7-26-20 Grace-Tucson Sermon

Jonah 4:5-11 [Under the Sun #7]

Pastor Ron Koehler

Grace—Tucson, AZ

July 26, 2020

My friends in Christ, Many of you are familiar with the story of Jonah—at least somewhat. Most are at least aware of the whale that swallowed him…which is actually called a “large fish” and not a whale. That’s fascinating to us because that doesn’t happen every day! We may also recall something about his call to be God’s prophet…somewhere…and he didn’t want to go. The details can sometimes get a little murky for us after that.

That’s probably our fault for not reading the whole book—which is only four little chapters! Or maybe we just haven’t read it in a long time. It could be that some of the kids—who know the fish part—don’t even know exactly how the story of Jonah ends. In reading this Children’s Bible this week, I found that the story just stops after Jonah gets spit out of the fish’s mouth onto the shore and agrees to go do the job the Lord called him too do! But the best part really comes after that!

Others of you, of course, know the story pretty well and can probably tell us how it ends. Well, this morning, our lesson is not the whole four chapters of Jonah and it’s not the fish part. Instead, we’re taken right to the end. But truthfully, we’re going to need a recap in order to fully appreciate the end. So here it is: The LORD came to Jonah and told him to go and preach to the people in the city of Nineveh because they were evil. With probably the worst prophet move ever, Jonah took off in the opposite direction, hopped on a ship and tried to sail away before God could catch him. Dumb move. The LORD sends a storm, the sailors fear for their lives, Jonah had confessed to them that he was running away and now urged them to toss him overboard so as not to bring God’s stormy judgment down on them. Then, with prayer and apparent trust in the LORD, they threw the rebellious prophet into the water.

The Lord sent a large fish that swallowed Jonah, and the belly of that fish was Jonah’s home for three days. A distressed Jonah prayed to the LORD, confident of his ability to save him. And the LORD did save him, commanding the great fish to vomit him up onto the shore. Now having the reluctant prophet’s full attention, God commanded him again to go to Nineveh and preach to the people there.

So Jonah went and proclaimed the LORD’s message: “Forty more days and Nineveh is going to be overthrown.” Shockingly, against all human odds, the people of Nineveh, believed God. They fasted and mourned by wearing sackcloth and sitting in ashes. The king declared that this should be done by all and that prayers should be made to the LORD. That was to include repentance for their evil and violent ways. He hoped that this would cause God to reverse his decision to destroy them.

Then—miracle of miracles—God heard and saw their repentance and did NOT destroy them! And this happened: But to Jonah all this seemed very bad, and he became very angry. He prayed to the LORD, “LORD, wasn’t this exactly what I said when I was still in my own country? That is why I previously fled to Tarshish, because I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abounding in mercy, and you relent from sending disaster. So now, LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. But the LORD replied, ‘Is it right for you to be angry (4:1-4)?”

Is Jonah the worst prophet ever?! What an attitude! Fearful, disobedient, unloving. He gives God the old “I told you so!” after God’s message worked on their hearts and they repented and came to know the LORD! Then the account concludes with the lesson before us this morning, which isn’t a good look for Jonah either!

You might think that the book of Jonah is about him. After all, it is named for him and we do get excellent insight into him as a person. He sure seems like the focal point.

But what if I told you it wasn’t really about him? What if I told you that the Children’s Bible that I mentioned doesn’t even address the main part of the story? Certainly there is insight to be gained by looking at God’s interaction with Jonah as he calls us to serve him also, but there is something bigger. That Children’s Bible ends with this statement and question: “Every time we disobey, we get in trouble. What would be a better choice?” That is really disappointing. It is law-based and hints at a foul theology.

But that is not surprising when they didn’t even finish the story and totally missed the biggest gospel part! So what if I told you that the book of Jonah was really about some horrible people—the Assyrians—and how God deals with sinners? Let me explain.

Let me tell you about the people whom the LORD targeted for Jonah’s mission work.

Nineveh was the large, capital city of the powerful Assyrian Empire. This wicked and cruel nation was located just to the north of God’s people in Israel. Imagine a people so fierce and cruel, that they would conquer people, take their princes and cut off their heads and make totem poles out of them. They also cut off the heads off of some captives and hung them around the necks of those they left alive. They even made the young men they took captive grind the bones of their fathers. Other abominable sins of the people there included plotting evil against the Lord, prostitution, witchcraft, and exploiting people in business and trade. They had quite a reputation!

And these were Israel’s immediate neighbors to the north. There was reason to fear these people. Perhaps that is why Jonah, at first, ran away. Or maybe he just didn’t think that they were deserving of God’s love and mercy. But with all those wicked and sinful people, what a “hot spot” to do mission work! Jonah didn’t see it that way.

Three-quarters of this story tells us about a runaway prophet, a storm on the sea, a great fish, a message reluctantly preached, and the Ninevites response to that, but at the very end—here at the end of chapter 4, the last chapter—it becomes clear that this is all really about God. And here we also find the reason for this bit of history finding its way into our summer series. The sun makes an appearance.

Jonah was so upset and obsessed with his feelings about having to preach to the Ninevites, that he just had to see what would happen—if God would really save those people. And God continued to teach his prophet. Just as he had “provided” a large fish to teach Jonah, so he “provided” a plant and made it grow quickly in order to provide shade to protect him. We don’t know if Jonah noticed the miraculous effort on God’s part, but we do know that he was pretty happy about the shade it provided…for a day.

Because God then “provided” a worm to destroy the plant. God piled on by “providing” a scorching east wind in addition to the intense sun. How bad did it get for Jonah? He felt terrible and wanted to die. “It is better for me to die than to live.”

God used the plant, the worm, the wind, and the burning sun to teach Jonah. How? Well, the LORD responded to Jonah’s fainting complaint: “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?” Jonah said, “I do have a right to be angry—angry enough to die!” So the LORD said, “You have been concerned about this plant.

You did not work for it or make it grow. It grew up in one night and perished after one night. So should I not be concerned for Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than one hundred twenty thousand people who do not know the difference between their right hand and their left (possibly a reference to the number of children)—and also many animals?”

This was God telling Jonah that he was being ridiculous and unloving. That Jonah should care so much about something he had nothing to do with was unreasonable.

He should have been concerned—like God was concerned—about the sinful people of Nineveh who were on the fast track to eternal damnation. Truthfully, God had every right to condemn them. He also had every right to condemn Jonah to the scorching heat of hell for his thoughts and words and actions! The prophet who wanted to distance himself from God instead of serving him and helping the Ninevites, could have been distanced from God for eternity!

Do we see ourselves as we hear God’s Word today? Perhaps you have physically hurt others. Certainly our words and our actions provide a different kind of pain for people in our lives. Even if we have never done the atrocious things the Assyrians did to people, aren’t our sins against people an atrocity in the Lord’s eyes? Do the words we speak and the things we post online always send the message that we think like God thinks and feel the way he feels about all people? Shouldn’t we be called to repent in the same way that Jonah had to tell the people of Nineveh to repent?

It would be spiritually dangerous for us to assume that we are not as bad as those people or not even as bad as Jonah, who didn’t want to do what God told him to do, and who didn’t love people lost in sin like God does. You know why we wouldn’t want to think of ourselves as being a little better than them? Because no matter how faithful you think you are to God, no matter how loving you think you are toward all people, there is a possibility you’re not seeing things clearly. This has happened before.

The experts in God’s Word at the time of Jesus and the most religious people, the Pharisees, were told this by Jesus: The men of Nineveh will stand up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah (Matthew 12:41). The people that Jesus spoke to did not see their own sin, while believing themselves to be secure in their relationship with God. I tell you this not to make you unsure about your position with the Lord, but to push you to see the need to repent for your sins…like the Ninevites…like Jonah…like me…like every person needs to! We need to look deep inside to see if we truly do love people who are facing eternal death because of their sin and lack of faith in God—no matter who they are…and whether we have been answering God’s call to us to reach out to them with his saving Word. Have we realized our sins in these things? Jonah didn’t— until the LORD made the sun beat down on him. If Jonah is the one who wrote down this account, he didn’t pull any punches about how horrible his own heart and actions were. In doing so, perhaps it is a sign of his repentance.

What a truly wondrous and gracious God we have who spares sinners from the judgment they so richly deserve. He reached out to save horribly wicked people. He patiently stuck with and taught his prophet who rebelled against him and his message of love. The real lesson of the book of Jonah is that we have a God of amazing grace. This is the beautiful thing about the LORD, isn’t it?

He still does this today. The Lord shows his wondrous love for all people by sending us out with a message designed to save sinners from eternal destruction. That message is the good news of Jesus Christ. Forgiveness of sins and salvation come only through faith in Jesus’ life given on the cross and his victory over death. You and I have received the blessing of God’s grace through that good news, and he calls us to bring that saving word to people who need to know their Savior. It is not just missionaries or pastors who are called to proclaim the good news, it is all of us who are called to do so by Jesus himself. May we be reminded of that as we think about how God wanted to reach the Ninevites. And may the Holy Spirit work in us to seek out people around us who need to know about the forgiving and gracious God! Amen.

Now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.