Imagine that next weekend we saw everyone of those we invite to Passion for Life events come along and that at those events God moves by his Spirit and hundreds of our friends and family over the weekend are convicted, repent of their sins and decide to follow Jesus. How would you feel?

We would feel euphoric, we’d be praising God. You wouldn’t sit in a funk at home angry with God for saving your friends and family. But that is just what happens with Jonah, he is used by God to bring about revival, a revival that sees a whole city, 120,000 people, repent, cry out to God and be saved from destruction. **How would you expect Jonah to react? He should be praising God, pride should be the danger for Jonah not anger at God. So why does Jonah react like he does and what are we meant to learn from it about God and ourselves?

1. A Prayer that reveals the heart
What is it that makes Jonah so angry? 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." Jonah is angry because God doesn’t destroy.

What does Jonah’s anger lead him to do? Pray to God. It is deliberate echo of 2:1 where from in the belly of the great fish Jonah prays, it sets up a compare and contrast between these two prayers and it highlights just how far Jonah has fallen, just how much his idolatry has reasserted itself.

In ch2 Jonah cries out to God when he is facing death and judgement just like the Ninevites and he experiences God’s grace and mercy just like the Ninevites. But whereas in ch2 he praises God for his salvation here he berates God for their salvation. In ch2 he praises God for his experience of God’s love and mercy whereas now he resents God’s steadfast love and mercy shown to the Ninevites.

Jonah is back again to where he was in ch1 when he ran away from God, he is back to his hatred of the Ninevites and his racial idolatry of Israel. In fact so angry is Jonah that he says it would be better if he was dead, he is so furious that the Ninevites have been saved, that God dared be gracious and forgive that he can’t see the point in living.

These opening verses make us wonder what on earth Jonah is doing, how he can think like this, has he forgotten his salvation, has he forgotten that clinging to idols means forfeiting God’s love(2:8), has he forgotten "Salvation comes from the LORD"?

Before we are too quick to judge Jonah because his idol has reasserted itself, and grace has slipped to the back of his mind, we ought to be careful. Yes Jonah has slipped but are we any different? Jonah knows grace in his mind he has begun to grasp it but then something happens that he doesn’t want to, God’s will goes against his will, and his idolatry reasserts itself. Am I any different?

We may know in our minds that Christ is our Saviour, that it isn’t our career, looks, success, wealth or anything else that saves us but the battle ground is in our hearts. It is when God’s will for us conflicts with our will, with our idols, that they are exposed. So for example we may say or sing that Christ alone is our saviour but when we suffer a setback in our career we are devastated and we have to realise again that we were controlled by that. In our heads at least Christ was Lord and Saviour but functionally it was our career. Or when we lose money and there is no cushion of savings to provide comfort we see how much of our security was in wealth not God.

It is only when God’s will conflicts with Jonah’s will that his idolatry is revealed. Jonah’s reaction reveals his heart, that idolatry still rules, that he hasn’t got a heart like God’s, that he still hates the Assyrians and has an overwhelming love for Israel. Before we are too harsh on Jonah we need to examine ourselves.

2. The grace of God in dealing with obstinate rebels
Grace is the theme that runs through the book, in ch1 who did God show grace to? The sailors, in ch2 it’s to Jonah, in ch3 to the city of Nineveh and here to Jonah again. Grace seen in the way he deals with the raging prophet.

In his strop Jonah stubbornly takes himself to overlook the city so that he can wait and watch for God to judge it. He knows that God has forgiven them and relented of overturning the city but still he stubbornly sits there waiting as if insisting that God does what he wants him to and wipes them off the map.

And God does respond to Jonah’s actions though it’s not what Jonah wants, but neither is it what Jonah deserves. God doesn’t destroy Nineveh, but neither does he judge and destroy Jonah though that is what he deserves. Instead (6)"The LORD God provided [or appointed] a gourd and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort" It is a reminder of the other provision of God which was what? (1:17)"the LORD provided a great fish..." God again acts in grace, he truly is "gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love."

What is Jonah’s response to God’s provision? "and Jonah was very happy about the gourd." Jonah is happy with the grace, mercy and love of God when directed towards him but less so when it is directed towards others.

God acts in light of his revealed character all the time, even his discipline is grace-filled; designed to bring his people back.

But the book doesn’t end there, (7)"God appointed a worm" and Jonah’s shade is destroyed, then God appoints a fierce wind and Jonah begins to bake. The question is why has God done this, why does he deliberately provoke Jonah so that he is "so angry I wish I were dead."?

God is teaching Jonah, just as he did with the storm and the great fish, God is disciplining Jonah, teaching him about his character and calling on him to mirror it. The gourd, worm and wind are there as a lesson and a call for Jonah to change.

And the final words of the book belong to the God of grace who is, once again, teaching his prophet about grace, calling him not just to deliver God’s message but to mirror God’s character, as God highlights the difference between his heart and Jonah’s hardness, between his love and Jonah’s hatred. What is Jonah concerned for? (9)The gourd. Jonah is angry at God for destroying a plant which sprang up overnight but also angry with God for not destroying Nineveh a city of 120,000 people.

By contrast what does God have concern for? (11)Nineveh, and its 120,000 people and animals. Jonah don’t you see what you have done! Don’t you see where your heart is wrong? Don’t you see how foolish you have been? Which is a right concern?

God is "a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity." And he is right to be, shouldn’t you be like that too, Jonah? Is the question that is left hanging as the book closes.

Again we see the grace of God as he gently deals with his wayward prophet, a prophet who has gone back to where he was in chapter 1, who has forgotten that he is saved by grace from judgement because of God’s character, who has forgotten that salvation comes from the Lord and whose vicious idolatry has reasserted itself. God teaches him and calls him back to himself, but the question as the book closes is will Jonah come? Will he put to death again his hatred of the Ninevites and learn the lesson of the love of God and live it out.

Jonah confronts us with our failings, with our constant battle to love others and live by grace. But it reminds us too that God is a God of grace, not just our salvation but in his ongoing dealings with us, even his discipline is gracious and designed for our good and his glory.

God longs for his people to live with him as their salvation not just functionally or theologically but deeply and foundationally. God longs for his people to love others as he loves them, to have his heart and compassion or the lost. Not just to take his message but to display his character.

Do I get it? Do I understand grace? The danger is that we can be just like Jonah; we experience grace just as Jonah did but just like Jonah we don’t get it, and it does not change us. Why? Because we cling to our idols, be it career, relationship, wealth, class, sex or children and look no different to those around us.

Do I get grace? Do the people I live, work and breathe alongside see the relevance of trusting Jesus, do they glimpse Gods heart in mine?

The Apostle Paul was like Jonah in his zeal for Israel, in his nationalistic idolatry, so much so it led him to imprison and persecute the church and yet an encounter with the risen saving Jesus Christ and his experience of grace so radically transforms him that he writes "I have become all things to all people..." Why? "so that by all possible means I might save some." That is what it means to get grace!

God is a God of grace; a "gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love" That is who he has shown himself to be in Christ, he is the God of grace.

Do I get the implications of that? Or am I more like Jonah needing to be taught the lessons of grace again? God is a God of grace who gives everything for me and who calls me to deliver not just his message but reveal his heart.

Lighthouse