1. "Aren't you grateful that our God is not a God of only first chances? Aren't you grateful that our God is not just a God of second chances or third chances, but fourth and fifth chances?"

2. "God is kind of like that father walking alongside a child who's learning to walk. And every time they fall, he picks them up and says, try again. That's exactly who God is."

3. "There's a real danger in exceedingly great cities. We can be intoxicated and lulled asleep by these great cities. We can see all the greatness that it has to offer and forget that it has great need."

4. "Repentance isn't just hearing God's word, agreeing you've done some wrong, mentally assenting to it, and then going back to your life and to your old former patterns and living in sin again. That is not repentance, that's something other."

5. "There's many in our culture and our society that want you to believe that God gives you mercy just to help you out and there's nothing He expects when He gives you mercy. That's wrong. He expects your obedience. That's what He saved you for."

6. "I think when history is written, when all is said and done, history will be kind to no one except God alone. He is the one who's doing all these things. He is the one being merciful in and through us. He, in spite of us, is gracious to us."

7. "Let's pray that this church would not be a courtroom but more like a hospital where people can come that are weak and wounded."

8. "A self-righteous spirit will always justify itself."

9. "Self-righteous anger is a lust that cannot be quenched. It only leads to more pain and it makes us look like fools in the process."

10. "People who have received much mercy, oh, they take delight in extending much mercy."

Observation Questions

1. In Jonah 3:1-3, what does God command Jonah to do "the second time," and how does Jonah respond differently than he did in chapter 1?

2. According to Jonah 3:5-6, how did the people of Nineveh—from the greatest to the least, including the king—respond when they heard Jonah's message?

3. What specific actions does the king's decree in Jonah 3:7-9 call the people and animals of Nineveh to take, and what is the king's stated hope in issuing this proclamation?

4. In Jonah 4:1-3, what is Jonah's emotional response to God's mercy toward Nineveh, and what reason does Jonah give for why he originally fled to Tarshish?

5. According to Jonah 4:6-8, what three things does God "appoint" after Jonah leaves the city, and how does Jonah respond to each?

6. In God's final words to Jonah (Jonah 4:10-11), what contrast does God draw between Jonah's concern for the plant and God's concern for Nineveh?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why is it significant that God's word came to Jonah "the second time" (Jonah 3:1) without any recorded rebuke or condemnation for his previous disobedience? What does this reveal about God's character?

2. The sermon emphasized that Nineveh's repentance was genuine, citing Jesus' words in Matthew 12:41. What elements of Nineveh's response in Jonah 3:5-9 demonstrate that their repentance was more than outward ritual?

3. In Jonah 4:2, Jonah quotes a description of God's character that appears throughout the Old Testament. How does Jonah's anger at these attributes expose a fundamental problem in his understanding of God's mercy toward himself versus others?

4. What is God teaching Jonah through the appointed plant, worm, and scorching wind in Jonah 4:6-9? How does this object lesson prepare for God's final question?

5. The book of Jonah ends abruptly with God's unanswered question in verse 11. Why might the author have ended the book this way, and who is ultimately meant to answer this question?

Application Questions

1. The sermon asked how you would respond if someone who deeply hurt you genuinely repented. Is there a specific person or situation where you struggle to rejoice in God's mercy toward them? What would it look like to take one step toward extending grace this week?

2. The preacher noted that parents should model repentance for their children rather than always appearing to have life together. What is one way you could openly acknowledge your own failures and need for God's mercy to someone in your household or close community this week?

3. Jonah was "exceedingly glad" about a plant but "exceedingly angry" about mercy toward people. What temporary comforts or blessings in your life do you find yourself more emotionally invested in than the spiritual state of people around you?

4. The sermon described the church as a hospital for the weak and wounded rather than a courtroom for the self-righteous. How might you practically welcome or encourage someone at church this week who is struggling with the consequences of their own sin or the sins of others?

5. God repeatedly pursued Jonah through difficult circumstances to reveal his heart. What current circumstance or relationship difficulty might God be using as an "x-ray" to show you an area of self-righteousness, bitterness, or resentment that needs repentance?

Additional Bible Reading

1. 2 Kings 14:23-27 — This passage provides the historical context for Jonah's ministry, showing that God extended mercy to Israel despite their evil kings, which should have shaped Jonah's understanding of grace.

2. Matthew 18:21-35 — Jesus' parable of the unforgiving servant directly parallels Jonah's failure to extend the mercy he himself received, illustrating the expected response to God's forgiveness.

3. Luke 15:25-32 — The parable of the prodigal son's older brother mirrors Jonah's resentment at God's mercy toward sinners, challenging self-righteous attitudes among God's people.

4. Jeremiah 18:1-11 — This passage contains God's declaration about relenting from disaster when nations repent, which the sermon cited as the theological basis for God's response to Nineveh.

5. Romans 9:14-24 — Paul addresses God's sovereign right to show mercy to whomever He wills, directly engaging the question God poses to Jonah about His authority over compassion and judgment.

Sermon Main Topics

I. Life-Shaping Questions Lead to the Most Important Question: How Have You Responded to God's Mercy?

II. Responding to God's Mercy with Repentance (Jonah 3)

III. Responding to God's Mercy with Resentment (Jonah 4)

IV. The True Test of Understanding God's Mercy: How We Respond to Our Own Sin and Others' Sin

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Detailed Sermon Outline

What questions have shaped your life the most? Think about it this way, what questions have led you to the season that you're in right now in this very moment? So for example, I think about my own life, there's four questions that I think of that have led me to this point right now, and they're this, one, back in 2011, I was living in the greatest state, that is called Alabama. And my parents were moving to Texas. And they said, hey, would you like to move to a lesser state?

And I didn't really want to, but then they said, well, you can stay in Alabama and pay for yourself or move to Texas and live for free. I said, i'm going to Texas. Amen. Moved to Texas. It changed my life.

A couple years, a year and a half later, I asked a question to a person named Megan. And at the time, her name was Megan McKinney. I said, will you marry me? By God's grace, she said yes. The next is in August of 2016 on a Saturday morning, I am like out cold, knocked out, and Megan busts into the room and says, Are you ready to be a dad?

I was like, I have no idea how to answer that question, but yes, I guess so. What am I supposed to say in this moment? Having Nora and the rest of our children has changed my life. And the last was a couple of years ago, right here in this church, or actually outside of this church, I had done the Weekender in May of 2019, and after the Weekender was over, Mark said, Ben, would you like to do the internship?

And little did I know that that question would change my life. What about you? What questions have led you to where you are in this very moment? Maybe it was for you, it was, what college will I attend? What college will I go to?

What will I study? What career do I want to pursue or city that I wanna live in? Or maybe, what person am I going to marry? Or maybe someone simply asks you the question, Hey, where are you going to church this Sunday? All of those questions are very important.

They shape who we are. But I think there's a question that is actually more significant than those questions. And depending upon how you answer this question, it will shape the rest of your life and inform how you answer those questions. The question is simply this: How have you responded to God's mercy?

How have you responded to God's mercy? That's the question before us today in Jonah chapter 3 and 4. That's what we're going to focus on today. It is my prayer today that everyone here Either today or at some point in your life, we'll repent of your sin and place your faith in Jesus, and then live the rest of your life being marked by rejoicing in God's mercy towards others. So if you have your Bible, I invite you to go ahead and grab those and turn to the book of Jonah.

In the red Bible beside you, it is on page 774 and 775.

So here's how we're going to break this down. We're covering Jonah 3 and 4 today, so I'm going to read all of Jonah 3 and then I'll stop and I'll explain.

So we'll read the first, we'll read all of Jonah 3 here. It says this, Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah. The second time saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you. So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days journey in breadth.

Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey. And he called out, Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. The people of Nineveh believed God and they called for a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least of them. And the word reached the king of Nineveh and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes. And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, By the decree of the king and his nobles, let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything.

Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and let them cry, let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we may not perish. 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 back in December, we covered Jonah chapter one and two. We saw that Jonah was a prophet to King Jeroboam II, you can see We see this in 2 Kings 14 and we saw that through Jonah, God's pursuit to save sinners would not be stopped. God called Jonah to go to Nineveh because their evil had come up to God, but instead of going to preach, Jonah ran. He fled. He thought he could get away, he thought he could run away from God's presence.

Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh because it was Israel's enemy, but Jonah was naive. This was not a suggestion made by God, but a command made by God. He was naive to believe that he could thwart God's purposes, but what God has purposed to do, he will do, and none will stand in his way. Jonah fled to the sea and sought refuge there, but God hurled a great wind against it. Shortly after, the sailors on the boat, they hear that the only way that the storm will stop is if they throw Jonah into the sea, and God appoints a great fish to swallow up Jonah.

He's there in the belly of the fish three nights. Chapter 2 is Jonah's prayer and his response. Jonah believes his life is over. He thinks that he's come to his end. And we see he makes an amazing declaration in verse 9.

He says this, Salvation belongs to the Lord. And this cry becomes Jonah's reality. God spoke, and the fish spat Jonah up onto the dry land. Jonah received God's mercy. In chapters three and four, we see why Jonah received God's mercy.

And I think Jonah three and four gives us two ways to respond to God's mercy. There's two ways that I think we see in Jonah three and four that you can respond to God's mercy. Two ways you can do that. The first is this, with repentance. Repentance.

Our second point will be with resentment. First point, Repentance. So this will be all of chapter three. So I only have two points today and they're kind of longish. And the way we're gonna break down these chapters is each is gonna have basically three sub points.

So the first is this in chapter three, I kind of see three sequences of events that happen in Jonah chapter three. One is what I'm calling Jonah's repentance. We see that in verses one through four. The next is Nineveh's repentance. We see that in verses five through 10.

And the last sequence is God's response to Nineveh's repentance. And we see that in verse 10. So first we're going to look at Jonah's repentance. We're going to see this in verses 1 through 4 of chapter 3. So look at this.

After causing the great fish to vomit Jonah back up onto dry land, dry land, the Lord speaks to Jonah. But notice what Jonah says. It says, the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time. Notice that God does not berate and belittle and demean Jonah for his mistakes. He simply gives him a second chance.

I don't know where you are today or what you're walking into today and the baggage that you carry, but aren't you grateful that our God is not a God of only first chances? Aren't you grateful that our God is not just a God of second chances or third chances, but fourth and fifth chances? Aren't you grateful that our God isn't like that teacher or coach or maybe even parent that you could just feel their disappointment? Aren't you grateful that when you walked into this room today, you didn't sense or see God's disdain of your acts this past week? No, God is kind of like that father walking alongside a child who's learning to walk.

And every time they fall, he picks them up and says, try again. That's exactly who God is. This doesn't mean that he doesn't rebuke or correct, he does because he loves us. That's what we see in Jonah 1 and 2. He rebukes Jonah because he loves Jonah.

But he always rebukes with the aim to instruct, to restore and to strengthen. It's exactly what he does here. We truly have a God who delights in giving his people new mercies every morning. Well, why did Jonah receive this mercy? What was the whole point of it all?

We'll look back at verse 2. It says this, Arise and go to Nineveh, that great city. God speaks to him and tells him to rise and go to Nineveh to deliver a message that God has set apart for them. It's a message that God will tell him when he gets to Nineveh. So once Jonah has gotten that out of his system, he responds, but how does he respond?

Does he run again? No. Jonah, he does what God says. He says he went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Jonah had learned his lesson.

And Jonah, he kind of paints a picture for us of what repentance should look like. We turn from our bad decision, we hear God's word and we submit to it. We'll hear more about repentance here in a few moments. God calls Jonah to go to Nineveh to declare a specific message. And this message was not a man-made message.

It was a divinely inspired message. It was a divinely inspired message for a divinely inspired mission, reconciling people unto himself. That's what God was doing here. He was giving his word to go out to accomplish a specific purpose. So yesterday we had the evangelism workshop, super encouraging.

It's a great time together. There's like 150 people just thinking about how we can be better evangelists. Talking about things that encourage us in evangelism. And for me, one of the most encouraging things as I try to evangelize is this, God's word always does the work. Like, it's not based on my creativity or my eloquence.

Like, it's the word of God that does the work. That's what God is telling to Jonah, the word's gonna do the work. You just take it and deliver it. I think that had to encourage the apostle Paul as he went through trials and struggles that the word of God was going to do the work. I mean, that's what Martin Luther, the great reformer, said.

He said, I did nothing. The word, it did everything. When you think about praying for our supported workers, I think the reason why they left here to go to a foreign country is they were convinced that the Word could do a great work among a people. The Word does the work. And aren't we living proof of that?

That for 144 years, Capitol Hill Baptist Church has been gathering here and God has been gracious to do work among us because of His Word. Not because there's good in us, but because there's such good in Him. Doing great things among us through his word. What message would Jonah share? Well, we'll see that in verses three and four.

Jonah goes to that exceedingly great city and he says a simple message yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. It's likely that Jonah said more than this, but this kind of summarizes the message. Judgment is coming. I want you to notice the description of Nineveh. It's called an exceedingly great city.

It was large and impressive. It might have been a city that the Assyrians took pride in, found comfort in, found security in, thought they were super progressive because of their great city. In your mind, what are the places that you've gone to that you would categorize as exceedingly great cities? You have them in your mind? Can you see them now?

So for me, there's three. And they're all D's because I'm a Baptist, and that's what we do, we alliterate. The first is Delhi. If you've ever been to New Delhi, it is fascinating and it's amazing. It's like an extrovert's heaven because there are people everywhere.

I mean, it's incredible. There's just people all over the place. You just can't like 2 o'clock in the morning, there's like a million people just standing around hanging out. Like, it's just crazy. The next is Dubai.

When you go to Dubai, one, it's the hottest place I've ever been in my entire life. It's fascinating that people live there. And secondly, the Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in all the world. I mean, it's just so impressive. It's like arresting as you stare at it.

And the next one, and I'm not just saying this, one of the most impressive cities to me is where we live, is DC. I mean, it is a beautiful city, amazing architecture, great restaurants, great coffee, easy to walk, easy to get around. I mean, you have the Capitol building. I mean, some of you people get to work in that building. It's amazing.

It's so impressive. And many consider DC kind of the hub of power and influence in all the world. And there's a real danger in exceedingly great cities. We can be intoxicated and lulled asleep by these great cities. We can see all the greatness that it has to offer and forget that it has great need.

Brothers and sisters, we would be deceived to think that our city isn't like Nineveh. We desperately need to hear a word of God. We need to pray that God would be merciful to our city like He was merciful to Nineveh and send out His word to bring repentance so that people might know Him and be reconciled to Him.

So notice the description of it. I've already mentioned that, so sorry. What is impressive in the world's eyes is not impressive to God. He's no respecter of persons or places, but He is a merciful and gracious God and He sends forth His word to expose great need. And to draw people unto himself.

That's exactly what God does with Jonah here in Nineveh. So we see that Jonah repents and he goes and he preaches. Well, the next thing we're gonna see is Nineveh's repentance. This is my sub point to Nineveh's repentance. So we're gonna see this in verses 5 through 9 of chapter 3.

Jonah goes to Nineveh. He preaches the message that he received from the Lord. What happens next is not because Jonah was so intelligent or so eloquent. Only the power of God can do what happens next. What happened?

Well, look down in your Bible. Look at verse five. It says, the people of Nineveh believed God and they called for a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least of them. What happened in the city? Revival happened in the city.

People repented. They heard God's word and they believed God's word and it radically changed their life. And notice that this isn't just a few people, it's all people. It's from the greatest of them to the least of them. It was whole families repenting and crying out to God for salvation.

It was a family affair. And parents in the room, I think this teaches us how we should model repentance for our own children. I think there's a real temptation as a parent to have your life together. To show them how they should live. But some of the best lessons is to show them how you make mistakes and how you respond to those mistakes.

So regardless of how old your kids are, whether they're toddlers or in high school or in college or adults, model repentance for your own children. Show them what it looks like to cry out to God and to ask for forgiveness and then let them hear you rejoice that God has forgiven you in Christ. Let them hear those things. Who knows? It might be through them hearing you repent that God leads them to faith in Jesus.

It's not just the great and small in Nineveh that repent. We also see here in verse 6 that the word reached the king of Nineveh. His response? He himself believes. It says he removed his robe and covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes.

What does this mean? Sackcloth and ashes? It's a sign of humility. It's a sign of being humble. It's a sign of self-humiliation and submission and grieving.

By putting on the sackcloth and sitting in ashes, the people of Nineveh were saying, God, we agree. We are an evil people and we have done wrong. They cry out for mercy. I mean, just listen to this decree, this cry of repentance from the king in verse 7 or 7 through 9. It says he issued a proclamation published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles.

Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows?

God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we might not perish. They had received the word of the Lord and it had changed their life. Was this a genuine repentance or were they just doing this so they didn't experience God's judgment? Well, Jesus commentary, Matthew 12, communicates it was a real repentance. Matthew 12:41, Jesus uses Nineveh to condemn his own generation.

He says this, the men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah. This was a real life-changing repentance. The word, they heard it and they received it. And this is a model for us of what actual repentance looks like. See repentance isn't just hearing God's word, agreeing you've done some wrong, mentally assenting to it, and then going back to your life and to your old former patterns and living in sin again.

That is not repentance, that's something other. No repentance is hearing God's word about your sin, being grieved over your sin, admitting to God that it's wrong, crying to God for help, and then submitting to God in his word. That is what repentance looks like. See, there's many in our culture and our society that want you to believe that God gives you mercy and just to help you out and there's nothing He expects when He gives you mercy. That's wrong.

He expects your obedience. That's what He saved you for. That's why He's extending mercy to you, not so you could continue to live in sin, but so you'd walk in obedience towards Him. That's exactly what God does with Nineveh. He extends mercy so that we live a life of obedience.

For us believers, this repentance isn't just what we do when we become a Christian, when we're converted. Our lives are supposed to be marked by repentance. It's the entire life. We've heard this quote by Martin Luther, but I think it's super helpful. He says, When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said repent, he intended the entire life of a believer should be repentance.

That's what Christ calls us to and that's what he expects of us. So if you're here and you don't identify as a follower of Jesus, we are so thankful that you're here and you're welcome at any of our services. And I don't know what your experience has been like around other Christians. I grew up with a lot of people who were called Christians and they were very self-righteous and they did not, they acted like they had their life together. So we're a different kind of Christian.

We recognize we're actually kind of messed up. And we've actually done wrong. And most weeks in our services we have a prayer of confession because we realize each and every week we make mistakes and we come together to talk about those mistakes and we cry out to Jesus for mercy. And because of what he's done we can receive that mercy. That's why tonight we'll celebrate the Lord's Supper.

It's a gift from God that he's given us in our church so that we would repent, see what we've done and cast ourselves on Jesus for more mercy. So I'd be curious, the person that brought you today, I would encourage you to talk to them and just say, why do you confess your sins if you're already forgiven? It'd be a good topic of conversation over lunch, I think. Well, how does God respond to the people's repentance? What does God do?

This is my third subpoint here under repentance. We'll see God's response. See this in verse 10. It says, When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he said he would do to them and he did not do it. So God, in his mercy, sends forth his word.

It accomplishes its purpose. People repent and turn towards him. But how does God respond? There's two things I think God does here that are so encouraging. First is this, God sees what they do.

God sees what they do. This shows us that God is not a distant God. He's not out governing all the other things, distracted, not paying attention to what is going on. No, he sees all and he knows all. There are some in the world, like open theists, that say that God can't see all and God can't know all.

They would describe God almost like a weatherman who's kind of predicting the weather, not certain if it's going to happen or not, giving a warning that it might happen, can't prevent it from happening, is just kind of giving an update. But that's not how God describes himself at all in the Word of God. No, God says, Not only do I know all and see all and know all human history, I declared it and I will govern it for my own purposes and for my own ends, glorifying myself by redeeming a people unto myself for all eternity. That's what God is doing here. He sees them, sees what they do.

And the next is this, God is faithful to his promise. God is faithful to his promise here. Some might say that God is being reactionary to Nineveh, that his actions are dictated by theirs, but that's not true at all. Because that's not how God has revealed himself. No, God is acting consistently with his own character.

And God is acting consistently with how he's revealed himself in his word. This is what he says to the prophet Jeremiah, Jeremiah 18, verses 7 through 8. God says to Jeremiah, if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation concerning which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. That's exactly what God does here. He is faithful to His promise.

For those here who are not Christian, that same promise is available to you today. I mean, just listen what Jesus says in John 5. It's almost exactly what God is saying in Jeremiah 18. Jesus says this in John 5:24, Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life. He does not come into judgment but has passed from death to life.

So you may ask this question, are you repentant? Have you turned from your sins and placed your faith in Jesus? What would keep you from doing that? Because that's what it requires. See, we're all like Nineveh.

We are all sinners and we all have done wrong. And because of this, we deserve to experience God's good and right Judgment. Now we'll see later that the people of Nineveh were a wicked people and did really awful things. And there's oftentimes I think some confusing thinking where people think, well, sometimes God gives us his mercy, sometimes God gives us his justice, and that's not how it works at all. You see, when God extends mercy to Nineveh, it means that someone else must take their place, that someone else must be judged on their behalf.

And who did that? Oh, it was Jesus Christ. Jesus came and lived the life that you and I and Nineveh could not live and died on the cross in our place and took that right judgment that we deserve. He took it on himself, was physically raised to life so that we would experience the mercy of God by repenting of our sins and placing our faith in him. Well, friend, I would plead with you, place your faith in Jesus.

Cry out to him today. After service, I would encourage you to go eat some cookies and hang out and drink coffee and just find somebody and say, Hey, what does it mean to be a Christian? There will be pastors at the door. We would love to talk to you about that. God extends mercy.

He sends out his word and people repent. Now that sounds like the ending of a sermon. We should just close our Bibles and go home, right? What else is there to say? I mean, this massive revival broke out.

Let's pray, let's go eat some stale cookies in the back, and then let's go take a nap. But that's not what happens in the book of Jonah. No, it's kind of strange what happens. It's like a director's cut where the director kept the camera rolling so we get to see the extended version. In chapter 4, we get a greater glimpse of both who God is and who Jonah is.

So let's read chapter 4 to see what happens.

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly. And he was angry. 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.

Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. And the Lord said, Do you do well to be angry? 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. Now the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come 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. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant so that it withered. And 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.' 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.' 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. 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?

So our question has been, how do you respond to God's mercy? Or how have you responded to God's mercy? Jonah 3 offers us one way, repentance. I think Jonah 4 offers another way, resentment. Resentment, that's my second point.

So what we're going to do is we're going to break down Jonah 4 into three different sections. The first, we'll see Jonah's anger. That's in verses 1 through 4. The next is God's lesson to Jonah. That's verses 5 through 9.

And the third thing we see is God's question to Jonah. That's verses 10 through 11. So first, what we're going to do now is look at Jonah's anger. So yes, Jonah responded to God's mercy with repentance in chapter 3. However, Jonah's response to Nineveh repenting, well, it tempts us to question the genuine fruit of repentance in Jonah's life.

So look down at verse 1 and see Jonah's response to God's mercy towards Nineveh. It says this, It displeased Jonah exceedingly. Look at the footnote by the word exceedingly down in your Bibles. It says this, it was exceedingly evil to Jonah. So what God did for Nineveh was evil in Jonah's eyes.

In other words, he wasn't happy about it. Why? Because Jonah believed what God did was actually unjust. Thought it was unjust that God would forgive Nineveh. You see, Nineveh was the capital city of Assyria.

Assyria was the greatest enemy of Israel at the time. They were known for being corrupt and brutal and cruel. They would terrorize and torment their enemies and captors. They would dismember, they would kill and dismember citizens, kings and soldiers and monarchs and they would hang their bodies throughout their cities as trophies. They took pride in being merciless.

They truly were a people who did not fear God and they did what was right in their own eyes. What makes it more interesting is this group of people, the Assyrians, would be the very people that God would use in 2 Kings 17 to come and to bring discipline on an evil people called Israel. It's a very group that God sent Jonah to is the very people that would exile Jonah's people a few chapters later in 2 Kings. Why? Why was Jonah angry?

Because God was merciful to him. He hated Nineveh. He hated Assyria. He wanted justice to be done.

Jonah tells us he wanted to go nowhere near Nineveh because he knew that God would be gracious and would relent from disaster. But my question is this, how did Jonah know? Like how did he know that when he was going to preach the message to Nineveh that they would actually repent and then God would relent from disaster? How did he know that? Because I think it's this, because Jonah had firsthand experience.

See, there's another group of people that did evil in the sight of the Lord, did wicked things in the sight of the Lord. And God was gracious and merciful to them and was slow to anger and did not bring disaster. Who was that? It was Jonah's own people. It was Israel.

I mean, just open your Bible to 2 Kings and it's king after Solomon, king after king. They do what's evil in the sight of the Lord and what does God do? He gives them grace. He does not bring disaster. I mean, even look at the king that Jonah served.

Turn your Bibles to 2 Kings 14. 2 Kings 14. We're just going to see where Jonah is mentioned. We're going to see verses 23 through 26.

And just look how Jeroboam, The second, how he's described. Was he a righteous king? Did he do what was right? Did he submit to God's law? Did he lead Israel to submit to the word of the Lord?

No, it says this, verse 23. In the 15th year, year of Amaziah, the son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, began to reign in Samaria. He reigned 41 years, and he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. Well, who was his prophet? What was Jonah?

We see that later on in verse 25, the son of Amittai, the very one we've been reading about and talking about. But notice here in verse 26, notice how bleak the situation is. For the Lord saw that the affliction of Israel was very bitter. But there was none left, bond or free, there was none to help Israel. But the Lord had not said that He would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven.

So He saved them by the hand of Jeroboam, the son of Joash. So why did God save them? Because God promised that He wouldn't destroy them completely, that there would be a remnant. And there was none to save them. There was none in Israel who could do it because they had been so wicked and acted so corruptly that they were left on their own and there was only one who could save and that was God, Him.

Self. But this act of God's mercy towards Jonah's own people should have led to Jonah rejoicing and exulting in God's mercy. It should have shaped his life and shaped how he viewed other people. But the problem is this. Jonah was self-righteous.

He believed he was morally superior to the people around him. He was blinded by his own sin. Jonah, in many ways, is a living example of so many of the prophets or the parables that Jesus told us about. Remember Matthew 18, when Peter comes to Jesus and says, Hey, if my brother sins against me, how many times should I forgive him? Seven times seven or seven?

Jesus says, 70 times seven. And then Jesus, and I encourage you to read this later, the full thing, tells this parable of this unforgiving servant who has a great debt and he goes to his master and says, I can't pay my debt and the master is going to sell him off and throw his family into prison and all these different things are going to happen. He pleads. You know what his master does? He gives him mercy.

And immediately after the servant leaves, he goes out and he finds the man who owes him a very little amount of money and he chokes him and says, Pay me now. He throws the man into prison. The master hears and his response in verse 32 and 33 is how the master responds to this unforgiving servant. Then his master summoned him and said to him, 'You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?

See, that's the reason why God was merciful to Israel. So they might extend that mercy even to wicked people like Nineveh. And it's easy for us to condemn Jonah today. I mean, it's easy for us to look at him and say, How could he do that? I mean, just reading from chapter four to three, you just start thinking about, he probably had this in his heart when he went and preached to Nineveh.

He probably preached and thought, I hope this doesn't turn out for you. I hope this judgment comes. He might even enjoyed calling judgment down. And here's where we have to be careful, because I think you and I are really no different than Jonah. You see, despite all of Of this, despite all these things we know about Jonah now, guess what happened?

God used Jonah to bring about repentance and faith in a nation. God used this wicked man in our eyes, this fallen man, to bring about revival.

It's hard for us to fully comprehend, but God has a track record of taking broken people who've done wrong and using them for his glory. I mean, just read the Bible. I mean, read about Abraham. They go to Egypt and what did he do? He lies, even though he's already received a promise from God that God's gonna care for him, he lies and says, this is not my wife, this is my sister.

He ends up sleeping with that servant. Think about Jacob. He was a deceiver. Think about Samson. Think about King David, the man after God's own heart.

An adulterer and a murderer. Think about Peter. Jesus warned him, hey, you're gonna deny me three times, I will never deny you. And what does he do? He denies Jesus three times.

Think about Christian history. Just read history and you began to see there's some really ugly things that Christians have done throughout history. Think about us. Think about all the things we struggle with and we still do. And yet God is merciful towards all of us.

See, I think Jonah should give us a dose of humility today because what I think God is showing us in Jonah and in the Bible is that none of us are special, but he is. See, I think when history is written, when all is said and done, history will be kind to no one except God alone. He is the one who's doing all these things. He is the one being merciful in and through us. He, in spite of us, is gracious to us.

We all have a log in our own eye, and yet God is merciful to us. He uses us to bring other people to him. He uses us to glorify his name. This message of Jonah should keep us from condemning Jonah, but it should comfort us. If God can use Jonah, he can use us.

And brothers and sisters, let's pray that the self-righteous spirit of Jonah and really the self-righteous spirit of our age, that spirit that loves to cast judgment and never extends mercy, that it does not find its way into this church.

Let's pray that this church would not be a courtroom but more like a hospital where people can come that are weak and wounded, where we say, Hey, are you weak and wounded? Have you been afflicted by someone else's sin? Come. Are you afflicted and self-inflicted with your own wounds, things you've done to yourself and suffering for your consequences and the mistakes you've made? Come.

You will find mercy here. Let's pray that our church will be marked by the mercy that God has extended to us in Christ. See Jonah was self-righteous. He did not understand what he had received. He was so angry that we see he says he could die in verse four.

And look at what God tells him in verse 4. He asked him a simple question. Do you do well to be angry? Simply meaning, Jonah, do you have a right to be angry? But notice what Jonah says.

He says, Absolutely, I do. You see, because a self-righteous spirit will always justify itself. It's exactly what we see here in Jonah. But notice what happens next. God doesn't judge Jonah.

God is patient towards Jonah and he teaches him a lesson. Well, let's look down at verses 5 through 9 here. So we're gonna see God's lesson to Jonah.

We see this, that Jehonadab goes out of the city and he sat to the east of the city, meaning Nineveh, and made a booth for himself. He wanted to see what was going to happen to the city. So maybe in Jehonadab's mind, thought, I bet that my pity party, I bet it really convinced God to change his mind. So I'm just going to sit out, I'm going to watch the city and see what happens and instead of bringing judgment, God brings mercy on Jehonadab. We see in verses 6 through 8 that God appoints this plant.

Many of you have asked about this plant. Well, it's kind of God's mercy on him. But notice the word, notice Yoh's response and the word he uses. It says this in verses 6 through 8, it talks about that he was exceedingly glad for the plant. God brought it, his mercy towards Jonah, he was exceedingly glad.

But he was exceedingly angry at God for the mercy extended towards Nineveh. But God here is seeking to teach Jonah a lesson and to get his attention yet again. So he appoints this worm that comes and eats the plant and then he appoints this great wind to come and scorch Jonah so that he's faint, basically. Do you see the pattern here? That Jonah runs from God and God pursues Jonah.

Jonah runs from God and God pursues Jonah. Jonah runs from God and God pursues Jonah. God here is trying to teach him a lesson so that he might see himself more clearly and be reconciled to himself. Brothers and sisters, what situations and circumstances is God using in your life right now to show you more of yourself? What relationships are causing you some pain and discomfort?

What might God be trying to teach you in the midst of those things? I said it Wednesday night at Bible study, it rings true here, that oftentimes God uses the circumstances and the relationships of our lives as like a x-ray scan. Where he kind of turns our hearts around so we can begin to see there's part of our hearts we didn't know were there, that there's a sickness within us still and a weakness within us still that he shows us. And when God shows you your heart, don't look away. Look right at it.

It's God's mercy when he shows us ways that we can repent and turn towards him. Listen to what one Puritan writer said, Samuel Ward. He says this, Not the slightest trouble befalls you without the overruling eye and hand of God. He is not only our wise God, but a tender Father. He knows what you are made of and measures out exactly every cross unto us as a chemist measures grains of medicine.

That's exactly what God is doing with Jonah. God is trying to heal Jonah of the sickness of anger that he has. So the next thing we see that God teaches him a lesson, then we're gonna see this final conversation here in verses basically 9 through 11. See a final conversation. We see that Jonah's still angry.

He's not learned his lesson. He's angry at God. God again asks, Jonah, do you have the right to be angry over the plant? Jonah says, Yes, I have right. I love that plant.

Silly.

Brothers and sisters, I think that should show us that self-righteous anger is a lust that cannot be quenched.

It only leads to more pain and it makes us look like fools in the process.

And that's exactly what Jonah looks like here. And that's exactly what God is showing him. So verses 10 and 11 provide the answer to the plant. Why did God send the plant? Well, we see it here in verses 10 through 11.

So look at your Bibles in verse 10.

So God asks him, actually in verse 9, he says, Do you do well to be angry for the plant? He said, Yes, I do well to be angry for the plant. Angry enough to die. 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. Should not I pity Nineveh, That great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the right hand from their left and also much cattle.

Here's what God is doing. He is arguing from something of lesser significance to greater significance. He is trying to say, Jonah, you pity something that is temporary, that does not last, a gift from me, and you're angry that I took it away, and yet you're angry at me for pitying something far greater than a plant. These animals and specifically souls. I labored for these souls.

I made these people. And you're angry at me? God is showing the lesser thing to the greater so that Jonah might see that God has mercy and he can extend it to whomever he will. So what he's showing us here, Jonah, you are angry and you pity the things that don't matter. That's what God is saying.

God has the right as the creator of heaven and earth and all that is in them. God has right to pity whomever he will. That's what he's telling Jonah. That's what he's telling us today. As I mentioned earlier, we see that Jonah, he's kind of a living example of so many of the parables.

And as Jesse read for us earlier, Luke 15, I mean, did you just not see it? That Jonah is the older brother in that story? I mean, just Just listen to this. It says, Now the older son was in the field and he came and he drew near to the house and he heard music and dancing. Called out to the servants and asked what these things meant.

He says, you, brother has come. Your father has killed the fattened calf because he received him back safe and sound. But he was angry and refused to go in. Who does that sound like? That's Jonah.

Then he gets into an argument with his father about why and why is there a celebration? You've never given me these things and listen to how the father responds. Son, don't you love that even in our rebellion, God calls us by our family name. Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad for this, your brother was dead and is alive.

He was lost and is found. See, Jonah is the older brother, and so is Israel in many ways in this story. This younger brother has come home and how do they respond in anger? But Israel was the one, they were God's covenant people, they had God's covenant promises. They had received God's mercy.

They had seen so much evidence of grace in their own life. And they're angry at God for confirming his promise to Abraham that through Abraham, the nations, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. Why do they do this? Because they honored God with their lips but their hearts were far from him. You see, people who have rightly responded to and understood God's mercy, they don't hoard God's mercy.

No, they love to lavish it on other people. They love to pour it out on other people abundantly and liberally. See, the reason why I think the book ends the way it does so abruptly and with a question is this: I don't really think the question is for Jonah. I think the question is for the reader. God is putting the question back on you and he's putting it back on me.

Does God have the right to pity the wicked and lost in immorality? Does he have the right to save those people we are tempted to hate? Does he have the right to have mercy on whomever he will have mercy? And the reader is left to sit and to discern. God puts the question to us today.

Do we think God has the right? So in conclusion, we have seen that God has been exceedingly merciful to Jonah, this rebel prophet, and to Nineveh, these great sinners. God has shown us in this book that He is sovereign over all and He has the right to extend mercy to whomever He will. So today we focused on the question, How have you, responded to God's mercy. You see how well you understand and respond to God's mercy will shape every area of your life.

Every relationship, every friendship, every encounter with people on the street, it just will shape everything about who you are. Shapes who you are as a daughter, as a son, as a spouse, as a roommate, as a church member, and even as a pastor. You see, the real test is this: How have you responded to God's mercy? It's easy to focus on Jonah, but how have you responded to God's mercy? Better yet, how would the people around you answer that question?

Not about themselves, but about you. Would they look at your life and say that you're like God? Or would they look at your life and say that you're like Jonah? Hoarding God's mercy, walking and living in self-righteousness. You see, the true test to really discern how you, if you've rightly understood and responded to God's mercy is two things.

We'll conclude with this. The first is this, how do you respond to your own sin? Real test to discern if you rightly understood God's mercy and responded to God's mercy is this, how do you respond to your own sin? Are you repentant of your sin? Are you grieved by your sin?

Or do you justify it? Do you cry out to God for forgiveness? Or do you make excuses of why you did what you did? Do you submit to God's Word? Or do you just mentally assent and go back to your own life?

See, if the answer is yes, you're actually rightly repentant, well, praise God that He's the one giving you that heart. And that's part of the equation to discern if you've rightly understood God's mercy. The next part is this: How do you respond to other people's sin? How do you respond to other people's sin? How do you respond to those people who've sinned around you and maybe even against you?

Maybe even sinned greatly? What about those who've harmed and hurt you and said things that you cannot forget? What do you do when they repent? Do you seek to hold them accountable? Are you grieved by their sin?

Good. But do you rejoice in the mercy that God has extended to them? Are you grateful? Are you thankful for the work that God is doing in and among them? See, brothers and sisters, that's the test of all of us today.

We'll do this imperfectly, but this is what God calls us to and what he expects of us. Because people who have received much mercy, oh, they take delight in extending much mercy. Praise God for all the mercy He's extended to us in Christ. Let's pray.

Father in heaven, we come before you to acknowledge that we are no different than Jonah and we're no different than Nineveh. We are a sinful people.

We have rebelled against you. We have done wrong. And yet you have been merciful to us.

O Father, would you give us hearts that respond rightly to your mercy, that we would be grieved over our own sins, that we would be self-aware, that we would not fall into despair, but we'd cast ourselves on you for more mercy. Oh, that we would rejoice in all that you've done for us in Jesus. And not only that, Lord, Father, we do pray and we do ask that you would make us a people who rejoice in your mercy and your grace towards others. Father, I know there's many among us who've actually been harmed and wounded by other people's sin. They're still grieving.

Oh Father, I pray you would comfort them. I pray that how they respond, how they rejoice in the mercy, even to those who've hurt them, I pray that would display the gospel to others. Oh Lord, make us a merciful people. Glorify yourself in and through us as we seek to extend this. Oh Lord, help us and fill us with your spirit, we pray.

It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.