Sermon Tone Analysis

Good morning Family.

I also want to say Good morning to our Fairhaven Venue, Cafe Venue, and our Rockford rescue mission venue and to those of you listening online.

We are so glad that you are joining us this morning.

Today we are concluding our Jonah series and we are going to find that Jonah continues to have a heart problem and God is going to try to invite Jonah to partner with him to have a heart shift through a few invitations and Jonah is going to completely miss it.

I grew up as a huge sports fan.

It’s what my family does and still do.

One of the teams I like is the Detroit Pistons.

And it was really fun.

When I was in high school and the first few years of college, the pistons were really good!

No they didn’t win 6 titles but they dominated the east for 6 years.

When I was in college one night I got an incredible invitation.

A friend of a friend, was given bulls tickets by a friend.

These tickets might as well have been the equivalent of someone giving me $5000.

He drove us there…we got to sit on the 15th row.

I had been to one nba game like 5 years before this and we were sitting all the way at the top in the corner.

You could hardly see them.

But in these seats, you could see them clear as day!

It came down to a last second shot.

Now this whole experience which is still so memorable to me, was all based on an invitation.

An invitation that required someone to offer it, and for me to receive it.

Because someone offered and I received it, I have an amazing memory!

Here is what we are going to see today.

Jonah is given an incredible invitation from the Lord.

And Jonah, is going to keep resisting.

But the Lord is going to keep inviting, keep coming after Jonah.

Let’s pick up the story at the end of Chapter 3.

​ NIVWhen God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.

But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry.

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 and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.

Jonah is mad.

Why?

Because he doesn’t understand how a God can give mercy to his enemies the Ninevites.

In fact it is so conflicting for him that he says, I wish I would have just stayed home.

Jonah’as problem is that God doesn’t fit in his box that Jonah has for God.

And what we are going to see is that God is trying to expand Jonah’s box.

See Jonah thinks that he knows exactly how God operates and what he is going to do.Jonah believes that his people, Israel are the chosen ones and that God is going to destroy the others.

But what we are beginning to see, is that God is inviting Jonah into his perspective, into his understanding of the world, to see that he is also inviting the Ninevites.

He is so distraught by it that he says just take my life.

It’s better that I don’t have to be a part of this.

But then God says, is it right for you to be angry?

Do you think this is okay?

And I don’t get the sense that God is asking with a biting tone…It’s not “ARE YOU RIGHT TO BE ANGRY?

I think what is happening here is that God is continuing to show Jonah the need to repair his heart.

He is continuing to lovingly show Jonah where he really is.

He is trying to bring about transformation to him by asking questions and dialogue …but notice what happens...

​ NIVJonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city.

There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city.

So Jonah notice....didn’t respond to God.

He just ignored him.

He picks up and it says he goes to the east of the city and sitting down, here is what he is doing.

If you remember back in chapter 3 the prophecy was that Nineveh would be destroyed in 40 days if they didn’t repent.

And so for Jonah, what is happening here is that he is hoping that this is his Friday night movie that he is waiting to see not justice, but vengeance poured out on Nineveh.

Like I’m just imagining that Jonah is sitting there going, man this is the sequel to Sodom & Gomorrah.

This is going to be incredible.

Do you think he will use burning sulphur again, last time he used a pillar of salt?

What will he do for an encore?

And so he is getting comfortable and it get’s better....

​

only time Jonah is happy.

The only time he thinks of something other than himself.

Think about that.God has sent him on a mission to bring revival and he has been living in opposition, he has been complaining, pulling this whole whoa is me routine but the second he gets a temporary little plant to distract him, he is pleased.

He is the most successful missionary ever.

Preached a 5 word sermon in Hebrew and everyone repented.

and yet the only time he is happy is when there is a plant.

Again, Jonah has a heart problem.

​ NIVBut 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.”

But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”

“It is,” he said.

“And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”

So God has provided 3 things for Jonah.

And I believe that these 3 things were invitations for Jonah to see that he needed his heart to be transformed.

Think about this

The first two things God provided was a plant for him and a worm- He blesses him.

Jonah was a runaway and rebellious and his attitude was the worst, but God still blessed him.

Blessings are not given on the basis of our deserving them.

They are always given on the basis of God's grace.

Unmerited, undeserved favor.

That is grace.

But this is our problem.

We don't actually think that is how it works.

We say it.

We say it's god's grace.

But notice with me...when things go wrong, when the plant dies, Jonah lashes out!

Why?

Because he believes he deserves better!

He is living into the idea that he is entitled.

In all actuality, Jonah isn’t deserving of even the plant but he is outraged when feels shorted when he looses it.

If we are honest, don’t we do the same?

Don’t we claim our blessings are God’s grace but then the second there is pain, frustration, or they are taken away, we feel violated!

Why?

Because philosophically we believe that grace is unmerited and undeserved favor.

But at our core, we think we deserve it, we think we earned it.

And how dare anything that we have earned be taken away from us.

The second thing God provided was a worm (vs 7) - Isn’t that interesting.

He provided a worm to destroy the plant.

He does this to show Jonah that his priorities in life are wrong.

Do you need to repent of that?