he wanted to reach Nineveh.

So in chapter 1, Jonah rows hard against the Lord… he runs the opposite direction of Nineveh where the Lord had called him… and the Lord chases him down… he sends a storm that only calms down once Jonah is thrown into the depths of the sea...

But God’s goal is not to kill Jonah… but to save him… and he does that by sending a big fish to swallow him up...

That got Jonah’s attention… so in chapter 2 we see him returning to the Lord… crying out to God...

And then in chapter 3, we saw how Jonah’s repentance led to the repentance of the entire city of Nineveh… it was a miracle all around...

And the trajectory of the story seems to be going really well…

If this were a 21st century movie, the story would end after chapter 3...

But let’s read chapter 4...

Those are probably the strangest final words of any book in the Bible… “and also many cattle.”

We’ll talk about what’s the deal with the cattle in a little bit, but for now I want you to see that this is a book without resolution…

It’s meant to leave you the reader wondering: “did Jonah keep repenting?”

But even more, it’s meant to cause you to reflect: “will I keep repenting?”

Repentance is never over.

Jonah did not understand how God’s grace worked in his own heart… the extent to which God had rescued him… and that kept him from extending grace to others.

We need to keep repenting until our heart expands to the size of God’s grace.

Our hearts are more like onions than bananas...

A banana has one peel and then you are done...

An onion has layer after layer after layer...

And God is gracious to remove each one.

And because God’s grace is limitless, repentance is never over in this life.

We see this in Jonah’s life… as he was going in the right direction… and then we all of the sudden see deeper into his heart…

And we see that he doesn’t really love the gracious character of God the way we would expect.

Look at verses 1-4 again… [Read Jonah 1:1-2]

Here’s what Jonah needs to do… and what we need to do… to expand our hearts for God’s grace…

Repent until you love your gracious God. (v. 1-4)

Explain: The refrain that keeps getting repeated throughout chapter 4 is this phrase, “He was angry.”

Anger is Jonah’s gut level reaction to what he saw in Nineveh. It’s controlling his heart… his actions.

Notice: Who is he angry with? Not the Ninevites… (he’s angry ABOUT the Ninevites)… Jonah is specifically angry WITH God.

Even more specific, he’s angry with God’s gracious character.

He recounts the way God revealed himself first to Moses in …

I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.” (, ESV)

This is a formula that we see a lot in the Bible… according to one commentator, if you line up all the times you see this statement chronologically, this is the seventh and final time we see this in the Bible… and every time except this one, the character being celebrated.

Jonah KNEW the character of God because he knew his Bible.... but he didn’t LIKE what he knew.

He’s saying, “I KNEW IT!!! I KNEW YOU WOULD HAVE GRACE ON THOSE STINKIN’ HEATHENS!!! THAT’S WHY I DIDN’T WANT TO COME ON THIS DUMB MISSION IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!”

I want you to see that Jonah had the faith to believe in God… but he fell short of LOVING God.

It’s one thing to believe in God… it’s another thing to love him fully for who he is.

Jonah doesn’t love the grace that beats in God’s heart. And that’s because he can’t relate to it at all.

Jonah is quickly angered… God is slow to anger.

Jonah wants vengeance… God gives compassion...

Jonah won’t be happy until the city of Nineveh is overthrown in destruction… God is happy that the city of Nineveh is overthrown in repentance.

And wherever we see the gap between our own heart and God’s heart, it’s time to repent again.

Now Jonah had repented in chapter 2… we don’t need to write off what happened in chapter 2-3 because of what we see in chapter 4....

We don’t have to write off Jonah’s previous repentance just because Jonah needs to return to the hard anvil of heart work.

Too often we think that our repentance doesn’t count if we ever have to face down the same sin again...

But repentance is not a straight line. Our growth in Christ is not a straight line to perfection where we check off one sin, move on to the next.

We grow… and we falter… and we grow some more… and we falter a little less than last time… but still growing…

Our hearts are more like onions than bananas...

And Jonah needs to grow in his love for God’s grace.

A banana has one peel and then you are done...

An onion has layer after layer after layer...

And God is gracious to remove each one.

There is so much irony in the book of Jonah… especially in the fact that as he is angry about God’s grace, he doesn’t even how much HE actually needs that same grace…

How forgetful he was of how much he had received it already in the storm and in belly of the fish...

He’s forgetful of the sheer privilege it was to be used by God even when he ran the first time.

And his anger at God’s character is yet another reason that he still needs to receive more grace.

And God is ready to give it: verse 4 - instead of taking him OUT right there (which is what I would have done if I were God…)… God is so gracious… he just asks a heart revealing question: “Do you do well to be angry?”

God is so patient with Jonah… exactly BECAUSE of the character that Jonah cited… he is gracious and merciful, SLOW to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.

It can be easy for us to get a little annoyed with Jonah… even righteously ANGRY with Jonah..... until we realize we are doing the exact same thing.

It can be easy for us to get a little annoyed with Jonah… even righteously ANGRY with Jonah.... like, “What’s your problem, Jonah, why don’t you see it!!!”

Until we realize we that in that judgement, we are doing the exact same thing.

Jonah was harsh about Nineveh’s wickedness....

We are harsh about Jonah’s hatred of God’s character…

But God was patient and merciful with Jonah.

Illustrate: It’s so much easier to see other people’s problems than it is to see our own, isn’t it?

Like, were you ever in a hurry to get somewhere...

And you are driving kind of fast… and you are right up on everyone’s tail...

What’s the thought that goes through your mind? Why is everyone driving like a moron today!?!?!

And you can’t even see through your hurry that you are the bad driver.

It’s so much easier to see other people’s problems than it is to see our own…

And when we do that, we show just how much more we need to repent… and just how much more we need to love God’s grace for ourselves..

Apply: Repentance is the way we learn to love the grace of God.

Did you ever think about that?

If you don’t stop to acknowledge your sin and where you need to grow and change your thinking, you won’t see the grace of God… you won’t think you need it...

And it will lead you to be harsh… and frustrated… and ultimately angry…

What Jonah needed most in this moment was to remember God’s grace toward him. THAT is what would have increased his love for God’s grace.

He needed to take his sinful thoughts captive: the thought that HE deserved something more than Nineveh.

He needed to take the thoughts captive that his heart was returning to: that HE deserved something more than Nineveh.

He needed to remember just how hard he had been running against God and God chased him down and saved him.

He needed to remember how slow to anger God was with him… he needed to repent of his thoughts toward Nineveh… and even more toward God... to increase his love for God’s grace.

If you want to love the grace of God, learn to repent often.

Regularly go to God in prayer and acknowledge your sinful attitudes before him.

Acknowledge your self-righteousness and your judgmental thoughts toward others slow growth.

Acknowledge where your thinking is not like God’s thinking… where you don’t want to show others forgiveness...

Acknowledge where you are being passive aggressive against others...

Repent often… so that you can remember that God is gracious and compassionate with YOU...

If you don’t get to the part where you see God’s grace, you have fallen short of gospel-centered repentance...

Repentance involves confessing our sin… but also recognizing that God has paid for every sin by nailing it to the cross of Christ… he has offered full forgiveness… he credits faith in Christ as righteousness...

So repentance is not penance… paying off your sin.

It’s humbly falling on the mercy of Christ and relying on your gracious God to change your heart...

And then surrendering to him as you walk out that grace in your life

So recognize that God is gracious can compassionate with YOU… He is slow to anger and patient with YOU...

And if it were based on your own performance, you would be experiencing disaster… but God relents for his repentant children.

God is after your heart… it is the wellspring from which your life flows...

God is patient… but he’s persistent… God is certainly patient and persistent with Jonah, asking him a simple question that he will repeat again in a few verses…

But Jonah isn’t ready to answer it yet...

Read Jonah 4:4-10

Repent until you love God’s grace… secondly this...

Repent until you find life in your gracious God. (v. 5-10a)

Explain: Jonah’s lack of love for God’s grace led Jonah to despair over life itself.

Transition: This lack of love for God’s grace led Jonah to despair over life itself.

Verse 3 said that Jonah wante

We need to...

Explain: This lack of love for God’s grace led Jonah to despair over life itself.

Proverbs tells us that the heart is the wellspring of life… and Jonah’s heart is not beating with God’s heart...

Back in v. 3, Jonah said he just wanted to DIE… he couldn’t bear the thought of God being gracious to the Ninevites…

It reminds me of chapter 1 when Jonah says the only way out of the storm is by sending him overboard…

His answer wasn’t repentance… it was assisted suicide. He would rather die than go God’s way.

So Jonah ignores God’s question…

Explain: So Jonah is hoping that somehow his temper tantrum has convinced God to go AGAINST his revealed character...

And the next scene makes me wonder if he is hoping that somehow his temper tantrum has convinced God to go AGAINST his revealed character…

Because he makes a booth… a tent… essentially he get’s out his popcorn and recliner outside the city, hoping to see a real-life apocalypse movie in action…

Jonah is sitting back in judgment of the city who is repenting in sackloth and ashes, hoping God will do the same… instead of drawing near as a participant in repentance for the very grace he himself needs.

But God’s thoughts are not like Jonah’s… instead of destroying the city, God gets busy going after Jonah’s heart once again.

Jonah’s booth was probably to save himself from the intense heat of the sun… it was a nice try, I guess… but apparently he still needed more relief from the sun.

So where Jonah fell short, God provided, and he caused a plant to grow up overnight to shade his head, that it might “save him from discomfort.”

Now that word for discomfort in verse 6 is the same word translated “evil” in other parts of the book of Jonah.

So there’s a little play on words here… God is not only saving him from the discomfort of the hot sun beating down and destroying his life, but also from the evil hot anger that is destroying his heart.

He’s going to use this plant to get after Jonah’s heart.

So Jonah’s response to the plant: EXCEEDING JOY… he goes over the top with his joy…

I just imagine Jonah dancing around like a crazy man…

And I don’t know if he realizes that God provided the plant… maybe he thinks he’s finally vindicated…

Maybe he’s just living in the moment and loving the shade…

But whatever it is, Jonah is on cloud 9. This is Jonah’s greatest sense of life.

I’ve finally cut a break… I finally have some comfort… #blessed.

And then… God rips it away. God causes a worm to eat the plant and it withers.

And on top of that, he sends a scorching east wind… in other words the fronts change and the weather gets even hotter.

Kind of like the storm got even harder back in chapter 1 when they were sailing away from God.

The weather gets hotter… and Jonah gets hot angry...

And I can kind of understand this, because I get irritable when I’m hot too…

But Jonah is once again so angry that he wants to die!

Katy was sitting next to me reading this last night and she just exclaimed, “Jonah is such a drama queen!”

And she’s right!!!

He goes from the top of his experience of joy to the bottom in one night.

And it’s at this point that God inserts his scalpel once again to do some heart surgery on Jonah...

God repeats what he asked two days before (the question Jonah never answered), “Jonah, do you do WELL to be angry about the plant?”

In other words, “Is this benefiting you at all to be angry about the plant? Is it adding anything to your quality of life? Is it causing you to flourish?

Do you do well in this?

And Jonah reveals the depths of his heart… he doubles down… “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.”

Do you think he even heard the words as they were coming out of his mouth?

Jonah is looking for life in the wrong things.

He’s finding his wellness in the gift rather than the giver...

That ultimately is called idolatry… it’s one of the things Jonah hated about the Ninevites...

And then the Lord points out this fact about grace: you pity the plant for which you did not labor, nor did you make it to grow...

In other words, you didn’t do anything for this plant… and yet it brought you such joy…

That’s grace.

The plant was a gift of grace, but instead Jonah had turned it into his source of life.

He had turned it into a right… an idol.

Instead of finding life in the gracious character of God, he found the despair in the evil character of idolatry.

You see, Jonah had forgotten that the plant was a gift of grace, and instead he turned it into a right.

Idols always promise life but leave us experiencing death.

Instead of finding life in the grace of the plant, he found the death of idolatry.

Apply: And so I just want to ask you this morning, is there anything that was supposed to be a source of grace, and instead you’ve turned it into an idol?

Apply: We can often have a mentality that says, “I earned my favor with God… I earned this blessing…”

Everything you’ve been given is given for you to enjoy your gracious God… to find your life in him, not the created thing. And when the thing is taken away, it shows where our true hope is.

So just think of a few examples of daily grace with me to see what I mean...

Food - The daily provision of food is a grace from God that not everyone receives around the world.

Our constant need for food is a reminder of our constant need for God’s provision and care in our lives.

But in our food wealthy culture, food becomes a right.

It becomes an indulgence.

I can relate to that… I may look skinny… but I can indulge with the best of them…

And I’m not saying you should stop enjoying food… I’m saying you can’t find your life in food.

I’m saying that every time you eat food, it should point you back to the grace of God who PROVIDES the food… so that you find your life in him.

Whether you eat or whether you drink… do all to the glory of God.

How about your home:

Our homes can be a great place of joy to us...

But they can also become an idol...

They can become a place where we sink a TON of money and time and attention so that we make our castle just the way we want it...

But your home is a gift of a gracious God...

It is a gift for your enjoyment… but also for your stewardship… to use in the mission of making disciples...

Your home is a place to disciple your family… and to show hospitality to others...

Your home is meant to point you to your gracious God who is your ultimate refuge.

Let’s go a little deeper now… How about the gracious gift of salvation?

Do you like the idea of being saved more than you like God himself?

I hear people saying, “Yeah, I believe in God, I’m just not walking with him right now...”

And you’re OK with that?

Do you like the idea of not going to hell… and saying that you are a Christian… and having a church full of people who love you and you call friends...

More than you love your Savior himself?

Everything you’ve been given is given for you to enjoy your gracious God… to find your life in him.

…to abide in him… to relate to him… to hope in him...

Or we forget even what we are saved from.

Which is why if you find your life… your joy… your hope… your affections stirred for the gift God has given instead of God himself… you need to repent.

Idols promise life but deliver death.

Was Jonah upset about the grace and compassion of the Lord in the belly of the fish?

They divert our attention from the one only one worth living for....

And because idols are ALWAYS fleeting… they always leave us with a sense of despair.

The remedy to the despair of idolatry is to see once again how big God’s grace is toward you.

Was he upset when the tree was giving him shade?

God gives Jonah a gift of grace and removes that gift in order to give Jonah a bigger gift of grace...

To show Jonah his need for repentance.

The Lord is working to expand Jonah’s heart to the size of God’s grace.

The Lord is working to expand Jonah’s heart to the size of God’s grace.

Ultimately, Jonah needs to love his gracious God… and find life in his gracious God so that he can extend the grace OF God. That’s the third point today:

Repent until you extend the grace of God. (v. 10-11)

Read v. 10-11

Explain: God’s logic in this verse is this: you have pity on a fleeting gift that you had no part in creating… how much more should I pity a city FULL of people whom I DID create?

God is like, “Look at these Ninevites… they didn’t even know how sinful they were being… they didn’t know their right from their left...

But now I have opened their eyes...

And 120,000 people that I created are now turning to me… you want me to turn my back on them???

Look at them Jonah… even their cattle are dressed in sackloth and fasting from food and water...

Those cows didn’t even do anything wrong!!!

You really want me to destroy this city that is seeking me right now?

And that takes us full circle back to Jonah’s disdain in verses 1-2.

Jonah has no pity on Nineveh… and he’s angry that God does.

And it makes sense… Jonah doesn’t see his own need for grace… so why would he extend grace to others?

He somehow thinks as a prophet… or as an Israelite… or as a generally law abiding citizen… that he somehow deserves God’s favor and Nineveh does not.

And he needs to see again the depths of his own sin so that he can repent and love his gracious God and find life in his gracious God ultimately to extend the grace of God.

Author Paul Tripp writes, “Here’s the problem: to the degree that you forget the grace you have been given, to that same degree it is easier for you not to extend grace to others. To the extent that you forget how much you’ve been forgiven, to that same extent it is easier for you not to forgive the people in your life If you fail to carry around with you a heart of gratitude for the love you’ve been so freely given, it is easy to not love others as you should.”

So here is the gospel reality that Jonah needed to return to...

He is an image bearer of God just like the Ninevites.

He marred that image with his sin… he despised the glory of God… his heart was sinful and deserving of death… just like they were...

And the calling God placed on his life… both by creating him as a blood-born citizen of Israel who had a covenant with God… and by calling him as a prophet… all of that was grace.

He didn’t deserve any of it.

And God had created the Ninevites in his own image… and they absolutely did not DESERVE to escape judgment… BUT GOD… is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting of disaster.

And the same is true of us… God called us to be a disciple of Jesus ONLY by grace… by GRACE you have been saved through faith...

And he called you to MAKE disciples of Jesus ONLY by grace...

He has chosen to use you as a tool in a job he could totally do on his own...

So that he could CONTINUE to work his gracious purposes in YOUR heart...

And so that he could extend his grace to others.

Illustrate:

Illustrate: Bob Thune and Will Walker have this excellent diagram that’s helpful here… the teens have seen this before in their Gospel-Centered life study…[show diagram]

So often in our Christian lives, as time goes on, we shrink the cross in our minds.

We have a growing awareness of the holiness of God… and often a growing awareness of sin...

And so on the one side, we sometimes see our own sin and we just pretend like it’s not there.

We ignore it… we minimize it… we justify it...

And on the other side, we see the holiness of God… and we try to perform… and sometimes we feel like we are actually succeeding in that...

And that leads to judgementalism… refusing to give people the grace they need to repent...

And instead of this chart, our chart needs to look more like this… [show second diagram]

We need a growing awareness of our need for grace that only comes through the continual recognition and repentance of sin.

We need to see the power of the gospel continually transforming our hearts so that the cross becomes bigger to us and more beautiful.

Apply: We receive grace in order to extend grace. Think about all the ways we can “set up our booths” on a faraway hill to look upon others in judgment… instead of drawing near as a participant in God’s grace.

Every time we hear a news article about something foolish or sinful that someone has done, our hearts should beat with grace toward them...

So often I just want to see them pay for their crimes… let them ROT in jail...

But in that moment, I need to return to the gospel… they are an image-bearer of God… their sin IS an offense against God… but God longs for their repentance more than anything else...

And he has offered forgiveness in Jesus Christ.

Every time we look at someone else and say, “Why aren’t they where I am by this time in their spiritual life?”

Why don’t they act this way or think that way that I do about a certain thing...

We need to remember that we once were somewhere else on our journey… and God showed us grace so that we could repent and turn to him… and we still haven’t arrived on that journey either…

Our thoughts are not ultimate… God’s are. And if he has grace with them, we can too.

Every time we are sinned against… we need to remember how much we have been forgiven so that we can forgive… only then can we be a tool of genuine transformation in the life of that other person.

Here’s the thought process for forgiveness: There is no sin committed against me that is more offensive than the sin I committed against God. Praise God for his infinite grace. How can I be a tool of grace in that other person?

Every time someone at work frustrates us with the way they fall short of our ideal vision of how things should be…

we realize that OUR ideal vision of things is not ultimate… God ultimately has the plan that’s carried out in the order of the workplace he established…

and our job is to fulfill our role at our jobs in order to help the whole workplace strive toward God’s vision…

Every time we see someone on the street or at work or in our family and think, “They are too far gone. There ain’t no saving them… They are vulgar… they are rough around the edges… they’ve heard the gospel a million times and never believe it...”

sometimes that means laying down our own idea of how things should be.

Every time we see someone on the street or at work or in our family and think, “They are too far gone. There ain’t no saving them… They are vulgar… they are rough around the edges… they’ve heard the gospel a million times and never believe it...”

We need to see just how far the powerful grace of God has brought us… and just how far he still will bring us.

And when we do, we will become a more willing vessel to extend the grace of God to them.

Serve them… talk to them… proclaim the gospel to them.

See them as PEOPLE that God created and has the power to save.

And then rejoice if and when they repent.

We need to repent until we extend the grace of God… I wonder if Jonah ever came to that point?

We don’t know.

The book just ends.

So many questions are left unanswered.

But the point of the book is not to answer the question of did Jonah come to that point of loving and living and extending God’s grace… the point of the book is for you to ask the question, “Will I?”

Will I love my gracious God?

Will I find my life in my gracious God?

Will I extend the grace that God has shown me to others?

Just as this book does not really “end,” so our repentance does not end until our heart beats with the grace of God.

Let’s pray.