Grace and Superiority
Transcript
My name is Chet Phillips. I'm one of the pastors here. I'm excited to be back. My wife gave birth to a baby boy on March 17th. So his name is Archer O'Daniel Phillips.
It was going to be Archer Daniel Phillips, but he was born on St. Patrick's Day. So what are you going to do? And it's been interesting. This is our first kid, so I'm learning a lot. It's a weird responsibility having, like, now we have a son, and I've got to help him grow up and be a full-grown adult male.
And so there's a lot of weight there. I'm already trying to work with him on some stuff. So he, I was talking to him the other day. He's a baby, so he cries a lot. And he cries every time, like screams and cries every time he's gassy. And so I've been trying to tell him that's going to be weird if he doesn't outgrow that.
Because that's, like, an odd thing to walk through adult life with. So he's just, you know, I'm trying to coach him up and make sure that he gets ready for adulthood. But that's what's been going on in my life. It is Jonah. We're in Jonah chapter 4. And so we've been, for the past three weeks as a church family, been walking through one chapter a week in Jonah.
The book of Jonah, it's an Old Testament book, an Old Testament prophet. It's in middle-ish to a little bit to the right of the middle in your Bible. It's on page 503 if you have a Bible that looks like this. What we're going to do today is we're going to be in Jonah chapter 4, and we're finishing up this series before Easter next week. And so what we've said so far in Jonah, though, and what the story has been so far in Jonah is that it says that Jonah was a prophet, which means he spoke on behalf of God. And that God comes to Jonah and says, go to Nineveh, because their evil has come up before me, and proclaim against them, like preach against them.
And so, first of all, this is a little weird because Nineveh is a non-Israel, non-Juda city. It's not the people of God, and most of the time when there's a prophecy about a group of people that aren't Israelites, it's just about them. It's not to them. So it would have been more normal for God to say, hey, go tell Israel I'm going to destroy Nineveh. But it was weird for God to say, go tell Nineveh I'm going to destroy Nineveh, because most of the time God's prophecies through his prophets were to the nation of Israel.
And so Jonah gets the word of the Lord, hears what God says, and runs. It says he went to flee to Tarshish. So he tries to flee from the presence of the Lord, which we would think is dumb, because, you know, you would think that God would be able to catch you. Like, I don't know if he thought maybe at night God can't see as well. Maybe God will be paying attention to something else. I don't know how he thought this was a good idea, but he tries to flee from the presence of the Lord.
He gets on a boat, and God sends a storm, because God's in charge of everything, and that's very apparent in the book of Jonah. Jonah sends a storm and stops his boat. They figure out that Jonah is the reason there's a big storm, and they say, what should we do to you so that we don't all drown? And Jonah says, drown me. And so the people on the boat eventually, they don't want to at first, but eventually say, okay, God, don't be mad at us. You're the one who sent the storm, and they throw him in the water.
The storm stops, which is equally terrifying. So it's very obvious that God did want Jonah. And so all of the crew members switched teams, so they had other gods they were praying to, and they realized, oh, okay, this one's in charge of everything. So they begin to worship the real God. And then Jonah is drowning, and a fish swallows him. And so Jonah chapter 2 is Jonah praying from a fish.
And what we saw in chapter 1 is that God's willing to go further to chase us in our sin than we thought. That he's willing to chase after us more, that he's more in control than we thought, and he's willing to chase us more. And then in chapter 2, we look at this prayer of Jonah's, and it seems like Jonah kind of relies on himself more than on God. Like his prayer is kind of a religious prayer. And just so you know, if you're just hanging out with us, this isn't a religious place. Religion is basically the idea that do these things, don't do these things, and God will love you.
Like it's about the work that you put in. And that's not what Christianity is about. It's not about earning things from God. It's not about punching your ticket, and eventually you get enough hole punches, and then you make it to heaven. That's not how it works. The idea of what I do accomplishes something puts me, as Raz said the past couple weeks, in God's good books isn't true.
That's not how it works. And so Jonah, though, kind of seems like that's what he thinks it's about. It's about what he does. He even kind of promises. And he prays kind of like us, God, if you take this away, I just won't do this anymore. Or I'll do this in the future.
I'll be good from now on. If you'll just let this situation not work out. I won't date guys like this anymore. That kind of a prayer. Like he's praying about, I'm going to do this in the future. I'm going to be better.
And eventually, the fish spits him out. Jonah obeys. He goes to Nineveh. And he proclaims against Nineveh. He preaches against Nineveh. And his sermon is, you're all going to die.
That's a heck of a sermon. We're actually thinking about doing a series later this fall. This coming summer called the You're All Going to Die series. It's one week. The sermon is, you're all going to die. All right, now bow your heads and close your eyes.
That's his sermon. He goes and proclaims it to a city about the size of Boston. And he says, you're all going to die. And they repent. He doesn't even tell them that they should repent. He doesn't even give them like an option.
He just says, God's going to kill you. And they are all like, they genuinely repent. They genuinely are broken over their sinfulness. And they repent from king to cattle. Like they put sackcloth on cows. That's how genuine their repentance was.
The king declares, no one eats, not even the cows. And so if you're watching a cow, you put sackcloth on the cow. And if the cow tried to eat, you grabbed his face and you were like, no, you don't. You're an evil cow. You've been making evil milk for evil people. And you will not eat.
And the cow was like, you're right. And a little single tear ran down his face. I do have evil milk. And they all repented. There was genuine repentance, heartfelt repentance from king to cattle. Okay.
If Jonah, if the story of Jonah was the way I had always heard it, the way I had always seen it in cartoons. Some of you maybe grew up in church and you've heard the story of Jonah before. Some of you maybe didn't grow up in church and you just hear that the Bible has a story about a guy getting swallowed by a fish. And you're like, the Bible's nonsense. Okay. But some of you who grew up in church, you've heard the story of Jonah before.
You've seen the cartoon before. And here's how the story goes. God comes to Jonah and says, go to Nineveh. But Jonah's scared. He's scared. The Ninevites are evil.
They're twisted. They kill people. So Jonah runs. He's afraid of God's call on his life. So he runs.
As he runs, God chases him down. He gets swallowed by a fish. And he prays and he repents. And he says, God, I was wrong. I trust you. I see that you're in control of everything.
But if you can control a fish and you can control a storm, you can keep Ninevites from gouging my eyes out. I trust you. He repents. And then the fish spits him out. Because in the cartoons, the fish always spits him out. There's even like, if it's a drawing, it says like patui or whatever.
In the Bible, it vomits. But like, it doesn't write as well. So the fish spits him out. Jonah's genuinely repentant. And he goes to Nineveh. And he preaches to Nineveh.
Repent. And all of Nineveh repents. And then that's the end. And God's faithful. And we see how it all works out. And everybody's happy.
And that's the first three chapters of Jonah. If that's the way the story was, we wouldn't be doing chapter four today. There would be no chapter four. Chapter four would be, and Jonah and God jumped into the air, all slow-mo and high-fived. And everything turned technicolor. And it was like, yeah.
And then credits rolled. That would be, Jonah would be credits. Or maybe like catching up with Jonah in later life. Just letting us know how he worked out. Like, this is a terrible story if there's like the whole buildup and then the climax. And then it just contends for 25% more.
Like, that's just, that's terrible. Movies don't do that. Like, you don't resolve the conflict. And then, like at the end of Avengers, they sat and ate a meal. But that was like five seconds, just kind of seeing them eating a meal.
It doesn't make you last. Like, it's not 45 minutes of them eating. And just like hanging out and like Iron Man at his house working on his computer. Like, they don't do that because the conflict is resolved. So if the conflict was that Nineveh needed to repent, the story would be over.
But Jonah apparently is kind of like a Peter Jackson movie where you think it's going to end and then it doesn't. And we'll even find out that it's very much like a Peter Jackson movie because then it just ends when you think it shouldn't. Like, God says something and it's over. So Peter Jackson movie is like, oh, it's done. Oh, no, it's going to keep going. Oh, now we're done.
No, it's going to keep going. It's going to keep going. Oh, they walked over a hill. It's done. It should have kept going. What just happened?
The dragon just got out. How do you just end the movie now? Like, what are you doing? That's what Jonah does. And we're about to find out in chapter four that the story is a little bit different than we thought. So I'm going to pray and we're going to jump into chapter four and see what this is really all about.
God, we thank you. We thank you for your grace. We thank you that we have the opportunity to gather as a church family and study your word. And we ask that your Holy Spirit would teach us and lead us. Speak to us. And show us what you intended.
When you had your servant pen the book of Jonah. And it's been kept so that we can read it. And so we praise you and we love you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Jonah chapter four is on page 503 if your Bible looks like this.
We're going to read all of chapter four today and we're going to kind of wrap up the whole story. So, again, the conflict kind of seems resolved. We're going to pick up actually in, I know it says Jonah four, but we're going to pick up in the end of three. So that we can kind of see what happens here. The chapters were added later, so it would have just been written as a one big story. Chapters were added just for a quick reference to be helpful.
So verse 10, also added later. So this is chapter three, verse 10. When God saw what they did, and what they did was repent from king to cattle. Genuine, heartfelt, we were wrong. And we need grace, we need mercy from God. When he saw what they did, how they turned from their evil, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them.
And he did not do it. We should be very excited, first of all, that that's God's attitude. Should be very excited that when evil people turn to God and say, I'm wrong, and genuinely mean it, God doesn't say, sorry, too late, crush. But he wants to relent from disaster. He wants to not destroy people. He's not vengeful.
Okay, so God relented of the disaster that he said he would do to them, and he did not do it. Chapter four, verse one. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. Okay. What? Like, if it was just that Jonah was scared, it should have been Jonah was stoked and skipped home.
Because everyone repented. Like, he's a terrible preacher, by the way. Like, this is a city about the size of Boston. If God came to a normal preacher and was like, hey, I want you to go preach against Boston. And the preacher showed up and said, like, one thing. And then from mare to dog park, they repent.
Like, mare to ferret. All of Boston per pence. Most preachers would have been like, man, that was a pretty good sermon. Like, the Lord showed up. This was great. Jonah's angry.
And what's a funny thing that happens in the Hebrew text here is that it says this. Verse 10. When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil. So the word evil. God relented of the disaster. It's the same word.
Same root word. Almost exactly the same word. So evil and disaster, almost the same word. So they turned from their evil. God relented of his evil. His disaster that he was going to do.
That he said he would do to them. And he did not do it. And chapter 4 says, but it displeased Jonah exceedingly. That's the same word. So what it says is this was great evil to Jonah.
This was a disaster to Jonah. This could not have gone worse to Jonah. This was a train wreck. So we're learning something about Jonah. It couldn't have been fear because him not dying would have been like a win. What it says is they turn from their evil.
God turns from his evil, from his disaster. And this was evil to Jonah. It was a train wreck. And he's angry. Why? Why is Jonah angry that God's not going to destroy Nineveh?
Verse 2. And he prayed to the Lord. This is Jonah talking to God. Oh Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish. All right.
So the author of this story did not tell us why Jonah ran earlier. We could only presume that he was scared, afraid of the call that God had placed on him, maybe afraid of the Ninevites. But the author intentionally held it till now. He in night shamalam'd us. Shamalam'd. He in nighted us.
Because there's a twist on the end here. The story's taking a turn on us. Jonah's been dead for 10 years. Like it's that kind of thing. Like the story's about to turn. He hadn't actually been dead.
But it's that kind of twist on the end here. So, okay. Is this not what I said? So we're about to find out why Jonah actually left. For I knew. So he says, okay, let's start over.
This whole prayer is crazy to me. And he prayed to the Lord and said, Oh, Lord, is this not 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, relenting from disaster. What? His prayer is, oh, Lord.
I knew it. I told you this before I left. I knew it. We talked about this. This is why I ran. This is exactly why I ran.
This is what I told you. I told you you were good. Like his complaint about God is that he's good, that he's gracious. I told you you were gracious. I told you you were merciful. I told you you were abounding in steadfast love.
And I knew you'd do this. I knew you'd relent from disaster. I knew you were just getting my hopes up. You told me, Jonah, go tell him I'm going to kill all of them. And I knew I'd get here and you'd kill zero of them. I knew it.
I knew that as soon as I got here, they'd be all, oh, we're wrong. And you'd be like, you're right, and not kill them. Zero. Goose egg. That's how many Ninevites are going to die. You know how embarrassing and terrible this is.
His complaint to God is that he's gracious and merciful and abounding in steadfast love. Do you know what we just found out about Jonah? He's kind of a racist. He's overly nationalistic. Like, you should like your country and your people. But Jonah is so far ingrained in his nation and his people and his race that the Ninevites not dying is a disaster.
You see, Hosea and Amos at this time are proclaiming that Assyria is coming and Israel needs to repent. And the word of the Lord comes to Jonah and says, go to Assyria. That's where Nineveh is. One of their chief cities. And tell them to repent. Or I'm going to destroy them.
Tells them I'm going to destroy them. And Jonah doesn't want to go because he wants Assyrians to die. Jonah so cares about his nation, his people, and his race that he cannot, this cannot be good. Verse 3. Therefore, now, O Lord, please take my life from me. For it is better for me to die than to live.
Jonah says it's over. This could not have gone worse. Just kill me. This is such a train wreck. This is so terrible. Just kill me.
And the Lord said, do you do well to be angry? So God responds to Jonah and basically says, are you right? Here, is your response correct? And Jonah doesn't answer. So Jonah prays and says, God, I told you you were good.
I knew you would pull this. And then says, just kill me. Okay. That's kind of confusing. There's a little bit of me that says, okay, I want to understand a little bit more. This is part of the reason we've given Jonah such a hard time throughout.
Jonah 2 and 3, when it's like, well, he looks like he prayed and he repented. It's like, yeah, Jonah 4 kind of shows us where Jonah's heart is the whole time. So it's hard to be like, yeah, he genuinely repented. Oh, but also he's a racist. And he wanted God to kill them all. It seems more like what Rask talked about last week is that he religiously obeyed.
He did what he thought he had to do so that God would keep loving him. He could keep earning it. Okay, but this is a little bit confusing. Because you would think that Jonah said his message, that they repent, that Jonah should be excited. Or you're at least looking at this going, Jonah's just so off here. And let me try to help you see what he's doing.
And in order to do that, we're going to look at the one other place that Jonah shows up. But it's in 2 Kings, and we're going to show it on the screen so you don't need to flip there because it will be hard to flip there and then find it again and come back. But it's in 2 Kings. If I can find it in my notes, I'll read it from here. Yeah. Chapter 14, verse 25.
If you want to write that down so you can look it up later. It's talking about a king. So it starts with he. He refers to the king. He restored the border of Israel from Labo Hamath as far as the Sea of Ereba, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he, that's God, spoke by his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai. So it's the same Jonah, the prophet who was from Gath Heifer, which, by the way, Gath Heifer sounds like a lovely town.
Okay, so what we hear about Jonah here is that he's a servant and a prophet, and he speaks on behalf of God. This is a perfectly normal sentence structure, that this happened according to the word of the Lord, that he spoke by his servant and prophet Jonah. That's a normal thing. The Bible says that all the time. What did Jonah prophesy this time? That it seems like there's no conflict about.
What did he prophesy? Something good for Israel. I bet when this one came in, Jonah was ecstatic. God says, I'm going to restore this border. I'm just assuming that Jonah was like, yep, I can do that one. Sounds good.
Hey, everybody. We've got good news for you. And he gets to go tell the king. I'm assuming that if God had come to him and said, tell Israel, I'm going to destroy Nineveh, Jonah would have been very excited and run out to Israel and said, guess what God just told me? He's going to kill the Assyrians. It was when God came in and said, go to Nineveh and tell them that Jonah runs.
And here's why. And here's why we can see someone like Jonah who has it together in so many ways. Throughout the book of Jonah, he is spot on with his theology. His complaint about God is very, very true. It's a beautiful complaint. It's the best way to argue, by the way.
You get in an argument with your wife, be like, I knew it. I knew you were so pretty and nice. I knew that this would happen, that you would just be kind and thoughtful. Like, it's a great way to argue because then it's like, you're mad, but I, okay, like, good. I knew that you smelled good the whole time. So Jonah's complaint about God is spot on.
He's gracious and merciful. He's practically quoting what God shows up and says to Moses in Exodus when he describes who he is. And so Jonah says, I knew this about you. Jonah, when they confront him on the ship, he says, I worship the God, the creator of the land and the dry land and the sea. He knows things about him. When he prays, he has spot on theology.
Jonah knows stuff about God. He's willing to obey. We see that in chapter three. Here, he's a legit normal prophet. What's happened? See, Jonah's way more like us than we'd care to imagine.
Like, I actually, when I start seeing this in Jonah, I start seeing myself and I can kind of get on board with him. That's why he's such a confusing character because he's like you. He's like me. He's a person. All the characters in the Bible are pretty confusing except for Jesus. And he's terribly confusing because he's just good the whole time.
The rest of the characters kind of have it together, don't have it together because it's real stories about real people. There are certain things that you just crush. And there are other things you're terrible at and you run from God over. And that's what Jonah does. See, Jonah has this one area where if God messes with that, it's not okay for him to mess with. Because Jonah is doing what all of us do.
He's looking to something and saying, you make me have value. He has a system in his head that says these are good people. Those are bad people. This is how the world works. So there are certain parts of his interaction with God that perfectly line up with him.
There are certain things you should read in the Bible. There are times I'm reading the Bible and I'm just like, God, you are so smart. Like with your wisdom, you are crushing it right now with this stuff. This is brilliant. And there are other things I read in the Bible and I'm like, I kind of wish this wasn't in here. If I'm honest, if the Bible always agrees with you, by the way, you're probably reading it wrong.
For the record, you're making it fit you as opposed to it making you fit it. But here's what Jonah's doing. He has something in his head. He knows that he's a Hebrew. What do we know about Jonah? He's Hebrew.
He's from the northern kingdom of Israel and he's a prophet. And it seems like all of those are messed with by being sent to Nineveh. He has to leave his hometown. He has to go say good things possibly for people that aren't Israelites. And they're bad people. Israelites are good people.
Hebrews are good people. Everyone else is bad. They don't know the real God. They're bad. If being a Hebrew makes you good, being anybody else makes you bad. It has to.
It has to make them bad or Jonah can't be good. Does that make sense? That's why people who are racist, which by the way is one of the easiest ways to be superior to other people. What I mean by easiest is you don't have to do anything. Like if you think that white people are superior, like if my family thought white people were superior, that would be really nice for me because I was just born white. I didn't have to accomplish that.
That's why people like racism and nationalism. They didn't have to accomplish anything. They just had to be from their place and speak their language. Does that make sense? Like you don't have to do any work. That's what Jonah is doing.
He's Hebrew. And if Hebrews, what makes you good than being anything else has to make you bad or being a Hebrew doesn't make you good. That's why he has to put them down. He has to crush them. They have to be bad. They have to be wrong.
He has to leave and go talk to them. And something good has to happen for people that are bad. And it's messing with Jonah's brain. And what he declared was going to happen doesn't happen, which messes with his status as a prophet. Because the Old Testament says whatever a prophet says will come true. And if it doesn't come true, then he's not a prophet.
So everything that he's been basing his existence off of is taken from him. And now it makes a little bit of sense that he tells God, just kill me. You see, all of us have something that we're looking to and saying, you make me okay. You make me good. You're what makes me valuable in the world. One of the things I've consistently leaned into is hard work.
Because I'm good at that. I can do hard work. I started working when I was 13 for my dad's businesses. I've been working. And that's when I played football. I wasn't really fast or really strong.
When I went to college, our first football coach just wanted people who were mean and tried hard. So I fit in well. Then he left. And our next coach wanted guys who were good at football. And I was suddenly terrible. Because he wanted us to be like fast and accomplish things.
The other coach just wanted us to show up and try to hurt people. And I was like, I can do that. I may not hurt them. I can try. But I lean into hard work.
And so what that means is that people who are lazy, when I look at guys who don't want any responsibility, who don't want to work, who can't show up on time for things, who have no desire to take on any responsibility, I need them to be wrong. I need you to see that they're wrong so that you can see that I'm right. I need them to be bad so that you'll know that I'm good and so that I'll know that I'm good. And we do this with anything. You can do this with parenting. If what you use to give yourself worth and value is your children, then you have zero tolerance for bad parents.
Because you're looking at your kids and saying, if you work out, then I'm okay. If this works out, if you're good, if everything's happy, if I'm a good mom, then I know I have value. If I'm a good dad, if I've just been a good father, I know this will work out. And then when you see a parent that isn't living up to the standard, you need other people to see them fail. You need to see them fail. And they have to be wrong.
And they have to be bad so that you can be good. Grades. Athletic ability. Open-mindedness. Tolerance. That's my favorite one because it's sneaky.
So some of you are saying, I don't do that. I think everybody's welcomed in. I think everybody's okay. Yeah. Except for bigots and closed-minded people. Intolerant people have to be wrong for tolerance to be right.
So you have zero tolerance for intolerant people. And they don't deserve tolerance because they're intolerant. So they're not in the club. Does that make sense? Do you see how we do this with everything? And so Jonah's world is getting rocked because what he's using is his grading scale for what makes him good and valuable and worthwhile is taken from him.
God's messing with it. And that's where that shows up in us, too, because there are certain things that God is not allowed to mess with you about. There are certain things he just can't touch. You'll follow him fine. Jonah followed him fine when it was saying good things about Israel. When it was give Nineveh a chance, Jonah ran.
There's some things that you just crush. Maybe you just serve. Anytime there's anything that takes up your time, you're there. You'll sign up. You'll show up early. You'll leave late.
You serve. You're gifted there. You love that. And when God says, hey, I also want you to surrender your finances to me. No. No, no.
Can't do it. I have no obedience there. Some of us are the opposite. Man, you give. When you hear a need, your wallet magically appears in your hand. You ever met that kind of person?
Like, I thought I heard a need. Here's 20 bucks. Like, I just, I drop hints around those kind of people. Man, I sure could use 20 bucks. Like, those kind of people. But then when it comes time to give up time, ah, I'm just so busy.
I have no time for that. Some people crush both of those areas. And then it comes to relationships. You start looking at scripture where it says that your relationship doesn't honor God, isn't where it needs to be. And suddenly God can't mess with you there. We have something that gives us value.
And if it's our boyfriend, if it's our girlfriend, if it's knowing that we're loved, and God shows up and says, this doesn't honor me. You don't need to be sleeping together. You don't need to be living together. You need to stop this. And we say no. What we've realized is that something has taken the place of God and something is giving us our value that's not him.
And that can be finances. That can be work. That can be success. Some of you could care less about being a good dad. Some of you had dads who could care less about being a good dad. Because what they were using to give themselves worth and value was punching the clock and making a name for themselves and being successful.
And they looked down on dads who, you're going to take time off to spend with your kids? Do you not understand what makes us valuable in this world? And so God starts messing with what it is that Jonah has built around himself to know that he's a good person and it's a train wreck. And here's why. Jonah's religious. This is why Jesus butted heads with the Pharisees so much.
Because the Pharisees knew everything and obeyed really well. But that had to be what made them good. Knowing stuff and obeying. So whenever Jesus hung out with sinners, they couldn't have that. Because they can't be welcomed in because they're wrong and they're bad and if they're welcomed in, our position's gone. And so Jonah's looking at God and saying, you can't relent on Nineveh because if they're not wrong and they're not bad, my position's gone.
And so when that's taken from him, he says, just kill me. That's why people jump out of windows when the stock market crashes. Because what they've built their life on just disappeared. Their identity went with it. That's why some of you had a career-ending injury. And suddenly, if I'm not a soccer player, if I'm not a baseball player, if I'm not a football player, I don't know who I am anymore.
You had something that was good, but your identity left with it. Some of you had a relationship that fell apart and you didn't know who you were anymore. And not only were you sad, normal sad, you just didn't want to live. Because what you've been using to give yourself worth and value and fulfillment was taken from you. So Jonah says, just kill me.
Because we all have something that makes people good and something that makes people bad. That's all politics is. Democrats, conservatives have to be block-headed, close-minded, bigoted, backwards, gun-toting psychos. Have to be. They have to be wrong so that we can be okay, so that we can be right. So we can be what's right with the world.
Conservatives, liberals have to be fluffy-headed, open-minded, nonsense, family-hating, constitution destroyers. For us to be okay. They have to be. Obama has to be from another country. Has to be. For us to be okay.
Do you see how that works? One of the reasons we constantly, people are like, why can't we all get along? Self-righteousness. Why can't we all just tolerate each other? Self-righteousness. That's why intolerant people can't tolerate bigoted people.
Because we're all building something up to make ourselves good and okay and self-righteous and self-saved and self-sovereign. And that's Jonah's problem. So here's the thing. That's our problem. I fit with Jonah. I see this.
So how does God respond to Jonah? And what we're going to see is this really crazy, divine, God-ordained object lesson where God bends to teach Jonah something. So all of Nineveh repents. The story should have ended. But Jonah has a fit.
And then God bends. He says, do you do well to be angry? Verse 5. Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself. A booth is just like a three-sided tent that Israelites knew how to make ever since Moses' time. They actually had a feast of booths where they all made booths so Jonah knew it was up.
He sat under it in the shade till he should see what would become of the city. So he prays and thinks, okay, maybe God will stop being gracious, which is evil to me. Maybe God will relent from this disaster, go back to his original disaster, and destroy everybody. And I want to see the fireworks, so I'm going to go sit on this side of the hill and just hope, fingers crossed, everyone dies. I'm looking at you, cattle. Take the sackcloth off.
So that's what Jonah's doing. He's waiting to see what will happen. Now the Lord God, this is verse 6, appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah that it might be shade over his head to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. All right, so he's got a little bit of, he's manic and depressed, like he's going back and forth here.
He's super pumped about this plant. And it's really cool because God shows that he's in charge of a storm. He shows that he's in charge of a fish, and now he's appointing a plant. So like God just appoints things, does what he wants. So I walk out in my backyard, and I'm like, I wonder which trees were appointed and which of them just grew.
But like he just does, he just tells everything to do what he wants. And so he appoints this plant. And it seems like Jonah knows that God did this on purpose because he builds a booth, and then overnight a plant just grows up. And so Jonah's very happy about the plant, probably feels like, okay, God's comforting me. God's showing me some honor. Maybe I'm okay.
Maybe I'm in a decent spot. Maybe he still does just love Israelites. That's what it seems like. But he seems like he's more excited about the plant than God. Seven, but when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm, again, in control of everything, that attacked the plant so that it withered. I love that part of the story because the worm wasn't sent to eat the plant.
He was sent to attack it. So God appoints the worm, and it's not, hey, go eat the plant. It's go destroy the plant. That plant must die. And so there's this worm sent on a mission from God, which is just really cool to me that God would do this with a worm, that he's bending this much, that he's kneeled and stooped this much that he would tell a worm to go attack it. And so the worm waits till dawn because that's the best time to attack a plant.
And so the worm's waiting, and he's like, hold, hold now. Yeah. Yeah. Like, that's just the way I see it, and he attacks the plant. This plant must die. Worm crushed it, did his job.
Worm attacked the plant so that it withered. That worm nailed it. When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah. Which, if God's in control of the weather like this, I sometimes wonder what he's doing with South Carolina. Just 80, 40, whatever. It's better for me.
Sorry, okay. Some 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. So this is the second time Jonah does this. So God sends a plant, and then he sends a worm to destroy the plant, which is just God teaching Jonah, bending over.
He's stooping to interact with Jonah personally. So we see that he cares about this whole city. We see that he's in charge of storms and weather, and then he just bends to deal with Jonah. And so he's giving him an object lesson. And so he has this plant grow up, and then he has a worm attack it, and then it dies. And then Jonah says, just kill me.
Because God's sending a scorching wind. It's dried out. He's cooking him. And now he feels like, okay, God's picking on me. He's messing with me. He's taking away my honor, my privilege.
He's teaching me that Jews aren't the best. It's kind of what Jonah, I think he's feeling here because we know that what he's based his life off of, what he thinks makes you okay, is to be an Israelite. He says, it's 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. Crushing it with logic, Jonah.
You ever do that, just shout something in an argument that you know no longer makes sense, but you're so entrenched in your point? That's what Jonah's doing here. Yes! I love the plant. You don't know anything about the plant. Just kill me.
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? Okay, most scholars believe that means children. Don't know their left and right yet. So it could mean a bunch of people who don't know anything.
So 120,000, they know nothing. They're completely backwards. But most scholars believe that he's referring to there's 120,000 children there. Don't even know they're left from their right yet. Which means that it's about 600,000 to a million point two in the city is what people guess, which would be about the size of Boston. 120,000 people who do not know their right hand from their left and also much cattle.
The end. Best ending line in the book in the Bible. It's my favorite. He ends with and also much cattle. Question Mark. It's over.
Okay. Jonah runs from God. God prays a kind of piousy prayer in a fish. Gets vomited up. Obeys. And then throws a fit.
And tells God three times, just kill me. And God's response to Jonah is to just teach him and talk to him. And that is so encouraging. Because if I was God and I had a guy consistently yelling at me and telling me, just kill me. I think at some point, God, I would just be like, fine. Like, yeah, I can do that pretty easily.
Do you really want a piece of me? And God's response to Jonah is, you're confused. You're off here. Do you not see that you're wrong? And he just tries to teach him. And what he shows Jonah is the stuff you care about is so fragile.
The stuff you're basing your life on, the stuff that you're using to give yourself comfort and worth and value, is so fragile and easily taken that it can show up in the night and it can be taken in the night and a worm can destroy it. And I just want us all to hear that. The stuff that we're looking to, and some of you know this, you painfully know this, because you've had it snatched from you. And some of us in this room haven't had it snatched yet, but it can be gone in the night. What we're looking to, to give ourselves worth and value and to know that we're good and other people are bad can be easily taken from us.
And it's not worth building your life on. You see, Jonah, when he looks at God and says, I knew you were gracious. I knew you were good. I knew you relented from disaster. I knew you were abounding in steadfast love. What he's doing is he's the kid who raises his hand and says, you forgot to take up the homework.
The only kid who raises his hand and does that is a kid who's done his homework. It's the only time you raise your hand and do that. You're never in the back of the class being like, didn't do my homework, didn't do my homework, bell ring, didn't do my homework, didn't do my homework. You know what, I need to be honest. You didn't take up the homework. You don't do that.
It's the kid who's back there going, I spent 30 minutes on this. I have nice handwriting. I assume most kids who do homework have a nice handwriting. I checked the back of the book. I knew I was right. But I didn't check the back of the book until I had done all of them.
Looking at you, Carl. Like, that's the kid who raises his hand and says, take up the homework. That's the kid who does that. And so when Jonah looks at God and says, I knew you were gracious. I knew you were merciful. I knew you abounded in steadfast love.
What he is saying, even if he doesn't realize it, is I don't need those things. That's a character flaw in you. See, if Jonah knew he needed grace and mercy and steadfast love, he would not be mad about it. What Jonah is yelling at God is, I'm one of the good ones. Take up the homework. You'll see I did just fine.
Jonah wants God to take everybody to task because Jonah thinks he's arrived. And Jonah wants God to take everybody to task because he needs God to see that he's arrived and other people haven't. But when we realize that we need grace, then we want it for everybody. When we realize that we need mercy, then we want it for everybody. When I didn't do my homework, I want everybody to not have to turn their homework in. I want the teacher to say, you know what?
I'm not taking up homework today. Best teacher ever. I want the kid who did his homework. You don't have to turn it in. It's fine. You did it.
Whatever. Everybody got points. That's okay. I think she gave points to everybody. You got your points. But that kid doesn't want everybody to get points.
He wants himself to get points and you not to get points. Does that make sense? So when Jonah says, you're gracious, that's a problem, he's saying, I'm good, you should know. And he's missed the point. As we see this bigger story unfold of how God interacts with humanity, and it's such a baffling picture that the God of the universe would send a little plant and a little worm to teach a little man. Does that make sense?
Like this just seems so small. What we see is that he's actually willing to stoop further. That God would actually come to earth. That he wouldn't just send a begrudging prophet to say a message. That he would actually send his son to pay a debt. That Jesus came because God was willing to stoop way further and be way more gracious than we see in the book of Jonah.
That he actually died for our debt. The Bible is very clear. There are not good people and bad people. There are bad people and Jesus. It is not us and them. It is us and him.
That's it. And all of the things that we've put on our resume mean nothing. We all need grace and we all need mercy. Now here's the thing. We don't know how Jonah responds. It just ends.
The end of the book of Jonah is and much cattle. God's saying, Jonah, the cows repented, man. I just can't kill a cattle with sackcloth on. I'm just not going to do it. But the end of the book of Jonah is and much cattle.
And do you want to know why? We are all given the opportunity to respond the way we wish Jonah would. Every person in this room, you're given the opportunity because God has actually stooped further. In the book of Psalms, it's a prophecy about Jesus and it says, I'm a worm and not a man. And it's talking about him dying on the cross. It's a prophecy about the death on the cross.
And he says, I'm a worm and not a man. I have my life taken from me. And you see, God sends a worm to teach Jonah a lesson and he became a worm to rescue us. He took on sin and death and paid our penalty so that we can have life and joy and hope. That we can be set free and all of us have the opportunity to respond the way we wish Jonah would. Turn in your resume.
Tear up your homework. Put your hand down. And be thankful for grace. That Jesus was good on our behalf. And he took all of our bad stuff, put it on himself and died for it. So that we can be free.
We wish Jonah would see his sin and realize that he needed grace too. That's what he's missed. That his thing that he's looking to say, this makes me a good person. The stuff that you're looking at and saying, this makes me a good person. And God is asking you to throw that away. To realize that it doesn't.
To realize that you're all bad. All in need. All in need of grace. And run to him. And trust in Jesus to be a good person on your behalf. That's the invitation.
And that's the response we get to have. And when that happens, we want grace for everybody. When that happens, something changes in us. To where we want everybody to be invited in. And we realize that all the stuff we fall short. All the stuff that we mess up.
Just points to how good and gracious God is. So David, Matt, and Raz are going to come back up. We're going to sing and praise Jesus. Jesus, you get the opportunity. Let me be very clear. The story of Jonah ended very abruptly.
Don't let yours end like that. Don't let the story today end for you with God asking you a question. Are you going to hang this stuff up? Are you going to quit trusting in yourself and you not respond? Some of you will let it be that. And you'll just leave and there will be no response.
But we have the opportunity to respond the way we wish Jonah would have. To see our sin. To see all of the stuff we've piled up. To say, God, take up the homework. This is what makes me good. And to realize that all of us fall short.
All of us need grace. All of us miss the point. And all of us get invited in by Jesus. Who stooped way, way lower for us than God did for Jonah. And to be radically changed by that. To have that sink into our hearts so much that we can't.
Not love him. Can't not lean into grace. And can't not want it for everybody else. God, we pray. That your Holy Spirit would lead us. That you would help us clearly see what it is that we're leaning into.
To give ourselves worth. And to give ourselves value. What we're using to say, God, you can take up the homework. Because I'll be okay. God, you can weigh everybody out now. You can check everybody out now.
Because you'll see that I've accomplished something. God, I pray that you'd help us to see. What it is that we're using to give ourselves value. That can be so easily taken from us. That can in a night be gone. God, help us see the things that we wouldn't feel like we deserved life.
Or needed life. Or had life. Or an identity or self anymore. If it was taken from us. And God, help us to see so clearly the cross. That sets us free from all of that.
Jesus who came to die on our behalf. Lord, help us to repent as Jonah should have repented. Help us to see our sin as Jonah should have seen his sin. Should have seen how his religion. And his obedience. And his knowledge was getting in his way.
From knowing you. And being close to your heart. So that he could celebrate when you celebrate it. And God, help us to be so in love with grace. That we want it for everybody. We ask all this in Jesus' name.
Amen.