If you don't have a Bible, there are Bibles under the chairs around you, and if you do use that Bible, turn to page 917 917 to Jonah chapter 3. If you've been here for a while, you know that the past two weeks Mark has been taking us through a journey of the book of Jonah. It's in some ways a preparation for vacation Bible school. Jonah is going to be the sort of the theme of VBS starting next Sunday. So it's quite good and helpful that we as a church family join together and look at this great and interesting and sometimes convicting book, the book of Jonah. I'm going to read for you chapter 3 and then we'll dive in to that chapter. Jonah chapter 3. Here God's Word. It says, then the Word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you. Jonah obeyed the Word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city, a visit required three days. On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed 40 more days and Nineveh will be overturned. The Nineveites believed God. They declared a fast and all of them from the greatest to the least put on sack cloth. When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sack cloth and sat down in the dust. Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles. Do not let any man or beast heard or flock taste anything. Do not let them eat or drink, but let man and beast be covered with sack cloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish. When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction that he had threatened. The word of the Lord. As you know, I love movies. And some of my favorite movies are movies that have a redemptive theme to them. That is, in the movie, there is someone or a group of people who are changed, who are reached, who are transformed in some way. Spider-Man 3. You've seen it, right? A great movie of redemption. I didn't think it was a great movie. A little overmuch on the plot, I thought, but nevertheless a great theme of redemption. Throughout Spider-Man 3, the whole Harry Osborne and Peter Parker thing. But another great movie of redemption that perhaps you have not seen or even heard of is called the painted veil. It's a story set back in the 1920s. It's based on a book by W. Somerset mom. And it's a great story of redemption. You should see it. It's a love story. So wives, make your husbands go rent the movie and watch it sometime. But movies like that are inspiring because they show an element of irony. For instance, in Spider-Man 3, it's very ironic that geeky Peter Parker would become powerful spider-Man. And in the painted veil, it's very ironic that you've got an unlikely setting. A remote cholera-infested village in China as the setting for the rediscovery of love. In most redemptive movies or stories, there is that note of irony. It's the same right here in Jonah chapter three. Think about it with me and let me use this moment to bring you up to date a little bit on the whole book of Jonah. First of all, God uses an unlikely man. Excuse me. He uses an unlikely man to be the prophet whom God would use to reach Nineveh with the message of redemption. Let me give you a review. Jonah chapter one. Back in Jonah one, you remember that God calls the prophet Jonah to go to Nineveh and he tries to run away from God. And yet, Jonah chapter two, he falls over, he's thrown overboard into the water, he sinks, he's swallowed up by fish, and then he spit back up on land. And that brings us to Jonah chapter three, where Jonah gets a second chance. Now see, that's the redemptive element. That's that redemptive theme. God changing somebody through ironic situations. Now if you or I wanted to save Nineveh, we wouldn't pick a guy like Jonah to do the work. He struggled with pride, he struggled with self-centeredness, he struggled with disobedience. And yet that was the very person, the very prophet whom God used to go after the people of Nineveh. We wouldn't pick Peter Parker to save New York City. Any more than we would pick Jonah to save Nineveh. You know about the Orlando magic, right, what they did the other day. Who did they go after when they wanted to change themselves? They certainly didn't call me. No, they went to the top, they went to probably the winningest coach in college basketball right now, Billy Donovan. I'd love to have that $6 million a year salary for five years, wouldn't you? But that's what we do when we want to see change. We go to the top, we go to the most successful, we want to go to the best. But whom did God go to to save Nineveh? Jonah, an unlikely man. Secondly, he gave Jonah an unlikely message to speak to the Ninevehites. Look at verse 4. The message is short and anything but sweet. It seems to me to be just a message of doom. He proclaims in verse 4, 40 more days and Nineveh will be overturned. Now that's again a very unlikely thing for God to do. We would expect if God's going to redeem Nineveh, he would probably have Jonah hand out the purpose-driven life for the four spiritual laws or something like that. But instead it sounds like a dreadful message of God is mad at you and has an awful plan for your life. But that was the way God worked in Nineveh. Thirdly, God chooses an unlikely metropolis to redeem. It's the metropolis known as Nineveh. Now you've already heard as we've gone through this book together to this point some of the facts about Nineveh. But let me refresh your memory. Nineveh was located in modern day Iraq on the eastern shore of the Tigris River. So we're talking about very current day events right now. In 700 BC which was about 60 years or so later than what we're looking at today, Nineveh became the capital city of Assyria. 500 miles away from Jonah's hometown. So this is a very far distance for Jonah to have to travel. Furthermore, Nineveh's culture was thoroughly pagan and had been that way for centuries. Ever since it was founded by Nimrod who was a descendant of Ham, the cursed line of Noah. Those were Nineveh's roots. And do you remember what God had told Jonah about Nineveh back in chapter 1? He had told Nineveh Jonah go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it. Why? Because its wickedness had grown up before God. This was a wicked culture. And yet God sent Jonah there to Nineveh. It was known all around the ancient world for its violence and for its pride. In Nehum, which is a couple of books to the right of Jonah, Nehum chapter 3 verse 1, Nineveh is called the city of blood. Full of lies, full of plunder, and never without its victims. That's the city to which Jonah was sent. Prostitution was rampant, so was witchcraft. The Ninevehites were polytheists, which means that they worshipped many gods. They cruelly exploited their neighbors and savaged their enemies. And, well, if that wasn't bad enough, in the year 722 BC, which was about 40 years after the book of Jonah takes place, a Syria invaded Israel, captured its capital city of Samaria, deported its people, and basically brought the nation of Israel to an end. And yet, that is the city that God had on his heart. That is the city to which God sent an unlikely prophet with an unlikely message of redemption. And here's the most ironic thing of all. It worked. It worked. Nineveh experienced almost overnight a dramatic change. Now, granted. Later on, they returned to their old ways, many of them. But that doesn't change the fact that God spared the Ninevehites of Jonah's day. It doesn't change the fact that the city of Nineveh was given an extreme city makeover. And they were different. We might call this a revival. We might call it a reformation. Whatever you want to call it, the people were changed. People had been redeemed. That is, brought out of a bad state into a better one. Changed for the better. I want to ask this morning, basically one question. What accounts for this change? Why did it happen? And I have two answers for you. One is they changed because the Ninevehites repented. They changed because they repented. And as I read through Jonah chapter three, you saw the elements of that repentance. They fasted. They put on sackcloth, which was a symbol for grief over sin. And then we read that even the king of Nineveh had to prayer. And it says that even the animals were denied food and water. Even the animals were prevented from eating and drinking. One commentator I read about that pointed out that that would have jeopardized the Ninevehites economy. Because they would have gone hungry. After one day without food, these hungry cattle would be heard, bleeding and bellowing for miles and miles around. And this presumably went on for at least several days. Now I've used the word this morning that perhaps you're not thoroughly familiar with. It's the word they repented. What does repentance really mean? Let me try to break it down for you. We're going to look back now at the chapter. We're going to look through the growth or the progress or the evolution of the repentance, the redemption that took place in the city of Nineveh. First, look at verse four with me. It says that the Ninevehites first of all faced the truth. Look at verse four. It says on the first day Jonah started into the city and he proclaimed forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned. Forty more days, Nineveh. Can't you just hear Jonah preaching that? He walks into the city of Nineveh. He says forty more days and you're going to be overturned. First thing the Ninevehites had to do is face the truth about themselves. That they deserved judgment. Secondly, after they faced the truth, they embraced the truth about God. Look at verse five. This is such an important verse. It says that the Ninevehites believed God. Now that's amazing that Jonah would simply have walked into the city on the first day as he started in. He would just simply proclaim this message of doom and the Ninevehites believed God. Now this is interesting because at first glance when you look at the message that he preached in verse four, you wonder how in the world could the Ninevehites get any hope out of that message? Why would they even want to believe God? Well, let me show you verse four a little bit more closely where the word is overturned. That word could even mean turned around. So the message could not only be one of doom and threat, but one of promise. Forty more days, Nineveh, and you will be turned around. And when they heard that double meaning word overturned turned around. It engendered or it awakened something in the Ninevehites. Thanks to God's work in them, of course. And that was belief that the God who threatened is also the God who was able to save. The God who deserved to judge them is also the God who might just offer them mercy. And so verse five says that they embraced the truth about God. They believed God. Thirdly, not only did they face the truth about themselves, they embraced the truth about God, but they turned. Now this is a key part of repentance. They turned from that which was offending God and killing them. In other words, they turned from evil. They turned from that which was killing themselves, namely their violence, their evil ways, their pride, the way they cruelly treated people. They turned from that from evil and from that which was offending God as well. Look at verse eight says in verse eight that the king's proclamation consisted of let man and beast be covered with sack cloth, let everyone call urgently on God. And here it is, let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Give up their evil ways and their violence. And that's exactly what the people of Nine of a did because down in verse 10, it says that when God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion on them. So they turned fourth and finally in this process, they opened themselves up to the love of God. Verse nine says who knows this is the king's proclamation, who knows God may yet relent and have compassion and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish. What I see going on here is that the Ninevites chose to throw themselves upon God's mercy to believe that he might just pardon them even though they didn't deserve it. They threw themselves upon God and they believed that God was able if he would be willing to forgive them. They opened themselves up to the love of God. That's what I'm saying. So look at that process facing the truth, embracing something about God that they see turning from evil and opening themselves up to the love of God. Now the more I reflected on this and I admit to you, I was on vacation this past week, so if this sermon doesn't work out for you, that's probably why. But anyway, the more that I thought about this as I was lounging around on the beach last week, I saw a remarkable similarity between this story in Jonah 3 and the story of the prodigal son. Let me see if I can demonstrate why I think both stories of redemption are really telling us the same thing. First of all, we have the prodigal city, namely Nineveh. We've already seen this. They faced the truth about themselves through that judgment call of God. They embraced the truth about God. That is they believed in him. They turned. They did an about face. They said, let's give up our evil ways and our violence. And fourth, they opened themselves up to God's love and compassion. They said, who knows God may yet relent and we're going to trust that he will. Think with me about the story of the prodigal son. You have a father who had two boys. The younger boy woke up one morning and said, hey, I'm through with this. I'm going to take my share of my father's estate, my inheritance and take off. And that's what he did. Luke chapter 15 tells you the story. He went away to a distant country and that's where he squandered his wealth in wild living, wine, women, and song. He spent everything he had pretty soon. He a severe famine came into the land where he was living. And so he had to hire himself out to a farmer. A farmer who said, yeah, I'll hire you, go out and feed my pigs. And the only food that this younger son had to eat was the leftover pods from the pigs' style. What happened in the process? First of all, he had to face the truth about himself. It says in Luke chapter 15 verse 17 that he came to his senses. He thought, what am I doing here? I'm starving to death. This is not right. This is not where I want to be. Secondly, he had to embrace the truth about his father. Just as the Ninevites believed something about God, the prodigal son started to believe something about his father. Luke 15 18 says that this younger boy said, I'll set out and go back to my father. There's something about my father that I want to believe that the father who deserves to judge me could be also merciful. Then thirdly, he turned. He turned from that which was killing him and offending his father. He turned from evil. In Luke 15 18, it says, I will say to my father, father, I've sinned against heaven and against you. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. And fourth and finally, you know what happened is he opened himself up to the love of his father. He got up out of that pig's thigh and he moved back to his father. And he said, who knows? Who knows? Maybe he'll make me like one of his hired men. So he got up and went to his father. My mouth is incredibly dry. I'm so sorry. I don't know why. It could be the medicine I take. I'm not sure. Just kidding. You see the similarity, the prodigal city redemption through that process, the prodigal sun redemption through the process, the very same process that God calls you and me to go through, should we desire to have redemption and change in our life, which I'll have a little more to say about that. But what am I showing you so far? Number one, the Nineveh, the Ninevehites changed because they repented. But that's not all. In fact, let me show you another verse before we move on to point two. Over in the book of Matthew, Jesus has something to say about this repentance that the Ninevehites did. This is what Jesus had to say about it. He said a wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign. But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the son of man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. And now one greater than Jonah is here. See how Jesus is reflecting back on what the Ninevehites did and putting a stamp of authenticity upon what happened there? Redemption, change through repentance, facing the truth, embracing God, turning from evil and opening oneself up to God's love, the process of repentance. That whole four-step thing is repentance. The Ninevehites repented. Why else did this change occur? It wasn't only because they repented. The second reason that they changed was that God gave them grace. It wasn't all the Ninevehites doing. It was the doing of God through the grace that he had given them. I want to show you something very special in Jonah chapter three. Look with me in verse three. You'll miss this probably by looking only at your English translation. In fact, I thought it rather strange that every commentator I read on Jonah three said, this is the way you should translate verse three. But I could not find a single Bible translation that translates this way. Some of you might have a Bible that has it in your footnotes. But let me show you what it really says in verse three. It says, now Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. And in my translation, the next phrase is, now Nineveh was a very important city. You know what it literally says? Nineveh was an important city to God because the name of God is embedded in that verse. One of his names is Elohim. You've heard that, right? Elohim. It says literally in verse three, now Nineveh was an important city to Elohim. Now here's why the translators often choose to translate that as a superlative or as very important. Throughout the Old Testament, that phrase with the word or the name of God Elohim is often used to up the ante to take something to the top, the uttermost. That's why my translation says it was a very important city. But if you look at the whole context of the book of Jonah and especially look over in chapter four, which Mark will be talking about next week, you can see that it's really true that Nineveh was important to God. So important that he would send Jonah on this mission, so important that when Jonah disobeyed God threw him into a fish, so important that God delivered him from the fish and said, you must still go to Nineveh because that is a very important city to me. The phrase doesn't just say that it was a very big city. It means that the city was important to God, and that's why I say that the Ninevehs repented and they were redeemed through the grace of God. It was God's grace moving the whole situation forward. It was the fact that God is gracious and merciful. So how could Nineveh? Here's the question though. How could Nineveh, which was a wicked city, which had offended God, which had broken God's laws, which had treated God's people cruelly and wood in a generation, treat them even more cruelly? How could Nineveh merit the grace and the forgiveness of God? Well, that's the question, isn't it? Because grace is something by nature that is not merited. It is given and given freely. You see, God delights in giving mercy and grace to undeserving people. When we were on our vacation last week, we left here last Saturday, a week ago from yesterday, and we pulled up at our place at the beach where we were staying. And wouldn't you know what? We ran into trouble right away because one of us who was driving, we had several cars. One of the cars pulled into a parking space that was really owned by someone else, somebody who lived there permanently. It had a big sign, said, private parking space, but we didn't see it, and we were new. We didn't know what we were doing. So, I confess, it was my son, Michael, who parked there. So you can talk to him about that later. So we get out of our cars, we start to unpack, we want to go in and see this place when the owner of that parking space pulls up. And she's in this nice big car, and she didn't have a smile on her face, and she walked out, walked over to us, and said, that's my parking space, you know. And I confess, your meek mild mannered associate pastor, felt adrenaline just pumping through my blood vessels, and I so wanted to say something to her like, ma'am, we just arrived here, back off a little bit, we don't know what we're doing, but instead of course as your nice mild mannered associate pastor, I said, you know, I'm sorry, we didn't mean to, but my insides wanted to strangle the woman, because I don't delight in giving grace. And I dare say you don't either. First opportunity, we get when offended, what do we do, we want to strike back, we want to say the cruel word, we want vengeance, we want to repay. But instead, what God does here in Jonah 3, and throughout his word, and throughout all of human history, is God relents when people repent, not because they repent, but because he's so ready to do it when they first moved toward him, he's already there. It's just like the prodigal son, when the prodigal son woke up from his pigsty and said, I will go back to my father, the father was already moving toward him. And when he saw him coming over the hill, that's why he rushed over and grabbed him and embraced him. That's the grace of God. Verse 10 says this is the whole thing of God's grace. When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction that he had threatened. You see, God is both grace and justice. And here's how the dilemma is solved. God doesn't just give away grace as if he doesn't care about sin. Here's what he does. He lets someone else take the justice that you and I deserve. And that someone else is, of course, Jesus Christ. Interesting verse is verse 6. You notice what it says about the king of Nineveh. He rose from his throne. He took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. Do you see Jesus there? 2000 years ago Jesus rose up from his throne in heaven. He being the second person of the Trinity got up off of his throne and said, I will go and redeem. He got off of his throne. He took off his royal robes and became a baby in a manger and grew up and was killed and was tortured on a cross. He sat down in the dust as it were and was buried. And three days later he rose again. Why? So that he could bear the punishment that you and I deserve, just as he did this in the case of the Ninevehites. God giving them grace, giving his son justice. Now how does this relate to you and me? Let me close with a few practical takeaways. The first thing I would want you to do today is be encouraged. I want you to be encouraged. I want you to be encouraged by the thought that people can change. I like to ask you to think about somebody that you think cannot change. A friend that you've prayed for for years and years and years and nothing's happened. A parent who doesn't know Christ, a spouse in whom there is no spiritual sign of life, he, she, they can change. The Ninevehites changed by the grace of God. They can too. Hey, here's the dramatic thing. You can change. You know, I'm speaking this morning, I'm sure to several people who feel that you are a hopeless case. You've got an addiction, maybe you've got a sinful pattern, you've got some love in your life that is not God. And you think God cannot work in me. Friend, if God worked in Nineveh, he can work in your heart. So be encouraged. Secondly, be realistic. If you will experience change, there's going to have to be some change in you. The same steps that we saw in Nineveh followed and the prodigal son, God is calling you to follow them to today. You must face the truth about yourself. You must embrace the truth about God. You must turn from your evil ways. Whatever is killing you, whatever is offending God, turn and open yourself up to God's love. That's hard. That's hard truth. That's what I meant earlier when I was telling the children that the word of God says stuff that's painful. It hurts to do this, but the goal is healing. Thirdly, I want you to be challenged about your attitude this morning, challenged about your attitude. Do you know why God told the story of the prodigal son in the first place? It was because he noticed that some Pharisees and some teachers of the law were muttering under their breath about the fact that Jesus was eating and drinking with sinners and tax collectors. That's why he told the story of the prodigal son. Why did God tell Jonah to go to Nineveh because he knew Jonah had a bad attitude. He was proud. He was self-righteous. He was just like those Pharisees. I want you to be challenged about your attitude today. Finally, I want you to be comforted. Comforted. Comforted by this thought. You're important to God. You're important to God. You matter to him. This supper before me, before you today, is proof positive that you matter to God. Because what God did was he sent his son Jesus to this earth to bear your sin. And this supper is a reminder of that. The bread represents the body of Jesus, of course. This wine, this juice represents the blood of Jesus. And what God is telling you through Jonah 3 is really that Jesus Christ is the one whom you and I need. And God is good enough to give us this meal. We celebrate it here once a month as nourishment for our soul. So this morning, what I want to do is invite you to come to this dinner. It's a dinner that is for sinners. For people who like Jonah have run away from God, who have maybe broken his law, it's for people like the Ninevites who have rejected God. And God is inviting you to come back to come home, face the truth, embrace the truth, turn and open yourself up to the love of God. In fact, as you hold these elements this morning, I would ask that you open yourself up to God's love in a new way. Thank God while you're sitting there in your chair waiting to eat and drink. Thank him for the life that he gave for you, the life that he died for you, for taking your place on the cross, your judgment, your justice. I want to invite all of you who are already united with any evangelical church. You don't have to be a member here at UPC. If however you're living in a rebellious, hostile attitude toward God, then I would urge you not to partake unless you're willing to put away that rebellious attitude today. Because God invites his family to this meal, not family of perfect people, family of broken people, but people who are ready to be redeemed. Lord Jesus, we thank you that you rose up from your throne, you took off your royal robes in a sense you sat down in the dust, associating with us sinners, you identified with us Lord, you accepted our guilt, our shame, our sin, and you gave back to us your righteousness and your perfectness. Lord Jesus, thank you for doing that for me, thank you for doing that for us, and we ask you, O Lord, to encourage us with this idea that we can change, encourage us that others can change and use us Lord in their lives just as you used Jonah and imperfect man in the lives of the Ninevites. We ask you, Lord, to bless this meal today, to let it be the sign and seal of your covenant of love with us, let it be for us a new start, a new beginning, a fresh awakening to your love and your grace. We ask you, Holy Spirit, to use these elements as a means of grace in our lives, to grow us up into the perfect life of Christ. And we so thank you that you, Triune God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, are here in this room with us, communing with us now through this bread and this wine. Bless us, we pray, in Jesus' name.