Transcription
Is it on now? Oh, I guess it is. Yeah, so would you like me to repeat everything I just read? Okay, we’re gonna start at 10 in the pew Bible When God saw that they did and how they returned from their evil ways He had compassion and he did not bring upon them the destruction. He had threatened But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry he prayed to the Lord Oh Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick To flee to tarish. I knew that you are gracious and compassionate God Slow to anger and abounding in love a God who relents from sending calamity now Oh Lord, take me take away my life for it is better for me to die than to live But the Lord replied have you might have you have the right to be angry Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city where he made himself a shelter Sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen in the city. Then the Lord God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give him shade for his head to ease his discomfort and Jonah was very happy with the vine. But at dawn the next day God provided a worm which chewed the vine 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 he said it would be better for me to die than to live But God said to Jonah, do you have a right to be angry about the vine? I do I am angry enough to die, but the Lord said you have been concerned about this vine Though you did not tend it or make it grow it sprang up overnight and died overnight But Nivea was here more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who could not tell their right hand from their left And many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?
And Our New Testament lesson from the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew chapter 20 verses 1 through 16 Hear God’s Word today. For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage. He sent them into the vineyard. When he went about nine o’clock He saw others standing idle in the marketplace and he said to them You also go into the vineyard and I will pay you whatever is right So they went When he went out again around noon and about three o’clock He did the same and about five o’clock He went and found others standing around and he said to them. Why are you standing here idle all day? They said to him because no one has hired us He said to them you also go into the vineyard When evening came the owner of the vineyard came to his manager call the laborers and give them their pay Beginning with the last and then going to the first When those hired about five o’clock came each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came they thought they would receive more They thought they would receive more but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it they grumbled against the landowner saying the last worked only one hour and You have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat But he replied to them Friend I am only doing you no wrong Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage. Take what belongs to you and go I choose to give to the last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me or are you envious because I am generous. So the last will be first and the first will be last This is the word of the Lord
Let us pray. Gracious God we thank you. We thank you for your word for the path it sets for us for the means by which it guides our hearts and minds and Helps us to serve you and all that we do. Bless us and guide us Lord through your word so that we might be able to shine the light of your kingdom everywhere. Open our hearts and minds. Oh Lord as we listen in your name. We pray. Amen.
Oh Jonah Now before we dig in let me ask you two questions to ponder The first is what is the end goal of? every Prophet what is the goal of a prophet when God calls you to go? And do to go and be what is your goal to serve God or to produce fruit? The second question is how would a prophet measure the success of their message? When you are called by God to go and do to spread the good news How do you measure how do you how do you notice that you’ve had any measure of success as a prophet? Now as we look at Jonah just keep those rattling around in your thought Now depending on those questions and how we answer there might be a little bit of variant variance, but as a whole I would say the endgame of Every prophet would be to deliver the message of God Whatever that message is with Isaiah It’s a little bit different than Elijah Elisha is a little different than Jeremiah, but the same is return to me Turn away from those things that are deriving you away from me and turn back to me return to God The prophet is the intermediary of God now if you over Simplify it the basic gist is get back here I’m not playing around there might be bad things coming and I might leave you on your own if you don’t listen. God is very straightforward in that call in Jonah’s case we see it being if you do not turn towards me in 40 days. What’s gonna happen? mean vague mean packet Nineveh will be overthrown in whatever way God chooses. Now Success, I would argue in a nutshell Is in your delivery of that message. Being able to tell the people of? God’s message Doesn’t matter how they respond. Sometimes they respond by throwing the prophet in jail. Sometimes they yell and scream throw things at him Sometimes they do listen now Jonah’s mission his assignment from God is a little bit different than everybody. else Everybody else goes to the people of Israel and Judah not Jonah Jonah has to go all the way north to the foreigners in Nineveh that great city with many cattle and many people. Now Predominantly, this is an odd ministry. Because God suddenly is reaching wider and greater now Jonah has probably the hardest of tasks, but also possibly the easiest of tasks because They don’t know him in Nineveh all the other prophets. They have a background. They have a backstory They’re known commodities, but Jonah doesn’t and so when Jonah goes to Nineveh, he doesn’t know what he’s going to expect. He expects one thing that somehow God’s grace is gonna happen that the people are going to listen to the message as he says That’s why he ran and the whole story with the whale and the fish all of that But the reality is he is going to a group of foreigners foreigners who have raided his people who his people have raided back and forth they have warred and now he is going to go to them and Call on them to follow and believe in God and When they hear the message When we hear his message Delivered what do the people of Nineveh do? They all all of them turn towards God? There’s this great story of the king in his splendor Sitting in ashes and wearing sackcloth as a sign of his contrition and desire to follow God.
I think we could argue that when a city the size of Nineveh decides to turn towards God. You’ve had a great success Jonah But Jonah is angry at his success All those people turn towards God and Jonah is mad Jonah went hoping that they don’t listen He went hoping that God would destroy them and here he sits with God’s grace on the one hand and his Desire for revenge in the other and guess what God won? But he’s still mad and so what happens when a prophet gets mad at God. God takes him to school God takes him to by the arm and says Jonah sit on down here in the Sun and let me teach you a little lesson my boy Just wait Jonah just wait build yourself a shelter and watch the destruction that I’m not gonna bring Just wait wait Jonah sit on down then the heat starts to get to him and God of course creates the bush from a seed out of nothing a bush big enough for Jonah to have shelter I’m not talking a little tiny bush or a little tiny tree I’m talking a huge bush big enough for him to have a wind barrier to have some shade and Jonah is just sitting there happy as all day He’s just pleased with himself and he’s gonna sit there with his popcorn and wait for Nineveh to be destroyed. Okay, not every power prophet is a perfect person remember that. So sometimes they’re kind of a little off and they would want to watch city be destroyed. Don’t judge him too much and Then all of a sudden the worm comes and the worm destroys the plant and Jonah is angry. Now we could argue that his anger is entirely selfish Because suddenly the heat of the Sun is coming down on him The wind is blasting him and he is now uncomfortable. But the reality is He looks at this bush and is upset about it But he wants this city to be destroyed Bill and I had a great conversation As he read this this morning and he’s like am I reading this right? And I said, yeah you are Jonah has a problem with God’s grace He wants destruction he wants this response and God needs to teach him God needs to teach him how much God cares about all of us How much God loves all of us? Jonah is caught up between wanting to serve God, but also wanting to be Jonah the Israelite. Because the Israelite in Jonah doesn’t want those people in Nineveh to follow God He wants them to get what he thinks they deserve He wants them to get their comeuppance He wants God to not be gracious and when God’s grace and his smallness Come together His smallness goes away It still sits within him, but it is no match for the grace of God and God’s grace is this overwhelming wondrous thing and Jonah wants vengeance to rain down. He wants slights to rain down and Yet God is there being forgiving It’s not that dissimilar from last week when we read about the parable of the unforgiving slave the man who’s Oh who owes his master a huge debt who takes hit though the guy who right after he’s been forgiven he takes the guy who owes him a fraction one 18,000. Yeah, I said that right of what he owed the king. He’s gonna try and get back
He Also is very short on grace. He too doesn’t like the idea of large grace But the challenge is if we wish to believe in the greatness of God’s grace We have to let it be that big and that wondrous if we wish to love and have God’s grace around us. We have to accept that it is as big as we are Uncomfortable with it being. That means that those we don’t like might Yes might experience God’s grace and guess what that is, okay. It makes us uncomfortable like sand in a swimsuit. Kind of sit there or that pew where the cushion is just not quite as cushiony as it used to be. So you kind of have to kind of do the shake and get right there It makes us uncomfortable that God’s grace is so big it’s hard to have a God who loves more than we want to love and So so often we sit there and we are like Jonah Looking and saying God You know that pout that kids get you know that I’m not gonna move until you do what I want you to do. I’m gonna stop so I don’t pass out. We don’t want to be those people. We don’t want to sit there and say God destroy Nineveh or we’re gonna hold our breath. God I need you to do this Sorry God is loving and gracious. God loves all of us in spite of our blemishes and guess what that also means. That whoever we classify as them God loves all of them as well. Because guess what to another person we might be them to another person we might be someone that someone else struggles with and If Jonah is there praying for the destruction of Nineveh guess what there might be there might be somebody in Nineveh praying for the destruction of Israel and That’s both not okay Both of them are probably struggling with the fact that God’s grace is is bigger than we want it to be. God’s grace is big because we need to be bigger We need to allow Nineveh to be part of our community in whatever way Nineveh is in our community. We need to embrace the fact that God’s grace is so Big and wonderful and if we want part of that grace that is so big and wonderful we have to give that grace and Live that grace that is big and wonderful. And yes, that is going to challenge us every day of the week.
It’s funny Sometimes I preach a sermon and I write it and then I get living examples all the time On Friday I get them on Saturday And I just sit there and I’m like, yeah Yeah, I get it. God. I get it. We need to have more grace and The fact is that whether you or not you’re in the line at the grocery store You’re coaching a sport. You’re watching a sport. Whatever it is Grace is not something that you can take jam into the smallest box you want and put it somewhere where nobody can access it? No Grace should be like the biggest blanket in the world folding all of us in reaching all of us Because that’s what God desires You think about the conversation that God has with Jonah about the plan Jonah you didn’t care about a city of a hundred and twenty thousand people, but you cared about this plan and I don’t have a right. That’s God speaking to care About those hundred and twenty thousand people that I helped form That I helped make That I helped create You think about it the number of things that kids make and bring home. That you said on your mantle or you you’re given and you have to leave it there forever and Golly if it falls and breaks the world has ended because they formed it. They made it they gave it to you whether the duck doesn’t look like a duck is Immaterial they made it and gave it to you and That is how wondrous God is with all of us God made all of us whether we’re as small as Quinn or as big as Gary. God shaped all of us every last one of us and God has grace for every last one of us But we need to embrace His grace to embrace the level of grace that God has for us All of us Because God helped form you me everyone And so brothers and sisters, may we try and live out not a grace we want and desire That’s not big enough But a grace and a love like God gives to this world amen
and Now brothers and sisters, let us respond to God through our gifts