Amazing Grace | Jonah 4
What makes a great story?
Aristotle believed that a great story should give the reader a sense of Catharsis… “ an emotional cleansing.”
Where you have a flawed character… and, through adversity, setbacks, and tension… the character recognizes his problem and overcomes it… and, in completing the journey with the character… we experience emotional release…
Kind of like Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens’ “Christmas Carol” where Scrooge begins over here…and by the time you get to the end…he’s now over here…. And the screen goes black, and the credits roll… and we’re emotionally satisfied…
Most of the great stories of literature have some sort of Catharsis… some sort of satisfying resolution…
Aristotle would not have considered Jonah a great story…Jonah’s stubborn… cantankerous… not very heroic… and the problem is that he stays there… there’s no substantive growth and change whatsoever….he’s a jerk in the beginning… and in the end…
Scrooge never changes….
God commissioned to go to Nineveh…
A city full of violent, evil people… enemies of Israel… so wicked they were on the verge of being annihilated by God… and Jonah is sent to warn them of God’s judgment…
But Jonah hates the Ninevites… so he hops on a ship to run from God…
And God pursues with a terrifying storm…but instead of repenting, Jonah tells the sailors to toss him in the sea because he’d rather die than preach to the Ninevites…
The sailors comply…the sea becomes calm… and Jonah’s drowning…and suddenly dying doesn’t seem like a great option after all…he cries for help. And God graciously sends Jonah a gigantic fish which swallows him…
Jonah prays a beautiful prayer of thanksgiving and recommits to God’s mission.
The fish coughs Jonah up onto land… and Jonah preaches in Nineveh, and, stunningly, the people respond in repentance and faith… and God shows them mercy.
And if only the book ended there…. If only the screen went black with triumphant music and the words “the end”… that would’ve been wonderful…Nineveh is saved… Jonah learns his lesson… he’s celebrating and partying with the people he used to hate… praising God as the credits roll up… that would be a great story… and this would be an easier sermon for me to preach…
But Jonah isn’t fiction… and its purpose isn’t to make you feel Catharsis… and relieve tension…
Indeed, the ending heightens the tension… because Jonah isn’t meant to be enjoyed as entertainment… but to speak a word directly to you…
Because God cares about you… He’s committed to graciously pursuing you and bringing real change into your life… just like he cares for and lovingly pursues Jonah…
And there are four ways our text teaches and challenges us… the first thing we see is…
The exposing purpose of God’s providence
When people come to me for counseling because they want to change something in their lives, the first thing I tell them is that the pathway to change goes through the heart…
Not the organ that pumps blood… but the inner core of who you are…what you think, love, desire, and believe…
The heart is like the “mission control” center of a person… where the heart goes…so the person goes…
As water reflects the face, so the heart reflects the person
(Prov 27:19)
Jesus says the evil a man does outwardly comes from what’s happening in his heart inwardly…
So if a person is behaving ugly…like Jonah… It’s because his heart is ugly… and so for true change to happen… the ugliness of his heart… the sin that festers there… needs to be exposed.
And one way God exposes our hearts is through the circumstances He providentially brings into our lives…
Now God’s sovereign providential control over everything is a major theme in Jonah…
I want you to notice a particular word that keeps showing up in this chapter…
Now the LORD God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah…
(Jonah 4:6)
God appointed a worm that attacked the plant…
(Jonah 4:7)
God appointed a scorching east wind…
(Jonah 4:8)
That’s the exact same word that we see at the beginning of the book…
And the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah.
(Jonah 1:17)
The things that are happening to Jonah are not random… God is purposely governing the events that come into his life…
Often when we think about God’s providential care over us… We tend to think of it in a pleasant light… like when Jesus says, “ don’t worry about food and drink…God’s got that under control… he feeds the birds…he’s going to feed you… just rest in that…”
And that’s a wonderful consolation! But sometimes God’s purpose in the circumstances of your life isn’t for consolation but for illumination…for revealing something in your heart so that the things that are ruining your spiritual health can be cut out and dealt with…. as the cardiologist’s stress test reveals physical heart problems… so the circumstances and stresses of life expose spiritual heart problems…
Biblical Counselor Paul Tripp illustrated this once when he took a bottle of water… opened it… shook it… and asked, “Why did water come out of the bottle?”
And my first instinct was to say… “because you shook it…” And I was wrong! And he repeated the question…“Why did WATER come out of the bottle?”
Aha… very clever Paul… and of course the answer is because water was already in the bottle…. All the shaking did was just bring out what was already there… and that water is an illustration of the sin…the anger… the pride… the bitterness… all the ugly things that are buried in our heart… the shaking of the bottle did not create the water…it brought out the water that was already there…
And that’s very helpful to know….The situations, circumstances and people that God places in our lives … the trials of life that shake us up… those things do not cause us to be sinfully angry, or bitter, or selfish, or lustful, or prideful… instead…those things reveal the anger…the pride…the sin that is already there…and God wants it revealed so that it might be confronted and dealt with…
The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and the LORD tests hearts.
(Proverbs 17:3)
God’s purpose for everything He does in your life is not temporal comfort but heart change and Christ conformity…
And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son…
(Romans 8:28–29)
…all things that God is providentially permitting into your life are coming into your life with the purpose of making your heart like Jesus’….
And this whole scene in Jonah 4 is God pursuing Jonah's heart… He’s exposing Jonah’s heart…. And what’s coming out isn’t pretty… which leads us to consider…
The sinful heart of God’s prophet
Now…it would have been great if Jonah, in response to God’s mercy to Nineveh, said, “You know what God… forgive me for disobeying…I was wrong… You were right…and I’m so glad you gave grace to them! That’s not his response. Instead…
…it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.
(Jonah 4:1)
Now it’s hard to figure this guy out. In chapter 1, he’s running from God… in chapter 3, he’s obeying God… in chapter 2, he’s praising God… in chapter 4, he’s angry with God. Where’s this instability coming from?
The book of James tells us. James speaks of one who is like,
“….[he] is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind…. a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
(James 1:6–8)
The problem with Jonah is a divided heart… Jonah served and believed in the one true God… but at the same time, a rival god was competing for Jonah’s affections…
And a divided heart inevitably leads to emotional turmoil and massive instability….
And the thing that has captured Jonah’s heart and affections is…probably… a kind of national pride and self-interest…(remember Nineveh is a threat to Israel’s national security)… He probably had a sense of racial/ethnic superiority over Gentiles… along with a prideful religious superiority where certain people deserved God’s favor and grace and others didn’t.
What Jonah wants the most is a world where the Assyrians are wiped off the map…. while his own people thrive and enjoy God’s grace…
Jonah admits as much in the next verses…
“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.”
(Jonah 4:2)
Jonah is quoting from an ancient creed, first from the book of Exodus… where Moses asks God to show him the glory of God… and the climax of the revelation of the glory of God is not bright light, fire, or earthquakes… It’s this proclamation…
“The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty…”
(Exodus 34:6–7)
That’s the glory of God! A God of justice… who nevertheless somehow clears the guilty and forgives sin! This is one of the supreme manifestations of His glory!
And what should be glorious to Jonah is repulsive… and Jonah says, “I knew it,…I just knew it! I know how you are, God…you are big-hearted… full of love… and if I preach to them…and they turn to you… You’re going to forgive them!”
And Jonah is outraged by that prospect. …it’s one thing for God to show grace to Israel and a Jewish prophet… but to these foreign Ninevite lowlifes? No way, God! No way!
Now…this is huge… Jonah’s reciting an ancient creed about God’s glory seen in His grace and love…and he’s not saying it with joy… he’s spitting it out like a curse… Jesus says, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks”…and what’s happening in Jonah’s heart is being revealed through his words…
Friends, it isn’t just that Jonah didn’t love the Ninevites… It’s that Jonah doesn’t love the glory of God… He has no interest, no passion, no desire for the Exodus 34 kind of glory to be made manifest! Jonah loved his own plans, preferences, desires, and things he thought would make him happy… above God and His glory!
Friends, you don’t have to worship a fish god to be an idolater…you just have to love and choose your deepest passions and desires over God…
I’d daresay everyone one of us here has something that…like Jonah…threatens to become so big that it becomes a rival to the one true God for our affections… and it begins to shape everything about our lives…
What might be that thing for you, that if unchecked, could grow so big that God no longer rules your heart, but that one thing does?
Whatever it might be… we should heed the sober warning of the Psalmist who says,
The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply…
(Psalm 16:4)
If you want your story to end with sorrow and emptiness, all you have to do is dedicate your life to running after something else harder than you run after God.
This is why Jonah is so miserable… He’s every much of an idolater as the Ninivtes have been…the only difference is that Nineveh has repented!
Friends, we were made to live off of God and his glory, and when He is not at the center… when we put other things at the center…. Our misery and sorrows are multiplied…
I’m reminded of God’s words to His wayward people in Jeremiah 2… who sought meaning, happiness, and satisfaction in things outside of God. And God says…
“…my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit.”
(Jeremiah 2:11)
…my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.
(Jeremiah 2:13)
The essence of sin is believing the lie that God cannot satisfy and quench your deepest thirsts… and instead chase after other things thinking THAT’s what we really need… and God says it’s like trying to drink from an empty, broken cistern… it won’t work…it won’t profit you… It will lead to disappointment and ruin… because we were made to live and thrive off of God and His glory…
So… how can we more clearly recognize those rival gods that threaten to consume us? Well, we learn more about that in….
The instructive parable of the plant
Jonah went out of the city, 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.
(Jonah 4:5)
Jonah is so eager to see God’s judgment come down on Nineveh that he constructs a box seat for himself to watch the entertainment… maybe he’s thinking God will rain down fire from heaven on them as God did to
Sodom and Gomorrah…
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.
(Jonah 4:6)
Isn’t that something? In verse 1, he was displeased exceedingly… but He’s exceedingly glad about God’s grace in his life…
But remember…the providence of God is not only for consolation… but illumination…
And we discover that the things that make you really happy are clues to the spiritual condition of your heart…
This is the first time in the whole book that Jonah is described as happy…
Jonah has just come off of the greatest spiritual revival in the history of the world… an entire city of evil, barbaric, fish-worshipping pagans have come to repentance!….worshipping the One True God…. and Jonah is exceedingly displeased…
But now he’s exceedingly glad… and over what? A plant!!…. that gives him personal comfort and pleasure.
verse 7…
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….(Jonah 4:7–8)
This is probably a sirocco wind… feared in the near east… unbearable and destructive… and Jonah feels the full force of this… he feels himself ebbing away… and in his spiritual stress test the condition of his heart is being further exposed…verse 8… Jonah
…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.” (Jonah 4:8–9)
The things that make you happy expose what’s in your heart… and so do the things that make you angry… sometimes God will remove things from us… even if the removal is painful… to reveal to us that the thing removed has become way too important to us…a broken cistern that’s even more important than God himself… that’s hard. But it’s a kind manifestation of God’s grace to reveal that to us…
Nineveh has repented… the plant I wanted is gone… life isn’t worth living….Now, Jonah is talking to God… the only source of meaning in life…and he essentially says to Him, There’s no meaning in life. I’ve got no reason to go on.
And this is telling us that something has been more of a god to Jonah than God. (A broken cistern) Something has become so important that it’s ruling his heart and leading him to misery and sorrow…
And, this is instructive as we consider our own hearts… if we’re wondering what idols we’re tempted to serve… we should fill in the blank… “If I have X….then life is worth living… if you take X away… then it’s not. If I don’t have this thing…then what’s the point of going on?
I can’t have joy….I can’t be satisfied… there’s no more meaning and purpose in life…. And having God brings zero consolation… Indeed, I may even despise Him for taking it away…”
Those are clues to affections in our hearts that have gotten out of control… and friends, this is where it gets tricky… hear this… this can happen with things that are, in and of themselves, good.
Jonah loved Israel… he was a patriot… he wanted Israel to be safe from its enemies…nothing wrong with that. Those things are good things. And btw, there’s nothing wrong with him enjoying the shade of the plant! That’s a good thing.
…everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving… (1 Timothy 4:4)
But those good things became bad and destructive things when they began to rule Jonah’s heart and affections so much that they became larger than his desire for God and His glory….
And we should not cast stones at Jonah… in the very first sermon, Jonah… we were challenged to approach this book with the humble recognition that WE are Jonah. And so instead of self-righteously judging him, we would do well to examine our own hearts and ask,
“What do I really want? And how bad do I want it? And if I don’t get it, does that cause me to become sinfully angry with God and others? Does it cause me to believe that life is not worth living and having God in my life is of no consequence to me and provides no consolation?”
And again… the things we desperately want can be good things… the problem is when those good things begin to rule our hearts instead of God. It becomes a broken cistern…and our spirits become parched and withered…never really satisfied…
As I examine my own heart… one temptation for me…. Has to do with the health and wellbeing of my family… we have gone through a long and hard series of trials and afflictions… many of you know about the physical health stuff…but there’s other things as well and it’s a heavy burden… the past 10 years in one sense has been one long hard slog for me and our family… just keeping it real ya’ll…
And I want relief… and that’s good. It’s a good thing to want health and relief from trials… It’s a good thing to pray for that…
BUT… after dealing with the particular set of long-term trials our family has faced… and after God has, to a large degree, denied my requests for relief… If I’m not careful… that good desire for our healing and well-being and a certain kind of life…. can become so big that it could push out and eclipse my desire for God… and I must confess that some days I skate on the edge of that and I have to fight that temptation with every fiber of my being…
So, friend… what might be your source of temptation? What desires threaten to push God out of the center in your life? This doesn’t mean we don’t grieve and lament the loss or denial of certain good things in our lives…
But if…when denied certain things we conclude that there’s no point in living… and we raise fists of anger to God… and having God means nothing to us now, and that’s not good enough… then we’re in a very dangerous place…
We’ve become double-minded like Jonah…. and, as the Psalmist warns… our sorrows will only multiply… our desperation to grab onto the thing we’re banking on for ultimate life and peace and satisfaction will lead to misery…because, friends, good things make pleasant gifts… but terrible gods…
And what we’re learning in this chapter is that Jonah’s main problem is not with the Ninevites. And it’s not the loss of a plant. His main problem is with God, his disdain for God not doing what he thinks God should do…. and his lack of love for God’s glory. For Jonah, God and His glory are not enough…give me a plant… and some roasted Ninevites, and that will be enough!
And God is laying bare the heart of Jonah…and maybe he’s laying bare your heart today too…. but the pathway to change is not simply knowing what’s wrong with our own hearts…but knowing and appreciating what’s in God’s heart… and our hearts becoming more aligned with His…
The immeasurable compassion of God’s heart
Jonah has become so self-absorbed it’s stunning… he doesn’t care about Nineveh…neither the animals that can suffer and feel pain… he cares nothing for the 120,000 precious souls in God’s image that don’t know their right hand from their left… spiritually and morally in darkness….
Instead, Jonah pities a plant… and that …only because of the comfort and pleasure it provided him…
Jonah has no use for anything that does not immediately give him what he wants… and that self-centeredness causes him to dehumanize and devalue everything else around him….
In chapter 1Jonah almost let the pagan sailors be destroyed… he could have easily repented on the boat… but instead… Jonah was so bent on getting away from God, he let them risk their lives in a futile, terrifying experience of trying to save the ship… and now in chapter 4, he couldn’t care less about thousands of souls in Nineveh… and so Jonah himself was dehumanized…
Friends, that’s what idolatry does to us… when we want what we want so much, people are no longer persons to love and serve… but tools to help me get what I want… and if that person can’t give me what I want…or gets in the way of what I want… then we have no use for them…
If my idol is respect…if that’s my broken cistern… and my wife doesn’t give it to me… I won’t be interested in glorifying God in the home. I won’t see her as someone to love and serve but as an obstacle, and so I’ll treat her with disdain and harshness… if my idol is career advancement and a co-worker is in my way… I won’t be interested in telling him about Jesus. I’ll seek to run around or over him to get what I want. That’s how idolatry works.
Jonah’s whole life is about self… he has forgotten his identity…his calling… his very reason for existing… He and his fellow Israelites were chosen by God by grace…
So that they might be a blessing to the surrounding nations and mediate God’s grace and blessing to the Gentiles…
God’s job description for Israel is given in Exodus 19 when He tells them,
… you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’
(Exodus 19:4–6)
… they were blessed to be a blessing to the world…for God to be glorified in them so that others would turn to Him…
And yet most of Israel cared less and less about God’s glory…and became increasingly self-centered and loveless towards God and others.
And yet in spite of the unfaithfulness of Israel… in the fullness of time… God in His grace brings forth from Israel a prophet greater than Jonah who will bring blessing to the world…
Unlike Jonah, Jesus walked in eager obedience to God the Father… Jonah sat outside of Nineveh, angry because God’s judgment would not come… Jesus stood outside of Jerusalem, weeping for the rebels who despised him…
Jonah sought death because he loved himself and did not love others nor the glory of God… Jesus loved others and God’s glory so much that he went to the cross to die and, in dying, solved the Exodus 34 dilemma… namely, how can God be glorified as one who forgives sin but by no means clear the guilty?
Jesus does it through bearing the guilt of sinners as their substitute, suffering the judgment of God on behalf of idolaters like us… paying the price for sins so that all who run to God and trust in Him as a refuge for salvation will be saved…
Jonah wanted to be blessed… but he did not want to be a blessing to others… he thought he could find joy in getting what he wanted… but he ended up in misery…
But Jesus lived for God’s glory… to serve, save, and bless others…He denied Himself…. and obtained fullness of joy…
“…for the joy that was set before him endured the cross…
(Hebrews 12:2)
Jonah’s self-absorption causes him to shrink his life down to a claustrophobic kingdom of one…and what a miserable and lonely little kingdom it is… because the sorrows of those who run after another god will multiply and the broken cisterns don’t satisfy…
God’s point is that the way out of our self-consumed misery is to lift up our hearts to glory in the great scope of God’s salvation, entering into his compassionate concern for the lost. The most joyful and most useful Christians are those with a passion for the gospel. They are also the ones who are growing in grace, their souls expanding as they are filled with excitement for God’s mercy in the world. - Richard Phillips
And so as Jonah wallows in sorrow… God gets the last word…and it’s in the form of a question…
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?”
(Jonah 4:10–11)
The End….the screen goes black…and the credits roll…
If you were wanting the book to end wrapped up in a neat and tidy bow… sorry about that. The ending provides no catharsis… it doesn’t relieve the tension…it heightens it… and we wonder “well what happened next?? Did Jonah repent? Did he answer God’s question?? Why didn’t the author finish the story??"
The reason is that the author isn’t interested in how Jonah answered the question…don’t you see, friends? The whole point of the book is, “how do you answer the question…”
How are you going to respond? It’s tempting to point the finger at Jonah for wanting his way over God’s… for pitying a plant over people…
And yet how often do I care about my comfort, my preferences… my plans… my convenience…more than I do about a Boise, ID…full of thousands of people who do not know their right hand from their left. Brothers and Sisters, I am Jonah.
God didn’t save us to be self-indulgent and self-focused…he blessed us to be a blessing…He gave us grace to be agents of God’s grace…
And so 1 Peter 2 says to you, Main Street Church…
…you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
(1 Peter 2:9)
He has saved you so that you might passionately pursue and enjoy the glory of God… Friends, we now stand where Jonah did… the commission of God to go and share God’s grace with a lost world has now come to YOU.
And the question that God ends the book of Jonah with isn’t just a question. It’s an invitation to join God in His work.
As with Jonah…you have a choice… to give yourself over to the building and service of God and His Kingdom, or to build and serve your own kingdom… one path leads to joy, satisfaction, and a meaningful life. The other to multiply sorrow and a wasted life.
God beckons you… as he beckoned Jonah….to align your heart with His. A heart of immeasurable love and compassion that weeps over a world sliding into destruction… a heart so compassionate, He gave up His own Son to save them….
To the degree that our hearts are in step with His…is the degree that we can find satisfaction, and meaning and true joy… because if seeking life in broken cisterns leads to unending thirst…then returning to the fountain…to God…is the answer…
And if our biggest problem is our hearts… then the solution is heart change. So let our attitude and prayer be that of the Psalmist who prayed,
…unite my heart to fear your name.
(Psalm 86:11)
David here is praying for a change of heart…As opposed to an unstable and double-minded heart… David pleads for a heart undivided and loyal to God and His mission….That burns with compassion for those who don’t know Him. A heart that seeks to join God in God’s joyful mission to exalt God so that others might be glad in God. A heart that loves the glory of God. That is a prayer that God loves to answer.
Jonah is long dead and gone… and the baton has been passed to you…It’s your time…it’s your moment to proclaim the excellencies and grace of God… should not God pity Ninevah, that great city …should not God pity Tokyo… and Cairo… and Mexico City…and Shanghai… and Baghdad… and Mecca…. and Washington DC, and Seattle, and Boise… should not God pity your lost friends…your classmates… your co-workers…your neighborhood? Shouldn't you?
I want to invite the worship team to return and play quietly as we prayerfully reflect on our journey through the book of Jonah…
What rival gods are competing with God for your heart’s affections? Confess and repent of any desire or attitude that is ruling our hearts above God. Thank God for His forgiving grace.
Ask God to show you what specific ways you can be an agent of God’s grace to others? Who can you proclaim God’s excellencies to?
Pray that God would unite your heart, giving you an undivided loyalty and desire for God.
