"Jonah speaks a dud of a sermon, honestly, but it's still the word of God. And it's the word of God enough to wake up the entire city of Nineveh, to recognize their sin, and to begin doing things towards repentance. Jonah didn't tell him what to do. Jonah didn't tell him, cover yourself with sackcloth and ashes, repent, or anything like that. No, Jonah just said, in 40 days, Nineveh will be overturned or changed. And the people did this in response." [00:05:14] (27 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




"A city of 120,000 people saved because they believed the prophet Jonah's word, God's very own word. Because God's word, when it goes out, it accomplishes something. Even from somebody who is reluctant to do so, God's word still accomplishes its purpose. And we've seen this throughout the story of Jonah. It wasn't just in the city of Nineveh. It was that group of sailors in chapter one who begin to turn to the Lord God as well, offering sacrifices, making vows to the Lord God, the God of the earth and the sea. An incredible change." [00:07:27] (37 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




"God is a God of second chances for a reluctant prophet, for a people, and for you and for me. There is nothing that can keep us from that grace that he will continue to pursue us. Because his desire, his desire is for you, his beloved son, his chosen daughter, to be with him forever. Now for Jonah, his desire wasn't really that for the Ninevites." [00:08:37] (28 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)






"Jonah's angry and don't think that just because Jonah's angry that God's going to give up on Jonah because one of the miracles of this story is that over and over again God will not give up on Jonah Jonah keeps running turning his back not understanding but God relentlessly pursues his prophet and now he asks this prophet of God who knows the word of God who knows the nature of God but doesn't want those people to be saved is asked a great question and the question is this Jonah chapter 1 verse 4 is it right for you to be angry are you justified Jonah in what you are doing right now now Jonah doesn't answer that question it's kind of like the question you ask if you're your kids, or if you've been around children. Did you take a cookie?" [00:11:48] (60 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




"See, Jonah's anger doesn't push God away. Jonah's silence doesn't push God away. Because your God in his nature is slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love. Relenting from disaster. And so friends, if there's been times where you've been mad at God, you've yelled at him, you've been giving him the silent treatment, I've got to let you know that that doesn't push God away. In fact, God actually a lot of times leans in closer in those moments. Because who he is." [00:13:33] (37 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




"It ends with a question, a penetrating question, not just of Jonah, but of all people. Of all people. A question about the nature of God and who we believe is worthy of freedom, forgiveness, and mercy. Because for Jonah, there is a firm belief that not everybody deserves to receive the mercy and compassion and forgiveness of God." [00:20:36] (33 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




"And the story is to mess with us, to have us look inside of ourselves and to admit our own sin, to admit our sin in this area, to recognize that we do this. It's a human nature thing. We've been struggling with it since the beginning. Us and them, those people or that group, or how could they do that, or how could they live in that way?" [00:22:19] (24 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




"This is our Father's business, who is slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, relenting from disaster, and canceling sin. And he's invited you and me to join the family business, to be about the proclamation of the good news, to bring light into the dark. To bring hope to those who are hopeless." [00:25:40] (26 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




"To bring healing to those who are hurting, and to bring forgiveness to people who don't deserve it. Starting with you and me, and extending to those people that we so easily can cancel. But instead, we have that business of the cancellation of sins to be about." [00:26:06] (24 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)




"Leave the results into God's hand and be amazed how he can work through reluctant prophets, through people like you, pastors like me, to proclaim his word and to let it go forth and do what it always does. Brings that message of forgiveness and restoration home." [00:28:36] (22 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

Well, it's an exciting week ahead here in the life of the church.

We've been talking about some of these things already, but I've got to mention a couple of those other things.

You've been talking about the Thanksgiving boxes. Those have been great. I think 60 of them are going out to our families that we are partnering with each and every week through that Backpacks of Love ministry that you have been so generous in bringing supplies and donations for.

And I love the joy that is when we deliver those boxes and get to meet some of these families face-to-face this week. Already, some of you have been delivering those as well.

I do hope, too, you join us on Wednesday for that Thanksgiving feast that we'll have together as the Body of Christ here at St. Paul. It's an opportunity for us to share a meal around some tables together and the fellowship that happens as the Body of Christ.

And then, in just a few moments after our sermon here today, we will be able to send Gladys this day into this new role that she's taken on with the Texas District, in addition to her role as a deaconess intern, helping out with families. She's got so much free time; she's got to do this as well as an evangelist trainer. What a blessing that is to use her gifts in that way.

And I'm so excited. Can you believe it? Three weeks from today, Nativity Nights will be going on. We'll be in December, and we'll have that incredible event that has become just a staple of our community during these last seven or eight years that it's been going on. People look forward to it, and many people still come to it for the first time, not truly knowing the story of Jesus.

We can tell you story after story of kids hearing it for the very first time just in this front lawn, not because we have professional actors who have been memorizing scripts and got all the right words. No, it's everyday ordinary people, you, volunteering your time, saying, "Sure, I'll put on a costume and look a little crazy for the sake of the gospel. I'll bake some cookies for the sake of the gospel. I'll share and visit and welcome and donate my nativity and hope it doesn't get broken, but I'll do it for the sake of the gospel because some have never heard."

That's what we just sang. And we want to make sure that we get to be those agents who make sure they hear so that they too can come to faith by the power of God's word, bringing about changed lives for eternity.

Now, we may get that right sometimes, but as we've been going through these past few weeks in our Bible binge journey, where we've been reading through some of the minor prophets, you've been knocking out book after book each day. But here in worship, we've been talking about Jonah.

And Jonah, well, he loves to tell the story, not to those who haven't heard, but to those who have heard because those are his people. And so when God sends him, as we heard the first week in Jonah, to go to Nineveh, he refuses to go. Instead, he goes in the complete opposite direction.

But God continues to pursue his reluctant prophet, sending a storm to wake him up, sending a fish to rescue him. And as we get into chapter three today, he sends him once again to Nineveh to proclaim his word and to see what might happen when that word is proclaimed in this city of 120,000 people, located today near Mosul, Iraq.

There is where Nineveh was. And Jonah, on his way, prepares his message. He gets ready to deliver it. And he shows up to the city of Nineveh in Jonah chapter 3, verse 4. If you’ve got a pew Bible, you can follow along with me, or your Bible you brought from home. Take some notes as well.

I gave you a different cover, so don't look at the cover. I gave you a Zechariah because that's our reading for tomorrow. If you got Jonah, that's last week's one, but you can use that to follow along as well.

Jonah 3, verse 4: Jonah set out on the first day of his walk in the city, and he proclaimed, "In 40 days, Nineveh will be demolished."

Sermon's over. At least Jonah's over. Five words in Hebrew. That's all it is.

Now you hear that word, that sermon in Hebrew, and you hear Jonah, the reluctant prophet who doesn't want to go to Nineveh, delivers this sermon that he's been preparing some 500 miles that he's been journeying. And this is the best he comes up with as he proclaims the word of the Lord: "In 40 days, Nineveh will be demolished."

And it sounds like a word of law. And there is some law in there. But there's also some beautiful gospel. Because there's 40 days. And a lot can happen in 40 days.

And that word in Hebrew that we translate "destroy" can also be translated as "changed." 40 days.

And so what happens in those 40 days? What happens to this powerful, powerful sermon from the mighty prophet of God? Well, look at the results.

Verse 5: Then the people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast, and they dressed in sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least.

And when word reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, took off his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, sat in ashes, and issued a decree.

By order of the king and the nobles, no person or animal or herd or flock is to taste anything at all. They must not eat or drink water. Furthermore, people and animals must be covered with sackcloth. Everyone must call out earnestly to God. Everyone must turn from his evil ways and from his wrongdoing.

Now, it's pretty incredible what the king responds. I mean, Jonah speaks a dud of a sermon, honestly, but it's still the word of God. And it's the word of God enough to wake up the entire city of Nineveh, to recognize their sin, and to begin doing things towards repentance.

Jonah didn't tell him what to do. Jonah didn't tell him to cover himself with sackcloth and ashes, repent, or anything like that. No, Jonah just said, "In 40 days, Nineveh will be overturned or changed." And the people did this in response.

And then what happens next is an incredible statement from the king. An incredible statement—a faith that doesn't presume on God, but actually lets God be God, something Jonah struggles with happening.

Verse 9: Who knows, he says, "God may turn and relent. He may turn from his burning anger so that we will not perish."

Whoa. This is the pagan king. He's the king of the city of blood, and he has a hope based on the message of God's word proclaimed by a reluctant prophet that in 40 days, God may choose to not destroy them.

Notice he doesn't say God can't destroy us or he won't destroy us because we've shown that we've got our lives in order and we're good people now. We used to be bad, but now we're good, and God's going to have to save us. No, he doesn't presume on God. He simply says, "This is what we need to do because we were wrong. Let's turn toward him, and perhaps, perhaps he may turn from his burning anger that is justified so that we will not perish."

What an incredible statement of faith, of not presuming on God, of not trying to make God do what he wants him to do, but letting God be God, something that Jonah struggles with in this whole book.

And the result of this, well, verse 10: God saw their actions, that they had turned from their evil ways, so God relented from the disaster that he had threatened them with. And he did not do it. He didn't do it.

A city of 120,000 people saved because they believed the prophet Jonah's word, God's very own word. Because God's word, when it goes out, it accomplishes something. Even from somebody who is reluctant to do so, God's word still accomplishes its purpose.

And we've seen this throughout the story of Jonah. It wasn't just in the city of Nineveh. It was that group of sailors in chapter one who begin to turn to the Lord God as well, offering sacrifices, making vows to the Lord God, the God of the earth and the sea. An incredible change.

An incredible change in the story that we've got a God of second chances, that he doesn't give up on the Ninevites, even though they're the city of blood. And even though you've been reading in some of the other prophets, Nineveh's got some struggles with, as we've been reading about. They are the enemy of the people of God many times.

But just because they are the enemy of the people of God doesn't mean that God doesn't want them to be saved, that God doesn't want them to turn in repentance to him so that they too can receive freely the gift of salvation.

God is a God of second chances for a reluctant prophet, for a people, and for you and for me. There is nothing that can keep us from that grace that he will continue to pursue us with, because his desire, his desire is for you, his beloved son, his chosen daughter, to be with him forever.

Now for Jonah, his desire wasn't really that for the Ninevites. If we ended the chapter here, if we just ended the whole story of Jonah, this would be a great story. This would be the story about the prophet who preaches the shortest sermon and gets the greatest results.

Take that, Peter, on Pentecost. Look at Jonah in the Old Testament. He can do it really good, but that's not the point, because the point isn't just what this story is talking about, the word of God going out.

This story, this story is supposed to mess with you. I mean, literally mess with you. It's supposed to get in your crawl and make you ask some questions, some questions that God himself now asks of Jonah.

We continue, Jonah chapter 4, verse 1: Jonah was greatly displeased and became furious, and he prayed to the Lord, and he said, "Lord, isn't this what I said while I was still in my own country? This is why I fled to Tarshish in the first place. I knew, look at this, I knew you are gracious and a compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and one who relents from sending disaster.

And now, Lord, take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live." Jonah is angry. He's angry with God because he knows God is good.

He's angry with God because he knows God is good. He's angry with being who he is—a God who is gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, relenting from sending disaster.

And that's the reason Jonah doesn't want to go to Nineveh. He doesn't want those people to be saved. He doesn't want them to be forgiven. He wants them to be judged and condemned and destroyed. They are his enemy. He doesn't want them to be saved.

That's why he doesn't go to Nineveh. He's not afraid of the Ninevites. He's afraid that God is going to be God and show up with justice and mercy to a whole bunch of people who don't deserve it.

And that's just the point, isn't it? The point is, Jonah, nobody deserves it. You don't deserve it, Jonah. Your people don't deserve it. The Ninevites don't deserve it. And that's the whole point of forgiveness. Nobody deserves forgiveness.

But yet God gives it in abundance because it's his. It's the family business, Jonah. And you're to be about the family's business.

And he's angry, and he's upset because of who he knows God to be. He's got the right theology and the right answers about God, but he's completely missing the nature of God that doesn't want people to be condemned and thrown away, but to be forgiven and restored time and time and time again.

Jonah's angry, and don't think that just because Jonah's angry that God's going to give up on Jonah, because one of the miracles of this story is that over and over again, God will not give up on Jonah. Jonah keeps running, turning his back, not understanding, but God relentlessly pursues his prophet.

And now he asks this prophet of God, who knows the word of God, who knows the nature of God, but doesn't want those people to be saved, a great question.

And the question is this: Jonah chapter 1, verse 4: Is it right for you to be angry? Are you justified, Jonah, in what you are doing right now?

Now Jonah doesn't answer that question. It's kind of like the question you ask your kids, or if you've been around children: Did you take a cookie?

How do I answer that question? Because how I answer that question is going to implicate me. And so maybe I just don't answer the question, and Jonah's silent.

And I love what Dr. Reed Lessing, this is a great commentary on the book of Jonah. He has some really great things in here, and this was just one line that he says, and this was on page 389 of his commentary, the Concordia Commentary series on Jonah.

He says, "Who rules the wind and the sea and the mighty power of Sheol, who has converted and saved a formerly wicked metropolis, stoops down to hold a conversation with a pouting child. What patience, what grace."

See, Jonah's anger doesn't push God away. Jonah's silence doesn't push God away. Because your God, in his nature, is slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, relenting from disaster.

And so friends, if there have been times where you've been mad at God, you've yelled at him, you've been giving him the silent treatment, I've got to let you know that that doesn't push God away.

In fact, God actually, a lot of times, leans in closer in those moments because of who he is. Jonah knows him—slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, compassionate, relenting from disaster.

And friends, he's for that, you and me as well. He doesn't push us away; he welcomes us home time and time again.

No matter what we've done, no matter where we've been, no matter who we are, he welcomes us back as beloved children who have been washed in the water and the word of your baptism.

Who have been given a new identity as one whom God is well pleased with. He welcomes you to his table to feed you with that very body and blood for the forgiveness of your sins.

Because the battle's tough. He knows it, and he's there with you, calling you home over and over and over again.

Now, when it gets to Jonah, though, God doesn't necessarily always use words. Most often he does. Sometimes he uses things, as we've seen in the story—a storm, a big fish, and now a plant.

Look at what happens next, verse 5: Jonah left the city, found a place east of it, and made himself a shelter there. And he sat in its shade to see what would happen to the city.

Then the Lord God appointed a plant, and it grew up over Jonah to provide shade for his head to rescue him from his trouble. And Jonah was greatly pleased with the plant.

Now, it's incredible what God continues to do. Like, here's Jonah. He's pouting. He's occupying a hill outside of the city of Nineveh, waiting for God to destroy it.

He's waiting for the fire and brimstone to come flying out of heaven because he still thinks God might judge the people of Nineveh. So he builds a shelter. He's watching, waiting to watch people perish.

I mean, come on, Jonah. This isn't the God you're serving that you know. Yet in his anger, in his justified, self-justified anger, he's sitting there, and God still is showing him mercy and grace in the midst of his rebellion.

In the midst of his sin, God says, "I'm going to send a plant to cover him." And Jonah doesn't even seem to acknowledge that this plant miraculously and mysteriously comes right where he needs it to be, protecting him in the midst of this scorching heat that you would find in the city of Nineveh.

And God is still showing up with mercy and grace over and over and over again in this story. But he also shows up in other ways, in ways that try to get Jonah's attention.

Verse 7: The story continues. When dawn came the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, and it withered.

And as the sun was rising, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah's head so much that he almost fainted, and he wanted to die. And he said, "It's better for me to die than to live."

Now, if there's one thing that Jonah is consistent about, it is that when things don't go his way, he says, "Take my life, Lord. I would rather die than go on living."

He does that on the ship with the sailors. He does that when God doesn't destroy Nineveh right away, and they come to faith and repentance. He does that when he loses this plant by God continuing to appoint things.

Whether he appoints a storm, a fish, he appoints a fish, he appoints a plant, he appoints a worm, and he even appoints a wind. God of creation.

Now, trying to get his prophet's attention. But instead, consistently, over and over again, when God doesn't do what Jonah wants him to do, his mantra is, "Take my life, let me die."

And now, another conversation of God speaking to Jonah, verse 9: Then God asked Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?"

"Yes, it's right," he replied. "I'm angry enough to die."

Well, that sounds familiar. And the Lord said, "You cared about the plant which you did not labor over and did not grow. It appeared in a night and it perished in a night."

And here's the big set-up question, verse 11: "So, may I not care about that great city of Nineveh, which has more than 120,000 people who cannot distinguish between their right and their left, as well as many animals?"

There it is. Jonah, you're upset over a plant. Jonah, a plant. These are people—120,000 of them—whom I sent you to deliver my word because precisely you know that I am a gracious God.

I am slow to anger. I am abounding in steadfast love. I am compassionate and relenting from disaster. Pastor, I want that for these people. And you don't.

And you don't, Jonah. Shouldn't I have this compassion on you, on these people who don't know what they're doing?

You may look at them, Jonah, and you say, "How can they not know? How can they not hear?" Because they haven't had my word, Jonah. You're going to deliver it to them.

Then they'll come to faith. They'll repent. That's why they don't know. They don't know their right from their left. They're stuck in their sin. They need somebody to call them out of it.

And you, Jonah, were my appointed agent to deliver that word. And instead of rejoicing over 120,000 people who have been saved, and oh, by the way, there's some animals there too that he throws in as well, you're up here moping, waiting for doom and gloom, destruction and condemnation for this entire city.

What are you doing, Jonah?

And Jonah replies in this way, Jonah chapter 4, verse 12: There isn't one, if you're looking. Your Bible's not missing it. My Bible's not missing it. The story's over.

It ends with a question, a penetrating question, not just of Jonah, but of all people. A question about the nature of God and who we believe is worthy of freedom, forgiveness, and mercy.

Because for Jonah, there is a firm belief that not everybody deserves to receive the mercy and compassion and forgiveness of God.

And it causes us to end the story with a question mark. What happens to Jonah? Does he repent? Does he come to the acknowledgment that all people are worthy of being saved, or is he still sitting on a hill somewhere outside of Mosul, Iraq, waiting for destruction?

We don't know. Because the question just isn't about Jonah. The question is, this story is about us, and it's about messing with us and taking a good, hard look in the mirror and to ask ourselves truly the question: Do I believe everyone, everyone, is worthy of God's forgiveness and mercy?

Because here's the thing: if I don't think everyone is deserving of God's mercy and grace and forgiveness, there's a good possibility that I don't believe I'm worthy of that forgiveness as well.

That I can know in my head that God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, relenting of disaster. But I can think in my head for a while that maybe that's only for certain people and not for me and definitely not for that group of people over there.

And the story is to mess with us, to have us look inside of ourselves and to admit our own sin, to admit our sin in this area, to recognize that we do this. It's a human nature thing. We've been struggling with it since the beginning. Us and them, those people or that group, or how could they do that, or how could they live in that way?

And to recognize, yes, there is separation. Sin is real, and it infects the whole world. But the answer to that sin and that infection that has infected the whole world is not our judgment and condemnation, but rather the mercy and grace and the forgiveness of Jesus that is undeserved for the entire world, including me and including you.

The Scriptures are pretty clear about this nature of God. And I appreciate in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul, he's writing to a whole bunch of people who are struggling with that mercy and grace too, and wondering, am I worthy of that grace? Am I worthy of that forgiveness?

And Paul tells them, "Yeah, you are worth it." And the reason you know that you're worth it is because of the cross of Christ Jesus, that you're worthy of his forgiveness, not because of what you could do, not because of what you promised to do, not because, "Okay, I'm going to get my life in order and then God's going to do the rest."

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You can't get your life in order. I can't even get my sock drawer in order. How can you get your life in order?

But Jesus goes first. And Jesus does the heavy lifting. He does all the lifting on the cross. And by his death and through his resurrection, he opens a way to life everlasting.

He invites us then to be in the family business, which is not in the cancellation of people but in the cancellation of sins for eternity.

As far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions. He removes our transgressions from us.

And then Paul, in the book of Romans, he says it beautifully in Romans chapter 5. Maybe you even have this memorized. It says, "While we were still helpless," nobody wants to be helpless. But say to yourself, "I am helpless. I am really helpless."

"But at the right time." Not your time. Not Jonah's time. Not my time. God's time. "Christ died for us, for the ungodly." And that's you. That's me.

"For rarely will someone die for a just person. For a good person, someone might dare to die." Like maybe there would be a reason. But God goes beyond reason.

And God goes beyond that reason because God proves his love for us in this: "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

You didn't get your life in order. You didn't promise to be better. You weren't better than the person that you classify in that other group, perhaps unworthy of God's grace.

Christ died for you. He went first. And he'll continue to go first over and over again, and he'll continue to pursue you with that mercy and that grace.

We see that in the prophet Jonah. We see that Jesus telling those stories about lost things, like a lost sheep that loses. A man has a hundred sheep, and one of them disappears. One of them goes away. He's got 99.

I mean, 99, that's pretty good out of a hundred. But that one that's missing, he is willing to go wherever to find that sheep, to bring that sheep home because that sheep belongs in the flock.

That sheep belongs in the family. The sheep is not to be canceled or lost. The sheep is to be found and brought home.

This is our Father's business, who is slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, relenting from disaster, and canceling sin.

And he's invited you and me to join the family business, to be about the proclamation of the good news, to bring light into the dark, to bring hope to those who are hopeless, to bring healing to those who are hurting, and to bring forgiveness to people who don't deserve it.

Starting with you and me, and extending to those people that we so easily can cancel.

But instead, we have that business of the cancellation of sins to be about.

So my prayer for us this season, on this last Sunday of the church year, where we're reminding ourselves that Christ is coming. We heard that word in Revelation. Amen, Lord Jesus. Come quickly, and we want him to come quickly.

We want this world and its pain and its hurt and its brokenness to be over and to be in that place where there will be no more tears, no more scorching heat, even in November in South Texas, that it will be no more of that sin and brokenness.

It'll be gone. It will be in his presence forever.

But until that day, we're about the family business, which is delivering that grace and that mercy in the places that God has perfectly positioned us collectively as the body of Christ through Thanksgiving baskets and Nativity Nights and all the other things that are going to happen in this season.

But individually, individually, one by one, in the places that you live and work and learn and play, the places that God has perfectly positioned you to bring light into the darkness, the places God has perfectly positioned you to bring that forgiveness, that forgiveness of sins.

And for you this week, it might start at the Thanksgiving table somewhere with some people that come to mind, groups perhaps or individuals that you've been holding some things against.

And you get to be the one who goes first this time to ask for, to receive, to open up the conversation and to realize you're in the family business, and the family business is for you—forgiveness.

And it's not easy. It's hard. Ask Jonah.

But even more so, ask Jesus. He really knew how hard it was. And so he promises to go with you on that journey.

He's filled you with his spirit. He sends you forth into this world not alone.

With his very word that you get to proclaim. And you won't always get it right. Isn't that great? I mean, Jonah doesn't preach a very good sermon. He converts the whole city of 120,000 people.

Don't tell me, like, you don't know God's word enough to share it with somebody else. Share what you know. Leave the results in God's hand and be amazed how he can work through reluctant prophets, through people like you, pastors like me, to proclaim his word and to let it go forth and do what it always does—bring that message of forgiveness and restoration home.