Title: Why Care?
Text: Jonah 4:1-11
Truth: We are to share God’s passion for reaching the nations.
Aim: I want believers to express this passion by praying for missionaries and giving to
missions.
Life Question: Why should I care whether others hear God’s message of salvation?
INTRODUCTION
In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Frodo, the young hobbit, has been given the burden of bearing the one ring of power. The ring has the power of plunging Middle Earth into the darkness and terror that is just beginning to spread. With a fellowship of different characters, he is determined to destroy the ring by throwing it into the volcano from which it was forged. He will be going into enemy territory where the people are monsters of cruelty and pure evil. It is a frightening road ahead and he laments to Gandalf the Wise that the burden of the ring ever came to him in the first place:
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf. “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
Frodo and his friends, though reluctantly, begin their frightening journey with their great burden. Despite severe testing they keep moving forward because failure means the doom of Middle Earth. The Bible contains many stories like this. Noah spent one hundred years faithfully building the ark to save the human family. Abraham was a pilgrim all his life in order to create a family and find a land that God would use to eventually bring forth the Savior. The ultimate example is Jesus who would not be turned from going to the cross in order to bring salvation. Stories like these are what we are expecting when God calls the prophet Jonah to take the message of salvation to the cruel Ninevites. We could not be more wrong.
The book of Jonah is a book of surprises. For example, other books of the Old Testament have prophets speaking a word of judgment against the surrounding pagan nations but Jonah actually travels to the judged nation. Often Old Testament prophets are revealed as less than perfect but are still seen as the noble messengers of God; this is not the case with Jonah. He is not shown in a favorable light. Moses and Jeremiah were reluctant and shrank back from their assignments, but Jonah is not even hesitant. He flatly refuses to go. Pagan sailors show more compassion for Jonah than he shows for an entire population that will soon experience the judgment of God on their city like the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Jonah is saved from drowning by being swallowed by a great fish. He travels submarine style back to where he was supposed to be. This cranky prophet is used by God to bring the greatest revival recorded in Scripture to some of the hardest sinners in Scripture.
What is the point of the book of Jonah? Why did God include it in the Bible? That is a question you should ask of every book in the Bible. Until you have answered that question you are not ready to properly interpret anything in this precious book.
The story of Jonah was written to Jews who had returned from exile in Babylon. The people who surrounded them saw them as enemies. It must have been easy to believe the whole world hated them and, therefore, they felt justified to hate the whole world. The natural reaction would be to gather in their group to protect themselves. The book of Jonah challenges God’s people to rise above their hatred of others and see the world through the eyes of their Creator God. The only thing that equals God’s power to churn the seas is His love for His creation. God hates nothing He has made. He yearns to restore it to Himself.
Why do we care about two billion people who live and die and have never even heard the name of Jesus? Why do we offer gospel tracts along with candy on Halloween? The simple answer is because God cares about them. Because His Spirit lives in us, we share His passion to reach the nations.
Jonah, by contrast rather than by example, gives us reasons why we are to share God’s passion to reach the nations. Why should we want to reach the nations? I want to answer that by discussing three topics: God’s love, God’s people, and the lost world. First, God’s love is bigger than our borders.
I. GOD’S LOVE: BIGGER THAN OUR BORDERS (Jonah 4:1-3)
But Jonah was greatly displeased and became furious. (2) He prayed to the Lord: "Please, Lord, isn't this what I said while I was still in my own country? That's why I fled toward Tarshish in the first place. I knew that You are a merciful and compassionate God, slow to become angry, rich in faithful love, and One who relents from sending disaster. (3) And now, Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live."
Jonah saw God’s mercy toward the cruel Assyrians as evil; that is the meaning of him being displeased with God’s action. In this passage, the word furious means “hot.” He was fit to be tied. He could spit nails. God’s mercy toward the Assyrians made him blistering hot. Frankly, I cannot really blame Jonah when I realize what despicable monsters the Assyrians were.
One commentator said he told a story of Assyrian cruelty in a sermon and four people became sick and had to leave the auditorium. He had deliberately chosen a story that was not one of the worst examples of Assyrian cruelty. We are outraged over the beheading of four innocent people held hostage by ISIS. The Assyrians did this to entire cities and made a pile of the heads!
What would you want done to the person who molested and brutalized one of your children or grandchildren? Would you want mercy or justice? It is newsworthy and defies understanding when the mother not only forgives the man who murdered her son but then helps to restore him to freedom and a new life. I am not justifying Jonah’s bitter hatred toward the Assyrians, but I think I understand it. That sets us up for his description of God. The author sets us up to reflect on our own attitudes and actions toward the nations. Are they more reflective of Jonah or God?
In verse 2 we learn the real motivation for Jonah running in the opposite direction as Ninevah. His disobedience was not because he feared the Assyrians or that he had failed in his assignment. His disobedience was because he knew there was a real possibility of success. He knew it was, and is, the disposition of God to be merciful to those who deserve harsh punishment. One of the surprises in Jonah’s confession is God is universal in this disposition. It makes no difference to God if the person He is showing mercy to is an Israeli or an Assyrian.
Jonah addresses God with the covenant name of God—Yahweh. That name speaks of a special relationship He had with Israel. Israel knew their relationship was possible only because God is merciful, compassionate, and faithful in His love. These terms are used regularly by Israel to describe their God. Jonah knew if the hated Assyrians showed any sign of repentance, Yahweh would show them mercy and compassion. He did not want to take that chance. The borders of God’s love were greater than Jonah’s.
It offended Jonah that God would give the Assyrians something other than justice. It angered him that God loved the Assyrians. Jonah was angry that his enemies were not God’s enemies. God has no enemies. He loves all people. God’s love is faithful. Is that important? Ask that question of someone who has experienced unfaithful love. Ask Rahab who protected the spies and was told to hang a red cord in the window and her whole household would be spared the coming destruction to the city. Fourteen hundred years later she is mentioned three times in the New Testament and included in the lineage of the Messiah. Ask the parent praying for the wayward child or the mate praying for a lost spouse if it is important that God be merciful, compassionate, and faithful to love the lost one.
Jonah confesses that God is slow to become angry. We do not deal with a God who is trying to get even, measure for measure, with those living in rebellion. He does not delight in sending disaster, which translates the Hebrew word meaning “evil.” The word is not used in the sense of moral evil but in the sense of natural evil. Natural evil can be anything from something mildly unpleasant to a great disaster. Jonah is disgusted that God would withdraw destroying Nineveh like He did Sodom and Gomorrah.
As much as Jonah loved God, he hated the Assyrians more. Since he could not agree with God’s decision, he decided he could no longer represent the Lord. The best thing, he thought, would be for God to kill him since He was not going to kill the Assyrians. This shocking display by God’s prophet was to jolt and embarrass the community of God’s people and make them reflect on themselves by asking if any of the spirit of Jonah was in them.
To hate someone is a terrible thing but something worse is to be indifferent or apathetic toward someone. I know you do not hate people, but would an honest evaluation of your prayers or giving to the person on the other side of the world or across the street reveal an indifference to whether they go to heaven or hell? This indifference is the spirit of Jonah.
At the memorial service for country singer June Carter Cash, Johnny Cash’s daughter Rosanne celebrated her stepmother as someone who knew only two kinds of people: “Those she knew and loved, and those she didn’t know…and loved.” Do you have this type of love for others?
Let us look at the New Testament for a moment: it is the last week of Jesus’ life. He is teaching in the temple. The exclusivist, Jonah-like Pharisees, in an effort to trap Jesus, ask him, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” It is really not a surprise for Jesus to answer, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart…soul and …mind.” But then Jesus does something that was as shocking and odious to the Pharisees as the Assyrians were to Jonah. What He said next revolutionized the world. In time it would alter the way the entire world would think. No one thought like this. He laid down beside the first commandment another scriptural passage: “And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments”.
From that time on you could no longer described a person’s relationship with God by the fact that he does not work on the Sabbath, nor does he lie, steal, or covet. From that point on if you want to know if someone has a relationship with God, then you must look at the way he treats people, and especially those outside the people of faith.
God wants to make friends. He calls you to join Christ’s mission to befriend others. He wants you to share His passion for reaching the nations. What would be different if God’s love were to go beyond your borders?
The book of Jonah gives us three reasons for sharing God’s passion for reaching the nations. First, we must recognize that God’s love is bigger than our borders. Second, we must recognize that God’s people have confused priorities.
II. GOD’S PEOPLE: CONFUSED PRIORITIES (Jonah 4:4-9)
God seeks to use Jonah’s self-centeredness to help him see the very heart of God.
(4) The Lord asked, "Is it right for you to be angry?"
What a question! The you is emphatic. This man was drowning. God prepared a fish to rescue him. The fish was not God’s punishment of Jonah but his salvation. Jonah deserved to be condemned and judged every bit as much as the Assyrians, but God showed him mercy, compassion, faithful love, was slow to anger, and relented in sending disaster.
(5) Jonah left the city and sat down east of it. He made himself a shelter there and sat in its shade to see what would happen to the city.
He was glad to shake the dust off his feet of the doomed city. He got a good seat outside the city just in case God rained down fire and brimstone like He did before. Though they repented, maybe God would still hold them accountable for their wrongdoings. We know that forgiveness does not prevent people experiencing the consequences of their sin.
It is interesting to note how many times people going eastward were moving out of God’s will. Adam and Eve go east out of the Garden. Cain, the murdering son, goes to the east. God’s prophet goes to the mountains east of Ninevah to await the city’s destruction, but he is still moving away from God’s great heart of love for all nations. How much do you have to hate someone to sit down and wait and watch for their destruction?
(6) Then the Lord God appointed a plant, and it grew up to provide shade over Jonah's head to ease his discomfort. Jonah was greatly pleased with the plant. (7) When dawn came the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, and it withered. (8) As the sun was rising, God appointed a scorching east wind. The sun beat down on Jonah's head so that he almost fainted, and he wanted to die. He said, "It's better for me to die than to live." (9) Then God asked Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?"
At this point the author refers to the Lord God. The word Lord emphasizes the unique covenant name given to Israel. The word God is the generic name that refers to God as the sovereign deity over all nations. He will use God from this point forward to emphasize God’s concern for all the nations.
Did you notice the frequent use of the word appointed? It is the same word used of God providing the great fish to rescue Jonah. The word underscores that God is at work in human history. Despite the bad mood of His prophet He is steering this knot head toward His gracious purpose.
Henry Blackaby popularized for our generation what saints in the past have taught about finding where God is moving and joining Him in it. It is uncommon that initially we do not want to do God’s will. When I pray for Michael and Jennifer and this new adventure they are taking to be IMB missionaries, I pray for their parents. I cannot speak for their parents, but I might very well have Jonah’s attitude. I would be so humbled that God would use my family in such a way for His purposes, but that would not be my first response. I would probably want to say to my daughter and her husband, “You go anywhere your heart takes you, but you leave those grandkids here.” I am sure there would be some attitude adjustment on my part before I could see God at work and join Him in it.
The blistering sun is eased by the miraculous growth of a shady plant. Then the worm destroys it the next day and Jonah almost loses his mind in the scorching sun and the furnace blast of the desert wind. I read of records of people almost losing their minds because of unbearable heat and wind. Jonah demands that God destroy. God does just that. It is as if God says, “You want Me to destroy what I find pleasure in, let us see how you like Me destroying what you find pleasure in.”
Jonah has his priorities all fouled up. A world is dying without a Savior and we can get more upset over a drop in the stock market or a decline in our mutual fund. It seems to be the besetting sin of God’s people to have confused priorities.
If ever there were a company that has radically changed our world, it would have to be APPLE. Founded by college dropouts, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, along with a 42-year old named Ronald Wayne in April of 1976, they began in a garage. The company is now a multinational corporation responsible for some of the most innovative creations of all time—the iPod, iPad, iTunes, iPhone, iCloud, the Mac line of computers and laptops, Safari web browser, App Store, OSX and IOS operating systems, and more.
One of the incredible stories told about APPLE has to do with a man named John Scully. He had been the youngest CEO in the history of PEPSI and was sought after by a number of major corporations, including APPLE. He told them all, “No.”
Scully was the mastermind behind the PEPSI GENERATION ad campaign that catapulted PEPSI ahead of COKE for the first time ever. It was during that period Steve Jobs approached him to come work for APPLE.
In their final meeting, Jobs asked once more, “Are you going to come to APPLE?” Scully’s answer, once again, was “No.” But that would not be his final answer. Scully recounts what happened next. “When I told Steve that I would love to be a consultant to APPLE and help him out in any way I could, but there was no way I could see myself coming to APPLE, his head dropped and he stared at the floor what seemed like an eternity. I was not prepared for what came next. After a few moments of deadening silence, he issued a challenge to me that would haunt me for days: ‘Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?’”
What a challenge! And John Scully accepted.
I make no apology to ask you to get involved with our church and this missions emphasis. There are people here who will leave a mark on eternity because they made involvement at this church a priority. This place kept reorienting their priorities to seek God and His will for their life. Had they been left to themselves, they would have spent nearly every dime on stuff that is going to turn to dust rather than eternal souls.
I read something this week that has been nagging at me. If I live to be 74 years of age, the life expectancy for my generation, God will have given me 650,000 hours of life. I will be 58 this month. That is 506, 688 hours. I have used almost 80% of my hours of life. I like to watch TV. I am watching a program. The actors are different but the story line I have seen a dozen times. I already know who is guilty and how it will turn out. I have been asking myself if this is the way I want to use the remaining 20% of my hours of life? One third of those hours will be spent sleeping! Sleep is good. It is a powerful reminder that I must trust, depend, and rest in God, Who is the source of my life and energy. But I actually only have two thirds of those hours awake!
What would change if your priorities came to be more aligned with what is important to God?
One thing is for sure. Somehow and some way you would have more passion for reaching the nations. One reason I know that to be true is God’s love is bigger than our borders and our priorities would reflect more of the merciful, compassionate heart of God for the lost. A final reason is we would care for a lost world.
III. LOST WORLD: SHOULD I NOT CARE? (Jonah 4:10-11)
(10) So the Lord said, "You cared about the plant, which you did not labor over and did not grow. It appeared in a night and perished in a night. (11) Should I not care about the great city of Nineveh, which has more than 120,000 people who cannot distinguish between their right and their left, as well as many animals?"
Jonah cared for a plant because of what it could do for him. But it was just a plant. But God did not love the Ninevites for what they could do for Him. He just loved them. He loved them in spite of their sin and their inability to contribute anything to God. Jonah selfishly loved an unfeeling, unthinking, short-lived plant but God cared for people who were like children in their ignorance of God’s revelation of Himself and His commands. That is what I believe is the best interpretation of the statement of the 120,000. Even dumb, soulless Yorkshire Terriers are more valuable than a plant. “Should I not care,” God is asking the prophet. “Jonah, should you not care?”
Hotels care about their guests. They have all upgraded to flat screens, and wifi, and computer access. Do you remember the day when those things were novelties? Now they are priorities.
Hospitals care about their patients. I was surprised to see a menu like in a restaurant and to learn you can order when it fits your schedule not theirs. I remember the day when they brought the meal at a set time to everyone and you did not know what you were eating until you lifted the cover.
What about the church? Do we care? I hope that carpet ripped from the floor in the children’s wing, exciting new paint on the walls, and exciting new hangings on the wall say this church cares enough about children to change and update for a new generation of parents and children. I hope that new classes and structure in children, youth, and adult Sunday school speak about our desire to care for those who attend and those who have yet to attend.
Where do you start in caring for a world that is so overwhelming in its lostness? How about contributing to an offering that will join with 50,000 other Southern Baptist churches to support almost 5,000 missionaries around the world telling the gospel to the lost? How about praying diligently for the missionaries highlighted in your pamphlet? Last year they shared the gospel with 1.7 million, trained 23,000 nationals to start new churches and helped plant 6,200 new churches. There are still 4 billion who are lost.
I said at the beginning of the message that we should ask about each book of the Bible why God protected it and ensured it was included. Do you think that one answer to that question for the book of Jonah is God knew that I would be standing here in front of you on this Sunday to ask this question: “Do you care for a lost world?”
We are Christians. Christians share God’s passion for reaching the world.
1. “The Time Given Us,” Jill Carattini, A Slice of Infinity, www.rzim.org, March 16, 2012.
2. The New International Commentary on the O.T., Leslie C. Allen., p. 175-176.
3. LifeWay Adult S.S. quarterly, Family Bible Study, Winter 2005-06, Dec. 4.
4. What Matters Most, Leonard Sweet, p. 124.
5. Matthew 22
6. Barry Cameron, srossroadschristian.org/blog, “Do You Want a Chance to Change the World?”
