Chapter 2

In terms of meeting your Bibles to Jonah chapter 2, we are continuing our study of the book of Jonah It's one of the great stories of the Bible one that many people are familiar with but Jonah is more than a great story It's a story with a point and namely the point is God is far more merciful than you think I got as far more merciful than you think and as mercy reaches out far wider than you would even dare to imagine And so as we see God's mercy we understand that we receive God's mercy for the purpose of extending God's mercy And that whole theme of receiving God's mercy to extend God's mercy is throughout the book of Jonah It's Jonah as a short book, I believe it's only 48 verses, four episodes in this story But all four of these sections of the story are about the mercy of God and how rich God's mercy has been towards us And therefore how we should be merciful to others We are in chapter 2, which is the second part, second story of the four parts of this story Now as we go to chapter 2, let me remind you where we are This is the part of the story that's very familiar to many of you But what happened was there's a prophet named Jonah, he's a prophet in the nation of Israel He is very loyal to the nation of Israel And God comes to Jonah and calls him to go to Nineveh Now Nineveh is a city in the Assyrian empire The Assyrian empire was just before the Babylonian empires but was one of the great empires of the world And Assyria, the Assyrian empire was a very, very wicked, very, very violent group of people They were very proud of their violence and we went into great detail talking about that last week The Assyrians also were enemies of the nation of Israel In fact within 50 years of the time Jonah experiences this The nation of Assyria will come in and it will completely wipe out the nation of Israel The 10 tribes that are part of the nation of Israel will be taken away And they are later on called the 10 lost tribes That there will be assimilated into Assyrian culture And so when the Israelites hated the Assyrians They are wicked, they are idolatrous and they are violent And they are their political and military enemies So God comes to Jonah and he says that Jonah get up and go to Nineveh Jonah gets up and goes to Tarshis Nineveh is to the east Tarshis is the furthest known point to the west where he could go at this point So he is running as far away from God as he possibly can go While he's on the boat, a terrible storm comes up The storm is so violent that it threatens to sink the ship The sailors realize it's no ordinary storm They ask Jonah what is wrong and how can they stop the storm And Jonah tells them I'm running from God If you want to save your lives then you have to throw me overboard The sailors are reluctant to do so But finally realizing that they're all about to die They take Jonah, they throw him over the ship And as when Jonah falls into the water and begins to sink Suddenly the storm grows calm Now the sailors are terrified Before they are afraid of the storm because the storm was mighty Now they realize that there is a God who is mightier than the storm And they realize they better get right with him And so they offer sacrifices, they make vows to him They in a sense are converted to Yahweh, the God of Israel Now that's all that happens Now as we turn to chapter 2 We pick up what happened to Jonah Jonah is thrown into the sea And chapter 2 tells us the story of what happens to him from that point on In fact, we're going to pick up at the very end of chapter 1 Beginning at verse 17 By the way, if you don't have a Bible with you There's some on the seats in front of you And it'd be helpful to turn there It's Jonah chapter 2 It's on page 916 And those Bibles that are in front of you This is God's word But the Lord provided a great fish Just swallow Jonah And Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord is God He said, In my distress I called to the Lord And he answered me From the depths of the grave I called for help And you listen to my cry You hurled me into the deep Into the very heart of the seas And the current swirled about me All your waves and breakers swept over me I said I've been banished from your sight Yet I will look again toward your holy temple The engulfing waters threatened me The deep surrounded me Seaweed was wrapped around my head To the roots of the mountains I sank down The earth beneath barred me in forever But you brought my life up from the pit O Lord my God When my life was ebbing away I remembered you, Lord And my prayers rose to your holy temple Those who cling to worthless idols Forfeit the grace that could be theirs But I, with the song of thanksgiving Will sacrifice to you What I have vowed I will make good Salvation comes from the Lord And the Lord commanded the fish And it vomited Jonah onto dry land This is God's word But you didn't know the word vomit was in the Bible But there it is You know the word you probably tell your children not to say And we're going to look at it quite a bit today So oh well Well this morning as we look at the whole idea of God's mercy We're seeing that God gives us mercy So we're going to look at receiving God's mercy In order to extend God's mercy We receive God's mercy In order to extend God's mercy Now before we look at this whole idea of mercy There are a couple of questions that probably come up in your mind Whenever you read the story of Jonah A couple of questions that everyone thinks about The first question is Was it a whale or was it a fish And you'll hear people arguing and saying It says it's a fish It doesn't say a whale A whale of course is not a fish Because a whale is a It's a mammal Everybody knows that Well you have to remember That the book of Jonah was written We don't know exactly when it was written But the events of Jonah took place You know close to 2,800 years ago And 2,800 years ago They didn't have the same taxonomy that we have today That way of classifying animals And so I doubt that back in those days They really made a distinction between a whale and a fish So could it have been a whale? It certainly could have been a whale Could it have been a great white shark I'm sure that it could have been Could have been an overgrown grouper maybe I don't know We don't really know what kind of fish it is It's not critical to the story But the second question that comes up That oftentimes people have That is, as a much more serious question is Can this possibly be true? I mean as you read the story Let's be honest here You read the story I mean falls overboard He swallowed by a fish And he lives in the fish for three days Now if someone were to come and tell you This happened to them Would you believe it? No I mean it sounds like a fable It sounds like a myth It sounds pretty ridiculous Well in fact you know When you read the story of Jonah And about him being in the fish for three days What movie comes to mind? Pinocchio Don't you have this little image of Jonah And the little boat with a little candle And they're just kind of floating along And so it sounds ridiculous It just doesn't make sense That this could actually happen Because it's just too far fetched Well in their attempt to defend The veracity of the Bible There have been some Who've tried to prove That this could actually happen And they've talked about how it's possible That a great white shark Could swallow somebody And so when could survive In fact there was one story About a man Who apparently fell in And was swallowed by a sperm whale And later on was released Alive And so people look at that And say see the Bible's true They wanted to defend the Bible And they want to prove How the Bible could be true And they cite these examples You know You can do that But I think you're wasting your time And the reason is One is most of those stories have proven to be fictitious No one is really proven That this could actually happen In real life And so when you look at the truthfulness of the Bible About anything that comes upon The truthfulness of the Bible Like so many questions What you conclude Is determined by where you begin If you begin With the assumption That miracles cannot happen Then you're going to conclude That this could not happen Because this clearly is a miracle But you have to recognize You've already prejudged the conclusion You've already decided That the story is false before you read this story Because you're saying miracles cannot happen This is a miracle Therefore it did not happen And so you've prejudged the conclusion You're not being unbiased in that On the other hand If you say that miracles Can happen Then certainly this certainly could be something that did happen I mean you cannot Knowing can scientifically prove That miracles don't happen Because by definition A miracle is something that does not ordinarily happen It's not a natural event But if you believe that miracles do happen That there is a supernatural world That God does intervene in human history Then the fact that an event That is impossible under normal circumstances Happens It's not a shock Because that's what a miracle is A miracle is an event That is impossible under normal circumstances But then does happen Because God caused it to happen So if you believe that Moses Part of the Red Sea If you believe that Jesus was born Of the Virgin And if you believe that Jesus Christ rose again from the dead Then certainly You can believe that Jonah was swallowed By a fish and lived there for three days It all depends on whether or not You believe there's a supernatural world Or not Where you start It turns where you begin So as one who believes that miracles can And have occurred I have no difficulty taking the story at face value They're far more amazing things have happened Than this But let's get back to the point And the point is If we're going to get God's mercy So that we can extend God's mercy We need to see two things Two things we need to grasp If you're going to be a person Who is loving and merciful And kind to others And that's going to really be transforming of your heart And not just doing it when it feels natural Then two things have to happen Number one We need to grasp the enormity of God's mercy towards us And number two We need to see how undeserving we are of God's mercy We need to see that God's mercy towards us is enormous And it is far bigger than we thought And secondly We need to see that God's mercy towards us Is something we don't deserve at all And if you grab these two things It's going to change your life And I'm not overstating that It will transform your life If you understand those two things So the fish swallows Jonah And Jonah is there in the belly of the fish And he begins to pray Now notice here in chapter 1 verse 17 It says God provided a fish for Jonah That's as God's provision The word literally there is the God appointed In other words Jonah didn't just happen to fall in the sea In a fish happened to swim by This fish was under God's directions This fish is God's messenger of mercy to Jonah And so there is Jonah And he recognizes this fish Not merely as a tragic accident Not as something as bad that has happened to him But it's something that is good Notice what kind of prayer Jonah prays Now think of this If you were in a fish I don't know how you imagine this But imagine you were in the belly of a fish And so what's it going to be like? Well obviously it's going to be dark There are no lights inside fish bellies It's going to be pitch black It's going to be wet It's going to be slimy I mean I can only like touching the outside of fish That much less the inside It's going to be slimy It's going to smell I mean it's not going to be a pleasant place to be Now you're stuck in the belly of a fish for three days And you pray What are you going to be praying Get me out of here Why did you do this to me? This is not fair I mean you're going to be complaining You're going to be lamenting There'll be all sorts of prayers You're going to be praying there But probably not the prayer that Jonah prays Jonah prays a prayer A Thanksgiving Now why is Jonah thankful to be in a fish Because it beats the alternative It beats the alternative If Jonah were not in the fish where would he be Yeah David Jones locker right I mean And he'd be dead He would drown And so he recognizes that he was about to drown In fact So it says the fish came and Jonah was in there for three days and three nights That phrase three days and three nights Probably is a literal expression But it may have meant something more to the original readers An ancient Near Eastern mythology An ancient Near Eastern mythology The belief was that the journey From the land of the living To the land of the dead was a three-day journey And so how to get from the land of the living To the land of the underworld would have taken three days And so Jonah clearly has in his mind As he tells And recites his prayer That he is on his way To death And to the underworld In fact if you look at some of the things he says He talks about his descent and to death He says In verse two He calls out the God from the depths of the grave That word grave Is the word shield S-A-T-E-O-L Shield which is Some people equate that with hell It's really Not so much hell Is it is the place where the dead are Which of course could be hell But it's simply the place where the dead are And so he sees himself as headed Not just to the grave But he's headed to the underworld To the place of the dead In verse three he describes his experience of drowning He says he is cast into the sea Now remember the sea was so rough That it was about to break apart the ship And here he is Out in the sea Out in the boat without a paddle He's there Nearly drowning He's being beaten about by the waves He's going down for the last time His life is slipping away Seaweed He's entangled in seaweed It has encased his head And then in verse six he continues his descent Deep into the ocean He says To the roots of the mountains I sink down The earth beneath Bard me in forever But you brought my life up From the pit O Lord my God That word pit Again another imagery of hell Or shield The place of the dead And so he sees himself He says I'm there I'm in the land of the living And I saw myself just descending To the place of the dead And so you get to the place to the To the foundations of the earth The roots of the mountains And there I'm going to be barred in by the earth And the imagery here is that That he was Near the gates of hell itself And you go in And you go into the gates And then once you get in You are barred from ever leaving You cannot escape And so Jonah sees himself as As being forever Cast from God's presence Forever locked out Of being able to be near God He is far from him He's in a desperate situation And so there he is In this desperate situation Near the point of death And there's only one person To whom he can turn to There's only one person who can help him And he cries out the God for deliverance And that's And so Jonah Then is amazed He's amazed at how God has delivered him How God has rescued him from hell In many ways we see Then how we too Are like Jonah In a desperate situation In dire need of God's mercy All of us The Bible tells us Are headed Away from God's presence To be cast away from him We are headed for death But God in the richest of his mercy Did not leave us that way But send his son Jesus Christ to come And in Jesus Christ On the cross Got what we deserved So that we could get what he deserved In Ephesians chapter 2 The Apostle Paul puts it this way Notice how he describes us He says As for you that's us You were dead in your transgressions and sin And which you used to live When you followed the ways of this world And the rulers of the kingdom of the air The spirit who's now at work And those who are disobedient All of us All of us Lived among them at one time Gradifying the cravings of our sinful nature And following his desires And thoughts Like the rest We were by nature objects of wrath But because of his great love for us God who is rich and mercy Made us alive with Christ Even when we were dead in transgressions It is by grace you have been saved You see here both the enormity And the undeserving nature of God's mercy It's enormous and that God has We are at the point of death Where the point of being rejected by him And yet God loves us so much That he sent his son to die for us To take the punishment for us So that we might receive the mercy of God And then not only is it enormous I mean to think of this The God has spared you from that God has spared you from that But now he's saying that It's something that you don't deserve And I don't deserve no one deserves He says we're all the same The moral, the immoral The religious, the irreligious Jonah the righteous prophet And the wicked people in Nineveh All are in need of God's grace And none are deserving God out of love God has poured out his mercy on us And so you begin to see that And you begin to understand how Merciful God has been to you That he saved you from death He saved your very life And when you begin to understand that You're overwhelmed You can't help but to sing songs that thanksgiving And when you understand that You don't deserve it And no one else does It changes your heart towards other people as well You know what's amazing about this prayer of Jonah So many things are amazing But even after dramatic rescue at sea Jonah still doesn't get it He doesn't get it He um Jonah has some awareness that God has rescued him from death He understands the magnitude of God's mercy But he sees completely oblivious to the fact That he does not deserve God's mercy I mean look at the prayer of Jonah And notice what is There's something that is that is noticeably absent That you would expect In a prayer for someone He's been cast overboard About to drown because they're running away from God It's not there There's something that is not there There's not a hint of repentance He never says he's sorry He never says the realization recognizes That he's responsible for the predicament that he is in He has no note of repentance at all In fact he recognizes that God's been merciful to him But he doesn't get how merciful God has been Because he still has failed to repent By the way if you think I'm being too hard on Jonah Read the rest of the book Get to the rest of the book he never repents Now You know at least in this in this story He never gets how merciful God has been to him Not only does Jonah fail to repent But many commentators have noticed how self-centered Jonah's prayer is I mean Here you have a prayer this eight verses long And ten times He says either I or me First person personal pronoun In fact there's a hint of self-righteousness here I remembered you Lord My prayers rose to your temple Well thanksgiving I will sacrifice to you What I have vowed I will make good And notice the way he contrasts himself with the Those bad people who worship idols Who's who's he getting at here Sailors people in Nineveh Know those bad people You know because I'm not like them The vow I have made I'm going to fulfill I'm a good man He's proclaiming his righteousness And it's this clear note of superiority That he has to others And yet he contrasts that The sense that he has this Unwavering commitment to God that he expresses Yet what's he done in chapter one He's run from God What does he do in chapter four You haven't read it yet but trust me He he winds against God He complains against God He wants nothing to do with God And he's an unchanged man Here in chapter two Because he doesn't believe He believes that he deserves mercy And he wants God's mercy He calls out for mercy But he fails to understand That all are undeserving of it That the people of Nineveh Are he's no more deserving than the people of Nineveh In fact his prayer Is so nauseating His prayer is so nauseating That the only way for Jonah To get to the place he needs to go Is by the fish vomiting him out Now I've looked up the Hebrew word for vomit And if you look up the Hebrew word for vomit Here is what it means Vomit There is no other meaning I looked up all 12 instances That Hebrew word occurs And the whole Hebrew Bible Reason I can do that It's not because I'm good at Hebrew I have a little computer program And I looked up all 12 instances Of when that word occurs And every single instance It means vomit Never is it used positively It's used of when The canaanites The bad people are cast out Of the promised land He's God says The land will vomit them out And then later on since the Israelites If you don't keep the covenant The land is going to vomit you out Later on he talks about the people The judgment of God is going to come upon And he says they are like drunks Wallowing about in their vomit Never is it used positively It always means vomit It always is gross It always is disgusting And Jonah's prayer is so nauseating That the fish gets sick His prayer is so offensive to God That it's nauseating And he just says If God is the writer one or two Who could have used A better word Cofftumba You know Sneezed Spit even would have been a good word choice Much more common than vomit But he used the word vomit Because Jonah's self-righteousness Is nauseating Is disgusting And that's what God thinks Of our self-righteousness as well When you look at yourself And say God I'm good Therefore love me They're bad Don't love them That's offensive That's offensive If you look and say I deserve mercy but they don't You ought to hear my prayer Because I offer vows I go to church I do this But don't hear their prayers They cling to worthless idols You know You see what you're doing It's a You're claiming That God ought to listen to you Based on what you've done Rather than on his mercy And so Jonah His prayer Is one that is That is sickening Yet Despite all this Despite how How sickening his prayer Is full of self-righteousness There's something There's something delightfully encouraging About Jonah's prayer I mean to me This this prayer It is Gives me some wonderful encouragement Because notice what happens Jonah prays And he prays Now think of this Jonah prays He's been running from God He's been ignoring God He's been He's been wanting nothing to do with God Yet when he prays to God God still answers his prayer And then not only that Jonah is in the sea Not because he just got thrown in there He didn't slip and fall off the boat He's in there because God threw him there He says that we know earlier That the sailors threw him to the sea But if you look at verse 3 He says to God You are the one who threw me into the deep Your waves are the waves that overwhelm me He understands that he is there Because he's sending against God That God has turned against him And yet he prays to God And God doesn't say Huh See how you get out of this one You don't want anything to do with me I don't want anything to do with you God doesn't do that Jonah prays a prayer An imperfect prayer A self-righteous prayer And yet God still answers his prayer I mean that gives me such hope Because Here's how you don't read Jonah You don't read Jonah chapter 2 And say See we should be like Jonah Be a Jonah The point of the story of Jonah is not Be a Jonah The point of the story of Jonah is I am Jonah You know I am just like he And yet the thing is If God will hear Jonah's prayers He'll hear my prayers And he'll hear your prayers That God answers the prayers of those who call upon He doesn't abandon his children And that gives us such great hope You know I find it both frustrating and encouraging It's frustrating Because it's clear that Jonah doesn't get it But it's encouraging Because I know I don't get it None of us get the grace of God fully We don't get it And if God's answering our prayers Dependent on us Getting it we would all be In the sea without a paddle But God answers our prayer Not according to our merit But according to his mercy That's critical God answers our prayers Not according to our merit But according to his mercy And so what that means then is it gives us great hope Have you ever been reluctant to pray Because you've You know you've ignored God You've had nothing to do with God And now all of a sudden you find yourself in a bad situation And you think about praying And going I can't pray now I mean that'd be so hypocritical of me I've ignored God all week Or all my life or whatever it may be I've wanted nothing to do with them And now it's only pray to him Because I need help That just seems hypocritical Jonah did it God answered Or you've ever been hesitant to pray Because you said you know I deserve this I'm in a bad situation But you know it's my own fault And I don't deserve any help I mean if I had been doing good things If I had been doing the right thing Then I would have no trouble praying And asking God for help Because then I would deserve God to help me But right now I don't deserve it Here's the whole thing about prayer You never deserve it You never deserve it Certain times you're more aware of your undeservedness than others But never do we go before God Because we deserve it We have nothing From which we commend ourselves to God Our God answers our prayer Not based on our merit But based on his mercy Have you ever wondered why That oftentimes when we pray as Christians We often pray In Jesus name Or in the name of Jesus You know why we do that There are many reasons But here's the main one One of those reasons is That we go before the Lord We come before him And we say Lord I need your help I need your mercy And I'm not asking you Because of what I've done I'm not coming to you in my name Based on my merit I'm coming to you based on Jesus name And Jesus merit Do this because of what Jesus has done Not because of what I've done I'm coming on his account Not on my account It reminds me of back in the good old days When I was in high school And my parents were paying my bills And those were great days Now you could go and spend And it wasn't your money And it was a wonderful thing And I remember going in those days You know Probably to get something like Closed for school Or something And you'd go to the mall And I'd have my dad's credit card I liked having my dad's credit card And you'd go shopping And you'd get what you need And you just You could buy it You could just throw down that credit card Because it had his name on it Now this is back in the day When they didn't check IDs or signatures Way back in the day And besides we had the same name anyway So it worked out fine I could use his credit card today If I wanted to And so So you could go And the reason I could buy those clothes Or whatever it was Is not because I had such good credit I had nothing to my name I was I was penniless But I had his credit And his credit was good And so I could buy with his name Based on his merit And his credit And get whatever I needed When we pray We're coming before the Lord And we're saying In Jesus' name what we're doing We're pulling out a visa And it doesn't say Mark Bates on the bottom That wouldn't do you any good Instead it says In Jesus' name It says I'm coming on Jesus' account And Jesus' account is good They take it there And God will accept that And so we go before the Lord And we say Lord I need you Not because I've earned it I have never earned it I've never deserved it I'm coming before you Because you are rich and mercy Jesus has earned it And that's the basis of all of our prayers And so oftentimes what happens is If you're praying because you think you deserve it Then you're praying a Jonah prayer You're coming to God Because you think Well I'm better than someone else There's there's self-righteousness in that And your self-righteousness Is something you need to repent of You think you need to repent of your sins That's the biggie Don't come in your name Don't come because you've deserved it Come in the name of Jesus And see and come before him With seeing your own need And so when you begin to do that And begin to see that Because again to see the God Is so merciful to us That he's merciful to us Even when we're self-righteous He's merciful to us Even when we sin Even when we run away from him And when you begin to see How great that mercy is And how undeserving that mercy is It has to transform your life It has to change you And that leads us to the next point We need to extend mercy This won't be long We need to extend mercy We receive mercy In order to extend mercy And here's You know, if you wondered How can you forgive those who've wronged you How can you show compassion On the poor The downtrodden Those need Do you ever find that sometimes your heart seems like a shriveled up prune That you find that you just are very reluctant to forgive people Or you really aren't very compassionate on people who are hurting Or that you really don't care about the lost around the world That those things are just hard It's just like a little prune It's dried up You know, what do you need to do? You don't simply say you know I need to be kinder I need to be more merciful I need to be more compassionate You can try that but it's not going to work Now you can't Jimmy up You know Compassion What needs to happen is You need to see Number one The enormity of God's mercy towards you How big it is God's mercy is so great towards you That you were headed far from him You were headed for judgment You were headed to death And God loved you enough That he poured out his wrath on his son So that you might have life You know Do you ever think about that? Do you ever think that You know, you really You really do deserve the judgment of God And I think you know When I sin And I do something wrong I know it's wrong But I rarely think of it as being that bad I mean, okay, you get angry Well, other people get angry And I don't get as angry as some of you I know that So obviously it's not all that bad Or you have it some impure thought And I think, well, you know I know guys are struggling a lot more than that You know And a lesser man Would have more impure thoughts So I'm doing pretty well Or you do something Even more seriously wrong You realize it's sin But you really don't see it As being that offensive to God You really don't understand it And I don't really understand it That this is something that truly does Deserve the wrath of God But if you look at the cross of Jesus Christ And if you say The God it was not Joking on the cross But this was very real Then you say Then my sin Deserve that But I'm not going to get that And if I'm not going to get that But I'm getting God's love and mercy instead Now that's pretty amazing If I deserve the cross But I get God's love instead And that's enormous And then not only that's I see the enormity But secondly Then I see that I'm undeserving I've done nothing to deserve God's mercy God's not merciful to me Because I go to church Because I read my Bible Because I do good things Or anything else But just because he's merciful He gives to those who don't deserve it And that we're all As Paul says Equally undeserving Then Then if those things are true Then what happens is You begin to look at the world And it's sort of like through stereo glasses Now one lens is the enormity of God's mercy The other lens is your undeserving of God's mercy And you begin to look at everyone Through those two lenses And you begin to look at them It begins to change your perspective You have the stereo vision It begins to change the way you look at everyone And so for example When you look at people You'll ask these two questions Number one Say someone does something wrong to you You can ask yourself Does that person need more mercy Than I need from God Now is there anyone out there who's done something wrong to you That requires more mercy Than the amount of mercy God has to give you Has anyone done to you You know think of this I mean people have done some horrible things To me to you And to some of you have had some very very bad things done to you And but you look at that and you say Okay that is awful And you acknowledge how awful it is But then you look and you say How much have I sinned against God I mean you know think of this What if they were to play A movie in church one Sunday And I wouldn't come this Sunday But it'd be a story of my life Just that this the low points All my sins Everyone And they were to show this up there Think of this being your life Come and we're all going to see all your sins You've ever done your whole life Everything you've done wrong Everything you said wrong Everything you thought wrong I mean everything And we're all going to come watch We'll have the popcorn here I mean wouldn't that just be crushing And you think of all those offenses You've done against God Now you compare that To how anyone's offended you Now who needs more mercy Who needs more mercy When you begin to see that your need for mercy Is greater than anything anyone's done to you You'll become a person of mercy And then when you begin to see That you've done nothing to deserve God's mercy Either And nor have they Then you become a person of mercy So you begin to ask yourself Is this person Any less deserving Of mercy that I am And so what happens then is What happens is Oftentimes someone will do something to us And we'll say you know I'm not going to forgive them They don't deserve to be forgiven I mean they're They have any said they're sorry They're not sorry They've shown no repentance I'm not forgiving them because they don't deserve it Until they do what's right I'm withholding it from them I will not forgive Is that how God's treated us Did we earn God's mercy No We've done nothing to earn it either And when we begin to see Ourself And other people Then we begin to come people of compassion And of mercy One other point just very quickly Extend this to one other thing Same thing With those who are hurting Around the world The poor Oftentimes you look at the poor And you say You know They need a lot of charity Well Do they need more charity than you've needed from God Well say Well they don't deserve it They've made bad choices They just made smart choices Like me They would be okay They wouldn't be in this situation Probably true Probably true But are they Any less deserving of mercy Than you are from God What about What about the lost around the world One of the main points of the book of Jonah Jonah says Send the people in Nineveh the hell That's what Jonah's saying to God Nukem I don't care about them Blast them And Jonah says But show me mercy Jonah doesn't want To see Nineveh Know the grace of God And so we read the book of Jonah And we say I can't believe he's such a jerk Yeah, at the same time Jonah Not only wants them You know he wants them to receive judgment But we're apathetic We don't care if they get mercy It's not like we care if they do We still care if they don't It's really no difference But if you begin to get See the mercy of God in your life Then what it's going to do is It's going to propel you To be merciful towards others To those who hurt you To the poor and downtrodden To the lost around the world It's going to develop a heart of compassion in you Because you realize God has been merciful to you God has shown us his mercy And when we begin to understand the riches of his mercy It humbles us And it liberates us to be merciful to others Let's pray Father, we do thank you That you are a God of mercy You're a God who's shown us incredible kindness And it's only in our most arrogant moments That we don't realize that And Lord, we pray, forgive us of that Forgive us of our self-righteousness That it causes us to put ourselves above others Forgive us for thinking that we are somehow superior Forgive us for thinking that we've somehow done something To deserve it where others have not And instead, Lord, we pray That you would give us eyes of compassion That we would look at people With your eyes of mercy and of love And just as we have not earned your mercy They may not have earned ours But we pray that you would give us the grace to extend it to them Give us a heart that cares for those who hurt Give us a heart that cares for the loss Give us a heart that cares for those Even who may be enemies of ours Even as none of those Jonas enemy Lord, we pray that through the gospel We might live out the greatest commandment To love others And to treat them Even as we have been treated Father, we thank you That you do not give us what our sins deserve But you show us mercy And we praise you for it, Amen