The Lord's Compassion
Jonah 4
This sermon is from August 10, 2025. My overall goal for this series was to call the congregation to a missional mindset and to consider that God may be calling us to “unusual” people around us. This Sermon as all sermons is a time capsule for an individual community. There may be elements that are not universally applicable and yet the scripture presented certainly is. My manuscripts are in a form that I am able to preach from, they are not grammatically correct documents. Where grace is required please extend it to me. May God bless you. The video for this message is linked below.
Next week, we will be starting a new series titled Sharing the Gospel. Over the four weeks we will look at how we can not only do evangelism or host an evangelistic event but to live evangelism. The series will be four weeks but in the middle of it we’ll have a special back to school Sunday. Two weeks on Sharing the Gospel, one week for back to school and then two more weeks for Sharing the Gospel.
For today we’re finishing up our journey with Jonah. Last week Jonah obeys God and Nineveh repents. Everything seems to be going incredibly for Jonah considering his blatant disobedience to God earlier in the book. Jonah preaches five words and a great city wide revival breaks out in Nineveh. You would expect Jonah’s response to one of pure joy. But, as we have seen throughout this book something is seriously wrong with this prophet of God. Jonah does not find joy in what God finds joy in. Jonah’s heart is not in rhythm with God’s heart. Jonah after everything remains unchanged. In the face of a miraculous success, Jonah chooses anger instead of joy.
Read Jonah 4
Jonah preaches, Nineveh repents, God relents, and Jonah seethes. Jonah is beside himself that we’re told that it “displeased him exceedingly”. It was so offensive to Jonah that in his mind what God had done was evil. The Hebrew could also be translated “it was exceedingly evil to Jonah.” I mean whoah! Lets, just pause there. Jonah’s heart believes that what God has just done, relenting from disaster is exceedingly evil. There are many people who view God as exceedingly evil. I’ve met with and talked to many of them. It just breaks your heart that they view God this way. It usually is accompanied by church hurt, trauma, or being raised by Jonah like Christians. But most people who come to a view that if God exists then he must be evil, do not begrudge God’s grace, but rather his Justice. Usually their view comes from bad interpretations of difficult Old Testament passages. Jonah on the other doesn’t view God’s destruction of Sodom and Gommorah as evil. No, Jonah views the lack of destruction of Nineveh as evil. Besides Jonah’s prayer this is the most we see Jonah talk throughout the book. In this chapter we finally see the full reason for Jonah’s refusal to go to Nineveh originally. Jonah’s reason for fleeing isn’t because he fears being complicit in the destruction of Nineveh, but well let’s just read it again.
Read Jonah 4:2
2 And he prayed to the LORD and said, “O 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.
Jonah is reluctant to go to Nineveh not because he thinks God is evil, but because he knows God is good. He knows that God is gracious, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Jonah knows exactly who God is and it disgusts him that God would include the Ninevites. Jonah knows that this is God’s character for two reasons. First, God’s character, his mercy and grace are what animate and drive the story of Jonah’s people. When you read the Old Testament you see Israel constantly ebbing and flowing in their obedience to God. And yet time after time God is gracious, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. In fact Jonah’s description of God harkens back to the well known story of the Golden Calves. If you don’t know the story let me give the briefest of summaries. God miraculously saves Israel from slavery in Egypt and Moses, the leader of Israel, goes up a mountain to talk with God. While he is away the people get antsy and nervous. So, they make Golden calves to replace God and worship. God is ready to pour our judgment but then Moses interceeds.
Read Exodus 32:11-14
11 But Moses implored the LORD his God and said, “O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ” 14 And the LORD relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.
Notice the language of relenting. Jonah would have been taught this story from an early age. He knows this is who God is. And then just two chapters later we get this description of God from God.
Exodus 34:6
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,
Jonah knows who God is because the character of God is wrapped up in the history of his people. Second, Jonah knows who God is because God has shown his character in how he has treated Jonah. As you read this story you can’t help but see God being gracious, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster all from Jonah’s sake. Jonah should have died but God saved him. Jonah fled God, but God pursued Jonah. God has been incredibly patient with Jonah. God calms the storm. Jonah even praises God for his steadfast love, but now that same love applied to Nineveh is evil. Jonah knew who God was, but it angered Jonah that God wasn’t more like him.
Jonah has what I’m calling Religious Arrogance. In Jonah’s heart, he thinks he knows best. When we judge the actions of God it’s a sign that we’ve become religiously arrogant. It’s a sign that we, having partaken in the fruit of the forbidden tree, believe we know better and can replace God. There are four attitudes that Jonah has that we should be on the look out for in our own lives. First, we can have the attitude that Salvation isn’t enough. Jonah isn’t content with his own salvation. In Chapter two Jonah is so thankful for being saved. He even proclaims that Salvation belongs to God. And yet here we are in Chapter four and it’s like chapter two never happened. Because as soon as God extends salvation to Nineveh, Jonah calls it evil. What Jonah once celebrated now is not enough for him. Jonah doesn’t want salvation to belong to God, he wants it to belong to Jonah. Jesus tells the parable of the workers in the vineyard. In that parable a man goes out and hires workers at the beginning of the day, mid-day and at the end of the day. When the time to pay comes around everyone gets paid a day’s wage regardless of when they were hired. Those hired at the beginning of the day protest the equal payments. To which they receive this reply
Matthew 20:13-15
But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14 Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’
For Jonah Salvation isn’t enough. He does not want salvation to belong to God, he does begrudge God for his generosity.
If salvation isn’t enough then what is? Well Jonah’s second attitude is what would have been enough for Jonah. Mercy for me, Anger for thee. It’s not God’s mercy that Jonah finds so offensive it’s simply that God applies that mercy beyond Jonah’s boundaries of Israel. Jonah wanted Nineveh destroyed. That is why I never wanted to go in the first place. He was hoping that they would never get the message and God would destroy them. That is why Jonah only preached five words and never mentions God or Nineveh’s sins specifically. And yet the Holy Spirit fills in gaps. This attitude is why Jonah after the revival goes outside of the city. Jonah is still hoping that God will judge Nineveh and he wants a front row seat. Unfortunately, too many Christians are like Jonah. We pray for the anger of God to be poured out on our enemies but for God’s mercy and grace to shower down on us.
The third attitude of the religiously arrogant is that they get Angry on God’s behalf. Jonah is acting as if Nineveh’s sin is more injurious to him than God. Jonah’s behavior suggests that he thinks God isn’t taking this seriously enough and if God won’t then he will. You see Jonah has a you’ll receive mercy over my dead body approach. But God has a you’ll receive mercy because of my dead body approach. Did you hear that? Jonah would rather die than see Nineveh saved. But God would rather die than to see them destroyed. We as christians are in danger of getting angrier than God and withholding mercy longer than God. God is looking to forgive and the religiously arrogant says “nah uh God, not them. Do you remember who they are and what they did?” God does not need you to be angry for him. God does not need you to be the dam that holds back his grace and forgiveness. God doesn’t want you or need you to be angry with him over the sin of others because even in what you call “righteous anger” sin finds refuge. Jonah lacks a fundamental trust in the pure holiness and righteousness of God’s anger. If God has forgiven and we’re still angry, it’s our hearts that need to change, not God’s. To think otherwise is religious arrogance.
The last thing we see here about Jonah’s religious arrogance is that his comfort > other’s salvation. Or put in more personal terms. Our Comfort > Other’s Salvation. Jonah doesn’t like the call to Nineveh. The thought of them receiving forgiveness is exceedingly displeasing to him. So, what does Jonah do? He flees to Tarshish! Jonah has more concern for the death of a plant than he does the death of 120+ thousand people. Jonah at the end of our story is focused on the Trivial and Temporal rather than the significant and salvific. When we are religiously arrogant we have bad priorities. We forget about the nations and focus on our nation. We forget about our city and focus on our church. We forget about the lost and focus on the saved. We leave our friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers behind because our comfort is of greater importance than their salvation. The church in the west has become incredibly soft and I’ll admit it I’m part of the problem as well. And when I say soft I don’t mean that the church needs to be more masculine, aggressive, or political. I mean we’ve grown soft in our ability to evangelize. It’s just easier to not have the conversation. Many of us don’t feel equipped, trained, or skilled at evangelism so we just don’t try. We worry ourselves with the “urgency of the generally insignificant.” Whether it’s out of a sense of fear or inadequacy it boils down to our comfort is more important than others salvation.
Now we move to God’s Object Lesson. We don’t need to spend a lot of time here, but I would like to point out a few things. God has pursued Jonah and Nineveh concurrently all throughout this book. Jonah has fled, God has pursued. Jonah has been disobedient, God has been steadfast. Jonah has called God’s mercy evil and God has offered Jonah that same mercy. God appoints a plant, grows it as a shade for Jonah. Even now God is pursuing Jonah. The mission is done, Jonah has obeyed. Remember God is concerned about Jonah’s heart. It’s good that Jonah obeyed, but his heart is still far from God’s. Then God appoints a worm to attack the plant. The sun rises and beats down on Jonah. How does Jonah respond? Does he cry out in prayer for deliverance? No, Jonah chooses once again a path that leads to death. “It is better for me to die than to live” he says. Then he and God go back and forth. Through Jonah 120 thousand people have been saved and yet he is so hard-hearted toward the things of God that Jonah cares more about the plant than the people. I want you to notice that Jonah’s last word is death. The last thing we hear from Jonah is death. Jonah says “yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” God has been gracious to Jonah, but he chooses death.
Jonah’s last word may be death, but God gets the last word in Jonah. The book doesn’t end with Jonah’s repentance or even his death. It doesn’t end with a full on chastisement of Jonah. The book ends with a question that is left unanswered.
Read Jonah 4:10-11
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. 11 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?”
120 thousand plus people in the city of Nineveh. 120 thousand people created and sustained by God. And yet Jonah begrudges God’s compassion for them and is angry about a plant as God says that Jonah did not labor for or make it grow. A plant sprung up in the night and perished in the night. The absurdity and wickedness of Jonah’s attitude is laid bare. The word used for people is Adam. ADAM! The same Hebrew word for the first man.
Genesis 1:27
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
It’s the same word. To Jonah Nineveh is the enemy. But to God Nineveh is a city full of ADAMS, image bearers, those created in the image of God. Should I not show pity to Nineveh? How could he not when faced with their true repentance.
In the notations this morning I’ve given you that question with a blank to fill in. The book ends with an unanswered question because the writer is throwing it back at us. The question God asks Jonah is also being asked of you. If you’ve already written Nineveh in the blank that is fine. But cross it out. I think that as we end our series in Jonah God is asking each of us personally “Should I not pity” and you need to fill in the blank. What goes into the blank? An enemy, someone who has hurt you, institutions and organizations for which your heart is hard. Your litigious neighbor. Your crazy liberal niece. Your hyper conservative coworker. I don’t know, someone who is still here at New Life or maybe someone who left that hurt you.
Maybe God isn’t asking you to be his messenger of compassion to them, maybe he is, but one thing is certain he is looking to transform your heart.