Should I Not Have Compassion?

Jonah 4: Should I not Have Compassion?

In this last chapter of Jonah, we are hit with a plot twist that reshapes the way we read the entire book. Most people when they think of Jonah, think of God saving Jonah by the fish, and if the book had ended there in chapter 2, what a triumphant story that would be! Jonah repents and cries out to God, and God miraculously saves him. As they say, “that’ll preach.” Or if the book ended at the end of chapter three when Jonah preaches what might be one of the most effective sermons ever. What a triumphant story that would be! God saves and restores Jonah from certain death and then Jonah spearheads one of the most effective short-term missionary trips ever recorded. That’ll preach. But then we get to chapter four, we see that our protagonist is far from feeling triumphant over the success of his quest. In fact, he feels so angry that he wants to die.

How could Jonah go from successfully preaching repentance to a king, to demanding death? More directly, have you ever felt slighted by God for giving grace to others while withholding grace you felt you deserved? Has that resentment towards God made its way out into frustration towards others, subtly coloring the way you see and treat them? Well this book is for us.

What chapter 4 teaches us is that the book of Jonah is not a hero saga about Jonah, but a masterclass in God’s grace and compassion. Jonah is a man who knows about God’s radically gracious compassion, yet that knowledge hadn’t moved from his head to his heart. Jonah shows that we can know and proclaim God’s grace, without loving God’s grace. Yet, even though we fail to love God’s grace as we should, God still pursues our angry and frustrated hearts with His patient compassion. It is this experience of God’s compassion, the recognition of our sin and God’s grace towards us, that will transform our affections and make us into a people of compassion.

We are going to see how this unfolds in two movements this morning, first we will observe Jonah’s anger, and second, God’s compassion on an angry Jonah. Jonah’s anger, and God’s compassion.

Point 1: Jonah’s Anger

The phrase “I’m so angry I could die” isn’t a modern conception, but is clearly 1000s of years old. Jonah spares no time in telling us how he feels. Verse 1 tells us that,  “But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.” So what was the “it” that displeased Jonah? It is what we would think would be the pinnacle of the story! Jonah is outraged that God would show compassion on Nineveh. The ESV does a good job of capturing what is going on inside Jonah, but I think it misses the mark a bit as to what degree this is going on. In the original language, the verse reads more woodenly like God’s grace to Nineveh was "exceedingly, and greatly evil to Jonah, and he became angry.”  There is no way for the author to express more emphatically how God’s grace has infuriated Jonah to the core. And this also tells us not only that Jonah is mad, but why he is mad.

A lot of sermons you will hear on Jonah 4 will point to Jonah’s inherent racism or nationalism. Now I think those things are there, but the thing undergirding them both is Jonah’s sense of entitlement. God’s favor is being extended to Gentiles, yet Jonah, being a prophet from the Northern Kingdom of Israel, has lived in a country who has been practicing idolatry for over 150 years. Now imagine, Jonah sees this Gentile nation repent in ash and sackcloth in just one day, while his nation has been in un-repentant idolatry for over a century. Jonah is thinking, “How could God take our blessings and give them to those people, while my people walk closer and closer to destruction? A destruction that comes to Israel just 30 years after Jonah’s ministry when Assyria sacks Israel and enslaves the nation.

Jonah doesn’t know that is coming at this point,, but He can see the writing on the wall. God’s compassion is moving away from a rebellious Israel, and coming on repentant Gentiles. It’s something that is not far from our minds. As we watch the Western world entering into what many call a “post-Christian age,” as we watch our own nation secularize, it is easy to look at the growing faith in the Chinese, Iranian, or African church and become resentful towards God for not doing that here.

Yet, this act of God’s compassion, this “exceedingly, great evil to Jonah” is a shadow the ministry Christ himself will shortly bring. In Matthew 12 the Pharisees ask Jesus for a sign, and this is what Jesus tells them.  Matthew 12:39-41,

39 But he replied to them, “An evil and adulterous generation craves a sign. Yet no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah, 40 because just as Jonah was in the stomach of the sea creature for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights. 41 The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment and condemn the people living today, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. But look—something greater than Jonah is here!

The sign of Jonah culminates in the resurrection, but extends to the mission to the Gentiles, as Jesus Himself hints in Matthew 12. The gospel is coming to the Gentiles, and they will receive it with joy. Jonah hated God’s compassion for the Gentiles, the Pharisees hated it too, but Jesus embodied the very grace Jonah hated. Jonah can’t believe that God would let these Ninevites off the hook, well he can believe it but he can’t live with it. Jonah wants no part in God’s treason, he can’t live with the injustice that God would give what rightfully belongs to him and his people, to those people…

In Romans 9, it is almost as if Paul is responding directly to Jonah when he says “14 What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! 15 For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” 16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy...

And to make it worse, Jonah knows who God is. He quotes God’s covenant name back to God in verse two, and then he tells God, “I knew you would do this… I knew you would give them grace if I went to them, that's exactly why I ran from you… I knew you would do this to me… my people are supposed to be the blessed ones, not them… I would rather die than see what is rightly mine and my people’s blessing go to them.”

What we see in Jonah is a case of someone whose doctrine hasn’t spread from their head into their heart yet, and people who have a knowledge of God without having the love of God are some of the angriest. We have a term-for them in the Reformed world, we call them “cage-stage Calvinists." These are typically people new to the Reformed faith who find the doctrines of Grace intellectually compelling, but their lack of experiencing God’s grace often leads them to use their doctrine as a club instead of an olive branch. But this extends beyond just the Reformed world to Christianity in general.

In recent times more than ever Christians influencers have seemed more and more angry. They are angry at the political left, they are angry at the political right, and they are angry at each other.  Anger is a powerful motivator, an intoxicant even. And a major reason it has this effect is that it makes us feel justified. It makes us feel righteous. The more angry you feel at someone, the less likely you are to hear their side with compassion (or at all) and the more likely you are to look at them as a problem instead of a person. When we spend more energy and time in cultural outrage instead of in prayer for our enemies, we are thinking like Jonah.

Now, I am not saying to compromise on God’s word in any way. Compassion does not equal compromise. We should be willing to stand firm on the truth that God has given us through His word. But, what I am saying is that those who quote 1 Peter 3:15 saying “but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; need to read the rest of the verse yet do it with gentleness and respect.”

1. Palmer Robertson says “All doctrine is meant to lead us to holiness, and if doctrine makes you insensitive to people, you probably don’t fully understand it yet.” Understanding God’s grace will make you passionate for God’s glory, but experiencing God’s grace will make you compassionate towards God’s people. When John and James were with Jesus in his earthly ministry they received the nicknames “Son’s of Thunder” for wanting to call down fire from heaven on the Samaritans who refused to receive Jesus. Yet, John would write about God’s love and compassion more than any other gospel writer. This is what maturity in faith starts to do.

This is exactly what Jonah needed to learn, and it is exactly what God is teaching him. The book of Jonah is God’s masterclass in grace leading to compassion, and the keynote lecture is here in chapter 4. God recognizes Jonah’s anger, and meets him with compassion.

Point 2: God’s Compassion

Jonah proves that he has learned something from his lesson in the belly of the fish. “In chapter 1 Jonah fled from God’s presence; in chapter 4, he flees to God’s presence, even if only to complain. That small shift is itself a grace. We see this because Jonah is turning to God in prayer. Though his prayer is less than encouraging, nonetheless he turns to God and not from him. Sometimes God places trials in our lives inorder to teach us to call on Him. That is an effect of grace no matter how small.

Then God asks Jonah the simple question “do you do right to be angry?” More woodenly translated it reads “is it good for you to be angry?” God is gently poking at Jonah’s resentment, asking him “Jonah look at yourself. When you were in the belly of the fish you cried out to me and I heard you, you asked for deliverance and I gave it to you. And now you want to die? Jonah… is this resentment of yours really good for you?”

To which Jonah just gets up and leaves and goes to pitch his tent outside the city. He doesn’t even want to answer God. Jonah should have stayed in Nineveh and helped these new converts understand who the God is that showed them this compassion. But Jonah’s resentment towards God has worked its way out into hatred towards the Ninevites. Jonah instead sets up his tent on the outside of the city, in a frustrated hope that the seed of faith planted in Nineveh was planted in shallow soil. He hopes that their repentance is only superficial, and is waiting for them to fall from grace so that God’s judgement will fall on them.

There are many Christians who do the same. We set up our small booths outside the culture of the world, content to enjoy God’s mercy on us while hoping for misfortunes to fall on a God-alienated world… We isolate ourselves, content to condemn the world from afar while being unwilling to engage the world with compassion. But God teaches us to engage the world. Not merely with friendship or activism, but with the gospel, the means of grace, and covenant community. All of these water the seeds of faith that God is planting, it is our way of discipling the world.

Jonah was not called to be a spectator, but a participant in God’s saving work, and so are we. You don’t go to basketball practice five days a week just because you want to wear the jersey and ride the bench. No, you do it to be part of the team. We are called to be active in God’s redeeming work throughout the world, not just theological spectators on the bench. But Jonah, high on anger and low on compassion, decides he is going to sit this one out.

This is where we really start to see God’s masterclass in grace take full effect. Because as Jonah is sulking, God graciously appoints a plant, a worm, and then a scorching wind. What we should take notice of is that everytime God appoints something towards Jonah in this book, it is God compassionately pursuing Jonah. God doesn’t appoint the trials to destroy Jonah but to restore him. God appoints the storm that causes Jonah to be thrown into the sea, where God then appoints the fish to save Jonah from certain death. Both of these are means by which God is slowly teaching Jonah who He is, and drawing Jonah towards Himself. And now we see the same thing with the plant, the worm, and the wind.

God appoints the plant to give Jonah relief from the sun, and this greatly pleases Jonah. Jonah expects this kind of blessing, he is an Israelite after all. But then God appoints the worm and the scorching heat. The worm destroys the plant, and the scorching wind brings heat off the desert to hit Jonah right in the face. To which Jonah cries out to God at the end of verse 8 saying “It is better for me to die than to live.” But God replies to Jonah in verse 9 and says “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?”

The lesson in God’s grace seems to be working, because now instead of just walking away again, Jonah answers God’s question. He says “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” Jonah has gone from running from God and ignoring God’s questions, to finally dialoguing with God. All these afflictions he’s faced have finally led Jonah to the point where he is ready to do more than just have a one way conversation with God, Jonah becomes willing to honestly engage with what God is asking Him. But he still has more to learn.

Let’s read verses 10-11. “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. 11 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?”

Should Jonah have felt compassion for the plant? Yes. The plant was a good gift from God. Genesis tells us that God made all things and he called them good. This includes the plants and the animals. But the lesson that God is teaching Jonah is, if it was right for Jonah to have compassion for the plant which he didn’t labor over, which came and went in one night, how much more so should God have compassion on 120,000 people made in God’s image who don’t know their left hand from their right, not to mention many cattle. Jonah’s own answer condemns his anger.

If Jonah could care so much about this plant that he was ready to die, how much more should God care about people made in His image? I think the answer is clear. “For God so loved the world that He sent his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life…. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” These two verses from John’s Gospel and his first epistle capture how deep the father’s love for us goes, coming first-hand from someone who grew in God’s compassion from a “Son of Thunder” into the “Disciple whom Jesus loved.”

Jonah’s anger pushed him to request a selfish death, but God’s compassion led Him to self-less death. Jonah was not willing to share God’s grace, but Jesus was willing to go to the cross and take our place. He received the judgement we were due, and even had compassion on those who took His life saying “father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” He was called “Jesus, friend of sinners,” and He is both the prime example of God’s compassion, and the evidence of it.

Jonah received a storm, a fish, a plant, a worm, and wind to help him learn about God’s grace. But something better than Jonah has come.

Jonah’s story is a masterclass in grace because every step along the way we see God pursuing Jonah in his hard-heartedness. The redemption of the Ninevites captures God’s grace towards others, but the story of Jonah really is about God’s grace towards us. How God pursues us even in our stubbornness, so much so that Christ died for us while we were still sinners. It shows us how even the trials in life are means by which God draws us closer to Him. As Ambrose famously said “The devil tempts that he may ruin, but the Lord tests that he may crown.”

Conclusion:

I have said multiple times that Jonah is a masterclass in grace, but Jonah isn’t the only one in attendance, we all are. The book ends with a question, a strange thing for a narrative to do. But the first sentence of the book helps us understand the impact of this ending. We are told in chapter 1 verse 1 that Jonah is the son of Amittai. Amittai in Hebrew translates as “my faithfulness.” So, who is Jonah? He is the son of “my faithfulness,” God’s faithfulness, and his story is our own.

We, like Jonah, often fight against God’s word, at times running, other times reluctantly obeying. We feel entitled to God’s grace while at the same time being angry at the grace God gives other people. But we are children of God’s faithfulness. And even when we are faithless, He remains faithful. He pursues us with tender comforts like the plant, and scorching trials like the desert wind because we are children of His faithfulness. The Holy Spirit leaves us with this sovereignly placed question, “should I not have compassion?” God asks the question not because He wants to know, but because He wants us to ask it of ourselves. “Should we not have compassion?”

As God is pursuing us with his patient and persistent compassion, the text is asking us, who is the Nineveh you refuse to show compassion? And how do we become people whose hearts are softened enough to extend this compassion? By beholding God’s compassion on us, through comforts like the plant, and trials like the worm, but most importantly beholding Jesus Christ. He is the embodiment of God’s compassion for the world, and by beholding Him, we are transformed from one degree of glory to another. It’s not just knowing about Christ, but knowing Him. When we are grounded in a deep and intimate relationship with God in Christ, HIs love and compassion becomes our own.

Let’s pray.

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