Running From God's Grace - Jonah 4

1:37See? There was one newspaper article that said, this has happened once before. It said, they said, 150 years ago, when another Cape Cod man was swallowed by a sperm whale, but it's happened at least one time before that, has it not? Whether it was indeed a whale or a great fish, the ancient writers didn't really distinguish between seafaring mammals and fish. The reluctant prophet Jonah, of course, underwent this trying ordeal. Jonah was not a swimmer, although he spent some time in the sea. He was, as I hope to show from this morning's text, he was more of a runner, I think. Jonah was a runner.

2:29What is Jonah running from? God sent him on a mission, but Jonah was disobedient. He ran. And as we dig down, I think, into Jonah's temperament and into his thinking, the way that he's sort of processing this mandate that he's been given, I think we begin to realize that Jonah's not just running from the mission. He's actually running from the implications of the mission. What God's mission given to him actually means theologically, the ramifications of it. Jonah, I'm concerned. Convinced is trying to run from the biggest, most astounding reality that any human being could ever know, which is the grace of God. Let's begin reading Jonah chapter 4 in verse 1.

3:13And Jonah was greatly displeased and became furious. And he prayed to the Lord, Please, Lord, isn't this what I said while I was still in my own country? That's why I fled toward Tarshish in the first place. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and one who relents from sending disaster. And now, Lord, take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. The Lord asked, Is it right for you to be angry? Jonah left the city and found a place east of it. He made himself a shelter there and sat in its shade to see what would happen to the city. Then the Lord God appointed a plant, and it grew over Jonah to provide shade for his head to rescue him from his trouble. Jonah was greatly pleased with the plant. When dawn came the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, and it withered. As the sun was rising, God appointed a scorching east wind. The sun beat down on Jonah's head so much that he almost fainted and he wanted to die. He said, It's better for me to die than to live. Then God asked Jonah, Is it right for you to be angry about the plant? Yes, it's right, he replied. I'm angry enough to die. And the Lord said, You cared about the plant, which you did not labor over and did not grow. It appeared in a night and perished in a night. So, may I not care about the great city of Nineveh, which has more than 120,000 people who cannot distinguish their right and their left, as well as many animals? This is the word of the Lord.

4:44Heavenly Father, we thank you for this word. We ask by the power of your spirit that you would help us to treasure your word as we ought to. We need your Holy Spirit, enabling us to see the power of your might, the goodness and the love of you, and, of course, the graciousness of your Son. And so, above all, we ask that you would help us to see the glory of Jesus Christ, even in this passage, that we might be changed by it and stirred anew in our affections for him. For the good of others, for the joy of ourselves, and ultimately, mostly for the glory of you, that we might magnify Christ in all we say and do. And it's in his name that we pray these things, the name above all names, the names of Jesus. Amen.

5:32You're likely familiar with the Jonah story, but just to kind of give a recap to set the context for this morning's passage, in Jonah chapter 1, of course, God commissions Jonah to go preach repentance to the metropolis of Nineveh, and Jonah refuses to go. He, in fact, goes the opposite direction. He gets on a ship that is going to a place called Tarshish, and in the middle of the sea, the Lord interrupts. He sends. A great storm, and the storm is so severe that those on the ship begin to fear that they will die in this storm. And Jonah eventually tells his shipmates, this is a storm that comes from the Lord. It's because of me. And so they throw him overboard. He says, if you throw me overboard, there will be a peace. And this is what happens. They throw him overboard. And of course, the next thing that happens is he's swallowed by the whale or the great fish. And in chapter two, we find Jonah is inside the fish, and he's having probably the most serious devotion time of his entire life. Right?

6:34I mean, we've all had quiet times, but this is a quiet time inside the digestive tract of a large fish in the middle of the sea. And so he's having this heart-to-heart with God. It's a prayer. And eventually, the prayer ends with the fish throwing up, vomiting Jonah up onto the shore. And in chapter 3, Jonah obeys, and he goes to Nineveh and he preaches repentance. And the city undergoes an amazing move of God. There is widespread turning to the one true God, Yahweh, and worship of God in that place where there was not worship of God before. People are repenting of their idolatry. They're repenting of their pagan ways. And they are attributing and ascribing ultimate worth and glory to Yahweh. So Jonah's mission has been, in a sense, fulfilled the promise of God, go preach repentance. I want to bring repentance to the This place, the mission is fulfilled. And so, chapter 4 then opens with Jonah just overjoyed about the fruit of his ministry, right?

7:40No, chapter 4 opens with Jonah angry. Jonah was greatly displeased, verse 1. He became furious. Now, you would think, given that all that this guy has been through, that he'd be a little softer-hearted by now, wouldn't you think? You would think getting thrown out of a ship into a stormy sea, spending three days in the belly of a fish, having a passionate heart-to-heart with God, all that might do something to change a man. But we still find him running away from the idea of God's mercy to the very end. He is a hard-hearted and hard-headed man. And in effect, Jonah is kind of throwing a temper tantrum here. He's actually really immature. Jonah is responding to and rejecting, I think, the essential message that he's been sent to proclaim.

8:43The essential message of the whole Bible, actually, that God, get this, that God actually loves sinners. That God loves sinners. And this is, in fact, the first thing that we see about God's grace. This chapter. God's grace is for our worst enemies. God's grace is for our worst enemies. Jonah, in a way, is acting as if God is somehow unjust or maybe just unreasonable. He has a sense of indignation about God's disposition towards these gross, terrible sinners.

9:28Jonah has a sense of indignation about the reality of God's grace. In a way, this is like thinking Jonah is sort of operating as if he is holier than God, as if his standards are higher than God's standards. And this is what I mean. Jonah is furious about what he expected that God would do all along. Forgive people who don't deserve it. I knew that you were a gracious and compassionate God. Verse 2. I just knew you were slow to anger. You can almost just hear the whininess in this complaint. I knew that you were abounding in faithful love. I knew that you were one who relents from sending disaster. And now, Lord, this is so pitiful, just kill me. I'm so upset. Take my life from me. It's better for me to die than to live. He is so unnerved by the grace of God.

10:30By God's compassion, by God's love, that he would rather die than see it given to those he perceives as his enemies. I'd rather die than see you love those people, God. Jonah's conception of holiness is that there should be no mercy for our enemies. His conception of holiness excludes a holy love. He insists that it is unjust for those who are undeserving of forgiveness to actually get it. Can God be unjust? We're going to come back to that idea a little bit later, but for now, we just need to contemplate this, make it personal for you and for me. Like Jonah, you and I will struggle with God's grace given to people that we don't like. Maybe even people that we, if we're honest, hate.

11:29People who may, in fact, have done something very wrong, not just to God, but maybe even to us. Maybe they have wronged us in a very serious way. But we have to be really careful about that way of thinking, because the truth is, none of us deserves God's forgiveness. None of us has merited God's forgiveness. There's not deserving people and undeserving people, there's undeserving people and God. Undeserving people and God. You likely know the story of Corey Tinboom, one of two daughters of Dutch parents who hid Jews, helped them escape in Holland during Nazi Germany's occupation of that country in World War II. They were eventually sent to a concentration camp, and Corey's sister Betsy died in one of those camps. And later, Corey Tinboom was recounting this challenging encounter at a speaking engagement. She was speaking at a church. She says, I was in a church in Munich where I was speaking in 1947 that I saw him, a balding, heavyset man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat, the next a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones. Memories of the concentration camp came back with a rush, the huge room with its harsh overhead lights, the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor, the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister's frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment of skin. Betsy and I had been arrested for concealing Jews in our home during the Nazi occupation of Holland. And this man had been a guard at Ravensbruck concentration camp where we were sent. Now he was out in front of me, his hand thrust out. A fine message, Fraulein. How good it is to know that, as you say, all of our sins are cast to the bottom of the sea.

13:36It was the first time, she said, since my release that I had been face to face with one of my captors, and my blood seemed to freeze. You mentioned Ravensbruck in your talk, he was saying. I was a guard there. But since that time, he went on, I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things that I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fraudline, and again the hand came out, will you forgive me?

14:04And I stood there, and I could not. Betsy had died in that place. Could he erase her slow, terrible death simply by asking? It could not have been many seconds that he stood there, his hand held out, but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing that I had ever had to do. For I had to do it. I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition that we forgive those who have injured us. If you do not forgive men their trespasses, Jesus says, neither will your Father in heaven forgive yours. Still, I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. Jesus, help me, I prayed silently. I can lift my hand, I can do that much. You supply the feeling. And so, woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, and it raced down my arm, and it sprang into our joined hands. And then, this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, and it brought tears to my eyes. I forgive you, brother, I cried, with all of my heart. And for a long moment, we grasped each other's hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then.

15:39Let's be honest with ourselves for a moment. We can and should recoil at Jonah's anger at God's mercy here. But we should also be honest enough to acknowledge that we often feel like Jonah, don't we? I do. I don't look out at God's enemies or my own perceived enemies and think loving thoughts, salvation thoughts. I think angry thoughts. I think judgmental thoughts. I think thoughts of condemnation. And thinking about Corey Tinboom facing down a guard of the Nazi concentration camp, where so many were tortured and killed, including her sister, we resonate with how she felt at the prospect of announcing forgiveness to him. It suddenly becomes. Personal. It goes from theoretical from academic. Yes, God loves sinners. God forgives sinners. But now it gets real. God loves this sinner. I'm to extend mercy to this sinner. As difficult as it was, she made a conscious commitment to drop the record of wrong, which is essentially what forgiveness is, canceling the debt that somebody owes us. When we're hurt in some way, wronged by another person, our natural inclination is towards justice. And this is actually a good thing. The inclination towards justice is a good thing. God actually put that in us.

17:15To have an inclination towards justice is actually what it means, at least partly, to be made in the image of God, because he is a just God and he is a holy God. But our justice is frequently imperfect. It's complicated by our fallenness, by our sin. So very often, we don't just want to see rights made wrong. We want to see wrongdoers destroyed, dehumanized. We can be bloodthirsty with our justice. This is why, even in little spats, little relational conflicts, little arguments, we get so worked up sometimes beyond just trying to make our case. And we try to utterly demoralize the Person to win.

18:03We want to emotionally overwhelm them sometimes because the goal isn't reconciliation or even agreement, it's conquest. I must increase, you must decrease. And then God's love comes into this mess of us as a great interrupter, and it pacifies our bloodthirst, and it can soothe our nerves, and it can rewire our thinking about other people. So that in love, we don't just want to win the argument, we want to win the person. We bring the reality then of love to our consideration of past and present wrongs, and we let love reframe our consideration of them. It doesn't tell us that wrongs are rights, it doesn't tell us that wrong things are right things or good things, but it does give us the big picture of what God is doing in the world, a big picture vantage point that Jonah seems to lack.

19:07The big picture of God's glory being made manifest in the world, about his name being known above every name. And when we focus on the big picture perspective, it puts our own desire for vengeance in really stunning perspective. Humbled by the portrait of God's love that we see in the scriptures, for instance. We can find the supernatural strength that Corey Tinboom found, the supernatural strength that comes from the Holy Spirit to confront even great evils with a greater mercy.

19:43Well, how do you get there? How do you get outside yourself in that sense? Put aside your own interests and look to the interests of others, to consider others as higher or greater than yourself. How do you get to the heart of God's forgiveness, in other words? I think it begins by trying to see people as God sees them. This is a vision that Jonah lacked, not simply as we experience them, seeing not just the hurts that they cause, but the soul that they have.

20:17For instance, this whole thing with the plant, right? Verses 6 through 8. There's a plant and a worm and a scorching sun. Jonah's mad because God gave him a plant for shade and then took it away. He's angry enough to die because he's hot. He's upset about his circumstances. It's a very common thing. But do you know what he's not upset about? The souls in Nineveh who are dying and going to hell. He doesn't seem the least bit concerned about them.

20:55He doesn't have a Christ-like perspective. You remember Mark 6, verse 34. Jesus sees the crowd, a great teeming mass of sinners. He looks at them and he thinks, those miserable wretches, those awful people, I despise them. No, he doesn't do that. He sees that they're harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. And the word tells us he felt, do you remember, compassion for them. Compassion. And the word for compassion there isn't simply like he felt sorry for them, that he had a pity for them. I mean, certainly, I suppose he did. But the word compassion actually connotes a brokenness in the guts. He was moved out of his insidest insides about lost people.

21:50And this is the Holy One of Israel. Totally perfect in every way. No stain of sin. The spotless Lamb of God. If the Holy One of Israel can look at these violators of holiness and feel compassion, what right do we have to look at the lost world and think anything but, oh, they need God? Oh, Jesus, save them. How can I show the love of God to those people? The compassion of Christ to those people. We have no right to look at the world through the lens of despising them, of hating them. Them.

22:31What would it take for us to begin to see people that we don't like? Maybe even people we hate, maybe even our very enemies the way that God sees them. See, God's love is a lot bigger than we often think it is. It's much bigger than we often wish it was. But it's really good news, isn't it? And there's a lot more good news to be seen even here because God's love doesn't just run into our spiritual lives, He doesn't just love our religious selves. His love runs into every aspect of our selves. It's meant to cover and transform everything about us as only His sovereign and gracious love can. God's grace is for our worst enemies, but we also see in this chapter, secondly, that God's grace is for our whole lives. God's grace is for our whole lives. Do you ever wonder about whether God cares about the same things you care about?

23:26Like, you lay awake up at night, sometimes I stare at the ceiling and think, God, do you care that I'm going through this? Or do you, this thing that's bugging me, this anxiety, this worry, this thing I'm kind of mulling over and over and again, God, do you even care about that? I mean, certainly there are some things that we care about that are superficial or inconsequential. As sinful people, we often get obsessed with or fixated on or even addicted to things that are not good for us.

23:56Or we treat even good things, good gifts, That God has given us to enjoy, we treat them as idols. We find a validation or a fulfillment in them that they're not designed to give us, right? But there are lots of other things in our lives that God has wired us, created in His image, to enjoy and to study and to wonder about and to marvel over and to look into and to work at, and even to, we could say, love.

24:28And because He's made us not as angels or some kind of spiritual robots, but as fully feeling human beings with different personalities and different gifts and different circumstances in our lives and different backgrounds, He cares about our whole selves. You may be asking, Jared, where in the world do you see this in the text? Where is this in Jonah chapter 4? Well, I want you to show you verse 11, if you'll jump all the way down there. May I not care about the great city of Nineveh, which has more than 120,000 people who cannot distinguish between their right and their left, as well as many animals. Oh, time out.

25:07He cares about the animals? What was that all about? It just seems like a weird thing to throw in, doesn't it? I mean, we know about the souls, 120,000 people who don't know God. I can totally understand where God will be coming from. Should I not care about lost people? I want them to know me, to be reconciled to me. I want them to be saved. And there's all. So, animals there, okay, wait, what? Earlier this year, my wife and I had to say goodbye to our best, good little boy. His name was Indy. Indy was a Cairn, Terrier, Schnauzer mix.

25:46And he was the perfect dog for us. He was kind of like the dog version of me. So super introverted. An old soul, even when he was young, even when he was a puppy. Kind of, I'll be honest, a little antisocial. Not angrily so, but just sort of like content to be on his own. Indy would sort of, you know, he'd be the dog that's in the backyard. Other dogs are barking crazily, and he would listen to what they're saying, and then just be like, you know, he's never barking at anybody. Supreme disinterest in other dogs. He was just the perfect dog for us, and we loved him. And if you're a dog person, aren't dogs just pictures of grace?

26:27I mean, they're pictures of common grace, of course, but they're just so not like, like, if you're a cat person, there's grace for you, but it's not from the cat, right? Cats are a picture of law because you're only as good as what you've done for them. But the dog, the dog loves you no matter what. It's unconditional love. You can walk to the mailbox and come back. Whether you're going for a dog, Five minutes or five days, you come back, and that dog is like, Tell me all about your journey. I've got to know it's so good to see you. I despaired whether you would leave. You're right. They're just little pictures of unconditional love and acceptance. And so we had to say goodbye to our dog. Last year, he lost his sight, and he began to lose his hearing. And they said, you know, a veterinarian told us at first, like, there are a lot of dogs, they lose their sight, they can still live happy lives once they kind of adjust to things. And so we were waiting for him to adjust, and there were things internally that he started having trouble with as well. And so he just, you know, he's bumping into stuff all over the place, and he never quite got the hang of where things were. He was kind of like a furry Roomba, you know, just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And I thought he would map the room at some point. We eventually, this is how fancy we are. We put tuna cans under our coffee table legs so it would be just the height that he could just walk right under it, right? Because when it was down, he just kept bumping his head against the coffee table. So we took him earlier this year. We decided, you know, he just lost his personality. He just wasn't himself. And he was miserable. And so it was time to say goodbye. So we took him into the procedure and I really was kind of holding it together, stiff upper lip, and as special as this dog was to our family.

28:20Went through the procedure, said goodbye. We had to leave him there. And something began to hit me as we were walking out afterwards. And we had taken a little bag of treats, of course. There. And so on the way out, I have this bag of treats. And without even thinking, as we're walking out, I tossed the treats into the trash can, and there was something about that action. It began, and I just started kind of half-jogging to the car. And as soon as I got in the car, I shut the door, then the water works. I just started blubbering, and all this emotion started coming out, all this sadness. And I started thinking about: is this okay later, right? Should I be this sad about an animal, about a dog?

29:04Is that all right? Does God care about that? I don't think God loves animals, of course, as much or in the same way that He loves people. He hasn't made animals in His image, like He's made man and woman. We are the crown of His creation. But He gave us so many good gifts, including our interests and our hobbies, and our gifts and our skills, our creativity, and our taste buds, and yes, the rest of creation to be enjoyed. And so, what we do is when these things frustrate us or fail us, or when we enjoy them, either way, we steward them into thanksgiving to the God who gave them to us and for us. This is a gift of grace, of common grace, we could say, but it's still a grace nevertheless. In 1 Peter 5, verse 7, we are told, cast all of your cares upon your grave. God, not just your spiritual concerns or your religious questions. Cast all of your cares upon God. Why? Because He cares for you.

30:12Not just your brain, not just your intellectual pursuits, not just your religious life, not just your church involvement. He cares about you, the person. All of you. And this reference to all these people and this great city, as the Lord calls it, and their animals is also a glimpse into the full scope of what God plans to do with the world. His plan for redemption, his plan in the end, is not to just suck us up into some disembodied heaven, but to restore all creation.

30:48All creation for us to enjoy in an eternal and eternally unfallen state where there is no grief and there is no sickness and there is no death even. All the cares cast onto him now fully validated, fulfilled, restored, answered. Whatever it is that we need, he provides. Romans chapter 8 tells us all creation is groaning for redemption. And in Habakkuk chapter 2, verse 14, we see God's vision for the end, the end game, where everything is going. God says, the knowledge of the glory of God will. Cover the earth like the waters cover the sea. Every nook and cranny gleaming with the glory of Christ, actually, because Revelation tells us that we won't need a son in that time because the Lamb of God will be the lamp of the new creation. And so we see in the New Testament and in these glimpses throughout the Old Testament that God's plan is not just to throw away all of this beautiful and amazing stuff that He's created, but to actually create a new heavens and a new earth. And so, as beautiful and as delicious and as wonderful as all these little gifts of common grace are here, imagine what they will be in the day of glorification. Will my dog, Indy, be in the new earth? Do all dogs go to heaven, right?

32:21Probably not. I don't know. I don't think the Bible is ultimately clear on that. I suspect not. But I think dogs will be. And coffee. And chocolate. Because remember, in Revelation, Jesus doesn't say, Behold, I am making all new things. He says, Behold, I am making all things new. God's grace runs all the way into eternity, future, into the new creation. God's love is infinite and expansive and all-encompassing. God's love runs through our whole eternal lives. This is why we are giving. The gift of eternal life. It really is this grace. It really is extravagant, isn't it? And that God loves our whole lives is a remarkable truth because who are we?

33:12Who are we? I think of these lines from Psalm 8. When I observe your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon, and the stars which you set in place, what is a human being that you are mindful of him? A son of man that you look after him. If we're honest with ourselves, we ought to stagger that God cares about any aspect of our lives, much less our whole lives, because there is nothing in us that deserves his love.

33:43We are worse than we think we are. Like, you may know you're a grody sinner, but you don't know the half of it. I'm sure that's not why you came to church on Sunday morning to hear that you're worse than you think you are, but it's true. It's true. But God knows exactly how sinful we are, and He loves us. Wow. He knows all the terrible things you haven't even done yet. And He loves you. God's grace is for the whole of ourselves, which leads to my third and final point. God's grace is for our sinful selves. God's grace is for our sinful selves.

34:28This is sometimes a It comes across as edgy, which is just fascinating. We're celebrating in some way, or we're commemorating Reformation Day today, which is in large part a recovery of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, justification by faith alone. The very idea of grace tells us that God loves sinners. And yet we struggle with this so often because our flesh yearns for law. Well, okay, he loves sinners. I understand what you're saying, Jared, but like people who kind of clean them, like they clean themselves up a little bit, right?

35:13Well, I don't know. How much do you want to diminish the blood of Christ to make room for a little bit of your righteousness? This is, in fact, why grace exists. Grace exists because sin exists. If there was no sin, there would be no need for grace. Grace exists because sin exists. So God keeps asking Jonah, is it right for you to be angry? I just want you to think about it for a moment, Jonah. Just think about this. Is it right for you to be angry? He asks him this in verse 4, and then he asks him this again in verse 9. Jonah is angry about God's love even extending to our worst enemies. He feels like we are. Often feel when people that we don't love turn out to be loved by God. Not that guy. Are you kidding me?

36:07Why did he pick that one? Before I moved to Kansas City to work at Midwestern Seminary, I was pastoring a church in Vermont. And we had this fellow. He was safe before I got there. It was an older guy, late 70s, early 80s, but pretty spry. He was kind of the town landscaper guy, and he worked on the town road crew and everything. And I just knew him as a friendly, kind of, you know, outgoing sort of guy and always willing to do something for somebody. And he helped me out a number of times. And because he was so friendly and outgoing, we had him as part of our kind of greeting team. And so he would stand on the front steps of our church as people would come in on Sunday morning and shake their hand and say, Welcome to church, and good morning, and how are you? And all these sorts of things. And I had this lady in my church, and she came up to me and she goes, I just don't think that Bobby should be the one up on the porch welcoming people to church. And I said, well, tell me why. I thought maybe he had done something wrong, or he had offended somebody, or there's something I ought to know about as his pastor. And she said, well, I mean, people who've been in this town a long time, they know. I mean, Bobby was alcoholic. Bobby chased after other people's wives. Bobby, this, that, and that. And I said, well, is he doing any of that stuff now? I have not known him in the last five years that I've known him to be doing any of those things. Are you saying he's doing that stuff now? And she said, no, but. People who've been here a long time, that's how they know Bobby. And so to have Bobby on the front porch welcoming people, that immediately equates his past with our church. And I thought, oh, I mean, okay, I understand sort of what you're looking at. But I just want you to know, I just want to remind you what we teach at this church, which is God loves sinners and redeems sinners and changes sinners through the power of the Holy Spirit working through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Do you believe that? Well, of course I do, Pastor.

38:03I just don't think it makes a great impression. And I said, well, sister, I think your heart is set on law and not grace. And maybe it will tarnish our reputation. Maybe it will. Maybe you're right, actually. People will think, oh, they let him in there and think poorly of us. But I wonder about other people. Well, gosh, if they let him in there, maybe there's room for me. Maybe there's a message I could hear in there.

38:37Maybe there's something to this grace thing. Maybe there's something to this love thing. If a guy like Bobby could be there and even shaking people's hands as they come in the door. God is asking Jonah these questions, I think, because he wants Jonah to face a very hard reality. And the reality is this: he doesn't deserve God's love either. No. Remember that. Every time we're thinking about those people, we don't deserve the grace of God ourselves. There's not undeserving people and deserving people. There's undeserving people and God. We are all undeserving. And when we begrudge God's grace given to others, we're somehow imagining that we deserve it ourselves. And I think this is part of what God is getting at in the exchange in verses 9 and 10. Take a look. Then God asked Jonah, Is it right for you to be angry about the plant? Yes, it's right, he replied. I'm angry enough to die. And the Lord said, You cared about the plant, which you didn't labor over, and you didn't grow.

39:39You didn't do anything to get that plant. It was freely given to you, and you're acting like you deserved it, like you earned it somehow. Jonah is acting so self-righteously. He's more concerned about his own comfort, which he thinks he himself deserves, than he is the idea of lost people going to hell, which he thinks he himself does not. Just imagine for a moment if God treated us the way that we wish that he would treat others.

40:11How would that fare for you? Imagine if God treated us the way that we do treat others. How would that go for you? We'd be in real trouble, wouldn't we? Remember the time Peter comes to Jesus? And I think he's got somebody in mind. I don't think this is just a theoretical thing. He's like, how many times do I got to forgive? Somebody who keeps wronging me like seven times, and we like in the context, and we know how the dialogue goes. It seems a little petty, but he's being really generous, isn't he? Seven times? I mean, just think about it. Somebody keeps doing the same thing to you, they keep wronging you, and you say, Look, what are you doing? This is hurtful, this is wrong, and they say, I'm so sorry, I apologize. And then they do it again. Already on time two, you're like, I don't know if they're really repentant. By time three or four, you're like, I don't want to have anything to do with this person anymore. They're clearly not repentant.

41:03Time seven? I mean, Peter's being really generous, isn't he? How many times do I have to forgive somebody who wrongs me? Seven times? And I almost picture between the lines, Jesus, in a way, is saying, I'll tell you what, Peter, you spot that guy seven, I'll spot you seven. Deal? Anybody in this room want that deal? I would use up the seven, you know, seven free sins, I'd use them up in five minutes, right? And Jesus says to him, No, I tell you, 70 times seven. Which I don't know, you know, Peter's a fisherman. I don't know if he's doing the math in his head. You know, like, that's like, that's 490. That's a lot of what Jesus is getting at is essentially, it's a symbolic number. It makes me think you don't stop.

41:55That's really hard, isn't it? To keep forgiving? It doesn't mean the relationship's got to stay exactly the same way and everything, but a lot of times we're just thinking nothing but vengeance. We don't want to cancel that debt. And what Jesus is trying to say is, how many times would you like me to cover your sin? Is there a limit that is acceptable to you? Are you agreeable to the blood of Christ covering 90% of your life? Is there a day in your life where you would like Jesus to say, you know what? I thought you were better than this.

42:36That's it. I'm done. I'm out. You and I, in effect, cheat on Jesus every day. Sin is a kind of spiritual adultery. Every sin we choose is a way of saying to God, you don't satisfy me. This is what satisfies me. You don't justify me. You don't fulfill me. You don't give me joy. You don't give me pleasure. I choose this. Every day we do that, every day he stays. He never leaves. And so now we come back to that early question I said that we would come back to. Is it unjust for God to love the undeserving? Some people say, yes, God breaks the rules. They say he's breaking his own rules for love. But no, he's not doing that at all. Is it unjust for God to love the undeserving? The answer is no, first of all, because God cannot be unjust. Everything he does is just because he himself is just. He is holy, so he can do no wrong. No sin. And God is essentially holy, but he is also in and of himself love. 1 John 4, 8 tells us that. But it's also not unjust for God to forgive sinners because God does have a plan for the punishment of their sin.

43:46And Jonah himself, he doesn't know this probably. Well, he knows it now, but at the time he didn't know it. Jonah becomes a living picture. Of this plan, actually, by spending those three days in that fish. So Jesus tells us in Matthew chapter 12, for as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights. He's referring, of course, to his burial after crucifixion. And Jesus becomes the one who leaps willingly into the stormy sea of God's wrath to pacify it and save us who couldn't do a thing on our own.

44:26And Jesus is the only sinless man to ever live. And he runs towards those of us in need. He doesn't run away from the mission. He runs towards those who need him. Ready to love, ready to die, ready to save. It's not unjust for God to forgive sinners because he is punishing their sin only by putting it on his only son, Jesus Christ. And these are your only two options, by the way. Because God is just, he will punish sin. No sin will go. Unpunished. So you have two options. Either you take the punishment for your sin in the place of eternal condemnation that we call hell, or Christ takes it for you. That's it.

45:12There's no loophole, there's no workaround. You take it, the wrath of God for all eternity, or Christ takes it for you at the cross, quenching it for all eternity. Choose the cross. The place where mercy and justice intersect, the cross, the ultimate proof that God truly, greatly, deeply loves sinners like you and me. If you have trouble with the idea, God loves your sinful self, just look at the cross. It is the ultimate proof. He could not have paid a higher price.

45:53If only Jonah could grasp these depths of God's grace. And nevertheless, he finds that it is grasping him. I mean, there's not a point where there's a big turnaround. If we read it just as sort of a literary piece and not, you know, as what it more importantly is, the very word of God breathed out by the Holy Spirit, it has an unsatisfying ending just as a piece of literature. There's no great epiphany for Jonah. There's no great repentance of his that we see. It just sort of ends. But I think just as notable is we never see God say to Jonah, you know what? I'm done with you.

46:31Out of here. You're a terrible prophet. Why did I call you in the first place? We don't see that. Jonah is discovering along the way, I think, that God's grace is unoutrunnable. There is no sin so great that Christ's blood is not greater still. If he wants you, he will have you because he is God. And his loving kindness, the Bible said, endures forever. Charles Spurgeon says, After 10,000 sins, he loves you as infinitely as ever. He really is, verse 2, a gracious and compassionate God. He really is slow to anger. He really is abounding and faithful love. He really is one who relents from sending disaster. So to run away from him is, in fact, to run into the disaster. If you keep ignoring him and going your own way, you're only headed to your own destruction. Instead, run to him. Run to him. And if you do, you will find not a wrathful, angry, condemning God, but a loving, merciful, smiling Father.

47:44And his love might be coming for you right this very second. In fact, don't run away. Just surrender. Repent of your sin and look to Jesus Christ who died on the cross and rose from the dead and get under the shade of his love, which no worm can destroy. He will cover you with his grace forever. This book of the Bible is more proof that, believe it or not, God loves sinners. That's good news. He actually loves sinners. Let me pray for you.

48:14Heavenly Father, we thank you for this gift of grace in your Son Jesus Christ. We take him for granted so often. I pray that you would help us not to do that. But we thank you that you love us. We could never love you like you love us, at least not until the day we see your Son face to face and know as we are known. And we enjoy that love perfectly forever. So until then, Father, I thank you for the grace that you've given us.

48:51Help us to extend it to others, to love others as evidence that we have been changed by you. You said that the world will know that we are your followers, the followers of your Son, if we have love for one another. I fear that there is a widespread failure of this credibility test in our land. I pray that you would recapture us again, reawaken us to the goodness and the kindness of your love, which leads us to repentance.

49:29That we Might make your name great. Not that we would be great, but that your Son would be magnified in all things. And it's in His name we pray these things. Amen.