It Can't Be All About Me Series

ENGAGE

I have occasionally been known to drive a few miles an hour over the speed limit – especially on the section of Oracle Road that I drive almost every day where the speed limit is 55. In my mind, I have a very good reason for doing that, claiming that if I don’t, I’ll get run over by all the other cars who are driving 60 miles per hour or faster. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. I also justify doing so because I frequently see a Department of Public Safety. Pima County Sherriff or Oro Valley Police vehicle parked along the side of the road timing people and I’ve never been pulled over.

But when someone passes me, especially one of those drivers that is weaving in and out of traffic, my immediate thought is “I sure hope that person gets pulled over and gets a ticket”. And on the rare occasion when I’ve seen that happen I’ve been known to shout for joy and pump my fist as I drive by.

Now before you judge me, I’m pretty sure that most of you here this morning have done exactly the same thing. In fact, I know that many of you have because you’ve told me.

TENSION

Although you may not have thought of it in these terms up until now, this is just one example of our human tendency to want to be treated with mercy personally and for others to receive justice. When it comes to our driving habits, that might not be such a big deal and it probably doesn’t have much of an impact on our lives or on the lives of others. But we’re going to see this morning that it has a tremendous impact on our ability to love others the way that God loves us.

TRUTH

This morning we’ll wrap up our series from the book of Jonah by looking at chapter 4. But once again before we do that, I want to remind all of us of the overall purpose for this series:

1) First, I hope these messages have helped all of us develop a greater appreciation for the relentless love of a God, something that we’ll see one more time in the final chapter of Jonah.

2) The second thing I hope to accomplish is that understanding God’s love for us more deeply will help us all develop a deeper love for others, especially for those who might seem far from God or who might be so much different from us.

One last time, let’s review the overall theme for the book that we developed the first week:

Because of His relentless love,

God does not give up on us

even when we give up on Him

I know most of you have been with us for the entire series, but let’s take a moment to review what we’ve learned so far.

God comes to Jonah and tells him to go to the wicked, pagan city of Nineveh and to preach the message that God is going to give him. But Jonah runs from God and boards a ship bound for Tarshish, which is about 2,500 miles in the opposite direction. Once on board the ship a storm comes up and the sailors on board do what Jonah tells them to do and they throw him overboard, but not before they become Jonah’s first “converts” and they pray to God and worship Him.

Jonah is rescued by the most unlikely means of God’s mercy – by being swallowed by a great fish. While he spends three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, he prays to God. And then the fish vomits him out onto the shore.

God comes to Jonah a second time, and gives Jonah the same assignment and this time Jonah obeys. As I said last week, I think he probably would have done just about anything that didn’t involve getting on a boat at that point. He makes the trip to Nineveh and when he gets there he preaches a five-word sermon. And in response to that sermon, the people of Nineveh, along with their king, and even their cows, repent, and God stays His judgment upon them.

So far we have seen God’s relentless love at work in the lives of the sailors on the ship, in Jonah’s life and in the lives of the inhabitants of Nineveh.

You would think that at this point Jonah had to be feeling pretty good about himself and about God. God had used him to reach an entire city and those people all repented and God responded with His mercy. So you would think that Jonah would have been humbled that God had given him a second chance and that God had used him as an instrument of His mercy in the lives of the people of Nineveh. And you would think he would be grateful for the lives that had been changed.