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176. Summer Sermon - Jonah 4 - Brett Martin · 4-Freedom Podcast

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I found my freedom in you. I found a toy I can't lose, and
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thank God it's true. You wrapped your arms around me
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and heaven broke through. From the moment she found me.
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I found. Welcome to the Four Freedom
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Podcast. This podcast exists to bring the
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freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with
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everyday issues. Now here are your hosts, James
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Seyfried and Brett Marks, Jonah chapter 4.
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We're closing out our series in the book of Jonah.
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This will be the last Sunday in Jonah, and we've been handling a
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chapter a week. And so as you turn to Jonah
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Chapter 4, let me just let you know that of course, you all
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know that we went to Henna Tega, Nicaragua last year.
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And when you go to a foreign country on a mission trip, it
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is, you know, it's extremely hard to not have compassion for
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these people. I mean, these people, they live
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in shacks. I guarantee you your lawnmower
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lives in a better shack than these families do.
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We went into this one, this one house, this one kitchen.
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And in the middle of the kitchen floor, if you could call it a
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kitchen, it had a stone, a stone.
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Well, OK, with a a draw bucket at the top, like you'd see in a
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medieval book or something. And like Jack and Jill went up a
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hill that kind of well. And so you think they say, oh,
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my grandfather dug the well. And you think that's great when
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you come to understand that the thousands of people that live
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around them, there's no sewage system.
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The sewage just goes out on the ground.
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So even though this is groundwater, it's still
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contaminated. OK?
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These are the conditions that that, that that people live in
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down there. So when when you go to the dump
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and you see people, they live in the garbage dump and they get
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their groceries daily groceries from the garbage trucks.
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It it, it's hard to look at these people and not have
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compassion on them. But then you come back to Lee
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County, Mississippi, and you go to the Walmart parking lot in
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Carthage. You go to the Walmart in in
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Kosciusko and you see people walking in the parking lot.
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It's harder to have compassion on them than it is to have
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compassion on the people that live in Nicaragua.
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It's just hard to do that because there's a difference in
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the quality of living and you don't think about it.
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When you're in Nicaragua, you, all you think about is how much
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compassion you have for these people.
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And when you get back here to the States, you don't think like
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that anymore. It's hard for us to do that.
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But I want to, I want you to understand that God looks at
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everybody the same way God looks at the people of Hennateaga,
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Nicaragua, in the same way that he looks at the people of
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Carthage. Ms. And, and what would it look
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like if we had that kind of heart for lost people, no matter
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where they're from, no matter what city they live in, no
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matter what country they're from.
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We come to Jonah chapter 4. We're coming to the end of
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Jonah's journey. Jonah has been his ram from God.
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He's been in the storm, he's been thrown overboard, he's been
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swallowed by the fish. He stayed in the belly of the
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fish 3 days and three nights. He prays, he repents, he spat up
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on the beach. He goes to Nineveh, he preaches
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in Nineveh, and everybody in the whole city repents.
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And that's how Jonah chapter 3 ends.
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And you think to yourself, man, if it if the book would just
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stop right there. I mean, let's just call it let's
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get the Jonah chapter 3 and just stop talking.
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Let's just not go any further. Man.
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If, if, if the book of Jonah would have ended in Jonah
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chapter 3, the book would have been a resounding success.
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Jonah would be one of the great revivalists that ever lived.
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If the book would have just stopped in Jonah chapter 3.
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But problem is, is that it didn't stop in Jonah chapter 3
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and went on to Jonah chapter 4. And part of the reason why the
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book continued is because Jonah still had a problem.
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You want to know what Jonah's problem is?
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I'll tell you what Jonah's problem is.
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Jonah's problem is that his God was too gracious.
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Jonah's God is too merciful. Jonah's God is too
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compassionate. You ever stop to think about
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what Jonah's real problem with Nineveh was?
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Well, to understand that, you got to understand the political
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climate of the day. Nineveh and Assyria, they were a
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terrorist state, so their continued existence was a threat
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to Israel. See, to understand this, you
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have to go back to where Jonah lived in.
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Jonah lived in the northern country of Israel.
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Then you know the North and the South Kingdom.
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They divided Judah to the South with with Jerusalem and Israel
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to the north. So Jonah lived in the North
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Country of Israel. The capital of the North Country
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of Israel was Samaria. Jonah lived under a king in the
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book in the Book of Kings and Chronicles by the name of
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Jeroboam the Second. Jeroboam the Second reigned from
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793 BC to 753 BC. The Northern Kingdom fell in
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722. So just a few decades after
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Jonah's time, the Northern Kingdom of Israel fell.
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OK, so that means that while Jonah's preaching Assyria's
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rising to power, but they had not conquered Israel, let Israel
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yet. But Jonah wasn't dumb.
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Jonah was smart. Jonah knew which way the wind
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was blowing. And Jonah knew that if Assyria
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continued to grow that one day Israel would fall.
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And guess what? Jonah was right.
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Jonah was right. Mercy now meant destruction
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later. And history proved Jonah's
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right. Jonah was right.
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But see, here's the thing. Jonah put his own nation's
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safety over lost souls. Now, there's a lesson we can
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learn in that in today's passage, Jonah gets angry at
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God. Now, let me ask you, do you ever
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get angry at God? Of course we do.
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We just don't want to admit it. We don't freely admit that we
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get angry at God, but we definitely get angry at God.
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Now I want to break this chapter down into three acts.
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Act chapter 1 is Jonah is angry at God's grace.
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Jonah is angry at God's grace. Now let's read Jonah chapter 4
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verses one through 4. But it greatly displeased Jonah
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and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord and said,
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Please Lord, was not this what I said while I was still in my own
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country? Therefore, in order for to
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forestall this, I fled the Tarsus.
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For I knew that you were a gracious and compassionate God,
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slow to anger, and abundant and loving kindness, and one who
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relents concerning calamity. Therefore now, O Lord, please
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take my life from me, for death is better to me than life.
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The Lord said, do you have good reason to be angry?
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This, this chapter starts out very strangely.
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It starts out very weird because Jonah preaches and apparently
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his preaching is a success because everybody in the city
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repents. I mean, I can imagine if I went
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into a city and I preached A citywide revival and everybody
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in the city came to Jesus, I'd be pretty happy.
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That'd be a good day for me. I mean, imagine if we had this,
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we had this, this crusade down in Carthage at the old Carthage
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Elementary School in September. And imagine we have this crusade
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and Alex McFarlane comes and preaches and the whole city of
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Carthage comes to Jesus and that we would consider that a
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success. We would say, man, that that
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that's a, that's a great revival.
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We'd be happy. But Joan is not.
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Joan is upset. Joan is angry at God.
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Imagine a painter painting a painting and that painting being
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chosen to go on display in the National Art Museum and the
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painter getting angry about it. Imagine a conductor or a
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composer standing up at Carnegie Hall and he leases Symphony that
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he wrote himself and and when the Symphony gets done,
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everybody stands for a standing ovation and he's angry about it.
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That just doesn't make any sense.
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Fact. He's not just angry.
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The Bible says he was greatly displeased.
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Now there's a reason why I bring that up because that's a heat
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that greatly displeased is a very, very strong word in the
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Hebrew and it it all in the Hebrew meaning of that word
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anger. It almost means that Jonah was
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hot with anger, a very, very strong word.
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I also want you to notice in verse 2 that Jonah prays.
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Now this is the only the second time that Jonas prayed in the
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book. And because this is the second
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time he's prayed, we can see a pattern start to develop.
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The first time he prayed is when he's in the belly of the fish
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because he didn't get his way. And this time he prays.
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He's on the outside of the city. He prays because once again God
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didn't destroy the city and he didn't get his way.
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So it this pattern of prayer is that Jonah only prays when he
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doesn't get his way. Very selfish, very
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self-righteous, very self-centered.
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And when he prays he says, God, didn't I tell you this would
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happen? Didn't I tell you this?
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This, this is what would take place?
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Then I tell you that you would do this.
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This is why I ran away in the first place.
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See, Jonah's biggest fear is that God wouldn't have too
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little mercy. His fear was that God would have
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too much mercy. And then old poor Jonah laying
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down on the ground, Oh, I'd rather die.
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Oh Lord, take my life away from me.
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He would rather die than live in a world where God is gracious to
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sinners. He said, For I knew that you
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were gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abundant
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loving kindness, and one who relents concerning calamity.
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Now if you remember when we preached 2 weeks ago, we said
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that Jonah employed a strategy when he prayed.
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Jonah had a habit of putting scripture in his prayers when he
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prayed to God, and we said that we could use that that strategy
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in our prayer lives too. Well, Jonah does it here again.
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You see what he's actually praise praying a Bible verse
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right here. He's actually praying Exodus 34,
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six through 7. Let's read that.
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The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow
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to anger, abounding and loving kindness and truth, who keeps
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loving kindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity,
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transgressions and sin. Now the last time Jonah prayed
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Scripture, it was a good thing. This time it's a bad thing.
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And the reason is, is because he's using God's words to accuse
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him. He's accusing God right now.
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He's trying to paint a picture of a God that loves
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indiscriminately, but yet without judgment on evil.
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See, he's using this verse to justify his anger.
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He's saying, God, you're too merciful and you're not just at
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all. Well, do you understand that's
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the same argument people use today against God?
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Oh, if God was so loving, there wouldn't be so much evil in the
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world. It's the same argument.
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The same argument that Jonah is making then is the same
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argument, same kind of accusation that people make
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against God today. But see, Jonah, just like people
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today, is misquoting scripture because he leaves a very
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important part out of that verse.
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He leaves the last part out. Let's read the verse again.
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The Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger,
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abounding in loving kindness and truth, who keeps loving kindness
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for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression, and
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sin. Yet he will by no means leave
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the guilty unpunished. So Jonah conveniently leaves
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that part out. God isn't all mercy and no
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justice, but that's what Jonah's accusing him of.
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So this leads us to a good observation.
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And the observation is, it is possible to know the Word of
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God, yet at the same time not know the heart of God.
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I want you to catch that. It's possible to know the Word
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of God, but yet at the same time not know the heart of God.
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In fact, this is a very dangerous place to be in.
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It's very dangerous to know the Word of God and not know the
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heart of God. Let me give you an example of
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some people that were like this. The Pharisees were like this.
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The Pharisees knew the word of God, but they did not know His
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heart. They would tithe dill and cumin,
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and they would tithe 10% of their spice rack, but they would
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throw out the needy. Oh, they would fast and they
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would make sure everybody know that they fasted, but yet they
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wouldn't feed the poor. They would strain out a gnat but
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swallow a camel. You see, See, knowing God's word
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without knowing His heart, it can can lead to pride instead of
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compassion. It can lead to judgement instead
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of grace. The point is, oh, when Jonah was
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getting grace in the fish, everything was good, all was
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right with the world. But the very second people
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started getting grace, Jonah didn't like grace, wasn't so fun
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anymore. Now we don't like grace as much
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as we used to. They don't deserve your grace,
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God, only I do. Only I deserve your grace.
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We get a little taste of this when Jonah prayed in the belly
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of the fish. Jonah said, I will sacrifice to
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you. I will pay my vows.
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Salvation is from the Lord. But in that same prayer, in that
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same breath, he said, those who regard vain idols forsake their
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faithfulness. So even in his prayer of
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repentance in the belly of the fish, he still throws shade at
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the Ninevites if they don't deserve grace.
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This story of Jonah in the city of Nineveh, it's very
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reminiscent of a story that Jesus tells in Luke 15.
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Luke 15, Jesus tells the story of a young man who comes to his
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dad and says, Dad, I'd like to have my inheritance.
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He gets his inheritance and goes out into the world and he spends
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his inheritance on riotous living and he lives it up.
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Man, he's having a good time. But then when all the money's
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gone and all the women's gone and all the friends are gone,
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all the drugs are gone and all the booze are gone, when
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everything's gone and he doesn't have anything left, he goes to a
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pig farm, which is the lowest part, the lowest job a Jew can
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get, but it's the only job he could get.
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And as he's out there feeding the pigs, he's feeding the hogs.
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He's so hungry, he puts his face into the feed through and he
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begins to eat the pig food. And while he's stuffing his face
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with the pig slop, he's thinking, man, my hired servants
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at my dad's house, his servants eat better than this.
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Maybe I can go to my dad and ask him if I can just be one of his
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hired hands. So he goes back home.
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And as he's walking up the road, the dad is standing on the porch
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and he sees his son coming. And he jumps off the porch and
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he runs down to meet his son. And he grabs his son an embrace,
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and he picks him up. And he says, put a ring on his
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finger, put a robe on his back, kill the fatted calf because
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today my son was blind. And now he sees he was dead.
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And now he's alive. And he has a celebration in his
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house. But story doesn't stop there.
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See, because while everybody's in the house having a
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celebration, there's somebody standing on the outside.
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There's somebody standing on the outside with his arms crossed
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out in the cold. It's the older brother.
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The older brother's standing on the outside and he won't go in.
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He smells the food, he hears his celebration, but he refuses to
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go in because he doesn't think the younger brother deserves any
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grace. So the dad comes out to talk to
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the older brother, and the older brother says, hey, listen, dad,
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I stayed. I obeyed.
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Where's my party? You've never thrown a party for
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me and my friends, only for this guy.
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But I'm the one that stayed. I'm the one that's been
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faithful. He doesn't resent the Father's
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grace because it's too little. He resents the Father's grace
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because it's too much for someone he doesn't think
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deserves it. Nineveh in this comparison, is a
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younger brother, and Joan is the older brother.
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Standing on the outside while everybody's celebrating on the
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inside. He's just standing out there
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fuming, just like Jonah and the older brother.
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We struggle when God shows mercy to people we don't think deserve
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it. What if it's somebody who
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doesn't agree with you politically?
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What if it's somebody who advocates for abortion or
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advocates to gay rights with the gay rights?
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Do they deserve mercy? Do they deserve grace?
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Absolutely they do. They deserve it.
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Why? Because God says they do.
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There are people, there are extreme leftist that say man if
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you voted Republican you don't deserve to go to heaven.
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I've heard this before. I've been accused of this
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before. There are people out there that
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are intolerant of people that think differently than them, but
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that never needs to be us to them.
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Never at all. Should We should always treat
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everybody with compassion and grace and pray for them, no
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matter what they believe. But that's just one example.
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Maybe it's somebody who's hurts you.
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Maybe it's somebody that has a past.
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Guess what? They deserve grace too, Jonah
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thought. I am God's people.
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And because I'm God's people, I deserve God's grace more than
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other people that aren't God's people.
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That's how it works, right? No, Jonah, that's not how it
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works. Listen to me.
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Listen to me. You are not special just because
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you come to church. You are not.
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You are not special just because you come to church.
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That does not make you any better than anybody else.
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That's right. You know, in the Bible, the only
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people who ever got mad at God's grace were Pharisee.
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Like people, people that think they deserve it and other people
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don't. Listen to me.
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Grace is unearned. Grace is unmerited.
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Grace is for everybody. You don't have a monopoly on
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God's grace. You're not the arbiter of God's
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grace. You don't get to decide who gets
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it and who doesn't. That's right, the Lord said,
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Jonah, do you have a good reason to be angry at my grace?
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And the answer to that question is no, Jonah did not have a good
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reason to be angry at God's grace.
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And guess what? Neither do we.
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We have no good reason to be angry because God shows grace to
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somebody #2 Jonah is angry at God's justice.
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Verse 5 Then Jonah went out from the city and sat east of it and
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there he made a shelter for himself and sat under it in the
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shade until he could see what would happen in the city.
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So the Lord God appointed a plant and grew it up over Jonah
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to be a shade over his head to deliver him from his discomfort.
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But Jonah was extremely happy about the plant.
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But God appointed a worm when dawn came the next day and it
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attacked the plant and it withered when the sun came up.
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Got appointed A scorching E wind and the sun beat down on Jonah's
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head so that he became faint and begged with all his soul to die,
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saying death is better to me than life.
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Jonah is still holding on the hope that God's going to destroy
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the city. So he goes outside and sits on a
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hill and watches the city just to see if God's going to make
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him burn, just to see if God's going to make him pay.
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And he goes outside for his safety.
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Jonah is still angry because the city has not gotten justice yet.
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So God here is going to attempt to teach Jonah a little lesson.
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If Jonah is angry at God's grace, well, maybe he needs a
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little taste of justice. See, God appointed a fish to to
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swallow Jonah. Now he's going to appoint a
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plant to grow up over Jonah. And I want you to notice
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something here in this passage. When this plant grows over hand
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and gives him shade. It's the first time in the whole
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book Jonah's happy. He's happy because God delivered
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him out of his discomfort. So maybe here we get a little
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indication of who Jonah's real God is.
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You know who Jonah's real God is.
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Jonah's real God is Jonah. It's himself.
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OK. Jonah is Jonah's God.
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And and I think this punishment here is a little poetic justice
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because remember when he said how angry he was, the Hebrew
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word meant he was hot with anger.
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Well, now God's really going to bring the heat on Jonah.
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So when God prepared this worm to eat the plant and it wasted
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away in a day, Jonah said he missed the plant so much that he
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could die. I want you to keep in mind that
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up to this point, Jonah's received no punishment.
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Even the fish was, it was grace. It was a means of rescue.
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He's only received rescue up to this point.
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So in this plant illustration, object lesson, God's given Jonah
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just a little bit of punishment and and not even a whole lot.
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There's a whole lot worse things that God could have done to
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Jonah than this this plant thing.
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Actually, this is instead of a punishment, this is more of a
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minor inconvenience and God allows him just a little taste
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of justice. And what was his response?
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Anger as well. So Jonah doesn't want to live in
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a world where God is merciful to the Ninevites and he doesn't
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want to live in a world where God is just to him.
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It turns out that Jonah can't be satisfied with anything God
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does. The reason why Jonah flipped out
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because he's like he's feeling what he wants the Ninevites to
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feel. He's like God are are you, are
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you kidding me? They got lit, let off the hook,
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and I got my plant taken away. People feel like this throughout
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the Bible. Psalm 73 Three.
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For I was envious of the arrogant as I saw the prosperity
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of the wicked. Luke 1529 But he answered and
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said to this and said to his father, Look, for so many years
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I have been serving you, and I have never neglected a command
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of yours, and yet you have never given me a young goat so that I
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might celebrate with my friends. But Jonah's angry that God's
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justice doesn't measure up the standards.
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I was working as a security guard at PFS Web in Memphis, TN,
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at a warehouse. And I'm sitting on the front
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desk. I'm scanning people in and out
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of the warehouse. We had a mint in our warehouse.
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It was very important that we scanned everybody in and out.
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And so I was looking at the cameras.
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There wasn't nobody coming from the desk.
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And I was a little hungry. I skipped lunch.
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I had a little Jingle in my pocket.
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I had a few quarters. And so now I'm going to go in
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here to the vending machine. So I go in here, the vending
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machine get me a little snack because I was snackless and I
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don't even remember the bag of chips or something.
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And I put my money in there and little it went and the bag of
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chips went right against the glass man.
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I beat the vending machine and I shook the thing.
26:02
I wanted to drop kick it, but I was on camera and I knew that if
26:06
I, if I, if I tilted the thing too much, an alarm would go off.
26:10
And so I'm trying to shake this thing and get my bag of chips
26:13
down. It wouldn't come.
26:14
And then I heard people coming to the desk, so I had to leave
26:17
that. I had to go back into the front.
26:19
I had to scan people through as they were coming in for their
26:22
break. And when I got done scanning
26:24
people, I went back in there and my bag of chips was gone.
26:28
Somebody else had got it. Now you ask me, was I really mad
26:32
over a bad bag of chips? But I was mad over a bag of
26:35
chips. That was my bag of chips.
26:38
Of course I was hungry. You wonder why I was hungry.
26:42
I was angry because I followed the rules.
26:45
I paid my money and the machine robbed me and rewarded somebody
26:51
else and gave them something they didn't pay for.
26:56
That's Jonah. In Jonah chapter 4, God sees
27:01
Jonah as a broken vending machine.
27:05
God, I obeyed. I preached, I did what you said,
27:10
but yet I suffer and may get grace.
27:14
I'm here to tell you something today, Christian.
27:17
God is not your vending machine. He does not give grace based on
27:23
your performance. He gives grace based on His
27:27
heart. And every once in a while He's
27:30
going to withhold comfort from the self-righteous in order to
27:33
teach them a lesson. You see, when you think of God
27:37
as your vending machine, then his grace will always offend
27:41
you. Do you mean to tell me that that
27:44
man right there live like the devil his whole life and on his
27:48
deathbed he gets to pray a little prayer and put his faith
27:51
in Jesus and go to heaven? Yeah, because that's how grace
27:56
works. Who remembers from the 70's?
28:00
The Son of Sam serial killer. You might remember the Son of
28:03
Sam. I saw a video last week of this
28:08
guy serial killer, He's in jail and he's giving his life to
28:13
Jesus. I listen his testimony and it
28:18
was bam, bam, bam Bam was straight down the line.
28:22
I can't look inside somebody's heart, but if I had to guess, I
28:26
would say the man is saved. Somebody would look at that
28:30
video and said really, God would let a serial killer into heaven
28:36
because he repented. Absolutely God would because
28:41
that's what grace is. See, our flesh, our flesh wants
28:47
to reward the good people and punish the bad people.
28:51
Two things about that. Number one, little secret,
28:55
nobody's good, nobody's good. There is none righteous, no, not
29:01
one for all if sin and come sure the glory of God.
29:03
There's nobody good and #2 God does not operate on our merit
29:08
system because he's sovereign and He knows things we don't
29:13
know. And at the end of the day, we
29:16
need to trust God's character more than our own calculations.
29:23
Genesis 1825 Shall not the judge of all the earth deal justly?
29:29
So you got to trust that God knows what He's doing.
29:33
So when God's version of justice doesn't meet your expectations,
29:37
don't try to pull God down to your level.
29:39
You try to pull your heart up to his.
29:41
And then #3 Jonah missed God's heart.
29:45
Jonah misses God's heart. Verse 9.
29:48
Then God said to Jonah, Do you have a good reason to be angry
29:51
about the plant? And he said, I have good reason
29:54
to be angry, even to death. Then the Lord said, you had
29:57
compassion on the plant for which you did not work, and what
30:01
you did not 'cause to grow, which came up overnight and
30:05
perished overnight. Should I not have compassion on
30:08
Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than
30:11
120,000 persons who do not know the difference from the right
30:15
hand into their left hand as well as many animals?
30:18
I want you to see here that Jonah still feels absolutely
30:22
justified in his anger, OK? I mean, even considering that,
30:26
that the plant was just a plant, it wasn't a person.
30:29
He had no personal interest or no personal investment in the
30:33
plant, just what it gave him at that moment.
30:36
In fact, the last words that Jonah said in this book are it's
30:39
right for me to be angry, even to death.
30:42
But thankfully, those are not the last words in the book.
30:46
Jonah wants grace for himself and justice for others.
30:50
He's more heartbroken over a plant than 120,000 lost souls on
30:56
their way to hell. Jonah.
31:02
For Jonah, what was more important than their eternal
31:06
destination was, get this, his own personal comfort.
31:12
We're all for doing God's will as long as it doesn't come in
31:16
the way of our plans and our priorities.
31:20
Philippians 2, four and five, do not merely look out for your own
31:23
personal interest, but also for the interests of others.
31:26
Have this attitude in yourselves, which also is in
31:29
Christ Jesus. I'm not supposed to look out for
31:32
my own interests. I'm supposed to look out for the
31:34
interests of others. How many times do I walk up
31:37
through my day and instead of looking for how I can help other
31:41
people, I look for how I can help myself?
31:45
God said Jonah. These people, they don't know
31:47
their left hand from the right hand.
31:49
That's a scriptural, biblical way of saying Jonah.
31:52
These people, they don't know right from wrong.
31:55
They literally know not what they do.
31:57
Jonah. God is saying Jonah, you would
32:02
rather them burn in hell than you sweat for a couple hours.
32:08
It's Palm Sunday. Jesus is triumphantly entering
32:13
into Jerusalem. He stops on the top of the Mount
32:17
of Olives. He looks down the road into the
32:19
Kidron Valley where people are laying palm branches down.
32:23
And he looks up and sees the city, sees the temple, Temple
32:28
Mount, great city of Jerusalem. And the Bible says he weeps.
32:33
And the reason why he weeps because all those people that
32:36
are triumphanting him and glad he's here and all the people
32:40
that are putting palm branches in front of him, he knows in a
32:43
week they're all going to be yelling crucify him.
32:48
And he knows because they will reject him that this great city
32:53
will be destroyed and everyone in it.
32:56
And because of that, he weeps. Now let's compare that to Jonah.
33:03
Jonah sits on a hill outside the city.
33:05
He overlooks the city and he's upset and he weeps because they
33:10
have turned to God and the city won't be destroyed.
33:14
Jonah wept over a dying plant, but Jesus weeps over dying
33:18
people. Jonah wanted judgment to fall on
33:22
them, and Jonah took the punishment on him.
33:24
Jesus took the punishment on himself.
33:26
The lesson is clear. God's concern goes beyond
33:30
Israel, and God is completely justified in doing so.
33:34
Listen, God is not just the God of Israel.
33:37
He's not just the God of Christians.
33:39
He's everybody's God, and He is not willing that any should
33:43
perish. Here's a question I want you to
33:46
take home today. Do I share the compassion of
33:50
God? That's the question I want you
33:52
to ask yourself. Am I willing to sacrifice my own
33:56
desires, my own wants, and my own comfort so that other people
34:02
will come to Christ? Whose soul are you willing to
34:07
sacrifice on the altar of personal comfort?
34:12
Who might miss the gospel because you chose ease over
34:16
obedience? What soul are you willing to
34:20
walk past while protecting your own peace and routine?
34:25
What if reaching the loss meant attacking your comfort?
34:29
What if it means going to the Dollar General Store and passing
34:32
out hamburgers and drags? What if it's like what, what,
34:36
what, what, what? What if we don't like the new
34:38
stuff? Oh, I don't like this new music.
34:40
I don't like these new service times when those new things are
34:43
designed to reach lost people. What if reaching the loss means
34:47
you can't stay silent anymore? So.
34:49
So when when the Holy Spirit tells you to talk to somebody,
34:52
you actually do it. Listen, if you want to rescue
34:56
somebody's soul, you're going to have to let go of your shade in
35:01
order to deliver someone from drowning.
35:03
You've got to step away from the shore or else you'll say, I
35:08
don't care that they're going to burn in hell as long as I'm
35:13
comfortable. The way this book ends, Jonah
35:20
never admits that God is right. It's never resolved.
35:25
The story's never resolved. And that's on purpose.
35:28
It's by design because we're meant to put ourselves in
35:31
Jonah's shoes and ask the question, if we were in Jonah's
35:35
shoes, would we learn the lesson that God is trying to teach
35:38
here, which you know what I think of?
35:40
Maybe it's because I was just raised with it.
35:43
You know what I think of when I get to the end of this book?
35:45
I think of Veggietales. I think of the Veggietales Jonah
35:49
movie, that song at the end of the movie, you know the song,
35:54
some of you do the song. It goes, goes like this, like
35:57
Jonah was a prophet, but he never really got it.
36:00
You can spot it if you watch it. He did not get the point.
36:06
But is that true that Jonah really never got the point?
36:10
If I could this morning, let me push back on Veggie Tales just a
36:14
little bit. And I know that sacrilege
36:16
pushing against Veggie Tales, especially in the Southern
36:18
Baptist Church. But let me push back on Veggie
36:20
Tales just a little bit. I have a question.
36:23
How do we know about Jonah and the fish?
36:26
How do we know that Jonah had this conversation with God
36:29
outside of Nineveh? The only way we could know it is
36:34
if Jonah told somebody. It's the only way we could know
36:37
it. That's what Timothy Keller
36:39
believes in his book The Prodigal Prophet.
36:41
He says that he believes that Jonah recognized his own pride
36:46
and told this story to warn other people.
36:49
Now, whether that happened or not, I ask you today, do you
36:53
have the heart of God? Do we stand over the city and
36:57
weep because our shade got taken away?
37:00
Or do we stand over the city and weep because there are too many
37:04
lost souls in it? Here's.
37:08
What I want you to. Do today everybody in here.
37:12
I want you to beg. For the heart of God today.
37:17
Now the altar. Is going to be open, but I know
37:19
a lot of us don't like coming to the altar.
37:22
So I'm not going to put that pressure on you.
37:25
Come to the altar, stay in your seat, do what you want to do.
37:28
But I asked you today, I want everybody in here to beg the God
37:34
of heaven for his heart. God, give me compassion on the
37:41
lost if. You ask?
37:45
God for his heart. He'll give it to you.
37:50
Every head bowed, every eye. Closed, found my new.
37:53
Name found that good grace found that healing, and the tears fell
37:59
down my face when I found my beginning.
38:02
And has no ending. From that second chance, from my
38:06
best friend, from my forgiveness, from my happiness.
38:08
I've been singing ever since about my freedom.
38:23
Thanks for listening. To The Four Freedom Podcast, If
38:26
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