Thank you, Vic. Current me and your Bibles to Jonah, chapter four. If you don't have a Bible with you, there are some in the seats in front of you, and it's on page 917 and those in front of you. Jonah can be difficult to find because it's a small book, page 917 there. As we continue our study of Jonah, this is our last week. It's only a four part story, and we're in the fourth episode. The story of Jonah opens with God calling Jonah, a prophet of Israel to go to Nineveh. Nineveh is a very violent wicked city. It will later on become the capital of the Assyrian Empire. And Jonah is called to go and to preach against the city. Well, Jonah is called to go to Nineveh, which is to the east, and instead of going east, Jonah gets on a ship and goes as far west as he possibly can go to the city of Tarshis, which is in Spain. And on the way, he encounters a very violent storm, one that threatens to destroy the ship. And so the sailors realizing that they are about to drown and wake up Jonah, they ask him what he should do. He tells them that he's running away from God and that their only hope of escape is to throw him overboard into the ocean, virtually to kill him. And so the sailors are reluctant to do so, but eventually they do throw him overboard, they throw him into the ocean, and immediately the seas grow calm. The sailors realize that Jonah's God is the true God and they begin to worship him. They are converted through the death of Jonah, or a parent death of Jonah. But God shows mercy on Jonah and sends this great fish to swallow him. If you want to know about whether the great fish is real or not, go back two weeks ago to, and you can look at our, listen to our MP3 on that, but he's the great fish swallows Jonah and spares him from certain death. Jonah inside the fish, prays this prayer of thanksgiving, thanking God for delivering him, thanking God that he is not like these idle worshipers, touting his own moral goodness, and it's such a self-righteous prayer that it makes the fish sick, and the sick vomit some up on the shore, where Jonah continues on to his ministry and goes on to Nineveh to preach the news of God's judgment, and then something terrible happens. No, Jonah preaches, and the people actually listen. They actually listen to his sermon, they hear his message of God's judgment, they believe what he's saying, and they call upon God for forgiveness, and they repent, it is Jonah's worst nightmare. People listen to his sermon, and he can't stand it. And so here we are in Jonah chapter four, as we look at the conclusion of the story of Jonah, and we see why Jonah is so mad at God. Jonah chapter four beginning with verse one. But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the Lord, whole Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? This is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshis. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, and a bounding in love, a God who relents from sinny calamity. Now, O Lord, take away my life for it is better for me to die than to live. But the Lord replied, have you any right to be angry? Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, set it in a shade, and waited to see what would happen to the city. Then the Lord God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort. And Jonah was very happy about the vine. But it dawned the next day, God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered. When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die and said, it is better for me to die than to live. But God said to Jonah, do you have any right to be angry about the vine? I do, he said, I'm angry enough to die. But the Lord said, you have been concerned about this vine though you did not tend it or make it grow. It's sprang up overnight and died overnight, but Nineveh has more than 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city? Should I not be concerned about that great city? Here we see God's heart for a lost world where God is concerned about this huge city that is on the verge of destruction and God is showing it mercy. And so here we see, if God loves a lost and broken world, so should we. If God loves a lost and broken world, so should we. But before we look at that idea, let's look first understand why Jonah is so angry. I mean, he's mad, he is hot mad. And the reason he's mad is he has a problem with God's mercy. So let's look at first the problem of God's mercy. The word by the way for anger and the word for hot are the same and we see just some delightful parallels here is Jonah gets hot under the sun and he's hot under the collar all at the same time. But here we see this remarkable contrast to Nineveh's repentance by God and by Jonah. And chapter three at the end of chapter three is Nineveh repents. We read that God turned away from his anger. When he saw what they did and how they turned away from the evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened. So Nineveh repents God's anger subsides. Jonah's anger grows. Their reactions to the repentance of Nineveh are diametrically opposed. And so Jonah is hot with anger. A terrible thing has happened that people of Nineveh had repented. And so he goes to God and he says, see, I knew this would happen. This is the problem with you God is you're a softie. You don't know anything about justice. You don't know anything about law and order and God, you are wrong. He says, here's the problem with you God. Notice what he says, the problem with you with God is. He says, God, you're gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abandoning in love, a God who relents from sinny calamity. Now, who wants a God like that? You know, I mean, who wants a God who's slow to anger, who's compassionate, who's merciful? I mean, we want a God of justice, right? Well, before you're too hard on Jonah for being a hard-nosed law and order guy, before we are too hard on him, let's look at this, let's see that Jonah really has a point. He has a point. The people of Nineveh are evil. They're wicked. We looked in the first chapter, they're incredible violence. They took delight in slaughtering and in torturing people. That was part of the Assyrian Empire. And to make matters worse, these people of Nineveh, the city of Nineveh, is later on going to become the capital of the Assyrian Empire. The Assyrian Empire within probably 50 years of the story is going to come in, wipe out the nation of Israel. They're going to destroy it. They're going to level it. So the Assyrian Empire, the city of Nineveh, is going to be responsible for the destruction of the people of God. And Jonah cannot understand why in the world God is going to let them off the hook because it does not seem just. And so despite all the evil they've done, they say a few prayers, put on a few sackcloths and ashes, even have their cows repent, you know, or something like that. Now the talisman of sackcloths and ashes, they say a few prayers and God says, I'll never mind. And Jonah says, it's just not right. It's not right, it's not just. Now, again, before we sit here in the comfort of our little insulated world and get mad at Jonah for wanting God to nuke a whole city, again, let's notice he has a point. We all want a world of justice. We don't, we need a world of justice. A world where there's no right and wrong, where evil goes unpunished, where good deeds go, unrewarded is a world that really is unlivable. It is unfathomable to us. We would not be able to stand it. We want a world of justice. If you do the crime, you gotta do the time. Beretta had it right, didn't he? You know, if you do the crime, you gotta do the time. And so we want a world of justice. In fact, we've seen that this week. This week we saw one of the greatest injustices in American judicial history, Paris Hilton, right? Paris Hilton sentenced to 45 days in jail for her charges related to drunken and reckless driving, later reduced to 23 days in jail. And then she only served three days, of course, she's back in now, but she only served three days. And you would think we just let Osama bin Laden not to hook, wouldn't you? I mean, the outrage, the injustice that this girl because she has little money and a little notoriety can get away with this. And we say, that is not right. And you know, you have a point. I mean, because it does seem that the rich get a different justice system than the poor. And so we look at that and we say that's not right. Now, if we get upset over a woman getting off the hook over a reckless driving charge, don't you think that Jonah has a right to get upset over a city which has committed crimes against humanity? Some of the worst war crimes in the history of the world, some of the worst atrocities. But don't you think Jonah has a right to be upset that they're just getting a free pass on this? Yes, he has a right to be upset because we want and need a world of justice. A world without justice is a world that seems unlivable. So let's be at least as honest as Jonah. God's mercy seems terribly unfair. His mercy seems like a travesty of justice. Well, what do we do with that? Well, where does God get his mercy? Let's look at the second point, the source of God's mercy. Now, here's the question, how can God be just and do what is right and yet be merciful at the same time? How can God be a just God and not simply let people off the hook? Now, by the way, the sheriff who let Paris Hilton out of jail may be guilty of contempt of court, he may have broken the law, it's wrong. It's wrong to not enforce the law. So how can God not be guilty of injustice and still be merciful at the same time? Well, the New Testament provides us the answer to this and the New Testament tells us that God is just and he is merciful. God cannot simply overlook evil, yet God loves his creation and he delights the show mercy. And so God does something remarkable. God took the penalty for our sins upon himself. The Jesus Christ is the God man. God himself became a human being. He came to earth, lived a perfect life. And then on the cross, Jesus Christ received the just punishment for our sins. And what the Bible tells us, it's like a great exchange that our sin was transferred to him so that Jesus received our justice and Christ's righteousness is transferred to us so that we receive God's mercy. And God's justice was satisfied on the cross of Jesus Christ. And so here is how God can be both, as the Bible says, be both just, do the right thing. He punishes sin, he punished it through Jesus Christ and he can be the justifier, which means making us righteous so that we don't have to suffer the punishment of sin. The Apostle Paul puts it this way in Romans chapter three. He's Romans chapter three, verse 25. So as God presented him that is Jesus as a sacrifice of atonement, that means paying the penalty or sin through faith and his blood, he did this to demonstrate his, what his, his justice. He got us showing his justice, he is punishing sin because in his four parents, he had left the sins committed beforehand and punished. Let me stop there. Every translation used the word four parents. And I cannot find a single person who ever used that word in normal English language. What he's saying here is, God, in the times before Jesus, left sins unpunished. He, in other words, the sheep and goats did not pay the penalty for people sins in the past. He left their sins unpunished and so, but how, how can he be just in doing that? Now verse 26. He did the, to demonstrate his justice at the present time. So it's to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. What he's saying is that God, before Jesus came, showed four parents, showed patients with people sin. He did not punish them in their full measure just yet, but Christ, when he came, paid the penalty, not only for those after Jesus was born, but for all those before Jesus was born, who had faith in God. And so what we see is how could God spare people, the punishment, the full punishment of their sins and still be just, is he brought out the full punishment of his sins. Just not on them. He did it on Christ. And the way we escape the full justice, the full punishment that we deserve is only through faith in Jesus Christ. If we are united to Jesus Christ by faith, then God's justice for our sins has been satisfied because he punished Jesus in full. God's justice has been satisfied in Jesus. So there's one or two choices here. Either you receive the full justice for your sins yourself, which is eternal punishment, or through faith in Jesus Christ, God's justice is satisfied through Jesus' death so that you receive His mercy. But God is both just and merciful to the death of Jesus Christ. So otherwise, if God did not punish Jesus, if we simply overlook our sin, then God would be unjust. He would be committing an atrocity. It would be a travesty of justice. But God shows us mercy by taking the punishment of our sin on Himself through His Son, Jesus Christ. So that's the source of God's mercy, even in the Book of Jonah. Well, then that leads us then to the next point. We have to see our own need for God's mercy, our own need for God's mercy. Now, in order to understand the Book of Jonah, it's only four chapters. You have to understand the whole story. If you just reach chapter four, it doesn't make sense. If you just reach chapter one, it doesn't make sense. You have to read all four chapters. And the reason we say this, if you look at these two episodes, we see a comparison of what God does in saving Jonah in chapter two with what God does in saving Nineveh in chapters three and four. In the first half of the book, we find Jonah, the prophet of God, rebelling against God. You remember, God commands him to go and he says to God, no, I'm not going. I'm gonna do what I want to. He commits, in a sense, treason against the king of the universe. And he runs away. And because of that, treason that he commits, he deserves to die. And so he's thrown overboard. Yet God does not kill Jonah. He lets him live. He shows him mercy. When the second half of the book, we have Nineveh. Nineveh has committed these terrible crimes. They deserve to die. Yet God does not give Nineveh what it deserves. He shows Nineveh mercy. And so what we see here is Jonah is unable to understand. You can't understand why God would show Nineveh mercy. Do you know why Jonah can't understand why God says Nineveh mercy? It's because he doesn't understand his own need for mercy. He believes, and we see this in his prayer in chapter two, he believes that he justly deserves to be rescued. He sees his sin as a little. He sees Nineveh sin as a lot. And here's the point. Unless you are able to see that you are a recipient of mercy and your need of mercy, you cannot see other people's need for mercy. You cannot extend that mercy to others. We first have to see our own need for mercy if we're going to be people who show mercy to others. And then how do you understand? How do you understand how much mercy you need from God? How do you understand how deep God's grace is? We could sit here and we could talk about God's grace and how wonderful it is, but you cannot understand God's grace and God's mercy unless you first understand your own need for mercy and your own need for mercy expressed in your own sin. Unless you see your sin, you cannot understand God's grace. The two go together because you don't understand how much God has forgiven you. Let me illustrate it this way. One of the phrases that the Bible uses to refer to our sin oftentimes is the image of debt. For example, in the Lord's Prayer, we pray, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And we say, forgive us our debts. We're saying, God, forgive us of our sin, but sin is like a debt that we owe to God. Now, think of it this way. If you owed me money and I forgave you, I assume you would be thankful. But depending on how much I forgave you, that would depend on how much you understood my grace and my mercy. I mean, that would affect those things. So for example, if we go out the lunch and I buy your lunch and you want to pay me back and I said, hey, that's okay. You don't owe me anything, I forgive you. I bought it. This is for you. You'd say, well, thanks, that was nice. I mean, hopefully you'd think I was a nice guy. Now, let's say on the other hand, you do something and you owe me $100,000. And I say, forget it. I forgive you. You know, you don't have to pay me back. Now, your attitude towards me for giving you $100,000, I assume, would be far different than me simply buying you lunch, right? I mean, me buying you lunch, you think, that was nice of you to buy me lunch. Me for giving you $100,000, you're saying, whoa. I mean, nobody forgives $100,000. Suddenly, your view of my grace and my mercy has increased. Why? Because your debt has increased. The greater you see your debt, the more you see that you've been forgiven, the greater your view of God's mercy is. Illustrate this way with this chart. If you see your sin is just being a little, a little measuring cup of sin, a little thimbleful, you believe you get little mercy. On the other hand, see this next one, if you see that you have lots of sin, you realize you need lots of mercy. If you want to understand God's grace and God's mercy in a deeper way, there is no other way than to understand how much His grace and His mercy have been extended to you. That is why one of the great disciplines of the Christian life, one that many people don't want to think about, is the whole discipline of confession and repentance. The Bible talks about the importance of confessing our sins. And the reason we confess our sins is not because, if we don't confess, then Jesus doesn't die. He's already died. If you're a Christian, your sins are already forgiven, but for us to embrace the full measure of God's forgiveness, we have to confess our sins. We have to be aware of how deep His grace is. And so we confess our sins because confessing our sins helps us to understand the depth of God's grace and God's mercy. We don't sit here and think about our sins as some sort of psychological self-flagulation. It's not to beat ourselves up about how bad we've been. And so we can say, oh, I'm a worm, I'm terrible, I'm bad. Let me think about how bad I am and inside all of our sin. We remember our sin and we confess our sin before the Lord so that we can get a clear view of it. So then we can see how far the depth and the love of Jesus Christ is and the mercy of Christ is, that it forgives us even of that. If you do not have a deep, rich view of the mercy of God, then most likely it is because you do not have a deep, rich view of how much God has forgiven you. Either you don't see the depth of your sin or you see the depth of your sin and you don't believe God's grace is deep enough to cover it. One of those two problems. And yet if we're gonna see God's mercy and grace and apply it in you, we have to see how deep and horrible and ugly our sin is and also see that God's grace and mercy is deep enough to cover that. And the more you understand God's grace and how much he's forgiven you, it's like, it's not simply, wow, Lord, you've forgiven me. Thanks for the lunch. It's wow, Lord, you've forgiven me. Thank you for covering my national debt. That's the difference. And when you begin to understand how deep he's forgiven you, then in his grace, what that does is that draws you in to worshiping him. And when it draws you into worshiping God, then it sends you out in mission. It always does those two things. The grace of God always draws you into worship and it always sends you out in mission. Because when you understand God's grace, you're drawn to worship him. You want to sing his praises. You're in love with him because he's been so good to you. And then it sends you out because you want others to know his grace as well. And so we need to see our own need for God's mercy so that we can extend that mercy to others. Well, then that's the fourth point. Our calling to extend mercy. It is part of our calling as God's people to take the mercy and the grace of God to the peoples of the world. And here we see the book of Jonah. Jonah is so mad at God for not nuking Nineveh that he wants to die. And so he says, he says, God, if you're not going to kill, wipe out Nineveh, then just kill me. And of course God doesn't. And Jonah goes and he finds a hillside to the east and he sits there in stews and he's going to, he's going to sit on the hill and he's watching Nineveh and he's hoping maybe God will come to a senses and change his mind and blow the place up. So he builds this little hut and he's sitting there in the shade. And God is so tender with Jonah. He provides just like God provided the fish to rescue him from grounding. God now provides a vine and the vine grows up and it shades Jonah from the heat of the sun. Now again, remember I said that the phrase to be angry and to be hot is the same thing and here it talks about how this plant grows up that is that in a sense it can be translated to ease his discomforts what it says here or it could be translated to deliver him from his wickedness. And either way, God's providing a vine to cool Jonah off both spiritually and physically. And Jonah likes the vine and he's delighted to have it, that God has provided it. Well, just as God provided the fish, now he provides the vine, God provides a worm. And the worm comes and it eats the vine withers and then God not only provides the worm, he provides this scorching east wind and there's Jonah, he's sweating about the death, he's about to grow faint and now he's really ticked because God has killed his plant. That was his vine that God killed and God took it away from him and so he says, he says, now I really am about to die. And God says, do you have any right to be angry? Now notice this question is asked twice in this passage. That's a clue. Do you have any right to be angry? And God asks you a question like that. What's the reasonable response? No, but Jonah is so mad that he's honest. And he says, yes, I have a right to be angry. And then God says to Jonah, Jonah, here's this vine. The grew up in a day and died in a day. You didn't plant it, you didn't fertilize it, you didn't water it, you did nothing. You did not give birth to this plant and yet you're all upset about this plant. Your plant, you think. And if you could be upset about that plant, then doesn't it make sense that I, the God, who created these people in my own image, should be concerned about this great city with 120,000 people who don't know their right hand from their left. And many cattle too, and that interesting. God cares about the animals. And so usually saying it's a journey, saying several things here. First of all, he calls Jonah. And he says to care about them because there are 120,000 people who don't know their left hand from their right. Now, some people say this refers to children. Not old enough to know their right hand from the left hand, but at the time the book of Jonah occurred, Nineveh was not that big of a city. And so it's downfall in the whole Nineveh region. There are 120,000 children. What it's probably is referring to are to people who are not able to make moral judgments. It's not that they don't know right and wrong, but they've grown up in this culture of violence. They have not contributed to the Assyrian war machine. They have been living in this environment, their whole lives. And he says, you know, these people are in ignorance. It's very similar to what Jesus says when he's crucified. Remember when Jesus was crucified and the people all around him and Jesus looks at the people and he calls out to the father, he says, forgive them. Why? Forgive them because they don't know what they're doing. And God says, it's not that these people aren't culpable. It's not that they're not guilty, but there's a sense in which they're ignorant of the God of the Creator. They haven't had the revelation that you had in Israel. And so there's still guilty, but there's a sense in which you ought to show some compassion on them because they don't know the good news. They don't know about me. And so he says, show compassion on them. And not only that, he says, Jonah, because you know, these are people that I've made. If you're concerned about this little plant, and then shouldn't I be concerned about this great city as well? I mean, that's how the book of Jonah ends. With that question, should I not be concerned about this great city? That's the point of the book. Should I not be concerned? And the point is, if God is concerned about this great city, then shouldn't we be concerned as well? If God is concerned about the lost and broken people of the world, shouldn't we be concerned as well? If you understand the grace and the mercy that God has shown you and how charitable he has been to you, then you're going to want to extend God's mercy to others. And so the more we understand God's grace, the more we're going to have God's missionary heart for the world. God's heart breaks for a broken world. And if God's concerned about a broken world, we should be concerned about a broken world as well. And so there are two different ways at which we can look at the world around us. Two different lenses. Either you can look at the world through Jonah's eyes or you can look at the world through God's eyes. Two different perspectives. You can look at the world as people who are bad, who are sinful, who are evil, who deserve God's judgment, and you've got to point. You know, Newcomer Lord, they all deserve it. This world's going to hell, give it to them. And you can look at the world that way or you can look at the world through God's eyes. Yes, they are broken, but yes, I made them. I gave birth to them. These are made in my image. And I, the Lord God, have compassion on them. How do you look at the world around you? Have you been gripped by God's grace in such a way that you want to extend God's mercy to others? For example, when you see a homeless person by the road or someone in poverty or someone caught up in addiction, do you look at them and say, you know, they have made so many stupid decisions in their life. They just deserve it. I mean, I'm not going to help them because, you know, you know what, if they had been smart, implied like me, they would not be in this situation that they are in. And so, and so, you know what, I'm not showing them mercy, you know, they deserve it. They deserve it. You know, that's the, the Jonah look. Or when you hear about the violence in the streets of Baghdad, do you see a group of people and you say, you know, let's just nuke them all. You know, this is blow the place off the map. Or do you look at Baghdad and Tehran through the eyes of God and say, yeah, it is bad. But these are people made in my image. Made in my image. They are a creation worth redeeming. If you care about plants, you ought to care about people. You know, Americans spend $40 billion a year on lawn care, $40 billion. That's with a B. Americans, Christians give 39 million with an M to world missions. Now, you know, I don't know how the two things compare, but it seems like we ought to care more about the lost and dying world than we do about our yards just makes sense. And so, what God is calling us to do is saying, I have a, God says, I care about this world. And if you understand my mercy, you're gonna care too. So, what do you do? What do we do? Well, three things, three things and they're three rather obvious things. One is we need to be praying for a lost world. Even those we would naturally despise. Jonah hated, Nineveh, because Nineveh hated Jonah. You know, Nineveh hated his relights. That's why he hated them. They're in the enemies yet. Yeah, God says they're people and you ought to care about them. And so, we ought to be praying for those, even those who are enemies, that they would come to know the mercy of God, even as we've come to know the mercy of God. Secondly, we need to give. We need to pray, we need to give. We need to give our money to reach a lost world. And a God calls Jonah to get out of his comfort zone and to go. And it's a sacrifice, God sacrificed his son. By the way, that's a whole point. Second Corinthians chapter eight, he says, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich, he became poor so that you, through his poverty, might become rich. What's the point? God impoverished himself for us. Therefore, we should, to some degree, at least impoverish ourselves for a lost and dying world. That's why the reason we give is not so that we can pay God back. We don't give our money so that God will like us more. We give our money because we want to be part of what God is doing and redeeming a lost and dying world. And so, we're to be generous. And thirdly, we're to share the good news. Pray, give, share. And oftentimes that involves going. Moving out of your comfort zone. You know, doing things that aren't naturally comfortable and good for you. That's what God called Jonah to do. God calls us to do too. We are ambassadors of Christ making the plea on Christ's behalf. You are the body of Christ. Jesus has a body. You know, Jesus was on a body on earth but his physical body is now in heaven. He still has a physical body on earth and that is you. You are his hands, you are his feet, you are his mouth. And God is calling us to love a lost and broken world because we have received mercy. Because we have received mercy, we worship him and because we have been drawn into worship, he sends us out to mission as well. So God calls us to join in the great work that he is doing and redeeming a lost and dying world. Let's pray. Our Father, we do thank you that you have called us to join in your work. And we pray that you would use us to that end. Father, we have to confess that we are very much like Jonah that we don't often see our need for mercy, that we look down our noses at others and think that somehow we're more deserving than they are. Father, we pray that you would give us a new and fresh view of your grace, not one that causes us to wilt under the burden of our sin but one that causes us to rejoice and how much and how richly we've been forgiven. We pray that that would draw us into worship in a new and exciting way. And Lord, we also pray that from there you would send us out in mission that we would have your heart for this broken world, that we would look at people and rather than seeing them a merely as objects of wrath we'd see them as objects in need of your mercy, even as we are. And so we pray that you'd give us a burden for the lost in our own community, for those who are friends, are loved ones, for those who are disadvantaged financially in other ways. We pray you give us a vision for the lost of this world, for the people that we're giving to support in areas like London and Chiba, Japan and Northern Mexico and China and other parts of the world. Father, we pray that you would give us a burden to see the gospel spread to the nations because your heart is not just for us, but it's for the lost of the nations of the world. So Father, fill us with that passion. And may we give ourselves to that consuming vision so that you might be glorified. We pray this in Christ's name, amen.