Jonah 4: Preaching and teaching
Notes
Transcript
*Living @ The MERCY SEAT
*Living @ The MERCY SEAT
EOT-God teaches Jonah about mercy again.
EOS-Results of receiving mercy well.
DDS-Are you living in the mercy of God?
Intro:
Maybe my favorite movie is Les Mis. @ The beginning of the movie a convict Jean Val Jean who is a convict who just escaped prison goes back to what he is going to do. He waits until night and then he goes to rob a priests house. He is taking his valuables and while he was stealing his things they get in a scuffle and Jen Val Jean is about to leave with the priest valuables knowing that he is about to be reported and most likely found because the priest and his wife woke up. But as he is leaving the priest actually gives him more of his stuff, the priest gives him a fortune and he says:
Go now Jean, you are a changed man.
The rest of the movie is about how his life was changed by this amazing show of mercy.
Mercy is when we don’t get what we deserve.
Grace is where we not only we don’t get what we don’t deserve but we get something better in return.
Can you remember a time in your life where you were shown mercy that it changed something in your life?
As followers of Christ we receive mercy when we begin a relationship with God. But God doesn’t want us to just receive it when we begin a relationship with him. He wants us to receive mercy on a regular basis.
What about the mercy of God. When is the last time you have experienced that?
God does not just want us to experience mercy once. He wants us to live at the mercy seat of God.
He wants us to be dependent on it daily.
As we have studied through this book we have seen a lot of themes in Jonah:
God has a commission for his people
God loves his people and will wait for them
God loves the world, the group Jonah was to go to were enemies of the Israelites, still God loved them.
As we have studied through the book of Jonah we have seen how Jonah has for much of this book not been dependent on the mercy of God.
Today God wants us to be dependent on his mercy.
Today I want to look at three results that will happen in our life if we will embrace the mercy of God on a regular basis.
The first result of embracing the mercy of God is:
1. We will pray well (1-4).
1. We will pray well (1-4).
The very mercy that Jonah was supposed to be sharing was the same mercy he was to be clinging to everyday.
Why did Jonah not pray well here?
Why did Jonah not pray well here?
Jonah was not on the same page as God
Jonah was not on the same page as God
But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry.
Whenever we see the word but we have to ask what is it comparing or contrasting itself too.
R-
Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible C. Jonah’s displeasure at God’s mercy 4:1–4
“The word but points up the contrast between God’s compassion (3:10) and Jonah’s displeasure, and between God’s turning from His anger (3:9–10) and Jonah’s turning to anger.”
“Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish.”
When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.
When what we want does not line up with God wants we are the one that is off. Jonah was not just a little mad this greatly displeased him.
But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry.
Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible C. Jonah’s displeasure at God’s mercy 4:1–4
A literal translation might be, “It was evil to Jonah with great evil.”
Jonah disagreed with God that he should show grace to this people who were Jonah’s enemies.
God did not respond the way Jonah wanted him to respond.
Do you ever get angry with God because he responds differently than you would like him to?
Many people will never say hey God I am mad at you for this so I am not going to talk to you.
But we can give God the silent treatment.
Do any of you know what the silent treatment is. My first fight in marriage.. Sarcastic with my mom, we got in a fight and I gave heather the silent treatment.
When we are different pages with God. We will give him the silent treatment.
But the reality is that many of us are frustrated at life, things are tougher than we feel we can handle, things are not going my way, and it is keeping us from being connected to the mercy of God.
We see people we may not even like and they are being prosperous or successful and we are frustrated with God.
Jonah’s prayer changed for the worse
Jonah’s prayer changed for the worse
The book of Jonah follows a pattern.
Ch. 1-God commissions Jonah and Jonah rejects the call
Ch. 2-Jonah in the belly of a whale prays to God
Ch. 3-God recommissions Jonah and Revival happens in Nineveh
Ch. 4-God prays again to Jonah, this time he reveals his heart is far from God.
He prayed to the Lord and said, “Please Lord, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity.
Jonah’s Prayer
It was honest
Jonah knew better he is a prophet and he knows the character of God and he does not like it.
Jonah wanted to give enemies judgment not grace. Jonah was probably going into this city thinking man if God would allow a fish to swallow me I can’t imagine what he is going to do to my enemies.
As people who have recieved the mercy of God could you picture if God called you to go to the Taliban and you were like I don’t want to go because if I go these people who have done awful things are going to turn to my great God and savior.
Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible C. Jonah’s displeasure at God’s mercy 4:1–4
Even the best of people, people such as Jonah, wish calamity on the wicked, but God does not.
“Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life.”
Jonah would rather die than see his enemies experience the love of God.
The Lord said, “Do you have good reason to be angry?”
Notice prayer is a two way street. Prayer is both talking and listening.
Application:
How are you praying right now?
Maybe your prayers are hindered because you are not living @ the mercy seat of God?
If we will live in the mercy of God we will pray in a way that is pleasing to God.
“The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
This was Jonah at this moment in time.
“But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’
When we are living @ the mercy of God we will willingly want to pray the mercy of God for both ourselves, for those around us and the world.
Who are you praying like right now the pharisee or the tax collector?
What not a better time to be praying that right now.
Lead a quick prayer.
What if right now we were praying for the Taliban leaders to come to faith in Jesus Christ.
Who is someone you need to pray for who may even be your enemy?
The next result of embracing the mercy of God is:
2. We will mature spiritually (5-9).
2. We will mature spiritually (5-9).
God is about to give Jonah another object lesson. Remember the first object lesson he gave Jonah he was in the Belly of a whale.
God is so merciful to us that he will take his time to teach us even when we rebel like Jonah.
Then Jonah went out from the city and sat east of it. There he made a shelter for himself and sat under it in the shade until he could see what would happen in the city.
So the Lord God appointed a plant and it grew up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to deliver him from his discomfort. And Jonah was extremely happy about the plant.
Comfort was keeping Jonah from maturing.
Notice Jonah was happy about his disobedience . This version said extremely happy.
Jonah was immature. Think about how God had already been trying to teach him about his love, his presence. It was so extreme and Jonah was so rebellious that he ended up in the belly of a whale. And now he still would not get on borad with the heart of God. He wanted God’s theology to be his theolog. You should not show mercy to such an evil people.
Gospel is that God does love evil people.
Leading out of our brokenness and weaknesses became a core value. Loving well was now the most important task among all our work for God.
Scazzero, Peter. The Emotionally Healthy Leader (p. 17). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
Maturing is hard work we have to get out of our comfort zone, we have to be teachable to others.
But God appointed a worm when dawn came the next day and it attacked the plant and it withered.
When the sun came up God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he became faint and begged with all his soul to die, saying, “Death is better to me than life.”
Then God said to Jonah, “Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?” And he said, “I have good reason to be angry, even to death.”
Jonah still thought he was right and this was going to keep him from maturing.
He would rather die than do what God wanted him to do.
Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible C. Jonah’s displeasure at God’s mercy 4:1–4
4:3 Jonah felt so angry that he asked God to take his life (cf. 1:12; 4:8, 9). Elijah had previously made the same request (1 Kings 19:4), but we must be careful not to read Elijah’s reasons into Jonah’s request. Both prophets obviously became extremely discouraged. Both evidently felt that what God had done through their ministries was different from what they wanted to see happen. Elijah had wanted to see a complete national revival, but Jonah had wanted to see judgment on Israel’s enemies. The sinfulness of people discouraged Elijah whereas the goodness of God depressed Jonah. How could Jonah return to Israel and announce that God was not going to judge the nation that had been such an enemy of the godly for so long? God had to teach Elijah to view things from His perspective, and He proceeded to teach Jonah the same thing.
Jonah had the American dream mentality more than he had God’s mentality.
Application:
Even though God was so gracious to Jonah, he gave him the commission two times, he allowed him to be swallowed by a whale and so much more.
Jonah still had to make a decision. Was he going to mature or reject maturity.
Are you more mature than you were a year ago?
What about when you first became a Christian?
When we live in the mercy of God we will mature in Christ.
The next result of embracing the mercy of God is:
3. we won’t miss God’s celebration (10-11).
3. we won’t miss God’s celebration (10-11).
Then the Lord said, “You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight.
“Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?”
Aren’t you glad that God has compassion even when we rebel.
We see how Jonah responded to a work of God
How can we respond to a work of God
Rejoice
Care less
Or we can be displeased
Even though Jonah repented he was still not right with God on this situation.