Jonah: The Idol in the Mirror

Did you know that God, in His sovereign goodness, has designed our world that He would accomplish His mission of rescuing sinners like YOU and ME by us. You and I! Just be honest for a second - that should shock you. You know yourself - how selfish, how consumed you are with your own world - and God the Almighty wants to use US to accomplish His plans! Wow.

Well, on Sunday our pastor spoke to us about one way God does this is through our generosity - especially of our money. Did you know ministry in this church doesn’t happen for free? Like it cost money to operate week to week. I have a budget of $10, 300 that I spend each year to do the things that we do at Fuel and throughout the summer! Can you believe that? And it is the members of the church - like you - and their joyful giving and generosity that provides a path for ministry like this to take place.

Now, why am I telling you this?

I know that 95% of you don’t have jobs where you make money, but here’s what you need to understand - part of being a community of believers - part of being a part of the Fuel family - is being generous with your money.

I have a book here: “The Money Challenge”

I have a booklet here: giving strategy at First

I have a handout: ways to give

God owns everything - including what you will make in the years to come. I want you to know that God desires, and demands, that you be overly generous with your finances. 10% is what we would call showing up - it is the starting point - but the NT is clear that our giving must be joyful and for many giving 10% of their money is sinful.

So let’s be a generous student ministry. If you are a member of First you need to begin thinking about this being part of your faithful service to Christ.

Awakening Prayer

Clifton Lamb

Student Led Scripture Reading

Bear Dominguez:

Jonah 4:1–4 ESV

1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. 2 And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. 3 Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” 4 And the Lord said, “Do you do well to be angry?”

MaCenzee Currey:

Jonah 4:5–11 ESV

5 Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city. 6 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. 7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east 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.” 9 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.” 10 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. 11 And should not I 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?”

Jonah 4:5-1

So here is something I want to put on your radar - here’s the word for you to hang it all on - generosity.

Now, why am I telling you this?

I have a book here: “The Money Challenge”

I have a booklet here: giving strategy at First

I have a handout: ways to give

So let’s be a generous student ministry. If you are a member of First you need to begin thinking about this being part of your faithful service to Christ.

Introduction

Play-by-Play of .

And that takes us to

Jonah 4:1–2 ESV

, “But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. (2) And he prayed to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish;”

So here we have the rub - God has relented of G-bombing Nineveh - which is like the Atomic bomb, but divine - He has said “I’m not doing that, they have turned their heart to me, so I will hold back my fury and show mercy”. And Jonah is like angry. In fact, the way the Hebrew reads it could be translated that God’s actions were “exceedingly evil to Jonah”. He’s so mad that he looks back at his disobedience and say’s “isn’t this exactly why I didn’t do what you wanted me to do?”

This is the human heart on display. I think this is why the true story of Jonah resonates with people because whether you are hyper religious and you are always at church and you love Jesus or you are a lost person following whatever you feel like doing - we all can relate because we are all sinners: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” .

This is how it works in our heart - we justify our ungodly and wicked actions. Like Jonah, “I knew what was going to happen God, I knew what you would do, and that is exactly why I didn’t do what you wanted me to do.”

How long has it been since you justified your sin?

-Today at school, yesterday on social media, last week with a friend?

Look - you can make excuses and justify your sin all you want, but it is only Christ, and not you who is the justifier of sin. Trying to prove your case before God is like trying to cut down a California Redwood with a square of toilet paper. It’s impossible.

Responding to God’s Word

Look at the reason for Jonah’s anger - look back at (v.2-4):

Jonah 4:2–4 ESV

2 And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. 3 Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” 4 And the Lord said, “Do you do well to be angry?”

So Jonah looks at God and basically throws his finger, that God made, in God’s face and say’s: “I knew you would be merciful…ARE YOU KIDDING ME…I knew you are gracious…SERIOUSLY GOD…I knew your fuse is long - it takes time for you to get angry…I knew you wouldn’t kill them because you are so gracious…and that, that right there is why I didn’t go.”

Here’s what we learn from this confession of Jonah’s: first, we learn that there are three ways we can respond to God’s word.

(A) Hear and Say “No”

So we can hear from God and just say no. That’s what Jonah did in Jonah one. God told him to go and preach to Nineveh and Jonah said no.

Remember students rebellion to God is as simple as telling Him no.

Are you telling God no?

-Is your reputation too important to live for Christ at this point in time?

-Are sports too valuable for you to be on fire for Christ and focus on Him and Him be the reason you play?

-Is that person too wonderful and is sin to tantalizing for you to say yes to God?

What are you telling God no to?

One way we can respond to God’s Word is by hearing and saying “no”.

(B) Hear and Say “Yes” Outwardly

The second way we can respond to God is how Jonah has responded in chapters 2-4. We can hear God and we can say “yes” to God, but in our heart we are not doing from love. So we are conforming to God’s standard “go and preach” but we are not conforming to God’s spirit “do so in love and for God’s glory.” Jonah basically goes through the actions with God. Here’s what happens when we do this - and we see it in Jonah’s life:

Stell bar - it will bend, but snap back. It will bend and break.

So, sometimes like in Jonah’s life we find ourself in a circumstance that is awful - in the ocean ready about to die, then in the belly of a whale - and it is the circumstance that puts pressure on us to conform and do what God said. But truthfully, we haven’t changed. And once we’ve cleared our conscience and once the heat of the circumstance is turned down - we are back to the same old person. We snap back to who we are - like the steel bar. Or, a circumstance can put so much pressure on us that we break and we lose our mask and we just walk in wickedness.

That’s what happens to college students regularly. They graduate and all their identity was in who they were and their reputation at school and then in one day it is gone. So they have a crisis of soul. And they had a Jesus cross necklace and they even had a bible that I bought them, but there was never transformation and the pressure of losing their home at school and their identity reveals their heart. And so they go off and pursue the idols of pleasure and position and prestigue at college.

Is this you? Are you like Jonah?

Yeah, you would say “I do what God wants” but inwardly you know that you hate doing it and you would rather do a thousand other things. Students, hear me - there is a way to obey God’s external commands, but miss true obedience. We need a transformed obedience.

Steel Bar - come back to the steel bar. But if you put heat upon the bar and you melt the center - to where it is moldable and workable you can bend steel and it stays.

(C) Hear and Say “Yes” from the Heart

Or, you can hear God’s Word and say yes from the heart. That’s true obedience. That’s what transformed obedience looks like. When you hear God’s Word and you say yes and then you do it from the heart.

Like you hear that you have an opportunity to “plan” SYATP 2018 for the JH or HS tonight - and rather than seeing that as another “thing” to do, rather you see it as a chance to minister to people and help them (and yourself) love Christ more.

Transition: so when we begin to hear the word of God like Jonah - we begin to be complainers “therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, it is better for me to live than die.”

And God’s response was - “are you kidding me?”

The second thing we learn from the entire story of Jonah that comes to a head here in the first four verses is that Jonah is an idolater.

The Idolatry of Jonah

Now, you may look at this story and go - Josh, there is no place in this book where we see Jonah bowing down to a statue of some animal or man or idol.

Josh, how can you say he is an idolater?

Because idolatry is a tricky sin. Idolatry usually wears a “cute” mask. Students listen closely:

(A) Idolatry is when you build your identity on something other than God.

We all have an identity—something that defines us. It’s an internal dialogue where you tell yourself, “I have worth because... (fill in the blank): I am a good mother; I’m good at my job; I’m a good person; I’m successful in school; I’m a great athlete...”

When you build your identity on anything other than how God feels about you, you are an idolater.

o When you build your identity on anything other than how God feels about you, you are an idolater.

And when your identity is built on anything other than God’s love and acceptance in your life, you become fearful, and hateful. Because there is always something about you that you think makes you worthy, and anybody that threatens that about you, you hate and resent.

So, for example, I’ve often been jealous of people who do the same things I do and seem to get more attention for it, I’ve often delighted in seeing them fall or struggle, not because I’m a vengeful person, but because I get my sense of worth from being held in high regard, and they are keeping the attention off of me.

For Jonah, it was his hate for the wicked Ninevites. Jonah loved his national spotlight as a prophet of God and guess who threatened that? The Ninevites. So their forgiveness meant Jonah being on the hot seat.

Idolatry. Students where are you finding your identity?

-For young boys in JH & HS it is sports, for girls it can be popularity. For boys going to college it can be sexual exploits (how many women can you be with), for girls it can be finding a spouse, after college graduation it can be earning capacity or status.

Students must of us don’t have statues of idols in our closet, but our heart is teeming with good things (or evil things) that we’ve raised to God status.

But Idolatry is just that “what you find that defines your identity” it is also:

(B) When you Want Something More than God

Do you find more happiness in being loved by people than known and loved by God?

What is it that you would trade for your relationship with God?

Perfect life - career, beautiful spouse, nice home, good kids, obedient pet, great vacations?

Perfect relationship - stem comes off that girl because she is so hot? and everyone knows it. Would you trade God for her?

See we need to become doctor’s of our soul. Recognizing what idolatry is and then taking out the scalpel of God’s Word to remove it by His Spirit is our calling.

So student, like Jonah, where do you find your identity? Like Jonah, what do you want more than God?

The real, honest answer to these questions may be hard to see, but will take you another step toward repentance and intimacy with Christ.

Transition: so that is scene 1 from let’s now look at the second scene.

The Young, Angry Padawan

Jonah 4:5 ESV

5 Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city.

Look back at :

Jonah 3:10 ESV

10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.

So, even after God has decided not to destroy Nineveh - hard as steel Jonah leaves the city and goes out to a nice cliff to post up and watch to see if God would perhaps this is conjecture but even answer his prayers to destroy Nineveh.

And this is where God begins enters Jonah into the Padawan training.

Jonah 4:6 ESV

6 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.

Jonah 4:6

So the Lord, miraculously, out of His sheer pleasure, makes a plant that brings wonderful shade to Jonah and Jonah is like - sweet this is awesome!

Now remember in (v.3) Jonah didn’t want to live, he didn’t want to be saved, rather he wanted to die. But now we see if Jonah gets the good - then Jonah is all about it.

Jonah 4:7 ESV

7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered.

So, now God continues Jonah’s training - He now takes away the plant that He gave.

, “When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint.” So here once again God puts a horrible circumstance upon Jonah - the first time God brought affliction to Jonah’s life was the storm in ch. 1 and now here in ch. 4 he brings a hot east wind.

Good hot - Mississippi steam room; Bad hot - summer of 2011 in fort worth - black blur fell apart, literally ripped out the visor in my car out of anger because of it.

All that to say, this was a bad hot.

And now watch how Jonah responds:

, “And he (Jonah) asked that he might die and said, ‘It is better for me to die than to live.’”

Now, understand students at this point - Jonah has even lost sight of Nineveh. He is totally self-consumed.

Jonah 4:8 ESV

8 When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east 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.”

Just when Jonah thought he was the object of God’s favor, the sign of that favor is removed - God destroys the plant, and he has a small taste of God’s judgment. Having lost the plant that helped to make his life tolerable, Jonah lapses into despair. His only hope is to die.

So Jonah taste’s God’s judgment and wants to die. I couldn’t think of a better way to say this - so here goes: when we look anywhere else than to God, when we take our eyes of God and the boat of our life turns from sailing toward God and begins to sail away from God - it never ends well.

One application I gather (at this point) from these verses is that all the happenings of our life are meant to drive us toward God not away. And when we are driven away from Christ and His church and His people only heartache follows.

Now God ask’s the question - has Jonah learned a lesson? What does He make of this lesson?

Jonah 4:9 ESV

9 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.”

His response is an unwavering and blind to the grace that God had given him. He resents, like the older brother in the parable of the lost son, he resents God’s grace to Nineveh and wants to die.

Just when he thought he was the object of God’s favor, the sign of that favor is removed, and he has a small taste of God’s judgment. Having lost the plant that helped to make his life tolerable, Jonah lapses into despair. His only hope is to die.

Thomas Edward McComiskey, ed., The Minor Prophets: An Exegetical and Expository Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), 587.

-Parable of the Lost Son - older brother response

The Minor Prophets: An Exegetical and Expository Commentary c. Commentary

“Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you,” he says to his father, “and I never disobeyed your command.”

And you didn’t throw me a party like you threw that worthless brother a party.

And Now that we know Jonah’s answer to God - God brings the meaning of His lesson to center stage:

Jonah 4:10–11 ESV

10 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. 11 And should not I 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?”

Do you remember that story in the gospels that Jesus tells about

“Jonah, how can you look at such a massive destruction of life, of sinful people yes, but people just like you... and even children, who are as precious to me as your children are to you... with no emotion?”

Look at what God is saying to Jonah:

Yet, over that plant - you pity?

When God destroyed the plant - Jonah was angry enough to die over it, but when God decided not to destroy Nineveh - rather than celebrate, Jonah get’s angry again. Jonah’s was convinced that Israel and himself were worthy of God’s lovingkindness and Jonah recoiled at the thought that Nineveh would receive it.

So what was God teaching Jonah and what is God teaching us?

He was teaching us about the fallout of our Idolatry. Jonah’s idol was self-interest and nationalist pride. And it blinded him from having God’s heart and God’s compassion for the world. He was so blind that he was angry over a plant that he didn’t take care of or plant, that was here a day and gone the next - and Jonah couldn’t see the lesson being taught.

Jonah 4:12

There is no Jonah 4:12. The book ends with the question looming. How does Jonah respond? What does Jonah do? Does he see his sin, feel bad toward God for his sin, confess his sin, turn from his idol and turn to Christ? We don’t know. I think that was purposeful - actually I know it was purposeful. I tend to believe that Jonah did respond in repentance to God. I mean he wrote the book.

But I think it is open-ended because we have to answer the question in our own mind.

Do you care? Do you care more for perishing people than you do your stuff?

Stuff that is temporary, like the planet, and on the scale of eternity, pretty meaningless.

Why do we have so much passion for things that really don’t matter at all and so little passion for the things that actually do?

So it ends asking - who will we be? Will we be a people who, like Christ, have the passion and compassion of God to see the lost and love them?

Or, will we be religious phonies? Come to church, sing our songs, smile at the correct times and go our way. Because deep down we are Jonah and we have an idol that we care for, that identifies who we really are.

Let’s be a ministry that is marked by conversion. Students who see and savor Christ and passionately pursue people who are valuable because we know what life is!

Related Media

Related Sermons