Good morning. My name is James. I have a lovely wife. I have three children. But you probably
know most of those things. Here are some things that you might be surprised to learn. I've
been, you might actually know this one, I've been trying to learn Mandarin for many years
and I'm pretty terrible at it. I love K-pop music. Do you know what K-pop music is? It's Korean
pop music and it's wonderful. I can educate you later, don't worry. And I really like this
Chinese sauce. It's called Lao Gan Ma. Does anybody eat this? Yes, this stuff is delicious.
You can try this on your jam and cream scone later on. This is really nice. As we get to
know each other as people, we get to know what people like, but not just the positive things.
We also get to know the negative things about people, the things that are more sad than surprising,
the hidden sins, the personal struggles. When you get to know these parts of me, these might
drive you to drive you to anger instead of joy. What about when it comes to God? As we get to know
God, are we surprised that God can be angry, that God can be full of compassion? What if God is not
as we expect him to be? For Jonah, God wasn't what he expected. God showed a character that Jonah was not
very happy about. How do we react when we find out something new about God or when we see a truth?
How do we react when we thought he was going to be different? What happens when we are confronted
with an aspect of God that we weren't prepared for? Do we run and hide? Do we allow God to reveal
himself to find out more about him? As we conclude our series on Jonah today, at the end of mission
month, we are going to be confronted with a God of wrath and a God of compassion.
And we're going to be asking the question, how do we respond as we get to know our God?
And today we're going to be challenged by our view of God and our view of other people.
And we're going to do this in an attempt to understand God better. So as we do this,
let's pray as we look at Jonah chapter 4. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this journey through the
book of Jonah, that you have not only revealed yourself to us through your word, but you reveal
who we are and what we are like as people. Father, help us come before you in dependence upon you.
And Lord, help us not run away when we learn more about you, but run to you instead. Amen.
As we've seen over these four short chapters in the book of Jonah, Jonah has been called by God to go
to Nineveh and preach. Instead, he fled in the opposite direction. And then he was swallowed by a fish.
And finally, he went to Nineveh. He preached about the coming of God's wrath. And Nineveh repented.
They turned from their ways, from the people at the very top of society, the king, all the way down to
the very bottom. This is wonderful. It is great news. God's word has been proclaimed.
And people have listened and responded. It's what every prophet, it's what every preacher dreams and
prays would happen. That people would be confronted by God's word and have their lives impacted.
What better response to Jonah's preaching than the whole entire city repents. They change their ways.
How many prophets and preachers have had that kind of impact? And it's a bit of a surprise that
this book doesn't actually end in chapter 3 with Nineveh repenting and turning to God.
This seems to be the high point of the book. Why did it not end there?
At this point, we think Jonah, he should be joyful. He should be amazed at God's word has been preached
and people have repented. He should be joyful. But he's not. Have a look with me. Jonah chapter 4,
verse 1. But to Jonah, this seemed very wrong. And he became angry. It seems like a bit of a two-year-old
temper tantrum meltdown. Verse 2, he prayed to the Lord,
Isn't this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to
Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in
love, a God who relents from calamity. Jonah is saying, you know, God, I knew you would pull this
kind of stunt. These people are evil. They should have been wiped out. Nothing is going to change.
They're just going to act scared for a little while. And while you show the mercy,
God, you're just hopeless. They don't deserve your love. Your love is for Israel. No one else.
And because you've done this, verse 3, take away my life. It is better for me to die than to live.
Now, this seems like a bit of an overreaction from Jonah. God's grace and mercy to Nineveh has revealed
Jonah's real problem. God has turned out to be a different God than who he thought.
Jonah had built this box and put God in it. Jonah wanted God to be someone who had exclusive love
and compassion for Israel, for his people. And it was wrath and anger for other countries.
He's seen Assyria with its capital at Nineveh. They've risen in power. They've invaded others.
They've been incredibly violent, brutally killing many others. And Jonah wants God to show his wrath to
them and not his love and compassion. That is why in chapter 1, he flees from Nineveh.
He doesn't want God to get the opportunity to relent and show compassion, to reveal his love and mercy.
He was worried that God would show his compassion. And so Jonah's response to God being different,
to not being the God he wanted, is that he wanted to die. Jonah's effectively saying,
God, if you're not going to give me what I want, if you're not going to be the God that I want,
then do you know what? My life has no meaning and it may as well end right now.
Nineveh's repentance was pleasing to God, but it was threatening to Israel's political interests.
They were the massive superpower at the time. They were invading other countries and crushing
other countries. And it was very likely to happen to Israel. And in fact, it would later.
Jonah didn't want Nineveh to repent. He wanted them wiped out as a political enemy. Because Jonah
cared more for his interests, the interests of his people, than for the salvation of this city.
He valued God blessing his country over anyone else. And I think part of this comes down to racism.
We're going to take a brief tangent from Noah. We're going to take a short sidestep. I'm going to
talk about racism for a moment. Firstly, I don't believe that within humanity, there are different
races. I don't believe that there are different races within humanity. I believe that the idea of
race was created to justify one skin color being preferred over another skin color.
And traditionally, the lighter the skin color, the better, the darker, the worse. Racism, race was
created to justify slavery. I believe that there are humans and that within humanity, there are different
ethnicities. Ethnicities are good. Ethnicity is a biblical term. Our ethnicity is actually going to
endure and continue into heaven. We see this in Revelation chapter 7. At the end of all time,
where all nations, tribes and people and languages will be praising God. And this is something that
we love. This is something we celebrate here at St. Paul's, that it is our transcultural identity,
that we are people from different ethnicities and we get to praise God together just like it will be
in heaven. All of our ethnic backgrounds are different and we are all shaped in God's image
and we all, all of our ethnicities have value, but no one culture is the culture. None of us have
the right God culture. God wants all of our ethnicities and all of our cultures to be shaped and grown to be
more like God, to be more like the way He wants us to be. But I think our ethnicity, it is so tightly
related to our identity. You know, for me, I'm an Aussie, I love cricket, you know, we might say I'm
Chinese, I'm Sri Lankan, and we can hold so tightly to our ethnicity that it pits our ethnicity against
somebody else's ethnicity, to somebody else's people group. A proper way of describing racism would be
ethnic pride. My group's way of doing church is the best. My group's food is the best. You know,
Lao Gan Ma, I agree, that stuff is delicious. It's my people's way of doing things is better than your
people's way. It's pride, it's arrogance that is a defense of our people group. And I think it is
something that is very dangerous and it's something that we need to be aware of and to avoid.
Jonah has fallen into a trap of ethnic pride. The God of Israel, His people would have compassion
only for Israel. We need to be aware here as a church that the things we desire to see, the way
we want to see church done, is the best for all of us. And it's not just ethnic preferences. It's not
just my people's way of doing things. It is something that we as a church are journeying towards,
becoming trans-cultural, becoming a culture defined by the cross, as we want to treasure Jesus together.
Now that is a brief but important tangent on racism. Please come and talk to me later about that.
But coming back to Jonah 4 with his problem of racism, he has the audacity to quote God back to God.
The God that he knew that he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love,
in verse 2, it's a quote from Exodus 34 that John Sock read for us before, where God reveals himself to
Moses. And it's interesting because Jonah here, he reads God's words selectively. He ignores the last part,
which says from Exodus 34, yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished.
Jonah just remembered the part about God's love and compassion and said,
I knew you were that kind of God and I didn't want you to be that kind of God to Nineveh.
He forgot that God was also a God of wrath who would punish those who are guilty.
He uses God's words to justify his position of anger, but he doesn't read the whole paragraph.
He just chops out a verse at the end that he doesn't like.
He forgets who God revealed himself to be. And he makes himself look silly.
It's very dangerous to pit God's word against God.
One of the other people, I think it's the only other person in the Bible,
guilty of twisting and quoting God's word against God is Satan himself.
Remember in the Garden of Eden, Satan twists God's word to Adam and Eve,
and he does it again to Jesus, tempting Jesus.
While Jonah had been down a couple of chapters ago in rock bottom when he was in the belly of the fish,
he saw his need for God's grace.
Jonah has forgotten God's word and only remembered part of it that he liked.
And he's created a simplistic picture of God who just loves everyone without any judgment on evil.
He was so worried that God's character of compassion, he fled instead.
This is a danger for us.
This was a prophet who spoke with God himself,
who forgot about what he said,
and then got so angry with God he wanted to die.
How much more careful do we need to be there?
Our God is bigger than we know.
He is more complicated than we know.
We can't put him into a box like Jonah did.
We can't simplify him into a stereotype of a God who doesn't judge but only loves.
It is possible to use the Bible selectively to justify our actions,
to create a version of God that suits us.
It's possible to read the Bible selectively confirm our opinions against those who don't follow Jesus,
or those who are different to us,
or those who don't hold the same views.
It's easy to think that our understanding of God,
our theology is superior to anyone else's.
It can be easy to read the Bible and think,
yes, I'm right.
I always knew I was right.
You know, we shouldn't have voted that party in last week.
Or I'm so glad we did vote that party in last week.
If we read the Bible and it makes us feel that we are right,
that we are righteous,
we are reading it wrong.
Go to the book of Romans.
Be reminded of our sin and our dependence on God.
When we read the Bible, it should humble us.
It should change how we view our God.
It should encourage us with God's love and grace despite our flaws.
It should remind us that our God is loving and compassionate and generous
more than we could even know.
As we draw closer to God throughout our lives,
His different aspects will be revealed to us.
Our God doesn't change,
but our understanding of Him does.
Back in February earlier in the year,
we did a month-long series on prayer.
And ever since that,
I've been reading through the Psalms.
I aim for every night to read a Psalm
and then to pray through that Psalm.
And there was this one week,
I can't remember,
it was maybe about two months ago,
where every single night,
the Psalm was about the same thing.
It was about David praising God
about how great God was.
And let me surprise you
by you all getting to know me a little bit more
and getting to know my sinful heart a little bit more.
After a week of the same theme,
praying about how great God was,
I was sick of it.
I just kind of had had enough with that theme
and thought,
it's time to move on to something else, David.
I had a moment of being in bed.
It was about 11 o'clock at night,
I remember it.
And I was just in that in-between stage
between reading the Psalm,
meditating on it,
and then praying.
So I was in this in-between stage
and I was just grumpy.
Not full-blown Jonah angry,
I want to die.
But I was just a bit annoyed with God.
Ah, why do I need to praise God again?
I've had a week of this.
Come on.
And I sat in this funk for a minute.
And then God hit me.
I can't describe it as anything other than God
just revealing himself to me in that moment.
That he is so awesome
and he is so amazing
that he deserves not just a couple of minutes
of a week's night of prayer,
he deserves every moment of praise.
He deserves to be praised every day.
Every moment of my life.
And in that brief moment,
my view of God was changed.
Now, I knew he deserved all the praise before that,
but God surprised me.
Our view of God will change,
not because he changes,
but because we seek to grow and move closer to him.
And when we do that,
we can see him more clearly.
Are you growing closer to God?
Have you had your view of God challenged?
Have you been surprised at God's wrath against sin?
Have you been surprised by God's love and compassion?
Brothers and sisters,
let me encourage you to do something like what I've been doing,
which is trying to spend some time in prayer every single night,
going through the Psalms.
That's been wonderful for me
so that I can be getting to know God better.
Jonah's been angry with God,
and now we see God respond.
Have a look with me.
Chapter 4, verse 4.
Is it right for you to be angry?
God starts to deal differently with Jonah here.
When Jonah fled,
God was very firm with him.
He sent a storm to him.
He was thrown into the ocean,
swallowed by a fish.
Now,
God deals gently and patiently.
It's like a parent who started with,
you know,
go clean your room.
Come on, man.
Come on.
I'll help you.
He's changed his tack,
and he asks him the type of question
a therapist might pose to someone.
Is it good?
Is it right for you to be angry?
And Jonah doesn't respond to God's gentle prodding.
Instead, verse 5,
he heads out of the city,
and he sits down.
It seems that Jonah,
still angry with God,
he's gone and sat down outside of the city,
maybe to see what would happen.
God has decided to relent,
to show compassion and mercy.
Maybe these people would slip up.
Maybe they would change.
Maybe they wouldn't stay repenting.
Maybe they were going to revert to their own old ways,
and God is going to send a meteor against them.
And I want to be here to watch that happen.
Maybe that's Jonah's motive
for sitting outside the city.
Making his stay more comfortable,
God sends a plant.
A plant grows up.
It's a big leafy plant
that grows up and gives Jonah shade.
It eases his pain.
It makes him happy.
And after a horrid couple of chapters,
he's fled from God.
He's been on a ship in the middle of a storm.
He's been in the belly of a fish,
spat out,
preaching repentance to a city
who didn't want it.
Now he has a moment of joy
and happiness and peace.
It's that moment of finally sitting down
with a tea or a coffee
and taking that first sip.
Oh, joy.
But verse 7,
At dawn the next day,
God provided a worm
which chewed the plant
so that it withered.
When the sun rose,
God provided a scorching east wind,
and the sun blazed on Jonah's head
so that he grew faint.
He wanted to die
and said,
It would be better for me to die than to live.
Jonah placated for a moment.
He is now angry to die again.
Angry enough to die.
Life was good for those,
you know,
couple of moments
with that plant over his head.
He couldn't even leave me in peace.
It seems God has done
all of this in preparation
for God to teach Jonah
something about who God is.
This is the moment
that the book has been leading up to.
God asks him again,
Is it right for you to be angry
about this plant?
Jonah sulking,
I can't help but picture him like a child,
arms crossed,
humping around.
It is.
It is right for me to be angry,
and I want to die.
God reveals something about himself
in verse 10.
But the Lord said,
You have been concerned
about this plant,
though you did not tend it
or make it grow.
It sprang up overnight
and died overnight.
And should I not have concern
for the great city of Nineveh,
in which there are more than
120,000 people
who cannot tell their right hand
from their left?
Jonah had compassion
and wept over a plant.
God has compassion
over a city of people.
Jonah became attached
to a plant
that he had nothing to do with.
He didn't even water it,
but his heart was attached
to it in some way,
so that when it was destroyed,
he was destroyed too.
God says that he does
the same thing
with this city of Nineveh.
He attaches his compassion,
his concern,
and his heart
to these people.
Jonah,
because he's a human,
attaches his love
and affection
and his emotional dependence
to a plant.
He didn't look at it
and make a mental choice.
Oh, this plant
is giving me shade.
I'm going to choose
to love it.
It's leafy and green.
It meets his need
and he gets attached.
If you've ever seen
the TV show
with Marie Kondo
about cleaning clutter
out of your house,
this is what she is
working against.
You know,
we get attached to things
and we need to,
you know,
get rid of them.
Alyssa and I
have been cleaning out things.
We cleaned out
a lot of coffee mugs recently
and it was really difficult
because I was attached to them.
Didn't use a lot of them.
You know,
this is like one coffee mug I use.
We have so many novelty coffee mugs
that we just ended up
throwing out.
But I find them hard
because I attach myself to them.
But God doesn't need anything.
God doesn't need a coffee mug
that says,
world's best God.
He doesn't need a plant
to give him happiness.
He doesn't need people.
God doesn't need
to get attached to things
for no reason.
God is totally happy
within himself,
within the Trinity.
The love between the Father
and the Son
and the Holy Spirit,
that is enough
because that is love.
He doesn't need anything.
The only reason
that he can
love other things
and show compassion to them
is because
he wants to.
God willingly chooses
the things
that he will attach
his love to
and compassion
and grace.
It's amazing
that the God
who created
the universes,
the stars,
the galaxies,
the planets,
who can say,
I care
about these little people
on this little rock.
what happens
to them
moves
and grieves
me.
God is saying
to Jonah,
I am weeping
and grieving
over this city.
Why aren't you?
If you are my prophet,
why don't you
have compassion?
Because
the reality of it
is Jonah
is just not
a very good prophet.
prophet.
And Jesus
is the prophet
that Jonah
leaves us
wanting him to be.
Jonah didn't
weep for the city.
He left it
and was angry.
He went outside
of it
hoping to see
its destruction.
If he'd stayed
and kept
preaching
to this city,
maybe
they would have
followed God
and not
just briefly.
Jesus went
into the city
unlike Jonah.
He went
into Jerusalem
and he wept
over those
who would not
follow.
Jesus
didn't stay
outside.
He went
into the city
and he
was destroyed.
He died
on a cross
so that the city,
so that we
could be saved.
God has
chosen to
concern himself
to attach
his joys
and his pains
to us.
So much
so that he
became like us.
He became
human,
able to
weep with us,
able to
laugh with us
out of
compassion.
He not only
grieved to
see people
lost,
but was
subject to
the agonizing
pain of
crucifixion
to take
our place.
Jonah,
full of
racism
and self-righteousness,
cannot imagine
God saving
anyone else.
Jesus,
full of
love
and selflessness,
cannot do
anything but
sacrifice himself
to save
people far
from God.
Jonah
wanted to
hate,
wanted God
to hate the
foreigner and
only have
compassion on
Israel,
but God's
surprise character
should not have
been a surprise.
What surprises
him is how
his wrath and
compassion play
out together.
For us,
are we surprised
that our God
is a God of
wrath who will
judge the
guilty,
or that he is a
God of
compassion who
will show
mercy?
I've often
heard people
pit the God
of the Old
Testament against
the God of
the New
Testament.
The God of
the Old
Testament,
he's all about
wrath,
and the God
of the New
Testament,
he's all about
love and
mercy.
Many people
in the West
would expect
God to be
a God of
mercy,
because we
find it hard
to accept that
God should
judge people.
Maybe you've
thought that
yourself.
Other people
who come from
maybe a
damaged or
war-torn
area,
they have a
background where
they want to
see God
bring justice
and wrath
who punishes
those who do
evil.
that person
can be
surprised at
God's free
offer of
forgiveness.
Ultimately,
God binds
these two
seemingly
contradictory
parts of
his wrath
and his
compassion
together,
and they're
combined in
the cross,
the place
where his
wrath is
carried out
on his
son,
so that
his compassion
and love
can be shown
to us.
The story
of Jonah
has a bit
of a strange
ending.
After God
gently prods
Jonah to
have compassion
on the right
things,
we don't hear
any more.
We don't find
out what
happens to
Jonah.
I wonder
if it's
possible that
God surprised
him with his
compassion for
the Ninevites,
and Jonah
went away
and repented.
I wonder if
he was changed
and that led
him to write
this book.
I wonder.
The question
at the end
leaves us
to ask
ourselves and
to put
ourselves into
that very
place.
Will we
respond like
Jonah?
Will we
be angry
out of racist
national arrogance?
Will we see
God's compassion
on other
people to be
sent to preach
a word of
compassion and
repentance?
Will we
not just see
mission month
to be something
that is nearly
finished,
mission month's
nearly over,
but as
something to
spur us on
for the year
to see God's
message of
repentance go
forth to this
city and to
the world?
Will we let
our own
expectations of
who God is
get in the
way of
revealing,
of God
revealing himself
to us?
let me pray
for us.
Dearest
Heavenly
Father,
we thank
you for
how you
have indeed
revealed your
compassion and
your mercy and
your love to
people who do
not deserve it
that it invites.
And Lord,
we thank you
that you have
revealed that to
us as well,
people who are
not deserving of
your love.
Father,
we ask that we
would continue to
get to know
you, to know
who you are as
our God, that
you are a God
who will punish
the unjust,
but you also
show us mercy
in the cross so
that we can be
brought into your
family.
Heavenly Father,
help us to
continue to
journey to get
to know you,
to love you
more, to
praise you
more, and to
have a
willingness, a
desire,
to see your
compassion and
mercy spread out
from here into
Chatswood, into
Sydney, and
across the world.
And we ask
this in your
Son's name and
for your glory.
Amen.