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It’s been two weeks since it happened, the massacre in Orlando. Our hearts certainly go out to the victims and their families. But today I’d like you to think about, not the victims, but man who perpetrated this unthinkable crime. The man who wantonly took the lives of all those people. Tell me, how would you feel if you knew that that man, at the moment of his death, went to heaven? Would you rejoice in that fact—that he’s now in heaven? Or would you say, “Wait a minute. That’s not right. After what that man did, he shouldn’t be in heaven. That man has earned his place in hell!”
Now, please understand, I’m not saying that I think Omar Mateen went heaven. On the basis of his apparent premeditated and impenitent act of murder, and on the basis of his confession of faith in Allah, a false god, all evidence suggests that this man will not spend eternity with the true God in heaven. But what if that were not the case? What if at the last second, God in the ultimate act of undeserved love, were to give Omar Mateen a reprieve? What if God did not give him what he deserved? How would you feel about that? Would that make you happy or would that make you angry?
My friends, you realize, you and I are not the first ones who have faced the question, “How do I feel about evil people going unpunished? In our text for today, we meet a man who was forced to wrestle with this very same question, the question that will serve as our sermon theme today, namely,
How will I Respond to God’s Grace?
As we take a closer look at this section of Scripture, we’ll see that on the one hand,
God’s grace produces repentance in some
But God’s grace produces resentment in others
Now, you remember the story of Jonah don’t you? God comes to Jonah and says what? “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” “(Jonah 1:2). But Jonah doesn’t want to do that. So he runs the other way. He catches a ship headed to Tarshish, which in those days was like the end of the earth. But God sends a major storm, the sailors throw him overboard, and God has a huge fish swallow him whole to basically save his life and call him to repentance. Well, it works. From the belly of the fish, Jonah acknowledges his foolishness, calls out to God in faith and God has the fish vomit him out on dry land.
That’s where our text for today picks up. Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: {2} “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” This time Jonah obeys the God’s command. He goes to Nineveh and he proclaims the Lord’s message. And what is that message? You heard it: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.” Kind of reminds you of one of those cartoon prophets you might see in the newspaper. You know, the guy with the long beard, wearing sandals, holding up a sign that reads, “THE END IS NEAR. REPENT OR BE JUDGED!”
Now, tell me, was Jonah’s message Law or Gospel? “40 more days and Nineveh will be destroyed.” Obviously, there’s Law there. Jonah is announcing that there will be consequences from God for the wicked, violent lifestyle the Ninevites have been engaging in. Jonah’s message was not unlike Paul’s words in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death.”
But is there any Gospel in Jonah’s message? Actually, there is. It’s contained in the words, “40 more days.” Those words are an expression of God’s patience. Elsewhere in Scripture, God describes himself as “slow to anger, abounding in love.” The Apostle Peter writes in his second epistle, [God] is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). My friends, this is the gospel. Undoubtedly, Jonah fleshed it out a bit, but in essence the message was, “Ninevites, God is giving you all an opportunity to repent, to turn away from your sins and turn to the true God; trust in his compassion, trust in his mercy and the forgiveness of sins he freely offers you.
Ultimately, it was that double message of Law and Gospel that changed their hearts. The Law convinced them that God was serious about their sin and they deserved to be punished, while the Gospel gave them that glimmer of hope that the Lord might still relent and have compassion on them and grant them forgiveness for all their sins. In the end, the Ninevites put their hope not in their own good behavior. They put their hope in God’s grace. How does our text put it? “The Ninevites believed God.” The Hebrew word there is the same word that is applied to Abraham’s faith when Scripture says, “Abraham believed the LORD, and [the LORD] credited it to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6). In other words, the faith of the Ninevites was the same God-given, soul-saving faith that Abraham displayed. And notice, that saving faith immediately produced fruits in the lives of the Ninevites. We read, “They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.” In other words, the people displayed a genuine sorrow over their sin.
My friends, do you realize that what a miracle this represents—that the entire city of Nineveh, with an estimated population of 500,000, all became believers in the one true God? Wow! You think that Pentecost with 3000 converts in one day was a big deal. How about half a million in less than 40 days!
And notice that God doesn’t miss what happened here. When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened (Jonah 3:10). In other words, God made good on his promise to be, as he once told Moses, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, {7} maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin (Exodus 34:6-7).
Talk about an awesome display of God’s grace! An entire city saved from the brink of destruction! You would think that if anybody would be pumped up about this, it would be the person who brought the message to the Ninevites in the first place. I mean, this was like mission accomplished! What better success could you ever hope for than the salvation of an entire city? And yet, was Jonah pleased by what happened? No. The Bible says, Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry (Jonah 4:4). Literally, the Hebrew says, “This thing was evil to Jonah, a great evil. And his anger burned.”
My friends, with those words we discover a second key truth in this portion of God’s Word. It’s simply this. While (I.) God’s grace produces repentance in some. II. God’s grace produces resentment in others. Now, when I say that God’s grace “produces” resentment, I don’t mean that God’s grace is somehow at fault. The problem is not God’s undeserved love for sinners. The problem is how the human heart sometimes reacts to God’s undeserved love for others. Such was the case with Jonah.
When God relented and didn’t give the Ninevites what Jonah thinks they have coming, Jonah is furious. Why? Well, on the one hand, maybe Jonah felt like his reputation had been damaged. Remember Jonah had promised, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be destroyed.” When the 40th day comes and goes without any fire and brimstone, Jonah is like, “C’mon God, you’re making me look bad. You’re making me look like I didn’t know what I was talking about.” Of course, that sentiment shows absolutely no regard for the welfare of the Ninevites, but only for Jonah’s own ego.
A second reason that Jonah might have felt justified in being angry with God is the fact that Nineveh, the capital of Assyria was actually a military enemy of God’s nation of Israel. In fact, ultimately Assyria is going to go to war with Israel. Maybe Jonah was thinking, “God, you had the chance to wipe out a major threat to your people. Now you let them off the hook. This is going to come back to haunt us! They’re going to come back all the stronger.” (In fact, that’s what happened, in a little different way. When the 10 northern tribes of Israel rebelled against God, God used the Assyrians carry them off into extinction.)
But now, back to Jonah. The real source of Jonah’s anger was not personal pride or nationalism. No, it was simply self-righteousness, that is, the feeling that he deserved more from God that those Ninevites did. Or the flip side of the coin, the feeling that the Ninevites got what they didn’t deserve. Jonah is thinking, “After all the wicked things they had done, after their many years of thumbing their noses at the God of the Bible, at the last minute they turn to God—and God lets them off the hook?!? God, that’s not fair. That’s not right. They’re getting what they don’t deserve. And I’m not getting what I do deserve.
Hmmm. Does that sentiment sound at all familiar? Does it sound a little like the older brother in Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son? You know, the one who resented that his father threw a party for the son who “squandered his wealth in wild living”, the one who “was once lost and now is found” (Luke 15)? Does Jonah sound a bit like the workers in the vineyard who resented the fact that after working all day, there were paid no more than those who worked merely the last hour of the day? They complained that the landowner was being unfair. Do you remember what the landowner said to those workers? “Don’t I have a right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?” (Matthew 20:15) Or, to put it in terms of our Old Testament lesson for today, “Are you angry because I, the Lord, am gracious?”
You see, isn’t this where this lesson hits home for you and me? You realize, we are not immune to the poison that had infected Jonah’s heart. That feeling of anger and resentment toward God—because of the grace he’s shown to others. Maybe for you that feeling wells up in your heart when you see someone who said or did some things that really hurt you, and suddenly that person is sitting here in church. And you’re thinking, “God, do you know what she did to me? How could you let her get away with that? Why would you forgive that person? That’s not right.”
Or maybe you see a delinquent walk into church, someone who hasn’t been here for months on end, he’s been guilty of despising God’s Word and sacrament. And yet, the pastor is shaking his hand, patting him on the back and you’re thinking, “Why doesn’t he welcome me that way? I’m here every week. That’s not fair. That’s not right, to be so accepting of someone who is guilty of sin.”
Or maybe you think about God actually loving people who are gay, or bisexual or transgender, people who are addicted to pornography or alcohol and gambling. You think about God actually letting into heaven someone who is guilty of mass murder or serial adultery or fornication, or pride, or bitterness, or gossip, or worry, or whatever sin you are struggling with right now.
My friends, the bottom line is this: Our God is a gracious God. He is slow to anger and abounding in love. He does not treat us as our sins deserve, but instead, for the sake of Jesus’ perfect life in our place and his bitter suffering and death, God grants full pardon for the sins of all people. That’s grace.
The question is, how will you respond to that grace? Will you resent that God let other sinners off the hook, for Jesus’ sake? Will you resent that God gave someone else a bigger candy bar? Or will you confess the truth: “God, I deserve nothing from you but punishment. But I plead for your mercy. I’m going to trust not in my goodness. I’m going to trust in your grace. I believe that for the sake of your son Jesus Christ, you have already given me full and free forgiveness for my sins. In Christ, you’ve made me whole; you’ve made me a new person. And you’ve given me the desire and ability to share your saving love with everyone in the world, regardless of their past behavior, regardless of their present political persuasion or sexual orientation. God’s grace is not just for me. God’s grace is for all. God help us believe that, and live it, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.