Chapter 4

n the fall of 2001, I learned some things about myself that I didn't like. I realized that there was a dangerous, dangerous posture lurking in my heart that I really didn't know was there. It was a Tuesday morning, and I was in a staff meeting in our church in Florida at the time, and our receptionist came in and interrupted the staff meeting and said, "You probably should turn the television on." And we turned the television on, and we saw planes flying into the World Trade Center towers and into the building of the Pentagon. It was September 11th. After some of the disillusionment that kind of struck me during that time, as anyone who lived during that period of time knows, what happened was I became really angry. I got so angry, in fact, that I remember a statement coming out of my mouth sometime a little bit later, a few hours later as we're trying to understand all the events. And I remember saying out loud, "We better drop some bombs on somebody today." That's what I said. The truth is, is I didn't know who that should be, but my anger was so pronounced that I didn't care. I just knew that bad things need bad consequences. And if somebody's gonna do bad stuff, then we need to see a bad outcome for them. But my anger had blinded me to where I'd become indiscriminate about who that may be and why. And in God's kindness, He began to ask me some questions because while anger is a good response to injustice, unrestrained anger can actually toxify our souls and can toxify the surrounding circumstances. Anger's okay placed in the right spot, but when it becomes unrestrained, it's a really, really dangerous thing. But God, in His mercy, began asking me a few questions about maybe my own heart, how I understood Him, questions like this, do you know who I am and what I do? Do you think you care more about the events of the world than I do? Do you actually think that maybe you love your country more than you love me? These were all questions I was having to deal with, and God, in His mercy, began asking me those kinds of questions. I don't know if you've ever been in a position in your life where something has happened, and you've responded a certain way, and God has mercifully begun to press some questions on your own heart. I don't know if that's happened to you or if it hasn't happened to you, but what my hope is is that today it does 'cause it certainly did for Jonah. Without a doubt, God asked Jonah some merciful questions. Now, if you've been tracking with us, then over the last few weeks, we've been walking verse by verse through the Book of Jonah, all four chapters. And if you have paid attention, you've realized that the book of Jonah is arranged in a beautiful way, that the story itself, even though when we read it, we kind of read it as one singular narrative, the story itself is arranged in a really, really beautiful way. Chapter one and chapter three actually correspond to one another when you pay attention. Let me tell you how they both start, with God giving a command, and then Jonah, his response to that command, and then the response of a bunch of pagans and their leaders to what Jonah says to those people. In chapter one, it's pagans and leaders that are on, you know, a ship. And in chapter three, it's pagans and leaders that are in a city, but the chapters actually play out kind of synergistically. They kind of play out in parallel, and it's really wonderfully ordered. And just as chapter one and chapter three run parallel, chapter two and chapter four also run parallel because what God does in chapter two is he teaches Jonah about His mercy using one of His created things, a big fish. And what he does in chapter four is He teaches Jonah about His mercy through another one of His created things, a plant. So when you've got chapter one and chapter three running parallel, you've also got chapter two and chapter four that are running parallel. And it's a beautifully symmetrical story that we are given in the book of Jonah. I think I mentioned to you, kind of if you looked at it chapter by chapter, in chapter one, Jonah was running from God. in chapter two, Jonah ran into God, in chapter three, Jonah was running with God, And in chapter four, Jonah just tries to run God. It's a sobering thing when we get to chapter number four. In four perspective, Jonah has already preached his eight-word sermon to the Ninevites who were there in Assyria, the empire of Assyria. And there in Nineveh, he goes and he preaches through the town that God is going to overthrow this place. And amazingly, the whole place responds. They repent. They turn to God. It is an extraordinary thing. And then we pick up the last verse of chapter three going into chapter four, and we see how Jonah processes that. Here's what it says at the end of chapter three, "When God saw what they did," the Ninevites, "and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and didn't bring on them the destruction he had threatened. But to Jonah, this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, 'Isn't this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you were a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.' But the Lord replied, 'Is it right for you to be angry?'" See, it's a merciful question that God gives. And what we see right here in this passage is that after God asked this merciful question, "Is it right for you to be angry?" we're confronted with the anger of Jonah in what all has happened. He's done what God told him. He's preached the message to the pagan Ninevites, they have responded in repentance, and Jonah is really, really upset. He's angry. But maybe we should ask this question, what is Jonah really angry about? Because it will give us some insight into the question that God posed to him, is it right, Jonah, for you to be angry? So let me walk you through a couple of quick things about why Jonah was angry. And here's the first. Jonah was angry because of God's character. And some of you're saying, "Man, I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're getting at right here." Well, you're gonna see it really clearly in just a moment. But Jonah was angry because of God's character. I want you to listen again to how Jonah prayed in verse number two. Here's what Jonah prayed to the Lord. After the response of Nineveh in repentance and God relenting from bringing them destruction, here's how Jonah prayed. "Isn't this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? This is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you were a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity." Do you hear what Jonah is saying in this prayer? Here's what he's saying. I knew you were like this. I knew it, God. I knew it from the very beginning when I took off, and I fled to Tarshish, I knew. See, when we first start reading the book of Jonah, we think that Jonah just hates Ninevites. He does. He's not happy with them 'cause they're pagan, and they're violent and they're awful, and they don't believe in the God of Israel. He doesn't like any of that, and they're in Assyria, and Assyria is a threat to Israel. He doesn't like any of that. All of those things are true. But now in chapter four, we learn exactly why Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh. It wasn't because they were super violent. It wasn't because they were super sinful. It wasn't because they were a threat to Israel. It's because he was concerned that God would have mercy on them. It was God he had the problem with. This is startling when we begin to understand it because Jonah is actually mad at God for acting like himself. You see, he knew God's character because God had revealed his character in times past to Moses. If you remember the story, after Moses was leading the people out of Egypt in the bondage of Egypt in into the promised land, at least on his way to the promised land, God revealed him himself very specifically to Moses. And in fact, Jonah quotes it. It's in Exodus 34. Listen to how Exodus relates to this. It says, "Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with Moses and proclaimed his name, the Lord. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, 'The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin.'" You see, Jonah knew that, he was a prophet of the Lord, and he knew God had revealed himself to Moses as the God who was gracious and merciful and slow to anger and abounding in love. And now what he's saying is, I knew it. I knew it, God. This is how you are. This is why I didn't want to go to Nineveh in the first place because I knew you might show them mercy. In fact, when he quotes from Exodus 34, we're also reminded two chapters earlier, in Exodus 32, you remember when Moses was getting the 10 commandments from God up on the mountain, and he comes down, and they have built a golden calf to worship the people of Israel. And God goes, "Oh, no, you did not." And he's about to deal with Israel, and Moses prays and appeals to the mercy of God. And you know what God does? He relents from punishing them. Now Jonah, who knows that story, he would be fine if God relented from punishing Israel, but he's not fine if God won't punish Israel's enemies. He's upset by it. But what he's most upset by is God's own character. He's angry because God acted like himself. Secondly, he's angry because of God's purposes. Now, I want you to think about this for a moment because it's not so clear to us when we read this. We'd have to actually understand the context of what's going on to understand what's happening here. You see, even though it's not directly stated in the narrative here in the book of Jonah, what we know is that Jonah was not the only prophet who was doing the prophet thing during this time in Israel. Sometimes when prophets were doing the prophet thing, they were the only ones, not with Jonah. Jonah was one of a couple of other prophets that were presently prophesying in Israel. Amos and Hosea, you've heard both of those names, but they were contemporaries of Jonah. And here's the thing, what we know, is we know that the prophets actually knew one another because they talked to one another. In fact, if we looked backwards at the prophets who came right before Jonah, Elijah and Elisha, we actually know, when we read about them, that there was a thing called the company of prophets where prophets got together, and they talked with one another. Prophets paid attention to what each was saying from God for the people of Israel. So Jonah would've known what Amos and Hosea had been prophesying about Assyria. In fact, here's what Amos prophesied, or the Lord said through Amos, "Therefore I will send you," talking to Israel, "I will send you into exile beyond Damascus." Damascus was in Syria, which was a part of Assyria, larger, right? And then look what Hosea said. "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. But the more they were called, the more they went away from me. They sacrificed to the Baals, and they burned incense to images. And it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms, but they did not realize it was I who healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love. To them, I was like one who lifts a little child to the cheek, and I bent down to feed them. Will they not return to Egypt, and will not Assyria rule over them because they refuse to repent?" Here's what Jonah knew. Jonah knew God's character is such that God may very well have mercy on these Ninevites. But do you know what else Jonah's mad about? God's purposes, because he knows his prophet buddies have already prophesied that Assyria is going to take over Israel and bring them into captivity. And now he's preached to them. God's shown mercy to them instead of destroying them, so God must be serious about what He's actually going to do. He's actually going to use Assyria to discipline Israel. And Jonah is like, "I don't like this at all." So he's not only angry at God acting like himself, he's also angry at God doing His own will. He's mad at God because God has purposes greater than Jonah, and God's actually activating them, and Jonah is mad about it. But you know what else he's mad about? He's mad because of his own self-centeredness. This is the easy one to understand, right? He's mad about God's character, he's mad about God's purposes, but he's also angry because of his own self-centeredness. But watch this prayer. It's an interesting one. It says, "But to Jonah," by the way, when God relented from punishing them, to Jonah, this seemed very wrong. To Jonah, it seemed very wrong. He wasn't concerned about how God viewed it. To Jonah, it seemed very wrong, and he became angry. And here's what he prayed to the Lord. "This is what I said, Lord, when I" what? "When I was still at home. This is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you were a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life for it is better, for me to die rather than live." What do you hear in that prayer? It's really self-centered. It's really focused in on Jonah. Six different times in the English language, it's I or me. And in the Hebrew, when you read it, it's actually nine times. What you get the sense for is that Jonah is really centered on himself at this point. He's just angry with what all God's doing because it's not what Jonah wants. Jonah wants to play God, and he's not getting the opportunity to do it. And so he's angry about it because he's being self-centered. This is really different from the prayer he prayed in chapter two. Remember chapter two and chapter four are kind of parallel. When he's in the belly of the fish, "Salvation is of the Lord. You are good, you are awesome," right? That's what he's praying in the fish. And now he's over here going, "This is not at all what you should be doing, Lord," right? It goes from God-centered praying to self-centered praying. And for those of you who are good students of the scripture, you might have picked up in verse number three, maybe you missed it, and that's why I'm here. But if you're a good student of scripture, in verse number three, here's what you heard. You heard him pray, "Take my life." And if you heard that, you remember that a prophet that came right before him used the same language, named Elijah. Do you remember when Elijah was with the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel and the prophets of Asherah that were there, 850 false prophets, and he's dealing with them. And then he has great victory in this context, and God sends fire down from heaven and shows them who's God is really God. And then he leaves and, you know, he prays for rain, it starts to rain, which is awesome, the drought is over, and he leaves, and then he's gone. And then word gets to him that Queen Jezebel wants to kill him, and he says, "I want to die." The man has just stood and whipped 450 prophets of Baal, another 400 false prophets, 850 prophets of Baal and Asherah. And he's been given the victory by God. And then one evil lady, Jezebel, says, "I want you dead," and he's like, "Ah, I might as well just die." He was tired, he was overwhelmed, he felt like he was alone. But you know what the writer of Jonah, it's not stated who wrote Jonah, very well could have been Jonah later on, or it could have been some other person who's narrating the story of Jonah. Whomever it is, it was inspired by the spirit of God. But do you know what the narrator does in this? Is he's basically trying to show us this contrast between Jonah and Elijah, one prophet to another. And basically, it's almost like he's saying, "Jonah is no Elijah." Let me tell you why. Elijah, he was praying for national revival. I'm sorry, Elijah was. Elijah was praying for national revival. Jonah, he was praying for another nation's destruction. Right? That's what he wanted to see. Elijah, he thought differently about all of this because he was depressed about what he considered to be his failure. Jonah was angry because he was successful at what God asked him to do. He asked him to go preach to the Ninevites, and it worked. And he's angry about that. Elijah, he was concerned about God's reputation. Jonah was predominantly concerned about his own reputation because he thought to himself, "How am I gonna look the people of Israel in the face when I go back and say, 'Yep, I brought a message to them and they repented, and God didn't destroy them' and everybody in Israel is gonna go, 'Thanks a lot, Jonah.'" So he's worried about his own reputation at this point. Jonah is no Elijah. He's angry for a lot of reasons, but God asked him a really merciful question in verse four. "The Lord replied, 'Is it right for you to be angry, Jonah?'" Is it right for you to be angry? And guess what Jonah does? He doesn't answer the question. You ever been asked a question where you knew you were confronted with something, and you knew how wrong you were and what you did? Instead of answering the question, you just avoided it. You didn't want any part of it, right? Jonah doesn't answer the question. You know what Jonah does? Verse five tells us. "Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city, and there he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade, and waited to see what would happen to the city." You know what Jonah's doing? He's gone and found him a perch looking over the city, and he's just thinking to himself, "Maybe their repentance didn't take. Maybe God's gonna dust them after all. Maybe God's gonna blow them to smithereens. That's what I'm hoping. So I'm gonna stay for the fireworks in case they happen." Jonah is holding out hope that they'll still be destroyed, and so he builds himself a little shelter to try and watch and see if this is going to happen. And Jonah did not realize this. He didn't realize that the shelter he built would just become a classroom where God was gonna teach him about His mercy. Watch what happens in verse six. "Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease in his discomfort. And Jonah was very happy about the plant. But at dawn the next day, God provided a worm which chewed the plant so that it withered. And when the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. And he wanted to die, and he said, 'It would be better for me to die than to live.' But God said to Jonah, 'Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?' 'It is,' he said. 'And I'm so angry, I wish I were dead.' But the Lord said, 'You've been concerned about this plant, though you didn't tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh in which there are more than 120,000 people, who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and also many animals?'" You see, God was making this shelter a classroom. Here's what's so interesting to me and intriguing to me is that the only time that we see Jonah happy in the whole of the four chapters, in the whole narrative is when God provides this plant to grow up over his head so he's got some shade. Then the Bible says Jonah was, like, super happy. Whoo! Got some shade. He was really happy about that, only time in all of this that he's really, really happy. And then God provides, just as he provided the plant, He provides a worm. And the worm eats at the plant. The plant withers, it's gone. In a matter of 24 hours, he has had a plant that he was really happy about, and now the plant is gone. And not only that, God also provides a really scorching east wind. It's called a sirocco. Scorching east wind that's absolutely annihilating him. He's so uncomfortable. He's thinking to himself, "This is awful." And then God asks him a second question that's really the first question, just extended. "Jonah, is it right for you to be angry about the plant?" 'Cause he's teaching him something here. And Jonah says, "Yes, it is. I'm so angry I want to die." In fact, when you read in the Hebrew, he actually comes as close as you can come to cussing. He's that angry. He's darn angry. That's really the perspective in the Hebrew. And he can't pull himself together. And God says, "Is it right for you to be angry about the plant, Jonah? Because you've had a 24-hour relationship with this plant. You didn't plant it, you didn't garden it, you didn't tend it, you didn't make it grow. I did all of that. And you've had a 24-hour relationship with this plant, and now it's gone, and you're back to being angry again, so angry that you're angry about a plant that you've had a 24-hour relationship with, but not at all concerned about 120,000 souls that you're watching, hoping they're destroyed." And then God says, "Should I not be concerned for those 120,000 souls?" It's as if he's saying, "I'm the caretaker, I'm the gardener. I planted these people and gave them life. I made them in my image. I have tended them and seen them grow, and I'm working out my purposes that they could ultimately know me. But you, Jonah, are more concerned about a plant that you had nothing to do with and had a 24-hour relationship with than you are about 120,000 image bearers of mine." And then it ends with that question, should I not have concern for so great a city as this? And then the story is over. Do you know what's so great about this? Is that the story ends with a question, and there's a reason for that. Because the question's not just for Jonah, the question's for all of us. This story is not just for Jonah, even though it was specifically for him. It is actually for all of us because what God does is God mercifully teaches us. In the midst of our lack of perspective, in the midst of our anger, God mercifully teaches us with the same questions if we'll let him. Should I not have concern for so great a city as this? And then the story is over. Do you know what's so great about this? Is that the story ends with a question, and there's a reason for that. Because the question's not just for Jonah. The question's for all of us. This story is not just for Jonah, even though it was specifically for him. It is actually for all of us. Because what God does is God mercifully teaches us in the midst of our lack of perspective, in the midst of our anger, God mercifully teaches us with the same questions if we'll let him. And here's the first. Is it right for you to be angry? This is the first question, I think, that if we'll allow ourselves the room to humble ourselves before the Holy Spirit, that He may actually point something out to you and begin repairing your heart. Is it true or not that we live in an outraged culture? Everybody's angry about everything. People are looking for excuses to be angry about everything. People on television use outrage to try and keep your eyeballs glued to the television. People on the internet use clickbait outrage to try to get you to come to their website. This is the world that we live in. Anger is the emotion du jour. We love to be able to think about it. We love to be able to act on it. It's just what we think about and are. But let me ask you the question that God is asking all of us. Is it right for you to be angry? You see, 'cause maybe like Jonah, what we don't realize is that the anger that we have down in inside of us that we don't sometimes see, but that comes out, the danger that's lurking in all of us, maybe what we don't realize is that's actually aimed at God, and we haven't figured that out yet. Because like Jonah, maybe we're mad at God, we're angry at God for acting like God. He's just acting like himself, and we're not happy about it. You see, that coworker that we work with who's treated us miserably, or that person we go to school with who's treated us miserably, or that family member who's treated us miserably, we don't actually want to show them and share with them the hope and mercy and grace of God because our concern is they might actually be shown mercy by God. And we like being angry. We like our anger. It feels something inside. We like to still have that anger for them. And we're concerned that maybe if we talk to them about the hope that can be found in God that has come through Christ, that maybe God, because we know how God's like, God might actually save them, God might actually redeem them, and then I don't get to feel all these good anger feelings at them anymore. My anger's now no longer justified. You see, sometimes at the root, we're actually mad at God. Or the political personalities that, depending on who your political person is and whether or not they're in the White House, when they are in, we remember to pray for them, and when they're not in, we don't wanna pray for them Because we need to keep ourselves angry at somebody because we need a villain, we need a foil in our lives because it just feels good, and we can feel morally superior and be outraged at these people, whoever they are. But maybe what we're actually mad about is we're mad that God allowed it to happen. How could you, God? How could you have purposes that aren't the same thing as what purposes I want? I want this person in the White House. I want this person as the governor. I want this person as our executive. I want this person at, like, I've got plans here, God, and you're not meeting them, and I'm angry about it. So like Jonah, we might be mad at God for acting like God. We might be mad at God for acting on his own purposes. We might be mad that God has not made the United States the center of attention for everything that happens in the world in God's economy. That when God talks to us about prophecy, when God talks to us about how He's gonna consummate the world, that the United States wasn't even a thing when this book was written. But we're exceptional, we're incredible, we're awesome. Listen, I love living in the country that I live in. I'm grateful to God for the country He's given us to live in. But I also wanna be reminded that arrogance is not a virtue and that God can do whatever He wants, however He wants, whenever He wants, with whomever He wants. You remember I told you, two prophets, one named Isaiah. And He said to Isaiah, who was faithful to God, continued to be faithful to God, "I want you to preach to this people. And guess what? No one's gonna listen to you" Faithful Isaiah preaches to the people, and no one listens to him. And then he says to Jonah, who's not faithful, who rebels, who runs, "I'm gonna speak through you, and everybody's gonna listen to you." What are you doing, God? This guy's faithful. Nobody's listening to him. This guy's not faithful. Everybody's listening to him. What's happening? It's God being God because God can be God. That's it. So we have to be careful because at the bottom core of our anger, sometimes we're just mad that God's doing what God wants to do how God wants to do it, and God has His own purposes for how He's doing what he's doing. Even maybe in your lot in life, the thing that's happened to you, the stuff that you're going through, and you may think, "I'm angry at the stuff, I'm angry at the thing, I'm angry at this." But at the core, you're angry that God has allowed this in your life. Or maybe you're just like Jonah, and you're just angry because you're so self-centered. Maybe I'm just too angry because I'm too self-centered. We just know better than God, because here's the thing, what we want is we want everything for our own convenience. Right? That's what Jonah wanted. He's like, "Ah, I've got this plant to shade me. This is the spot. This is what I love. This is fantastic." And then it goes away, and he's angry, because this was convenient. I'm now not sweaty. I'm now not getting blown down. I'm now not feeling faint. What is that for you? What's the shade plant that you've locked yourself into that when it goes away, you're just angry? Does it have to do with your job? Does it have to do with sometimes having a tough relationship with a kid, maybe a hard-to-live-with spouse? Or maybe it's something simple, your car broke down, your basement flooded, and you're just angry. You're angry because God's not doing everything for your convenience. But God wants to give you perspective, perspective on who He is and perspective on what He does. So maybe we're just mad at God when God asks us the question, is it right for you to be angry? Maybe you need to get to the bottom of it. But he asked the second question. Should I not have concern for all? Should I not have concern for all? Do you know this, friends? Listen carefully. The story of Jonah teaches us something, that God loves the law keeper and the law breaker, that God is concerned about the moral and the immoral among us. He's actually concerned for all of it. And do you know that this story acts as, like, a memory backdrop? When Israelites of the future began reading this story, like in the time of Jesus, this story served as a memory backdrop to even things that Jesus taught. One of Jesus' parables that he shared, I can almost guarantee you that the historical memory backdrop of that parable was this story, Jonah. You remember the story that Jesus told, right, about the two brothers. Some people call it the parable of the prodigal son, but it's really a story about two brothers, right? The younger brother who rebels against his father and runs away. Sound familiar? And then the story of the older brother who stayed at home and was faithful all the time and was right all the time until his immoral brother came back, and he was angry that his filthy, immoral brother was just being able to come back when he's been good all the time. You remember that story? That's the story of Jonah. And Jonah, listen, Jonah plays both brothers. In the first half of the story, Jonah's the younger brother who's running from God. In the second half of the story, Jonah is the older brother who's looking down his nose at the Ninevites because they're so immoral. How could God have mercy on them? 'Cause I'm Jonah, like I'm a prophet of God, and I'm from the people of Israel. So you've got both of those pictures right here in the book of Jonah, and it is a startling picture for us all. Now, what's interesting is that in both cases, in both stories, there's something that happens that they can't fully rectify in their minds, and it's this. How can God be just when He shows mercy to people who don't deserve it? That's what we're struggling with in the book of Jonah. That's what Jonah's struggling with. That's what we struggle with when we read it. How can God be just when He's showing mercy to people who don't deserve it? That's what happened with the story of the prodigal. It's the elder brother. He can't wrap his mind around, how can the father in this story be just and righteous while showing mercy to the brother who doesn't deserve it? And guess what? The story of Jonah doesn't answer the question. It just creates an appetite to try and answer it. And guess what? The story that Jesus told also doesn't answer the question. It just creates a longing for us to know how that question is ultimately answered. But do you know what's interesting about this whole story? The story that Jesus told, which has Jonah as a backdrop, Jesus told that parable in a set of three parables. He told them right in a row. Parable of the lost coin, parable of lost sheep, parable of the lost son. You remember this? So the lost coin, it's not there. And what happens? The old lady searches everywhere, turns her phone flashlight on and goes and looks for it. They had iPhones, just trust me. She sweeps up everything. She goes until she finds it, and she finds it finally. And it's a coin not worth very much, but she goes and finds it. The parable of the lost sheep, the shepherd just goes and goes and goes until he finds the sheep. And then the parable of the lost son, the son is lost. And who goes looking for him? No one. No one. Jesus, in telling those three parables, is leaving something out in the last one. He's creating an appetite because it's the Pharisees who are listening to this parable being taught, and the Pharisees are the Jonahs of their day. And the Pharisees are listening to this, and they're saying, "Wait a minute, wait a minute. The old lady went and searched for the coin. The shepherd went and searched for the lost sheep, but nobody searched for the brother." And the Pharisees knew who was supposed to do that. The older brother was. Why? Because Genesis tells us that we actually are our brother's keeper. And these students of the law, they knew this, that we are our brother's keeper. The brother should have gone after him, but he didn't. Jesus left it out to remind us. There's an older brother that should have done this. We're reminded in this passage. There's a prophet that should have done this, and they didn't. And it makes us long for the one we call older brother, who is Jesus. Listen to how Paul said it in Romans 8. He said, "For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters." In the book of Hebrews, says it this way, "In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters." You see, friend, what we have here is we have a reminder that we have a wonderful older brother, and he's an older brother that does older brother things. He's Jesus. He saves sinners, and He saves the self-righteous. And that's what we learn in the book of Jonah, that His mercy is being extended to the sinners like Nineveh and to the self-righteous like Jonah. He's trying to capture all of our attention because He cares so much about us. Could you picture Jesus as the wonderful older brother in the parable of the lost son? Jesus would have gone after him, and He would've rushed into the mud of the pigsty, and He would've taken him back to the Father because that's the kind of older brother he is. But in that same thing, Jesus would've gone to the older brother who's pouting outside of the feast that's being given for the younger brother. And He would've taken him, and He would've brought him back into the feast saying, "You've always been here. You've had everything already. Just enjoy and celebrate the grace that's been shown." Jesus is the wonderful prophet. Instead of sitting out on a ledge overlooking Nineveh, hoping that they're gonna go up in smoke, Jesus, instead, would've been among the people celebrating that they repented and turned to God because He is the pure and the better and the more glorious Jonah. Jesus, by the way, is also the answer to the question that comes out of these passages of scripture. How can God be just and show His mercy to those who are undeserving all at the same time? It's because of who He is. Listen to how Paul described it in Romans 3. "God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement through the shedding of his blood to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness because in his forbearance, he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished. He did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time so as to be just," holy, will deal with sin, will never excuse it, "and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus." Listen to this, brothers and sisters, when God extends his mercy, it never compromises His justice because He's answered both at the cross of Christ, that what God has done in sending His only son to bear our sin when He was sinless means that God has satisfied His own anger at sin on Jesus because He's taken upon himself our sin and our shame. And God has poured out His wrath because He is just and doesn't wink at sin. He's poured out His wrath on His son in our place. But Jesus, through the sign of Jonah, who Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days, Jesus was in the belly of the earth, got up from the grave, so that now by faith in Jesus and what he's accomplished on our behalf, we can now be justified by the mercy that God has shown us in Christ. God is both just and merciful at the same time in Jesus. Jesus saves us from sin and saves us from ourselves because, friends, there's a danger in all of us, an unrestrained anger that ultimately is an anger that's pointed toward God. But thankfully, God has satisfied His own anger in Jesus and in His mercy on us. If you would've told me on September 11th, 2001 that one day I would actually preach the gospel in one of the countries where these terrorists came from, I would've told you on September 11th, 2001 that I wasn't interested. But God and His mercy changed my heart because He asked me some merciful questions that revealed Him to me and revealed my own heart to myself. We don't know how Jonah responded because the Book of Jonah ends, and we don't know. By the way, we also, in the parable that Jesus told, we don't know how the older brother responded either. It's just left hanging. But here's what we do know. We know how we respond. We know how we respond 'cause God wants our attention. He wants to make us more like Him. And we have to deal with those things that can toxify our souls so that He can shape us more into the image of who He is for His glory and for the good of the world. Let's bow our heads together. We're gone in just a moment. If you're here, and you've never before entrusted your life to Jesus, know this, you should be more thankful that God has satisfied His anger against sin through the death of His son because that means that that anger doesn't have to be ascribed to you. If you put your faith in Jesus, guess what happens? God builds a shelter and puts a plant of shade over you that is eternal. You are covered, you are saved, but you must turn from your sin and put your faith in Jesus. And if you've never done that, in just a moment, when we dismiss, there'll be some folks that'll be standing right down front. They would love to take a moment and talk to you about what it means to receive Jesus and to know Him personally. For those that remain, maybe you know Jesus, but you know that God, the Holy Spirit has been pointing out some areas of anger in your own heart and life, and you've not really thought about the fact that those could be an anger at God because God's acting like himself, God's accomplishing His own purposes, God's doing what He wants. Maybe that's something you need to do business with God on and surrender yourself. However Jonah responded is how Jonah responded. However the older brother in the prodigal story responded is how he responded. We don't know. We can just know how we respond, that we respond in faithfulness and grace. Father, I pray, in the name of Jesus, that you would do your good work in the hearts of your people for your glory. And I ask you to do this now in Christ's name. Amen.