If you were able, would you please remain standing for the
reading of God's Word this morning I'll be reading from the
book of Jonah, chapter 4, beginning in verse 5.
Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and
made a booth for himself there. He said under it in the shade,
till 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, got appointed a worm that attacked the plant.
So that withered, when the sun rose, got appointed A scorching
E 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?
And 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 into being in a night
and perished in a night. And should I not pity Nineveh,
that great city, and which there are more than 120,000 persons
who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much
cattle? This is the word of the Lord.
You may be seated. Does God exist?
It's the most fundamental
question that we can ask as human beings.
But there is a second question like it that we must also ask,
and it's just as important. If God exists, then what is he
like? The answer to that question is
what we call theology. Now you may think that theology
is just for old men with long beards and long pipes with many
letter bound books. Or you might think that theology
is just for grumpy church curmudgeons who make
Christianity cold and stuffy and rob the gospel of any relevancy
to ordinary everyday life. Remember when I went to college,
I was searching for what I believed about God, and I was
asking the question why? I remember somebody saying to
me, You know what? Theology doesn't matter.
The only thing that matters is your relationship with Jesus.
I wonder if anyone has ever told you that, Or maybe you've
thought it yourself. It's one of those things that
sounds right in a way, until you really think about it.
You see, because theology is relational, our theology
matters. And it matters because it shapes
the way that we relate to God. You see, you cannot have a
relationship with somebody that you don't know.
And the more that we know who God is and we're able to answer
the question, what is he like? The more that we're able to know
him relationally, the more that we're able to know what it means
to be known by him. See, theology matters because
every person is a theologian. RC Sprole put it this way, and
he says no Christian can avoid theology.
Every Christian's a theologian. The issue for Christians is not
whether we are going to be theologians, but whether we're
going to be good theologians or bad theologians.
And this isn't just true for Christians, but I would argue
every person is a theologian because every person has an
answer to the question, does God exist and what is he like this
morning? If you are not a follower of
Jesus, if you would qualify yourself as an agnostic or even
an atheist, you also have a theology.
You have an answer for what you think God is.
God does not exist. And if you are a follower of
Jesus this morning, if you are a Christian, you also have a
theology. The question is, where does your
theology come from? What has shaped your answer to
the question, what is God like and is your theology any good?
Now I want you to know that good theology, good theology, is not
just dependent on what you know intellectually, but good
theology takes what we know in our heads and transfers it deep
into our hearts because good theology always leads to
doxology. What I mean by that is that our
theology and seeing God rightly for who He is should always lead
us to worship. And we see this in the story of
Jonah. You see, Jonah knew who God was
with his head, but his theology didn't lead him to worship God.
No, his theology led him to be angry at God.
And last week we looked at God's righteous anger because we
considered Jonah's anger for God's mercy.
This week we're going to look at God's sovereign mercy and
through the story of Jonah and through his eyes, we're going to
answer the question, what is he like and how does that lead us
to worship him? So first thing we see in the
story of Jonah, what is God like?
Well, first, God is gracious. I want you to look with me.
Look with me at Jonah 4, verse 5.
We're told that Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east
of the city and made a booth for himself there.
He said under it in the shade, till he should see what would
become of the city. Now this is exactly where we
left off last week. Jonah is God's rebellious and
reluctant prophet. He refused to follow God's call
to go to Nineveh, and so he ran from God and tried to flee from
his presence. And so God sent a storm out of
His grace and his judgement, and he sent a very big fish to
swallow Jonah up and spit him out on dry land in order to lead
Jonah to repentance, to do what he called him do in the 1st
place, to preach to Nineveh. Jonah preaches to Nineveh and
amazingly, Nineveh repents and they turn to God and God has
mercy on them. And now Jonah is angry about it.
The very thing that he did not want to happen has happened.
God showed mercy to Jonah's enemies, so now he's angry at
Nineveh and he's angry at God, and so he's left the city.
He set up camp by himself, and now he's angry and alone and
sulking. He's throwing a pity party and
he's complaining to God. I wonder if you've ever been
like that, You've been so upset with God that you just wanted to
be by yourself, to throw yourself a pity party and to
complain about something God has done in your life or failed to
do. I think every one of us goes
through this experience now and again.
I had my own pity party this weekend, and now I'm not talking
about the first half of the Aggie game.
You see, when we confront something that God has done that
is disappointing or something that we're asking him to do that
he hasn't done according to what we would have him do, it causes
us to lose our trust in Him because in that moment we're
making ourselves God. And we're saying to God, you
don't know any better than I do. And if I were God, I wouldn't
have done it this way. And like Jonah, it fills us with
anger and we complain and we grumble and our hearts are
filled with doubt. This is where Jonah finds
himself angry and alone and complaining to God.
And God meets Jonah in the midst of his anger and complaint with
patient grace. Once again, God does not leave
Jonah alone. First God sent Jonah a fish, and
now God sends Jonah a plant. Look with me at verse 6.
Now the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over
Jonah that might be a shade over his head to save him from his
discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad
because of the plant. Now, grace is often rightly
defined as God's unmerited favor.
Another way to put that is that grace is about getting what we
don't deserve. And we see that grace here at
work in Jonah's life. God is giving Jonah what he
doesn't deserve. Here is Jonah, angry once again,
running from God, complaining against him.
He deserves God's judgement. Yet God is giving him grace.
God is giving him what he doesn't deserve.
God gives him a plant. Now if any of you have had
trouble with the book of Jonah in trouble with the whale, I
think that God sent a plant to Jonah in this moment is far
crazier. Why would God give a plant to
Jonah in order to make him feel more comfortable while he
complaints to him? What is God doing?
Well, I want you to know that the grace that God has for Jonah
is about much more than just a plant.
Once you look with me again at verse 6, we're told that now the
Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah.
This is the first time in the book of Jonah that the name of
God, the Lord God, that double name is used.
Before this, we just see the Lord.
Here we see the name, the title, the Lord God, Yahweh, Elohim.
It's the covenant name of God. We see this name in the book of
Genesis to describe the creator of all things.
This is Genesis 2 verse 4. These are the generations of the
heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the
Lord God made the earth in the heavens.
It's the same name that we see in the book of Exodus, the
covenant name of God, the Redeemer of his people out of
slavery. This is Exodus 34, six, the new
American Standard Version, The Lord, the Lord God,
compassionate and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in
faithfulness and truth, who keeps faithfulness for
thousands, who forgives wrongdoing, violation of his law
and sin, that he will by no means leave the guilty
unpunished. And in Second Samuel 7, it's the
same name that David uses in response to God's promise to
establish the throne of his Kingdom forever.
Second Samuel 728 And now, oh Lord God, you are God, and your
words are true, and you've promised this good thing to your
servant. What this means for Jonah and
for all of us is that the same covenant God, the God of
steadfast love who created the universe by the word of his
power. The same covenant God who
rescued his people out of slavery in Egypt.
The same covenant God who promised a Kingdom and a king to
come, who to redeem his people from their sins through the line
of David, is the same covenant God who has now come to Jonah
and appointed a plant to cover him.
Why? Well, verse six goes on and
tells us to save him from his discomfort.
But at face value this seems silly.
Why does God want to make Jonah more comfortable to sit alone in
his anger? Why would God go to such trouble
while Jonah complaints? There is more to the story than
just a plant. The word for discomfort here,
it's the very same word that we've seen many times before in
the book of Jonah. It's a word that I mentioned at
the beginning of our series several weeks ago.
It's the very same word for evil.
It's the word that we see in Jonah 4 verse one.
But it is fleeced Jonah exceedingly and he was angry.
The mercy of God for Nineveh was an evil to Jonah, and so he was
angry, and now God has appointed a plant in order to save him
from that evil. How?
How can a plant save Jonah from the evil of his rebellion and
his own judgmentalism for Nineveh?
How can a plant save Jonah? All over the centuries, scholars
have tried to figure out just what kind of plant this actually
was. Some have said it must have been
a vine. Others have said it must have
been Ivy. Many have argued that it had to
have been a gourd. My favorite is all of the ink
that's been spilled to argue that it is the Castor oil plant,
all because of the poisonous nature of that plant.
But there is something greater here than a plant.
God is appointed a plant to cover Jonah, to be a living
parable. And just like the miracles that
we see in the gospels that Jesus performs, this miracle is meant
to be a window to show Jonah and all of us what God is like, that
he is the Lord God, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, who
forgives sin, yet will by no means leave the guilty
unpunished. So the second thing we see about
God and Jonah's story is this. What is God like?
Not only gracious, but God is the righteous judge.
Throughout the Bible, botanical imagery is used to describe the
people of God. And this shouldn't surprise us
because our story begins in a garden.
And in particular in the Old Testament, God's people, Israel,
are described as a vine. Let me give you some examples.
This is Psalm 80, verse 8. You brought a vine out of Egypt.
You drove out the nations and planted it.
You cleared the ground for it. It took deep root and filled the
land. The mountains were covered with
its shade, the mighty Cedars with its branches.
Does any of this sound familiar? God raising up a fast growing
plant to provide shade. We see the same language used in
the other prophets. This is Isaiah 5 verse 7.
For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the House of Israel,
and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting.
And he looked for justice, but behold bloodshed.
He looked for righteousness, but behold an outcry.
So what's the point? God appointed a plant to cover
Jonah, not to make him comfortable while he complained.
No, God appointed a plant to cover Jonah to confront him with
his character. Jonah was angry because he did
not want mercy for Nineveh. He wanted judgement.
So God appointed a plant to cover Jonah to show Jonah that
God alone is the righteous judge.
He alone is the one who judges sin, and he alone is the one who
has mercy. And this righteous judgment for
sin doesn't just belong to Nineveh, a nation that warred
against God's people with great acts of evil, but that same
judgment for sin belongs to God's people, Israel.
It belongs to Jonah, and it belongs to you and it belongs to
me, because every one of us has sinned and fallen short of the
glory of God. Every one of us is a rebel just
like Jonah. Every one of us has gone our own
way. Every one of us has turned our
back on God. Every one of us is a traitor
against his kingship and his Kingdom.
And so after God appointed a plant, the very next day God
sends a worm Look with me. Verse 7 But when dawn came up
the next day, God appointed a worm and attacked the plant so
that it withered. Just as the image of the vine is
used in the Bible to describe the people of God, so the image
of a worm is used to describe sin and judgement.
This is Deuteronomy 2839. You shall plant vineyards and
dress them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor
gather the grapes, for the worm shall eat them.
We have 3 red oaks in our front yard and just last night my wife
and I were talking about how they don't seem to be giving us
beautiful fall color anymore because I guess we've reached
that age where we talk about our plants on dates.
And in particular, we were concerned and we are concerned
about one of these three red oaks.
It's the one in the middle. Because not only is it not
giving us fall color like it used to, but it looks sick year
round. And our concern is that it has
oak wilt, a disease that affects oak trees in North Texas.
The problem is, if it has oak wilt, there's really nothing we
can do about it. We just have to watch it die.
You see, this is the reason that throughout the Old Testament, a
worm and locusts are seen as one of the worst acts of judgement
that God would give to his people because they were
dependent on the things that they planted not just for their
beauty, but bear their food. So God would send a plague of
locusts or a worm to tear their crops away from them to decimate
their plants. All is an act of judgement.
But God doesn't stop here with a worm.
Then he sends the wind. Verse 8 When the sun rose, got
appointed A scorching E wind and the sun beat down on the head of
Jonas that he was faint and he asked that he might die and said
it is better for me to die than to live again.
The wind is a sign of judgement. This is Jeremiah 18.
Verse 15 But my people have forgotten me.
They make offerings to false gods.
They made them stumble in their ways and their ancient roads and
to walk into side roads not the highway, making their land a
horror, a thing to be hissed at forever.
Everyone who passes by is horrified and shakes his head
like the east wind. I will scatter them before the
enemy. God sent an E wind, not just to
fill Jonah's mouth with thirst so that in this dry wind Jonah
would be beaten down by the sun. But God sent this E wind as a
sign of judgement. And so here is Jonah.
He's angry, he's alone, and now he is weary and faint.
God has once again brought Jonah to the end of himself, and in
verse 9 he asks him a question. Do you do well to be angry for
the plant? Second time he's asked this
question, Do you well to be angry?
In other words, what good can your anger actually do?
Can your anger for the plant actually bring it back?
Jonah was angry about Nineveh, and now he's angry about the
plant. He's faint, he's weary, and he
wants to die. And once again by his grace, God
has brought Jonah to the end of himself so that he could show
Jonah his judgement but also his mercy.
So 3rd and final thing we see in Jonah's story, what is God like?
Our God is merciful. Verse 10, 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.
The word pity here I think is an interesting word.
It's not a word that we often use, at least I don't.
You could translate This word is mercy, but it's a different kind
of mercy. See, in the Bible, Hebrew gives
us really two different words for mercy.
And both of those words appear here in Jonah chapter 4.
The first appears in Jonah's prayer, Jonah 4/2 where Jonah
prays. O Lord, is not this what I said
when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee
to Tarsus, for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, relenting from
disaster. That's the first use of mercy,
but the second word for mercy happens here in God's response
to Jonah's angry prayer. Look again at verse 10 says the
Lord said you pity the plant for which you did not labor.
The word for mercy here that is translated for us, pity is a
mercy mixed with compassion. It teaches us that God's mercy
flows out of his love. The image here is that when we
have love and compassion for someone beneath us, a person or
even a plant, we're broken hearted over them.
It fills us with mercy for them. God's mercy flows out of His
compassion. And you need to understand that
grace and mercy, though they're related, are different from one
another. If grace is getting what we
don't deserve, mercy is when we don't get what we do deserve.
Mercy has to do with judgement. God shows us mercy when though
we deserve judgement because of our sin, He does not give us
that judgement. That's mercy not getting what we
deserve. And God here is showing Jonah
what mercy actually is. But he's also showing Jonah that
his mercy is sovereign because it's tied to his judgement, just
as God alone as judge. God is the only one who can be
merciful. And ultimately, This is why
Jonah's angry. He's not simply angry at mercy
as a concept or idea. No, he's mad that God is the one
who's merciful, because if he had it his way, he would never
show mercy on Nineveh. He wants to be the judge, and
God is reminding him in this moment, but not only am I alone
the judge, but God is saying I alone am the one who is able to
show mercy. And so he tells Jonah, 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.
In other words, he's putting Jonah in his place.
He's saying here you are pitying this plant, yet you did nothing
to grow it. You did nothing to plant it.
Jonah, do you not realize that in your life you have done
nothing to sustain yourself? But God the Sovereign One has
been there every step of the way.
Jonah was angry about the mercy of God because he wanted to be
the judge. And you and I are no different.
And we are so quick to want judgement for the sins of
others, while failing to realize that that same judgement is what
we deserve. Apostle Paul puts it this way.
Romans chapter 2. He says, therefore you have no
excuse, O man, everyone of you who judges for passing judgement
on another, you condemn yourself, because you the judge,
practice the very same things. Jonah wanted to make himself
judge, and in making himself judge he had mercy on himself.
He had mercy on US, fellow countrymen of Israel, but he did
not want mercy for Nineveh. And here in this moment God is
showing Jonah that he alone has the power of mercy.
Verse 11. God says, Should I not 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? You see, the same judgement that
Jonah wanted for Nineveh as the very same judgement that he
deserved, and the very same mercy of God that Jonah was so
angry about is the same mercy that he so desperately needed.
And just like Jonah, it's that very mercy that you and I need
this morning, the sovereign mercy of God.
You see, because what the story of Jonah teaches us is that not
only are we like Jonah, but we are just like the plant.
We're just like the plant. There is nothing any of us have
done to plant ourselves, to take care of ourselves, or to make
ourselves grow. We are completely and utterly
dependent on God. We are literally at His mercy.
And because of the worm of sin, every one of us is like a vine
that has withered away and died. But God, out of His sovereign
mercy, did not just send us a fish or a plant.
He sent his Son Jesus Christ. And on the cross, Jesus bore the
righteous judgment of God for our sin, so that you and I would
have mercy. And so, for every Sinner who
trusts in His name, Jesus offers this promise.
I am the vine, and you are the branches.
Whoever abides in me and I in Him, he it is that bears much
fruit. For apart from me you can do
nothing whatsoever. You feel this morning, however
weary and faint and beat down by life, however consumed with sin
and anger. I want you to know that His
mercy is greater because His mercy is sovereign and every one
of us. It's been called by Jesus to cry
out. Lord, have mercy on me, a
Sinner. Jesus is the true Vine, whose
love for you never Withers, whose sovereign mercies never
come to an end. Jesus Christ, the true Vine, is
gracious, and he's merciful to us, and his mercies are new
every single morning. Let's pray, Father in Heaven, we
pray that that would be the cry of our hearts, not just one
time, but every moment of our days.
Lord, have mercy on us. Sinners, we thank you that you
hear the cry of our hearts, that you hear our prayer that you
meet us with grace and that you've given us mercy.
And we pray now that we would live out of that mercy, boldly
sharing that mercy for a world that desperately needs it.
We ask this in Jesus name, Amen. Would you please stand?
Let's sing together.