Outrageous Grace

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Heavenly Father, we thank you for your grace. And in many ways, Lord, your grace is unfathomable. We can't understand it. And in many ways, your grace is scandalous. You're going to save those people after they did that? In many ways, your grace is outrageous. I pray, Lord, that you give us the grace today to humble ourselves before you recognize no one deserves grace. Grace is unmerited favor. You can't deserve it. We have it only because of the work of Jesus Christ, his life, his death, his burial, and his resurrection. Jesus, we gather here today, redeemed as your children, children of God, the Father, thanks to your sacrifice on the cross for us. Holy Spirit, come in to the space if there's anyone who is not yet reconciled with God, is not a worshiper of Yahweh, has not been saved from their sins, does not have eternal life, I pray, today, save them and show them that life is short and we are not guaranteed tomorrow and that eternity is forever.

Lord, bless our time in Jonah chapter four as we look at him. And let us not stand over him in condemnation but let us learn from him. As from an older brother, he was not perfect. We are not perfect. He didn't fulfill his mission perfectly. We haven't fulfilled ours perfectly. You gave him grace, Lord, and give us much grace. We pray this in Christ's name, Amen. So, today, we're continuing our sermon series through Jonah. We're finishing it next week. We're starting a new series, our summer series through the end of Genesis 37 through 50. We're entitling it Graduate-Level Grace Study in the Life of Joseph. And we're calling it that because we're saved by grace through faith. Salvation is by grace. But growing in usefulness to the Lord, growing in usefulness and fulfilling our calling, well, that also takes grace, and that also takes faith, and that also takes a lot of work.

So, we're excited for that series. Join us starting next week. Today, we're in Jonah 4. The title of the sermon is Outrageous Grace. And hopefully, you've enjoyed this little book. It's strange. It's surprising. It's convicting. It starts with Jonah. God comes to and says, "Go preach to Nineveh." Jonah flees from the presence of the Lord. It takes an unexpected detour on a boat. And God sends a storm, Jonah's thrown overboard by the repentant sailors, and then he spends three days, three nights in the belly of a great fish. Finally, and this was last week, Jonah goes. He fulfills his calling. It's incredible. He preaches unwillingly. He's the most reluctant preacher in the history of reluctant preachers. He does not want to do it. He didn't even plan the sermon. There's no points to the sermon. Just five words. Just judgments coming. And the crazy part is people got saved. The king got saved. They prayed. They fasted.

And I know they're truly penitent because their priorities are in order because the king said, "We're all fasting including the cattle. Including the animals. Lord, save our souls but also save our meat. Please, Lord." They got everything in order. And Jonah 3:10 tells us when God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it. The Ninevites were ripe for the picking. The harvest was plentiful, although the worker was only one. And this should have been the end of the story.

And what a perfect story. It would've been so beautiful moving from crisis to resolution, moving from Jonah's rebellion all the way to his obedience, from Nineveh's impending destruction all the way to immediate deliverance. It's the perfect narrative arc. Amen. Boom. End of chapter three. We're done. That's how it should have ended. Here's God's saving Nineveh through the witness of even the most reluctant evangelist. That's me. That's you. There's hope for him. There's hope for us. Isn't that encouraging? But that's not how it ends at all. I was thinking about this. It ends like a Russian novel. Like the Tolstoy, Dostoyev. You made me read a thousand pages to get to this ending, man. Super disappointing. That's kind of how it ends. But there's many a lesson here for us.

So, today we're in Jonah 4:1-11. Would you look at the text? "But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed to the Lord and said, "Oh, Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country. That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Therefore now, oh Lord, please take my life from me, for it's better for me to die than to live." And the Lord said, "Do you do well to be angry?" Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, until he should see what would become of the city. Now, the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head to save him from his discomfort. So, Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant.

But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant so that it withered. When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, "It is better for me to die than to live." But God said to Jonah, "Do you do well to be angry for the plant?" He said, "Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die." And the Lord said, "You pity the plant for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came up, came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?" Amen. This is the reading of God's holy, inherent, infallible, authoritative word. May he write these eternal truths upon our heart.

The last word of the story is cattle. That's how the book ends in the Hebrew. It's much cattle. What a disappointment this is. Jonah here is left in a worse situation, spiritually speaking, than he was when he ran from God. He's still locked in the old patterns of xenophobia and ethnic and religious superiority. He had a besetting sin that he seemed to have repented of in the belly of the fish, though that wasn't a true repentance, and here, it was subdued for the time he was preaching in Nineveh. But now, it flares up and it flares up suddenly. What kind of ending is this one? Well, it's a realistic ending. It's a realistic ending in that we need grace to be saved from our sins, from the condemnation that our sins deserve. But we also need grace to grow in our relationship with the Lord.

Jonah doesn't come out being the hero of this. The book's only disappointing if you thought Jonah was the point. Jonah wasn't the point and he wasn't even the main character. God is the main character. The chapter here is composed in three great moments, beginning and then ending with an interview between God and Jonah. And between those two bookends is an enacted parable, a little object lesson about a little vine and a worm and a wind. What's going on there? While this text reveals three contradictions in Jonah's heart, and these are the points.

First, contradiction is he understands grace confessed, he confesses. Grace confessed, but misunderstood. Second, providence enjoyed, but ignored. And third, love felt, but disordered. So, point one, grace confessed but misunderstood. Jonah 4:1, it, what was the it? But it. The great revival of Nineveh, you're talking about a million people, maybe 120,000 commentators say, "That's probably children. They don't know the right hand from their left." So, if there's 120,000 children, might be upwards of 600,000 to a million people. There's a lot of people. They get saved. Jonah, not only is he not exceedingly glad about it, he's exceedingly displeased. He's actually angry. What pleased God only made Jonah mad? It's strange to the point that it's inexplicable. You would think that Yahweh's chosen prophet would be thrilled to see people come to faith. Yes, pride is a sin, but there is a certain allowable sense of satisfaction about witnessing people come to faith. I can tell you just from my experience in the Christian walk, the greatest thrill is the moment you get saved. There is no greater thrill in that.

When you recognize that you have been transferring from the domain of darkness, from the kingdom of light, you were a child of Satan, now you're a child of God. That right there, the greatest thrill. Right up there, I am telling you, friends, is seeing people get saved. Seeing people who are far from the Lord, pagans who want nothing to do with God, living for themselves, selfish, thinking that the world revolves around them, entitled, proud, self-righteous, everything that you and I were, are, were. And then they get saved. They see Jesus Christ and they're like, "Ah, I need grace." And they're praying. There's nothing greater than that. Jonah should have been pumped. He should have been in the city. They should have had a parade. He should have said, "Okay, the cattle. Stop fasting the cattle. We're going to have a barbecue. We're all going to enjoy the fact that there's a revive." He doesn't do any of that. What happened? Why is he back to where he started, angry at God and angry at the people of Nineveh?

And in the Hebrew, it says that the repentance of Nineveh was actually evil to Jonah. It was a great evil to him. The same word here that God said, "Nineveh, there's evil there. Your evil has risen up." That same word is used to describe Jonah. Jonah's feelings are evil. Why? Because Jonah's a loyal Israelite. He's a Jew. He's a prophet of Yahweh and loyal to the northern kingdom. And the northern kingdom was long at war with Syria and Assyria to the north. And we know from the books of the Kings, that Yahweh used Assyrian aggression to weaken Syria. And so, now, Assyria is growing in strength. Nineveh is the capital of Assyria. Jonah knows if these people gets it and they get the power of God, who knows what'll happen with Israel because Israel is under judgment of God.

Partially, what's happening here is God wants Israel to be jealous in that the Ninevites got saved. Maybe we should get saved. Maybe we should stop being idolatrous. But they don't. So, Jonah, he looks at these people and he is like, "They don't look like me. They don't smell like me. They don't talk like me. They're not me. These are not my people. These are my enemies. God, do you not know how bad these people are? They are degenerate to the core. They are unredeemable. God, why would you save Assyrians and then use them to bring judgment upon Israel? How can that be?" And what he doesn't understand is that God is not a territorial God. God is not just a God of one group of people or one nationality, one ethnicity. No. God has elect from all of the nations. And God's purpose is to save his elect, which includes both Jews and Gentiles and even Ninevites. Now, sadly, in Jonah's reaction, we may see our own sinful prejudices that God may choose to save some people whom we do not think he ought to save.

And his grace may extend to places where we do not think he ought to extend it. And Jonah should have known better. He knew the Psalter. Psalms 145:9 says, "The Lord is good to all and his mercy is over all that he has made." So, Jonah turns what should have been a time of great celebration into a little pity party about his Jewish nationalism. His politics win out over his faith. Those people, their politics, diametrically opposed to mine, I don't want them in the people of God. I don't want them in my church. I don't want them in my community group. I don't want them in my friend group, et cetera. That's what's going on.

And you see his self-justify, accusatory tone in verse two. "And he prayed to the Lord and he said, "Oh, Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee at Tarshish, for I knew that you were a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Therefore now, oh Lord, please take my life from me, for it's better for me to die than to live." What's he saying? He's saying, "God, I told you this is what... God, you should have listened to me. God, you never listened to me. I told you this is what you were going to do. I knew you were going to forgive him." That's what he's become, so self-absorbed, he's wagging his finger at God. Because of this self-pity consumed with himself, he's forgotten who he's speaking to.

And yet, by the way, this confession is tremendous. It's all true. Everything he says, it's all gloriously true. But it's conflicted, his little confession. It is true. But here it comes as a complaint and he is quoting scripture Exodus 34:6-7. This is how God revealed himself to Moses. "The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, "The Lord, the Lord, a God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and fourth generation." This confession we see all throughout the Old Testament scriptures, the Book of Numbers, second Chronicles.

And we see this in Nehemiah. We see this in the Psalter. This is who God is. God is a God who is gracious. He wants to forgive people and Jonah is not happy with that. He loves the idea of a loving God, loving toward him and his people. It's a precious concept when it's directed toward him. But the moment grace is turned to Israel's enemies, Nineveh. Well, now, God's grace is a problem. Now, it's a source of frustration, not a source of joy. Jonah confesses the doctrine of grace, "God, you're gracious. I knew you were. I knew you were going to be gracious."

But he can't accept the reality of it. He confesses the religious part. He can't accept the reality. Confesses the theology of grace, but there's no room for the working out of the grace. In his reality, he's happy with grace as long as it's within the boundaries of his comfort levels. And friends, here, you just got to pause it in. This is a reminder. You're in Boston. Once in a while, you need a reminder. You got to get out of your heads. In your head, theology, it's all tremendous. That it doesn't make a difference in the world when you have all the perfect theology pristine in your head. It does have to take root in your heart and you can't let orthodox theology mask an unloving, unchanged heart. Jonah, man, you should have known better. You know how gracious God is. Bro, you ran from him. You wanted to die in the ocean.

God says, "No." He sends the grace of a fish. It didn't feel good for three days and three nights, gastric juices, and all but whatever. You didn't die. He didn't die. He is living proof of God's grace, but he can't stand the idea of that grace being given to others. If gospel truth is something you really take pride in knowing, if you're like, "Yes, as a believer, I know the truth." But you never share it. You're not much better than Jonah. Jonah shared it only because he was forced to. He didn't have a choice. God has given us the truth and we are to take pride in knowing the truth, but it's only by grace. But if you keep it to yourself, then we're just as much as sinners as Jonah. Although Jonah is angry, he does the right thing and complains to God in prayer.

So, as much as we want to knock Jonah. First of all, when he's really angry, who does he go to? He prayed. He's like, "Lord, I don't get it." He doesn't complain about God to his readers. He could have done that. And he does not curse God. He doesn't take even Yahweh's name in vain. He pours out his heart to God even when nothing made sense. A lesson in there for us. Jonah verse three of chapter four, "Therefore now, oh Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live." And the Lord said, "Do you do well to be angry?" Now, Jonah's complaint crosses the line from asking the God grant him understanding to just, "God kill me." Moses pled to die in Numbers 11, the prophet Elijah pled to die in 1 Kings 19. And I don't even want to ask, but many of us have been there.

"God, I see the test before me. I see the circumstances I'm in. Kill me." And that's the easy way out, just FYI. How much easier to seek to escape life's difficulties than face the fact that God does transform us and he does sanctify us by taking us through trials, tribulations like this. What's fascinating is that God doesn't rebuke Jonah. He could have right here rebuked Jonah. He could have killed him right there. He could have rebuked him. Like, "What are you doing?" No. God asks him a question. And in this, we see God's grace, his mercy, his love, his patience, his willingness to relent his love, even for Jonah. "Jonah, is it good for you to burn with anger, to kindle the fire already within you? Look within yourself. Examine your heart. See if your anger is justified," that's what he is saying.

"Art thou very much grieves," the King James version says. Jonah doesn't respond to this first question. He's still stuck in his patriotism that prevents him from loving his neighbors. Here, we need to pause and say, "Look, there's much to be learned here." Jonah has no right to be angry with God merely because of God's purposes in saving someone other than Jonah. And neither should we be angry with God when God extends his grace to those in different socioeconomic groups, cultures, ethnicities, political parties. Let's have a moment of honesty before God, shall we? What class or group of people in our society do you find it most difficult to trust, to relate to however you define that group? Maybe it's ethnically different, or economic, or educational, or professional, or political, or maybe it's more personal in that. A person that looks like that abused you or hurt you, sinned against you.

So, the thought of grace for abusers, that's beyond you. Which group of people do you find at hardest to trust, to be around, to talk to, to want to know? Be honest. What if next Sunday, you are late to serve? You come in at 9:16, like 90% of service one. At 9:16 you mosey in, and that person is sitting in your assigned seat. They don't know it's your assigned seat but they should have. And they're on time because new people always are. How do you react? What happens in your heart? What if our church begins to fill up with people like that? What happens? Is there room in your heart for them? Is there room in your gospel for them? Is there room in your life for them? Would you talk to them? Would you do the hard work of building a relationship? Or is grace just for you and only of those whom you approve? That was Jonah's problem. He confessed grace. He misunderstood grace. So, God continues to teach him.

This is point two, providence enjoyed, but ignored. And this is verse four of Jonah 4. "And the Lord said, "Do you do well to be angry?" See, he didn't answer. "Jonah went out of the city and sat in the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade until he should see what would become of the city. So, here is the finger of God pressing into the festering wound of Jonah's sin. And God does ask him, "Do you do well to be angry?" It's the first of three questions, "Jonah, do you actually think it's justified? Do you think your anger is justified? Do you really think that your anger is without sin?" Instead of wrestling with God's question, Jonah ignores it and goes camping. And what's he doing? He camps outside the city to the east to sit and wait." What's he waiting for? He's waiting to see if God will relent from his relenting.

God said, "I'm going to punish Nineveh, condemnation, unless they repent." They repent. He relent. Jonah wants God to relent of his relenting. He wants to see the fireworks. Like Sodom and Gomorrah, like fire from heaven, brimstone. That's what he wants to see. Jonah 4:6, "Now, the Lord God," so, he's waiting, "Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort."

So, Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. Three times, we see this phrase in the book, in this chapter, in verse six, seven, and eight, that God appointed as the same verb that that's used in chapter one, verse 17 when God appoints a great fish. And what it's doing is it's pointing out the absolute sovereignty of God over all of his creation. What's the vine all about? What's this plant all about? Is it an ivy? Is it a gourd? Is it a castor-oil plant? I don't know. It's pretty big and it grew rapidly and it provided shade. Why the vine? Symbolically, I don't know if it really means anything, but it shows us that it completely changed Jonah's mood. Jonah, in the beginning of the chapter, was exceedingly mad, exceedingly angry, and now he's exceedingly glad. Why? What's changed? Well, what's changed is his comfort.

And so, he is sitting very comfortably. So, he's sitting. He wants to see fireworks, condemnation. He wants to see the people of Nineveh in great discomfort. That's what he wants to see. And then God sends him a little vine, a plant to comfort him. And what we see here is incredible irony that the personal comfort that Jonah receives is the absolute opposite of what he wants for Nineveh. He wants all of Nineveh to burn. He's got ringside seats and popcorn as he waits for fire and brimstone. And as he's waiting for fire and brimstone, God sends him a plant to comfort him. Now, what is God doing here? I can't wait to find out when we get to heaven. But I think what God is doing here is he's teaching him. Jonah is too blind to realize what God is doing through providence.

So, verse seven. "But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant so that it withered. And when the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, "It's better for me to die then to live." For the fourth time in the book, Yahweh directly intervenes, this time, by sending a worm, completely withers the plant that Yahweh had just raised up the day before, leaving Jonah completely exposed to the sun. And then God, on top of that insult to injury, sends him a wind, a sirocco wind, which it rises quickly and raises the temperature and drops the humidity. It's unbearable.

And by the way, if you take that Jonah was still alive in the fish, gastro juices, his skin was definitely damaged. This guy is in pain right now. So, he cries out, "It's better for me to die than to live. Just kill me already, God. If you're going to spare Nineveh, just kill me." So, verse nine, "And God said to Jonah, "Do you do well to be angry for the plant?" And he said, "Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die." And again, instead of rebuking Jonah, God teaches him. Asking him a version of the same question, "Jonah, are you glad I judged the plant? Are you glad I killed the plant?" And this time, Jonah actually responds to God's question. Jonah said, "Yes, I do well to be angry. Angry enough to die." Jonah's come to the end. He still expects that Yahweh will relent of his relenting, but he just can't deal with the misery of what's happening here.

He's losing all perspective. We don't know the state of mind that he's in, but he just can't believe that God would extend mercy to people unworthy of it. And here we see the lesson of providence. Did Jonah know that the plant was from the Lord? Did Jonah know that there was a worm from the Lord? Did Jonah know that there was a wind from the Lord? I think he knew. I think he knew. But there were times when it's like, "I don't want to know." He enjoyed the comforts of providence. The vine goes up, he's comfortable. But he's unwilling to listen to the lessons providence is teaching. God sometimes teaches us through supernatural revelation. That's primary where we learn from holy scripture. But God does, through providence in our lives, teach us. And if we are wise, we will pay attention to the events of our lives and see what God is teaching us.

Often when something bad happens, no, no, no. God has nothing to do with this. No, no, no, God's hand is sovereign. He's absolutely over everything. Often, we're too quick to run to Romans 8:28 that, "All things work together for the good of those who love him and are called to be his." Something bad happens in your life and you're. But all things will work together. Good. We are to go there and we'll learn much of that from Joseph. But we are to go to Hebrews 12 as well. And sometimes, the difficulties in our life are actually a result of God's discipline. And we are to endure hardship as discipline because God is treating us as sons and daughters, if we are wise to learn the lessons of that providence. And I say that because in Hebrews 12:11, it says, "For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it."

Meaning that you can go through discipline which is unpleasant and you never reap the harvest of righteousness because you refuse to learn the lessons. Don't be an unwise. Don't be a foolish child. The wise child, you speak to the wise child. The wise child learns. The foolish child, words are not enough. We are to be trained up by its possible. Hebrews is saying to endure the providential discipline of the Lord and not bear fruit because we weren't listening, we weren't paying attention like Jonah here. He should have stopped and said, "God, why did you send me that vine? Would it not be to expose the hypocrisy in my heart that I care about my comfort, my comfort, my body's temperature, I care about more than someone else's soul?"

By the way, I can get this because my body temperature runs high and when I'm sweating, I can't think. Maybe Jonah is here, I don't know. But he is idolizing, prioritizing his comfort over everything else. And here's the lesson God is teaching us in the hard blows of frowning providence. He's teaching us that through providence, he is training us to become more effective instruments in his hands. So, Jonah didn't learn the lessons of providence. And point three, he has a love. He feels a love. Love felt, but it's disordered. So, verse 10, and the Lord said, "You pity the plant for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and all so much cattle."

The truth is, Jonah had no right to the plant, did he? It was all a gift of undeserved grace. It was nothing but a misguided sense of self entitlement that made Jonah resentful that he lost something that was not even his. And what the Lord here is teaching through this question is teaching the same lesson that we see in Matthew 20. In Matthew 20, Jesus Christ tells a parable. And then the parable, so, this guy owns a vineyard, he needs day laborers. And he goes to the market, he takes some laborers, he says, "Okay, I'll pay you this amount." And he comes back three hours later, comes back three hours later, comes back.

What happens is not everybody worked the same amount of time. Some of the workers worked all day, some of the workers worked just a few hours and they all got paid the same. And the guys that worked all day come up to the owner of the vineyard, they say, "That's not fair." That's not fair. They worked an hour, we worked all day in the sweat of our brow, in the heat of the day. And the owner responds by saying, "Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?" And this is exactly what's happening with Jonah. Jonah is like those workers, "I have served you all of my life. My whole family, we have served you. And God, you're going to welcome these people in and give them the same blessings you've given us?" And what God says here to Jonah is, "Jonah, I made them. I'm their God. I'm their Lord. They are mine. They depend on me. Do I not have the right to do what I want with them?"

And Deuteronomy 7:6-8, "God does remind the people of Israel that he did not choose them because of anything great in them. Verse six, for you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were much more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt." It wasn't because you were greater than any of the other people, that it wasn't because you were more noble, more mighty. It wasn't because you were worthy. It was because, "I'm loving," that's what God is saying, "I don't love you because you're lovely. I love you because I'm loving."

And in Christ, this is exactly what the Lord teaches us, that we do not deserve any. Christ died for us when we were yet sinners. We all deserve condemnation. We all deserve wrath. Jesus Christ died for us when we did not deserve the grace. And this understanding of grace, this is what begins to change us. I didn't deserve it. And this second, I'm receiving grace. I don't deserve this grace either. Every moment, every second, the gospel extends grace to us. And we're not doing everything we're doing for the Lord because we are trying to earn grace. No, it's all from him. It's all free. And what grace does is it reorders our loves. And this is crucial. Because a lot of people, they follow the Lord and they go to church.

What you don't understand is that God doesn't want to just transform your mind with truth, he wants to transform your heart by reordering how much and what you love by reprioritizing. So, we're not wrong to love fervently our people. We're not wrong to love our comforts. We're not wrong to be patriots. But we are wrong when we put any of those things above God and above what God loves. So, what this is what God is doing with Jonah. God is saying, "Jonah, look into my heart. You love a vine more than you love people."

These are image bearers of God with eternal souls. God is saying, "I love them. I love the lost. I love the nations. I love Nineveh, that great city." It's a love just glimpsed here in Jonah, we see just a glimpse of God is gracious, God relents when we repent, he does forgive. But we see the fullness of the supreme expression of the love of God on the cross of Jesus Christ. Here is God incarnate. Here is God who is gracious and merciful. Here is God on the cross, who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Here's a God who relents from disaster. And here he is, that same God nailed to a tree. How did you get there, God? Jesus Christ, God and, how did you get on a tree? How did you get nailed to a tree by the people that you came to save?

How did that happen? Well, Jesus Christ is answering the questions, the contradictions that are within the heart of Jonah. Jonah is saying, "God, you're too just to forgive those people. No. You can't be that loving so that your love actually satisfies your justice." How does that work? He can't make sense of it. And then Jesus Christ makes all the sense of it in the world, that the way, the only reason that God can forgive us is because someone paid for our sins. The only way that God retains his justice, retains the fact that he is just. And he gets to justify, is the only way that happens is the cross of Jesus Christ. On the cross, Jesus became our sin. On the cross, Jesus absorbed the wrath of God that we deserve. Jonah wanted to see that. He wanted to see the wrath pour down on the Ninevites.

He didn't get to see it. But in the sign of Jonah, that's what Jesus says, and it says the sign of Jonah. In the sign of Jonah, we do see the wrath of God poured out on Christ. Jesus died so that the Ninevites can get saved, but also the Brooklynites and the Bostonians, so that all of us can find a home in the family of God. And the measure of the love of God for the nations is ultimately in the cross of Jesus Christ. In Romans 15:8-12, "For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles may glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, "Therefore, I will praise you among the Gentiles, and sing to your name."

And again, it said, "Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people." And again, "Praise the Lord, all you gentiles, and let all the peoples extol him." And again, Isaiah says, "The root of Jesse will come, even he who arises to rule the Gentiles, in him will the Gentiles hope." That's what the cross was all about, to bring into his kingdom men, women, boys, and girls, from every tribe, every language, every nation under heaven to be saved by grace through faith. And when we see people where we want to say something like, "Ah, they don't deserve grace." You got to be a reminded, of course, they don't deserve grace. No one deserves grace. That's what makes grace, grace. It's undeserved. It's for the unworthy. It's unmerited favor. What do you love more than your neighbor, that you'd put before the great need of their souls for Jesus? I think, in Boston, it's reputation. That's what I think. I think we love our reputation more than we love the souls of our neighbors. I think that's true. I've seen, I've been watching this for a while. "What are they going to think of me?"

That question doesn't matter. Well, because that question's the same thing as Jonah crying out about the vine. "My comfort. I'm discomfort. I'm uncomfortable. They don't like me. I'm uncomfortable." It's the same thing. You like being liked more than you love the souls of people. And if that were not true, we'd be sharing the gospel all the time with absolutely everybody. God calls Jonah to give up his misplaced pity for himself and learn to pity the nations. He calls him to give up his misplaced love for himself, for his comforts to love like God loves, like Christ loves. This is the call to cruciform love, a love that gives and goes and serves and sacrifices for the sake of the lost. Did Jonah learn his lesson? I want Jonah chapter five. Where's chapter five? I want to know, did he learn his lesson? That he repent?

That doesn't matter. That's not the real question. The real question is, will you learn the lessons that God has for us from this book? Will you give up being satisfied with knowing truth but never sharing it? Will you learn to love this great city in which we live, in which there are more than hundreds of thousands of souls, many of whom don't know Jesus Christ? These are questions that Jonah presses into us. Will we go where God is already? And where is God already? He's on mission. Our God is a missional God. Our God is a missionary God. God had one son and his son became a missionary. Someone said, "Jesus Christ came as a missionary to seek and to save that which is lost."

Christopher Wright, in his book entitled The Mission of God, makes this statement, he says, "Mission was not made for the church. The church was made for mission, God's mission." Well, that's true that God has given us some missions, a great commission to go and make disciples of all nations, God's already on mission, that God is on mission, that you and I have this great privilege of joining him in that. That's part of the grace we get. And the more you know this missional God, the more you care about mission, about people through your life, through your words, through your actions coming closer to meeting Jesus Christ. Jonah, as an example to us of a very flawed man, being chosen by God and being used by God. He's sinful, he repents, and then he sins again. He's flawed in every way. And yet Jonah is the one who's preaching, converts an entire city. Is the power in the man or is the power in the message? Well, what is the book of Jonah teaches?

What is the Romans teaches? Romans teaches, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. And you should take comfort in that. If you've never shared the gospel, a lot of people don't share the gospel because they feel unworthy of it, of sharing it. If I tell people that I'm a Christian, what are they going to think about Christianity? Well, first of all, you should probably rethink a few areas of life. Second of all, man, what are we giving people? When we share the gospel, what are we giving people? Are we giving people our own righteousness? Did you die in the cross for someone's sins? Or is your righteousness going to be imputed to someone? No.

Obviously, we need to live lives of integrity. But also, obviously, you're never worthy enough. The power is not in you. The power is in the Holy Spirit, as the Holy Spirit takes the gospel of Jesus Christ. As you take these words and you proclaim, "Yeah, I'm a sinner." You are a sinner. I'm a sinner. We're all sinner. We've all sinned. We've all transgressed the commandments of God. And God is holy and we all deserve condemnation for all of eternity. That's how holy he is. But God is also loving and because he's loving, he's provided a way for all of your sins to be forgiven. All you have to do, you repent of your sin, you trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, you turn from sin, you turn to him, and then you devote your life to worshiping him. And when you do, man, I'm telling you, when the power of God takes that, takes the opportunity, takes that scenario, takes your words, and people, the lights start coming on, you get addicted to it. You get so addicted to seeing people come to faith.

I want everyone addicted to it. I want this whole church addicted to people coming in faith. Share the gospel. The power is not in you. The power is in the Holy Spirit and the power is in the word. Romans 9:14-16, "What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means, for He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." So, then it depends, not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy. So, huge, huge breath of, sigh of relief. You can't mess up someone else's salvation. You can't say the wrong thing and then they're like, "Oh, you said the wrong thing. So, now, I'm not going to get..." God does the saving. You can't even get in the way.

But what I'm saying is there's a huge blessing in sharing the gospel and being used by God. Under the new covenant wherein God extends his saving mercy beyond Israel to the ends of the earth, the principle that God saves whom he will becomes even more clear. And he does it. The power resides in the message. Revelation 7:9-17 of vision, "After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb." And all the angels were standing around the throne, around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God saying, "Amen. Blessing glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen."

"Should I not pity Nineveh, that great city?" Oh, my God. Lord, would you pity Boston, this great city? "Should I not pity Boston, that great city?" Lord, pity this city. And don't just pity the city in general, a lot of the city in general, Lord, there's people in my life that are far from you. Lord, you've poured out your pity on me. Lord, show your pity to them. If you're not a Christian, if you're not sure of where you're going when you die, if you're not sure of your relationship with the Lord, if you are not a worshiper of God, of Jesus Christ, well, turn to God today. A couple passages from Isaiah, Isaiah 45:22-23, "Turn to me," the words of the Lord, "And be saved, all the ends of the earth. For I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn, from my mouth has gone out in righteousness, a word that shall not return. To me, every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance."

And Isaiah 55:6-7, "Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near, let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God for he will abundantly pardon." Amen. Let us pray. Lord, we thank you for this great message from the book of Jonah that points to a greater Jonah. Jesus Christ, Jesus, we thank you in the same way that Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. You were the heart of the earth and yet you rose from the dead, and we thank you for that. And Lord, Jesus, we pray, continue to strengthen our souls, and give us the power of the Holy Spirit and continue to build up your church. And Lord, we do pray for a revival upon this great city. Draw many to yourself and use us in the process. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.