This is a mini message I shared on Sunday 7th of Oct for a young adults run service following a children's holiday program earlier in the week. The program was entitled 'Deep Sea Adventure' & we dived into the story of Jonah.
"Anonymous" spoke about
Jonah from chapter 4 now I’m going to share about the character of God from
chapter 4 with a particular focus on God’s grace and mercy. First I’ll share a
quote that I like which explains mercy and grace quite nicely:
“The difference
between mercy and grace?
God’s mercy gave the
Prodigal Son a second chance. God’s grace gave him a feast.”
When I explain grace
to children I usually say its God’s undeserved love & forgiveness.
Another way of
putting it is:
Mercy withholds the
consequence or punishment. Grace takes that one step further and gives us what
we do not deserve.
The final chapter of Jonah gives
us a unique glimpse into a conversation between God and His prophet, Jonah.
Here, we get to see the struggle between this reluctant prophet and our
faithful God. I’m almost uncomfortable with Jonah’s level of irreverence,
confessing he is angry that God has been merciful. It’s cringe-worthy. There
are a few other cases recorded in the Bible where people looked at others whom
they thought didn’t deserve God’s mercy and forgiveness: for example, Jesus’
parable of the lost son and loving father: the older brother who had worked for
his dad was angry at their dad when his younger brother came home after wasting
their dad’s money because he was welcomed back with a hug and a party. Also,
Jesus’ friends were surprised that Jesus spoke to a Samaritan woman as it was a
cultural no no. In the book of Acts, some Jews criticized the apostle Peter for
fellowshipping with non-Jews.
Sometimes we can forget that we were
outsiders once and we all don’t deserve God’s grace.
As Paul says in Romans 5:6-11, “For while we were still helpless, at the appointed moment, Christ died
for the ungodly” 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a
righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love
for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
9 Since we have now been
justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s
wrath through him (Jesus)! 10 For if, while we were God’s
enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how
much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also
boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received
reconciliation.
Also, in Ephesians
2:8-9
For it is
by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not
from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.
It is
only because of God’s grace through His Son Jesus that we are now in God’s
family, born again as children of God. Not because we were good and deserved
it. Psalm 103:10 - He does not
treat us as our sins deserve or
repay us according to our iniquities. Our salvation and what God wants
to do in and through us isn’t dependent on us. This is demonstrated with Jonah
in that even though he went off course initially God gave him a second chance.
This also shows us that we serve a patient God.
Isn’t it interesting that God
has the last word in the book of Jonah. We don’t know what Jonah’s response was
to God’s question, “Should I not care about the great city of Nineveh in
which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell
their right hand from their left?” (Jonah 4:11). It is thought that the people
mentioned in this verse, the ones who don’t know their right hand from their
left, are children.
We can read of a positive
response, in the book of Acts where the apostle Peter is trying to convince
fellow Jews that Gentiles/non Jews can indeed follow the way of Christ as
mentioned earlier. He tells the group that he saw the Holy Spirit descend on a
group of Gentiles, just as it had descended upon them. When Peter’s audience
heard this, Scripture says, “they became silent. Then they glorified God,
saying, ‘So God has granted repentance resulting in life even to the Gentiles!’” (Acts 11:18). Instead of
feeling anger toward God, they glorified Him. The Jews rejoiced that God’s grace
reached further than themselves.
Oh that our response would be
the same. That we would never underestimate the breadth and depth of God’s grace.
That we would rejoice every time His grace is given to someone around us,
remembering that it was this same mercy and grace that welcomed us into His
family.
God was concerned about
what the people of Nineveh were doing and acted on this concern by reaching out
to them by sending them a message via Jonah = Jonah 1:1 “Go
to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has
come up before Me.” This shows us that God is a God of justice as He wanted
their wickedness & wicked acts to stop.
Upon hearing this the
Ninevites repented – turned away from their way of living, to God’s way and God
had mercy on them Jonah 3:10 “When 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.”
Jesus shared the
Father’s concern in Matthew 18:14 “In the same way your Father in heaven is not
willing that any of these little ones should perish”
The message Jonah
delivered contrasts with God’s message sent to us via Jesus can be found in
John 3:17 “For
God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save
the world through Him”.
How
do Jonah and Jesus’ responses to God’s call differ? One of the children on the
camp would say nahnever for Nineveh.. Jonah was told by God to go to Nineveh.
Jonah’s response to God’s call the first time was nahnever – he tried to run
away.
Jesus was sent by God
the Father to go to the world and His response is found in Philippians 2:8 “And
being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to
death – even death on a cross!”
How good is our God
and how thankful we can now be as we have been able and continue to experience God’s grace,
patience, steadfast love, kindness and mercy in our lives.
