God's Grace Breaks
the
Country Club Mentality
Jonah 4
Brothers & Sisters in Christ,
Over the last couple of months we have gotten to know Jonah a little. We’ve seen him in his running. We’ve seen him in his reluctant preaching. This morning, as we come to chapter 4, we see him in his fuming.
Jonah is angry. He’s angry at God and he is angry enough to die. One of the ironic things about our passage is Jonah’s anger. The word angry means “to glow” or to “burn with heat.” Think of a piece of iron which has been heated in the furnace. It glows with red and orange hues. But the irony is that Jonah sits out in the heat of the day. He gets hot. And, I would assume, because of the scorching sunburn he would have received, he probably had a little glow.
But what is Jonah angry about? In one respect, you could say he’s angry about Nineveh. He’s angry that they were spared. He’s angry that God was gracious to them. But you could also say that he was angry that his tribe was hijacked. He’s angry that people were invited to the party that he did not want there. He’s angry that these Ninevites had received grace and now they had the chance to participate in the kingdom of God.
That may sound odd to some people. We’ve grown up on this side of the evangelical movement. And one of the great features of evangelicalism (especially American evangelicalism) is the emphasis on missions. There’s a concern for the lost and the need to reach the lost.
But each of us should recognize that the human heart doesn’t typically want what God wants. As a matter of fact, there has often been a strong tendency to have what I would call “the country club mentality.” When it comes to God and his grace we can make it into a country club.
I’m not sure how popular country clubs are nowadays. But the country club is typically an elite place. It is an exclusive place. It’s a place where only the so called “cream of the crop” get to mingle. You have to be somebody to be a part of the country club.
And the fact of the matter is, the church can sometimes turned into a country club. Sometimes we call it becoming “inward.” There’s an inward focus. We lose the zeal for missions. We don’t give a high priority to evangelism anymore. We become more concerned about our own turf and our own people, more than the people who are not here.
That’s what this book has been dealing with. Jonah loved Israel. Israel was God’s special people. And Ninevites were, according to him, not to be included.
This was part of the problem in Jesus’ day too. Jesus was weird. Jesus didn’t really fit into society well. And that’s partly because he was always inviting people to the party who didn’t belong: Tax collectors, prostitutes, sinners. These were not the ones who were supposed to be part of the club. The club was open to the good people; people who were religious. People who had it together, like the Pharisees and scribes.
Likewise, the early church struggled with this. At the very beginning, the club was Jewish. Gentiles were not supposed to be part of the covenant community. They were unclean, after all.
But a good deal of the New Testament is focused on how that’s not true. The NT tells us that God’s grace is very much inclusive. He likes to bring all kinds of sinners into his family.
We can look on down through history too. We can see the problem in different corners of the church. Churches have been known to segregate by race. Some churches were fixated on certain forms of clothing or music. They are not interested in welcoming those who do not have the same hair length or skirt.
It’s true; God’s people can get a country club mentality. We can become inwardly focused. We can end up closing ourselves off to the rest of the world. It’s just about us.
And the question we want to ask today is how do we prevent that from happening? How do we keep our doors open to the rest of the world? To people who are not like us? To Democrats? To homosexuals? To whoever might be the Ninevites of our own day?
As we come to our passage, the Lord answers that question for us. As he deals with the angry prophet, the Lord teaches us that his grace is for sinners. And he helps us keep the country club spirit at bay by pointing us to his grace. The emphasis must be on God and his grace. And it is only then, when we rightly comprehend grace, that we will have the evangelistic zeal that we ought. Those walls fall down--those spiritual blockades that we construct will be demolished when we see how God’s grace is personal, how it is natural, and how it is logical.
You may notice that in our text the Lord asks 3 questions. In each of these three questions God seeks to crack Jonah’s recalcitrant soul.
The first question is a personal one. They are all personal in that they are all directed to Jonah. But the first question is designed to remind Jonah of his own experience of God’s grace.
I. God’s grace is personally experienced
Look at the first couple verses of the chapter. We find Jonah breathing out all kinds of vitriol. He is terribly sore over the fact that he doesn’t witness the fire words. He wanted Nineveh to be carpet bombed; destroyed. But God doesn’t do it. And that makes him hot.
And then the lashes out at God and says, “Isn’t this why I fled to Tarshish? I knew you to be a God who is gracious and merciful. I knew you to be slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”
As a matter of fact, Jonah is so angry he asks God to take his life.
But notice how God responds. God responds to Jonah with grace.
First, he is gracious in that he doesn’t answer Jonah’s prayer. You know, people of God, sometimes it is good that we don’t get the answers we want. Some of our prayers would be harmful to us. If God gave us what we wanted, they would damage us and be our ruin.
And this is the case with Jonah. Jonah doesn’t die.
Now that in itself is a miraculous thing. For if there was one prayer that God could have and maybe should have answered, it was that one.
Imagine, children, if mom had been in the kitchen all afternoon. She had been working slavishly to make dinner. And it finally comes time to sit down to eat. The family gathers around the table and mom brings out the meal. She sets it down before you and, lo and behold, it is something you don’t like. It has Lima beans or something like that. So, being a little disgusted with the meal, you say, “What is this slop?”
Boys and girls, you know that if you were to say something like that, that might be your last meal! That’s a horrible insult to your mother. How dare you speak to her in that way? And you would likely get your wish and not eat of that “slop.” For you would be sent to bed without a meal. Or worse, you would not be able to sit down to dinner because your hind end would be too sore.
That’s what you need to see happening here. Jonah is speaking to God. And he is fuming over these Ninevites and how they were spared. He is irked to no end that God has been gracious. And Jonah basically says, “What kind of slop is this?” And he should have gotten his wish. He asked to die. And if God were not acting towards Jonah in a gracious way, that’s exactly what he should have done: Jonah should have died.
But God doesn’t give Jonah what he deserves. He deals graciously with Jonah, and allows him to live.
The grace of God is personal. It’s personal in that the Lord pardons sin; our sin.
But notice the question. God’s personal grace is not only seen in the response he doesn’t give, but it is also seen in the response he does give. The Lord asks him, “Do you do well to be angry?”
The question is not answered in the text. But it is pretty obvious. Do you have a right to be angry at God for how gracious he is?
Jonah, you’ve forgotten who you are. You’ve forgotten your own roots. You belong to Israel. And Israel wasn’t chosen because they were the best of nations. They were not chosen because they were somehow better than anyone else. No, it was the complete opposite. They were the least of all the nations.
Jonah, think of your own standing with me. Look at the way you personally have acted. You’ve rebelled against me. You defied my command. You should have died in that storm. You should have been digested in that fish. I should have let the gang bangers from Nineveh (let’s not forget that the Ninevites were a violent people by nature and that on a normal day they would have killed Jonah).
People of God, these are words that are not just spoken to Jonah. They are spoken to us. These are words which were personal points of application to Jonah, and they are just as personally potent for each and every one of us.
Do you--do you of all people, do you have a right to say “I deserve this and they do not?”
The mantra that should echo in every Christians’ heart is “There, except by the grace of God, go I.”
To lodge a complaint to God about His gracious dealings with someone else is to call into question our own standing with him.
We do not inherit God’s kingdom because we are any better than anyone else. We are not keeping a tidy record which God says, “You’ve done such a good job. You get to be a part of my people today.”
What do you have that was not given to you? The clothes that you are wearing right now, do you not know that each thread is a representation of God’s mercy. I assure you that if God had treated you in any way other than his grace, you would not have you’re the shirt on our back, let alone the hope of eternal life.
This is exactly why Jesus was stripped of his clothing. In his crucifixion, he was not just killed, he was shamed in the most humiliating way possible. And the reason was because he was undergoing our penalty. Because of our sins, we forfeit every good thing. Every blessing is to be stripped from us, including our clothes. But Jesus came and he was stripped on our behalf--on your behalf.
So the point that God makes here is a very personal one. It has to do with our own salvation. We do not have the right to create a blockade to the world; He’s reminding us that we--we of all people, sinners that we are--have no grounds to question what God does with his grace. For we were once right where they were. We were lost and by his grace we were found.
The second question that the Lord asks is found in verse 9. And it has to do with the plant that Jonah befriended.
While the first question was a personal one, this second question is what you might call a “natural one.” It has to do with nature and, more than that, it has to do with human nature.
II. God’s grace is naturally expressed
What do I mean by that? Well, let’s take a look.
In verses 5-9 Jonah pulls up a lawn chair. After leaving the city of Nineveh, he takes a seat just out of the way in order to wait and watch. But there’s one problem. It’s hot. It’s really hot.
We’ve had a couple days in the upper 80’s and 90’s this past week. You can imagine sitting in the blistering, middle eastern heat all day. With the full brunt of the sun bearing down on you, that would be miserable.
But along comes a little vine. It says in verse 6 that God appointed a plant, and it sprouted up very quickly. And this little piece of vegetation provides a most delightful shade for Jonah. And Jonah is said to be exceedingly glad for it. t is, we might say, a little piece of heaven.
But notice what happens. In verse 7 it says that God appointed a worm. And this worm comes along and it eats the plant. And it causes the plant to wither and die. And with his shade gone, Jonah suffers immense pain. We are told that the scorching sun beats down on his head and a blistering wind comes in from the east.
As a result, he become faint. And, once again, Jonah prays. And, again, he asks that he might die. And again, God ignores his request. But and He asks another question. “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?”
Now, notice two things. First, God shows mercy to Jonah. Jonah was suffering a hellish like torment, wasn’t he? The heat was torturous. And God appointed this plant to be a savior, of sort. As a matter of fact, in verse 6 it says that the shade saved him from his discomfort (literally, saved him from his evil).
One way of looking at it may be like this: Jonah, you’ve received this little grace; grace from a sunburn. Do you have a right to question my mercy to the Ninevites, who would suffer something even greater than this?
But there’s another point that is being made. A more important point. And the point is this: Jonah pitied the pant. He had compassion on this flower, of all things.
There is something within us that hates to see things wither and die. This is something that God has woven into our very humanity. It is, you might say, one of the ways in which we were made in God’s image.
When the family pet dies, we get sad. We are grieved at the loss of our pets. We humans mourn that dog like it was one of our children. But let’s be real: It’s just a dog. But you love that dog.
Some of you have flowerbeds and flower pots that you decorate your house with during the summer. You spend a lot of time watering those plants and taking care of them. And you stare out your window at them. You sit on your patio and take it all in because they are so beautiful.
But there comes a point where those flowers start to die out. The growing season comes to an end and they begin to wilt. That’s always sad to see how these beautiful, lush plants begin to shrivel. They turn brown and wilted.
That’s what Jonah saw. He had a friend in this plant. He enjoyed its company and relished the beauty of it. And when it died, he was grieved. That is this thing we call compassion.
And that’s the point God makes. You and I are not all that much different from God; at least not in that way. You and I are people who have this likeness to God. Compassion is knit right into the core of our being. We can’t help but express this same kind of spirit.
And God’s says, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” In other words, “How is it that you can question my compassion, when you do the exact same thing by nature?”
How then do we keep ourselves from erecting walls in the church. How do we prevent ourselves from running away from from the world? How do we keep from keeping the gospel all to ourselves? It’s by remembering how inclusive we really are by nature.
We really do accept all kinds of things and open our arms wide to some of the weirdest things in the world. We place value on things that are so insignificant by comparison.
And we need to understand that when we give a gospel stiff arm to people, we are not just defying God’s ways, we are defying our own humanity; our very constitution.
So the second question is about our own humanity. It’s talking about what it means to be human. By our very constitution, we are compassionate beings. And there is an inconsistency that we show when we are not evangelistically minded. When we look out on the masses and we do not grieve their lost-ness, we are contradicting ourselves.
That’s what Jonah was doing. And that’s why God asked the question. He was simply pointing out the latent incongruity that lies in each and every one of us.
The third question that God asks is very much related to the second. But this time he invokes the mind.
The first question appealed to our hearts. It reminds us of how God’s grace is personal.
The second question appealed to our humanity. It points out how God’s grace is natural.
The third question appeals to our minds. It tells us that how God’s grace is logical
III. God’s grace is logically deduced
Some say that it is an irrational leap of faith to believe in God. That's not true at all. God is the most reasonable thing there is. He is the very embodiment of reason. And so is his grace.
You see that in verses 10-11. In these verses the Lord builds on the question he just asked. And he wants us to think. He wants us to use some good old fashioned deduction.
He says, “Jonah, you have pity upon this silly little plant. You didn’t labor for it. You didn’t make it grow. It came into being in a night and perished in a night. In other words, it was a fleeting little piece of creation and hardly has any value at all by comparison.
Now Jonah, think. Should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, which has 120,000 people who do not know their right hand from their left?”
Now, you see what God is doing here. He is employing a reasonable argument. It’s the argument from the lesser to the greater. It is a simple little exercise in logic. This is something that doesn’t take a lot of education or brains. Human reason says that if it is true for this little thing, how much more should it be true for this greater thing.
If you pity a plant, how much more should I pity a cow?
Let’s talk about the cattle. It’s a weird way to end the book, isn’t it? And much cattle. Why does God end the book with hamburger? We laugh at the idea that God includes in his logic the cattle. But that’s because we don’t understand God. We do not understand the heart of God.
You see, creation means something to God. God’s creation is something that he values. The Psalms say that God plays with leviathan. He loves to see that big fish splashing around and swimming through the sea. Why? It’s because its part of his creation. It’s his pet. It is a testimony to the fact that God takes great delight in the things that he has made.
We don’t always think of creation in the right way. We can be rather flippant with creation. We can be rather cruel with creation: pulling wings off of flies and we will speed up when we see that cat on the road.
But that’s terrible! That’s a horrible thing. This is God’s precious creation!
My professor in seminary once said that, when we think about the doctrine of creation, we do not think of it in the right way. We typically like to use it in a polemic way. We like to debate the length of days and how long it lasted. But when God thinks of creation he thinks in a completely different way. The doctrine of creation makes him think of missions.
That’s why this book ends with cows. The cattle are God’s cattle. They are a part of his creation. God loves the cattle. He desires their wellness. He desires that they be fed and that they taken care of.
You loved your little plant? How much more should God care for herds ? How much more, Jonah, should the Lord care for people, the value of which is infinitely greater? And we are talking hundreds and thousands of people who are a part of God’s precious creation!
This is the logic of God. It is the logic of his grace. If we who are wicked have this kind of mercy, how can we not think that God, who is the creator of all things who is infinitely greater in mercy and grace, might be willing to shed his kindness abroad.
That’s how we keep from becoming inwardly focused. That’s how we break free of the elitist mentality. It’s when we understand something about God. When we understand that God has interest in his creation. He has an interest in humanity.
The question is: do you?
Conclusion:
This is where we end. The book ends here. It ends with a question. And that’s just one more thing that adds to the mastery of this book as a piece of literature. It ends with a question, and in doing so it puts the ball in your court.
So it comes down to this: What will you do? How are you going to respond? Will you admit that it is logical? Will you agree that zeal for the lost is something important? Or will you go on about your business? Will you ignore the question God asks of you? Will you build fences between you and the rest of the world?