Matthew chapter 12 verses 39, I'll start reading in 38. Then some of the scribes and the Pharisees answered him saying, teacher, we wish to see a sign from you. But he answered them, an evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it for they repented at the preaching of Jonah and behold something greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the south will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and behold something greater than Solomon is here. The word of the Lord. Well, we come now to the Old Testament reading. And I'm going to read from Jonah 4 in just a moment or two. But to give you a little preface, in my own church at Bethel Reform Presbyterian, I preached through the book of Jonah recently. Rather than just picking one of the 10 sermons that I did there and preaching that for you, I'm going to do something different. I'm going to summarize the book as best you can, trying to summarize 10 sermons. Don't worry, it's not going to be 10 sermons length in time. But Jonah really impressed itself on me. I think that because it's about one person, it's easy for us to see the lessons personally applying to us. We can see ourselves in Jonah. And so I want us to give our attention now to God's word in Jonah chapter four. This is the last chapter of Jonah. Hear the word of God. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed to the Lord and said, O Lord, is this not 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 up 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. 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? That is the word of the Lord. Let's pray and ask for God's blessing. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we do come to you this morning thankful that you have gathered us here, Lord. Thankful that you have given us ears to hear hearts that are not hardened to you and to spiritual things, but Lord, our hearts of flesh. And we pray that your spirit would indeed make us rejoice in your word this morning. We pray that you would mold us and shape us by your word and by your spirit to be more like our savior, Jesus Christ. We pray that hearing your word this morning would be a great and powerful means to that end, that you would work powerfully in us by your word and spirit, Lord, that you would give us joy in the Lord, that you would convict us of sin. We each come with different burdens, with different sins, with different idolatries, and we pray that you would work to convict us where we need convicting, to encourage us where we need encouragement. Lord, you know what we need. We pray that you would be glorified this morning as we receive your word with humility and thankfulness. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Well, one of my hobbies, you've probably never heard of it, but it's called disc golf. You throw these Frisbees into these metal baskets. And I haven't played lately, but one of the things that will happen if you play disc golf is that occasionally you will lose. your Frisbees in the woods. You'll throw it, and then you can't find it, especially when it's fall and the leaves are on the ground. And you have to weigh this question of how much effort and time are you willing to put into trying to find a lost Frisbee disc. You usually come with a bag, so you have some others to use. But perhaps this one was really valuable. I remember one trip that I was on at a General Assembly and I had only brought one disc with me and so I was playing and I made sure that I searched and searched until I found that one disc that I had because it was more precious to me because it was scarce. But think about the society that we live in. We live in a society where most of us have so much that we think it's okay to lose a few things. You don't have to go looking for them. We live in a day of disposable cups and plates and communion cups, disposable masks, right? We have this strange phrase, disposable income, whatever that means. We have so many things that we can hardly fathom what Jesus was talking about when he said that God is like The shepherd who goes after the one lost sheep out of 100. Jesus said in Matthew 18, what do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the 99 on the mountain and go in search of that one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety nine that never want to stray. So it is not the will of my father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. Think about that going after one lost sheep. and leaving the 99 behind. We'd say, what's the big deal about one sheep? You've got 99 other sheep. If one wanders off, so be it. It shouldn't have done that. There's always new sheep being born. We live in this have it your way era where we think everything can be replaced, even churches, unfortunately even spouses. But each one of these sheep is precious to the shepherd. And that's a picture of God's pursuit of sinners. And you might be asking, what does this have to do with Jonah? We see this in the book of Jonah, because here, God pursues Jonah relentlessly. Jonah is like a wandering sheep. that the Lord graciously pursues. And we're going to see God's patience with Jonah. The book of Jonah showcases God's spiritual surgery on Jonah's heart, working in him to conform him to his own image, to make him imitate God. God doesn't just discard Jonah. when Jonah goes to Tarshish rather than Nineveh at the beginning of the book. He dialogues with Jonah here in our chapter, chapter four. He reasons with him even though Jonah is angry with God. How long, you might ask yourself, how long would you keep dealing with angry Jonah? After he disobeys you, after he's angry with you, how often do we give people second chances in our own life? Or is it easy for us to just say, that's it, I've had enough? I think Jonah here fits that picture of the Christian apologist, Cornelius Van Til. He said that when unbelievers try to deny God, it's like they're a young child who steps on their father's lap in order to slap him in the face. God is enabling Jonah. He's gracious to Jonah, and Jonah keeps slapping him. in the face. Now, to see all this, I think we need to see an overarching picture of the book of Jonah. So I'm going to try to summarize it briefly for you, this great book of the Bible. And you know how it begins. In the 700s BC, the word of the Lord came to Jonah, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city. And that word evil is mentioned. There's a great evil coming upon it, or calamity, as it's sometimes translated. And so Jonah arises, but surprise. He goes not to Nineveh, he goes the opposite way to Tarshish, to Joppa to get a ship to go to Tarshish, which is the opposite direction. Notice what he's trying to do in chapter one. He's trying to flee from the presence of God. He's trying to get away from the presence of God. And then what happens? Well, he goes into this ship that he's hired. He goes into the hold and he ends up falling asleep, a deep sleep. And notice what his sin, his rebellion against God has done. Sin separates us not just from God, but as our prayer of confession said, from our neighbors. It turns us inward, it separates us from other people. If you're separating yourselves from others, self isolating, it's not always a good thing. Jonah here is isolating himself in chapter one from the sailors during this great storm. And in here in chapter four, you notice he's again isolating himself from the people of Nineveh. At the very time when Christian education interest in that would have been at its peak, people were interested in hearing about the Lord. And yet he leaves the city of Nineveh. He goes up and he separates himself from them. And notice he's to the east of the city in the Bible in the ancient world. East is a place of judgment. East of Eden. Well, in chapter one, the amazing storm comes upon the Mediterranean. The sailors know this is no ordinary storm. A supernatural cause has to be behind this great storm. And so the sailors on the ship, they're fearful. They're saying their prayers to their gods. And in the end, it becomes known. This storm is because of Jonah, because he disobeyed his god. And there are great details in all of these chapters, but suffice it to say that Jonah's solution to this problem is not praying, it's not repenting, it's not saying, okay, God, I'll go to Nineveh now. Instead, he volunteers to die. He says, just throw me overboard. Notice, he doesn't want to go to Nineveh so badly that he's willing to die. He'd rather die than go to those bad people. in Nineveh. Those problem people, the Assyrians, those aren't my people. He would rather die in the depths of the sea than repent and go and do what God said. What a contrast that is, friends, just thinking about that for a second. What a contrast that is with Jesus Christ who died for us while we counted him as our enemies, made him our enemy with our sin. Well, Jonah is cast overboard, and then he prays, it seems, as he's sinking down into the sea, and God delivers him from death through the great fish swallowing him before he drowns. And meanwhile, we're told in chapter 1 that the sailors put their faith in the Lord, the true God. showing us God giving blessing to the nations, despite Jonah's pretty poor witness. He only barely tells them who he is and where he's from. But God brings the gospel to pagans, and they turn to him, even at the failure of his own people like Jonah. So Jonah finally prays. Chapter 2 is Jonah's prayer from the belly of the great fish. But it seems to me, as it seemed to other scholars and commentators, that something is still fishy in Jonah. Something is still wrong with his soul. He doesn't acknowledge in chapter 2 that he has done anything wrong. He's happy to celebrate his own reception of God's grace. He's thankful that God's shown blessing to him. He says, I'm happy to go back to the temple and worship. And by the way, your Sunday afternoon assignment is to go back and reread the book of Jonah and get all this, or maybe family worship this week. But Jonah, in chapter 2, is happy to say, I'm going to go back to the temple and worship. But he doesn't say, now I will do what you say, Lord. Now I'll go to Nineveh. He's still not thrilled about God seeking and saving his own enemies, the Assyrians, the people of Nineveh. Notice what happens at the end of chapter two. We all know it. Our children know the story. He gets vomited out of the great fish. And I think that shows us that something is still wrong. There's still something bad in Jonah because frankly, it's bad things that get vomited up. Well, chapter three shows at the very least, Jonah has learned you can't not do what God says. You can't get away with that. You have to obey him. And so he goes to Nineveh, reluctantly it seems, but it's futile to refuse God. He doesn't want to face another storm, another fish. And so he goes to Nineveh, and amazingly, he sparks the greatest revival in human history in the city of Nineveh. We have today historical documentation about the people of Nineveh, how violent they were, how bad the people were. They rejoiced in their violence. They even acknowledged their own violence in chapter three. You can see, if you go online to the British Museum, you can see the things on the wall of the Assyrians in Nineveh. But even those bad people repented. when Jonah came by the spirit of the Lord. And the miracle of Nineveh's repentance is just as amazing of a miracle as Jonah being swallowed up by that great fish and surviving those three days in the fish. God relents from disaster that he'd threatened on the city. And it's remarkable that Jonah when he was there only gave the bare minimum He's only there, he says, 40 days and Nineveh will be destroyed. I'm sure you're glad that that's not my only message to you today. We would be pretty disappointed if that's what we were hearing from our pulpits. 40 days and you'll be destroyed. He gives the bare minimum message. He's there for the bare minimum amount of time. Three days is as long as it takes to get through the city. And then he's out of there. And that gets us to our chapter, chapter 4. Jonah leaves the city when the fields are white for harvest. The opportunity is great. There are people repenting of their sins, turning. He could have taught them so much about the Lord, and what does he do? He sets himself up overlooking the city. I picture it, the bluffs over Nineveh. And he waits to see if God is going to destroy that city after all. He's waiting those 40 days. By my calculation, if it takes three days, there's about 37 days that he's overlooking the city waiting for God to finally give those bad people what they deserve, rooting for it. And then when it doesn't happen, what does he do? That's where chapter four begins. He complains to the Lord. He says, I knew it. I knew you were gracious. I knew you would relent from disaster and be kind to these people. Can you picture him sulking? Now, before we see how God deals with Jonah and answers him, I want us to take a few minutes to think about how your heart and my heart are reflected in the person of Jonah. Friends, you are Jonah, I am Jonah. There's a Jewish tradition where they read this book on the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, and the congregation stands and they say, we are Jonah. Do you see yourself? In any of the things that I've described, in any of the actions, and if you don't see some of your own sins and inclinations here, perhaps you have too high a view of yourself. Think about the very beginning. He disobeys. He refuses to go to Nineveh. Certainly in our own lives, we know there are things that we would rather God not ask us to do. Perhaps certain sins that you don't want God to have anything to say about. certain people, perhaps that have hurt us or continue to hurt us, that we refuse to show grace to or minister to, to sacrifice for. By our actions, we say no to the Lord, and in doing so, we think we know better than he does. Even when we do obey, sometimes, like Jonah, we only do the bare minima, minimum, like Jonah's three days. And our hearts aren't always in it. Likewise, think about Jonah, happy to sit there over Nineveh, watching and waiting, instead of being in the city, ministering to it, because that's messy, that's difficult. And it parallels Jonah sleeping in the ship during the storm. While the wrath of God is hanging over that ship and the pagans, the unbelievers on the ship, he's on the sidelines. How calloused he seems looking out over this city. The moment when these people made in the image of God are turning from their sins, when God is working, he's content to sit on the sidelines. And friends, how often are we like that as well? We can all too happily be spectators who doze while people perish under the wrath of God. We can view them as problems. You can view people as problems instead of those made in the image of God. Where is our compassion? And in his disregard for others, Jonah shows himself to be unlike God, because God is a missionary God in this book. You can't read Jonah without saying that God is one who seeks and saves the lost, the bad people of the world. And Jonah's not like that. That's the opposite of godliness, godlikeness. Instead of imitating God and seeking to save the lost, these bad people in Nineveh, Jonah argues with God. God's too gracious for Jonah. Isn't God just? How can he just let these bad people have good things? Doesn't he care about sin? You know your heart is not in the right place when you're going to squabble with God over being too gracious. And that brings us to another lesson that I think you should be seeing as we go through this book of Jonah. So often, it's hard for us to see our own sinfulness. So often it's so hard for us to see our own sinfulness. Think about this. Jonah is quick to see the flaws in other people. He's quick to see the problems with the people of Nineveh and their hearts, but he is slow to see his own sin and confess it to the Lord. Even in his prayer in chapter two, he says he's happy to go worship God, but he doesn't say anything about those wicked people and the destruction coming upon them. that God had sent him to go minister to. He views these people of Nineveh as different from himself because he thinks he's earned God's favor. He's part of the covenant people. He's done everything right. Of course, we're looking at it and we're seeing he's, from the very beginning, been rebellious against the Lord. He is a sinner in need of God's grace, just like the rest of them. And one of the great things about this book of Jonah is that it ties in so beautifully to the parables that Jesus told, because the people that Jesus was ministered to in his earthly ministry, the people he interacted with, are so much like the people of Israel in Jonah's day when this book was composed. Jesus had a parable of the workers in the vineyard. And it reveals that same sin, the view of insiders in the church. Centuries later, Jonah is like that worker who says, I've been working for 12 hours. I should be paid much more than this one hour worker. He came at the end of the day. He worked for one hour and he got paid the same thing as me. In that parable of the workers in the vineyard, there's a great phrase that Jesus uses. He says, do you begrudge my generosity? That's what Jonah is doing here. He's begrudging God's generosity to the people of Nineveh. He's worked for God for so long. He thinks he deserves more, and these people shouldn't get what he gets as well. Likewise, Jesus invited his audience, the Pharisees, to be like God and rejoice when the lost are found. You might remember those parables of lost things, the lost coin, the two lost sons, the prodigal son. Jonah is like the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son. He can't rejoice when the lost are found. He can't celebrate that. Think about this. Jonah has just witnessed some miracles, his own receiving of grace with the fish. He's witnessed this miraculous revival in the city of Nineveh. And yet, he's so hard-hearted that he can't praise God for these things. Instead, he complains. Jesus, when he gave the parable of the lost and the found, he was inviting his audience to share in his joy, to be like God and to have a joy when the lost are found. There's angels rejoicing when one sinner repents. There's joy in heaven when lost souls are saved, and the book of Jonah is inviting you to do the same, to rejoice when the lost are found. But our pride gets in the way. We don't realize how sinful we are, how gracious God has been to us. Jonah should realize he's no better than the people of Nineveh. In fact, you notice, as you look at this whole book, that every single living creature in this book, except for Jonah, obeys God as quickly as possible. And yet Jonah is stubbornly refusing God at every turn. The whale obeys the fish. Well, not sure what it was. It obeys God. There's even a worm in our chapter that obeys God. The people of Nineveh turn and repent. Everything obeys God. The pagan sailors, they're trying to make things right with God as they're under the wrath of the storm. But when you don't see your own sinfulness, you're slow to respond to the Lord. You're slow to celebrate God's goodness and his grace. Those who have been forgiven much who know that they've been forgiven much will love much and don't want others to know that same grace, that grace that is not something to be hoarded because it's not scarce. It's a well that never runs dry. And think about this. Our sinful attitudes and actions mean misery for us. Jonah's not a picture of happiness in this book, but a picture of misery. Think of him here in this chapter, chapter four. He's out in the hot sun in the Middle East. He's waiting for Nineveh to be destroyed. He's not a picture of joy. Friends, what joys do you miss out on because of your sin? Because you don't imitate the Lord, because you don't share your master's joy. Jonah doesn't delight in God's work in Nineveh. And speaking of joy, I want you to notice in this chapter what happens with the plant that rises up. Jonah complains to God at the beginning, but God is patient with Jonah, right? He's still gracious with Jonah. He's merciful, and so God ordains for a plant to grow up and give Jonah some shade. It's not quite air conditioning, but look what happens. Jonah transitions from being exceedingly angry to being exceedingly glad because of this plant that rises up. Friends, do you see in Jonah's fickle heart, the fickleness of your own heart? How often are you up and down? based on trifling things like shade or comfort. We get so happy about such trivial things, our achievements, our houses, our wallets, our looks. Instead of being joyful about what really matters, like Jonah has just witnessed the greatest revival in history. He's not happy about that, but he's happy that he has shade. He's happy when God's grace benefits him. But what happens when you put your joy and happiness on such trivial things? Easy come, easy go. God made a little worm to eat up that plant. He commands great things like the fish, little tiny things like the worm, and the worm eats up the plant, and Jonah is again devastated, ready to die once again. When your comfort, when your joy in life is not based on our God who never changes, assurance, steadfast anchor for our souls, you're going to be up and down based on the weather. You're going to be happy and unhappy based on the circumstances of our lives, if you're not anchored to the Lord. Now, sometimes we find ourselves upset and we don't know why. There's a Psalm that is great at expressing this, 42, when it says twice, why are you cast down on my soul? Why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him. There are times where we don't judge our own hearts very clearly. which, by the way, is why we need to be careful about being angry like Jonah is. So often our anger is clouded by our own sin. How do you examine your own heart? How do you see what's going on? Well, we see God here in Jonah doing spiritual surgery, revealing to Jonah what's going on in his heart. Instead of just telling Jonah, shut up, go away, go die, God continues to prod Jonah with questions, questions that bring out what's in his heart. Do you do well to be angry? A good question for us to ask ourselves. What's in Jonah's heart comes out not only through these questions, but also in his emotions, his response to the things that are going on, the joy over the plant, the anger over the people of Nineveh. Our emotions are a window into our hearts, showing us what our idolatries are, showing us what we love. Jonah is jubilant when this plant rises up, gives him relief, and yet exceedingly angry when God doesn't give those bad people in Nineveh what they deserve. Friends, what makes you exceedingly happy and joyful on a day-to-day basis? Your joy, along with your anger, gives you a window into your heart to show you what you love, to show you what you treasure. And not only that, but how you respond to events in your life, those things bring out what's in our hearts. So we can't blame our circumstances. But that's what we do. We blame God. We blame our circumstances. But our hearts are the biggest contributor to our misery on a day to day basis. The sin, my own sinful heart is my biggest problem today and tomorrow. It's not politics. It's not all these other things going on. My own sinful heart is the greatest cause for my misery on a day to day basis. Certainly not my heavenly father. Now notice the word evil. It's used throughout this book of Jonah. It starts at the beginning when there's a great evil that's come before the Lord about the people of Nineveh, the city of Nineveh. That's why God sends Jonah to prophesy to them. And now Jonah takes up this word. Our translations perhaps have smoothed it out. It was great evil to Jonah, a great evil. That's been smoothed out to it displeased Jonah exceedingly. An issue here is who decides what's good and what's bad, what's evil? Does God get to decide what is good? Or do you, does Jonah? Jonah thinks it's not good. What God says, it is good. Jonah says it's evil to save Nineveh. These words good, the word good is also used here. Translated as good or better or well. You do well to be angry. Is it good for you to be angry? And what's so interesting is that God is so good in this book, and he desires good for people and he overcomes evil. God sends Jonah to Nineveh because of their evil. And here, chapter four, God sends this plant to save Jonah from his evil. Now our translations have smoothed this out to save him from his discomfort, but that word is literally the same word for evil. This plant is an instrument in the Redeemer's hands to work upon Jonah's heart to save him and to change him from his evil. I think that because I think Jonah's evil is a lot like Nineveh's. One scholar suggests, the evil which began the story finds its final resting place in the heart of Jonah. And yet, God is pursuing this wandering sheep. God is showing grace to him. God is being patient with him. Now, we could go on. There's so many other things that I could highlight in the book of Jonah. There's things that I won't get into, how we argue with God because we think we know better than he does. How we're not right to be angry, how we twist scripture for our own designs like Jonah does here. in his description of the Lord. We don't have time to get into Jonah's complaint about God with Nineveh or even the question of God relenting from his disaster. But suffice it to say that Jonah incriminates himself here in his answer when he says, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die because I've suffered. I had this great plant giving me shade and now it's gone. Think about it. If Jonah is right to care so much about that little plant, which he had so little to do with, which grew up in the space of one day. Isn't it right for God to care about Nineveh, in which there's these people that he made? There's cattle that is precious to him. Jonah didn't make the plant. God made it. And yet he became so attached to this thing that he only enjoyed for a short time. If Jonah can care so much about that little plant Can't God care about the people he made in Nineveh? How much more should he care for them? Are they not worth more than a little plant? God is good here. And as much evil as we see in Jonah's heart, we also see God has grace that is greater than all his sin. Grace that is greater than all your sin and my sin. We're meant to be challenged by Jonah. Will we be slower to repent than Jonah was? Will we be slower to repent than the people of Nineveh who repented right away? Jesus challenged his audience with this, as I read from Matthew chapter 12 earlier. Will the people of Nineveh rise up on the day of judgment and condemn you because they repented quicker than you did? See how God relented from his judgment here against Nineveh, and know God will respond in a similar way when you repent. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Repentance is meant to be an application from this book, and I think that's why it ends the way it does, seemingly abruptly, but it ends that way to point the finger at you and say, how will you respond to God's word? Will you do so the way that Jonah did or the way that the people of Nineveh did? God pursues wandering sinners like Jonah, like you, and like me at times. And we should see our God and his amazing patience in the pages of these scriptures. When I read this book, I think about myself in God's place, and I think, we could just end this story at numerous points, and it would be a good story, right? Jonah could die in the storm in chapter one. That would be a great place to end, and we would learn, don't disobey God. He will always get you in the end. You can't run away from his presence. You run away from his presence, and you get what you deserve. I wouldn't shed a tear if that happened. The book of Jonah could end at the end of chapter three when Nineveh repents. Their repentant just ended there, but it doesn't end there. The heat could take out Jonah on the bluffs over Nineveh, and I don't think Any of us would shed a tear. We would say Jonah deserved to die here. He wants to die. God's just giving him what he's pleading for. But God is patient. He gives Jonah chance after chance. We have a God who seeks and saves the lost, who gives second chances, who sends Jonah a second time to Nineveh when he could have just found another prophet. He designs storms that are just the right strength to get the result he wants. Not a storm that's so strong that the ship just rips apart immediately. Not weak enough that nobody's scared of it. He sends a storm to do exactly what he purposes for it. He sends this plant to do the exact surgery on Jonah's heart. But God is patient. He dialogues with Jonah this whole time. He knows exactly what we need as he does spiritual surgery in each of our hearts. He's working in us by his spirit. He's working in you by his spirit to make you more and more like him, to love what he loves, to rejoice in what he rejoices in, to be a missionary like he is. You were meant for so much more. God desires more for you than you even realize, just as he did with Jonah. He's more zealous for your lasting and steadfast joy than you are. You think you want joy, but God wants your joy even more. We settle for lesser joys day after day. And when you see your sin, when you see how you're like Jonah, in these things, that it reveals your own heart. Rejoice in one of the gracious lessons in this book. Salvation belongs to the Lord. Salvation belongs to the Lord. He is sovereign over salvation. He chooses who's going to be saved. It's not Jonah who gets that decision. Jonah, ironically, says these words in chapter two, salvation belongs to the Lord, but he doesn't seem to really believe it. It hasn't really sunk in, I think, until the end of the book. Now, it's just my speculation, but I think that a repentant Jonah gave the source material for this book. But he's telling his story to whoever put it down in writing. God worked in his heart, it seems to me. Friends, rejoice that salvation belongs to the Lord, that God has mercy upon whom He has mercy, that salvation is by grace and not by works, that God is patient with those whom He saves. Despite your sin, despite making an enemy of Him, He desires your repentance and your faith in Christ, the Ninevahs of the world to be saved, and such were some of you. He sent Jesus. And think about this, if Jonah thinks that he's received unfair treatment, that the people of Nineveh received unfair treatment, think about it. He thinks it's unfair. God is blasting his gourds, to use an old phrase, right? God is destroying this plant. God is making Jonah suffer. And meanwhile, he's being kind to these people in Nineveh. If God, if Jesus, Jonah, if Jonah thinks that's unfair, he needs to talk to Jesus Christ. The suffering servant, the perfectly righteous son of God who suffered in your place and in my place. If he thinks it's unfair that Nineveh received grace. What would he think about the cross of Jesus Christ and the unfair treatment that Jesus received? The Son of God said yes to his mission of redemption. He said, not my will, but your will be done. Jesus invited Pharisee like people, Jonah like people to share in his joy, to rejoice when the lost are found. And he had that joy, Hebrews says, when he went to the cross for your sins and for mine, so that all of our sins can be cast into the depths of the sea. And the Spirit is working in us so that we can delight in God and what he does for us, that we can delight when the lost are found, that we can say not my will, but thy will be done. So that we will go and share the gospel with needy sinners. God's salvation of you, like His grace to the people of Nineveh, it's beyond our understanding and our comprehension. Salvation belongs to the Lord. We can't, we don't decide it. We can't fathom us. I was reflecting with some congregants after last Sunday, the hymn, How Sweet and Awesome is the Place, and that great line, Why was I made to hear your voice and enter while there's room when thousands make a wretched choice and rather starve than come? If salvation belongs to Lord, we can't explain why we received it, why God's been gracious to us. All we can do is praise the Lord that he does save whomever he will. Think about how different the Apostle Paul's response was at the end of Romans, really not the end, Romans 11. He erupts into praise. This is what Jonah should have done after the people of Nineveh were saved. Oh, the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, how inscrutable his ways for who has known the mind of the Lord. or who has been his counselor, who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid. For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen. That's where we should end as well, giving praise to the Lord. He knows better than we do. We can teach him no better than Jonah could teach him here. But instead, we can be taught by him. We can praise him. and seek to imitate him. Let's pray. Our gracious heavenly father, we do rejoice with great joy that you are patient with sinners like us. Lord, even though you've shown grace to us, we have hearts that are like Jonah's. We don't always respond to your grace rightly. We take it for granted. We even forget that you've shown us grace and we think that we've done so much for ourselves, that we deserve good things. But Lord, we pray that you would humble us this morning, that we would see our sin, that we would confess our sin and know that you forgive us our sins, that you cast all of our sins into the depths of the sea through Jesus Christ. Lord, thank you for these lessons. We pray that your word would shape us and mold us this week, that it would be a light to our path. Lord, that you would indeed be gathering more and more people out of darkness and bringing them into your marvelous light through Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, amen.