Forgetting God's Grace | Jonah 4 | Conor Osepchuk

Amen. Well, a pastor named Joby Martin. He tells the story of when he was a youth pastor in North Myrtle Beach. And the church that he was working for was a small church. They couldn't pay him full time.

And so he also had a second job at a gym that was on the strip in North Myrtle Beach. And he said his manager was a smart guy. And so he went across the street from the gym to Crazy Horse gentlemen's club and offered all the ladies that work there free gym memberships. Out of gym. Joby said that after that, all of a sudden, a ton of different guys from North Myrtle beach signed up to go to this gym to work out.

And Joby said that when business was slow, he would sermon prep in the smoothie making area. And as he was doing that, he got to know some of these women. And he learned some things that was true about basically all of these, or if not most of them. But here's some things he learned. He learned that none of them wanted the job that they were currently working.

Most of them took the job thinking they would only do it for a short season to get out of some financial trouble. And for most of them, that financial trouble was due to some spouse or some boyfriend abandoning them. Many of these women had kids and they all had in common. They didn't want their kids to know how their mother made their money. And all of them, he said, had to drink something or take some substance before they came and performed.

Joby said he invited one of these ladies to church with him. He said it was pretty obvious just by the way that she dressed, who she was and what kind of work she was in. And so he said she came in with him and sat down next to him. He said instantly, like, there was many people in this little church that started whispering and started looking over at this new visitor. At the end of the service, a deacon asked to speak with him in the pastor's office.

And he walks in the pastor's office with the pastor and a couple of deacons where they explained to him that the purpose of the church was to protect its members and especially their children from women like that. Joby said he walked back to the car and this woman was inside the car crying. And he tried to tell her. He tried to lie and tell her it wasn't about her, but she wasn't stupid and she knew what the meeting was about. He said, how is it not heartbreaking that a woman like that feels most degraded when she walks into church and that she feels more love and acceptance when she dances in front of drunken men on vacation than she does in a place that bears Jesus name.

And it's a tragic story. And the reason I share it is because I'm sure that for many of us in here, we have had an experience like this one. Maybe not quite as extreme, but there have been times in your life where you have interacted with religious people who honestly just thought they were better than you, right? So they were really judgmental. They were quick to judge, and they were slow to forgive.

It was a religious hypocrisy. It's the same problem the Pharisees had in the New Testament. And it's this problem. It's the problem that they forgot the grace of God. For them, they forgot.

They really got to this place where they feel like they didn't need God's grace anymore. And here's the deal. If you spend enough time forgetting the grace of God in your life, then you will start to look a lot less like Jesus and a lot more like people at a church who don't let a vulnerable woman join them. The entire book of Jonah up to this point has been teaching us this lesson that we are in desperate need of the same grace God calls us to take to the world. And in the book of Jonah, in Jonah 4, it takes a turn where we realize we see Jonah struggling with this exact problem.

He forgets God's grace. And so here's where we're at in the story right now. Chapter one, Jonah runs from God. So God comes to Jonah, tells him to go and preach in Nineveh. Jonah says no.

He ends up drowning in the ocean. Then chapter two comes where God extends grace to Jonah by rescuing him in the belly of a fish. In the belly of the fish, Jonah surrenders to God. He receives the grace and he surrenders. Then chapter three, Jonah obeys God.

He goes to Nineveh. He preaches a five word sermon to 120,000 people that live in that city. They hear the message and respond. And the entire city puts on sackcloth, sits in ashes. They start fasting and they cry out to God.

And here's the last verse we read. Chapter 3, verse 10. This is from last week. It says this. When God saw what they did Nineveh, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them.

And he did not do it. So Jonah's preaching ministry is wildly successful. He makes Billy Graham look like a bit of a rookie. This was a city that could not have been further from God. But when they hear Jonah preach the word of God, they all repent.

Like, a response like, this is unprecedented. Can you imagine, like, 120,000 people trusting in God at the same time? Like, can you imagine trying to baptize 120,000 people? Guys, we've had nine baptisms in the last two weeks, and it's like a logistical nightmare for our worship services. But here's the deal.

Any metric you use, like, Jonah is successful. He's done the thing God called him to do. Like, the city of Nineveh is worshiping the living God, and God extends grace to the people there. And if you heard the story of Jonah, there is a good chance you've never heard about Jonah. Chapter four.

Because it kind of feels like it's over, you know? Like, what does chapter four say? Like, they live happily ever after. Like, here's the deal. If I'm writing a chapter four in the book of Jonah, here's where I'm going with it.

Jonah meets a sweet little Ninevite girl. He marries her. They buy a three bed, two bath and buy a goldendoodle, and that's it. It's just over at that point. But the Bible is way more raw than that.

It gives us a real picture of the human heart. And so in a lot of ways, the lesson of this book, of the book of Jonah culminates in chapter four. So let's dive in. Here's what it says in chapter four. This is verse one.

It says this, but it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed to the Lord and said, oh, Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? This is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish. So Jonah is mad that God is saving people. And it's almost hard to believe because God had just saved him.

And so here's the question, here's the question. What happened to Jonah between chapter two and chapter four? Like in chapter two, Jonah receives the grace of God. He surrenders to God. He's singing out, salvation belongs to the Lord.

And then in chapter four, he's angry that that God that the salvation belongs to is extending salvation to Nineveh. It's like what happened to Jonah. And it's this problem that we're talking about. He forgot the grace of God. He forgot God's unmerited favor in his life.

In chapter two, God rescued Jonah, even though he didn't deserve it. It led him to this place of surrender of God, him opening his hands Before God, which is why he even went to Ninevite in the place first. But now things are a lot less dire in Jonah's life, and he's pretty far removed from his salvation experience. And he kind of starts feeling like God, like, how in the world could you offer salvation? How could you offer grace to these people that don't deserve it?

Like God, what are you doing? And it's really important we see this because we are a room full of church people. And Jonah was a church guy. He's a prophet of Israel. And so whatever is going on in Jonah's heart, it is likely going to be a danger for us in our hearts.

Let me prove it to you. Most of us read this, and if you're anything like me, you're thinking, man, Jonah has got issues, right? He's kind of coming across as a little racist in this, which is true. Like, he's kind of racist against Nineveh. Like, he's got some major problems.

But here's the irony of that. It's like we are reading a story about Jonah feeling superior to the Ninevites as we feel superior to Jonah, right? It's the exact same heart that Jonah had in this passage. It's forgetting that, hey, I am just as helpless as Jonah without God's grace. And so, if we're being honest, we are more like Jonah than we'd like to admit, right?

If you're a Christian, it means you've experienced the grace of God in your life when you came to faith. But my guess is there have been times in your life, were you forgotten? And for Jonah, that looked like hating his enemies. And maybe for you, it looks like, hey, I'm unwilling to forgive someone who wronged me. And you've forgotten about God who has forgiven you.

Or maybe it's looking down on people who do this thing or vote that way, and you've forgotten that your help, that everyone is helpless without God. Or maybe you just get really angry and kind of lash out at your family and you've forgotten that God is slow to anger and he doesn't lash out at you. Or maybe, like, it's really hard for you to receive any sort of meaningful criticism in your life, and you've forgotten that you didn't earn it. But here's what I'm trying to get you to see before we dive into the bulk of this passage. Forgetting grace is not just a Jonah problem, it's an us problem.

And, guys, it's something we're all prone to do. Because here's how it works. Here's the truth. If you are striving to live for God and you start to see spiritual victory in your life, then your flesh will try to convince you that you're awesome. Right?

It's the number one danger of spiritual achievement, right? We start to forget grace because we start to feel like we don't need it. The 16th century reformer, Martin Luther, he said it this way. He said, good works have a tendency to puff us up. And he says that Christians who rely on them always become blinded, hardened and self absorbed.

As Christians, this is an issue for which we need to be on guard. And so what the rest of Jonah 4 is going to do, it's going to act like a mirror for us to look at, to see places in our lives where we may be forgetting God's grace. And so here's what we're going to do. We're going to walk through this passage. I'm going to give you two symptoms of forgetting God's grace in your life so we can begin to diagnose this in our hearts.

And then we'll look at what it looks like for us to remember God's grace in our lives. So let's pick up in verse 2, here's what it says. It says, and Jonah prayed to the Lord and said, O Lord, is not this 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? So here's the first symptom of forgetting God's grace in your life. It's this. It's self righteousness. Self righteousness.

One of the great Scottish theologians, Sinclair Ferguson, he says about these verses, he says about Jonah that he's going through spiritual infantile regression, which may be the most academic way ever to call someone a big baby. Like, because that's what Jonah's doing. He is throwing a temper tantrum, like he is scolding God in prayer. And it's all coming from this idea of self righteousness. Cause here's the deal, self righteousness will always tell you two lies.

The first lie is this. It's I am better than them. And the second lie is God owes me. I am better than them and God owes me. Let's start with this first lie, here is the most shocking part of this entire passage.

Jonah says he initially ran away from God because he knew that God was gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster. Here's what's crazy about this. This is a direct quote from one of the most significant passages in the Old Testament, right? It comes from Exodus 34, 6. It's a scene where God is talking to Moses and he's describing himself to Moses, he's describing to Moses his character.

And it ends up, guys, this ends up being the most quoted verse in the entire Old Testament. And it's all about the goodness of God. It's about his grace, his mercy, his love. And Jonah takes this verse and uses it as an accusation. He's saying, how dare you show grace to Nineveh?

Like, you should have destroyed them. God. It's like you getting mad at your spouse for being too kind to you. Like, you did the dishes. How dare you?

It's like, wait, that's what Jonah is doing in this passage when he's complaining about the grace of God. And the irony is that Jonah is only alive because he received this same exact grace that the Ninevites received. Like he's mad at God for the very thing that rescued him. Like, think about the contrast in the story. Both Jonah and Nineveh said no to God.

But the difference is Nineveh did it out of ignorance, Jonah did it out of defiance. Like, just think about Jonah. The word of God came to Jonah and Jonah outright rebels against God. It took God chasing him down, sending a storm, having him thrown off a boat and swallowed by a great fish to bring him to a place of repentance. Now think about Nineveh.

All it took was someone walking into the city preaching a five word sermon, and the whole city turns to God. Like, who deserves grace in this story? And Jonah can't fathom the idea that God would show Nineveh grace. But if you're just a reader of the story, you are way more surprised that God would show Jonah grace. And so Jonah's like anger here.

It's the peak of hypocrisy. And Jonah is too self righteous to see it. Because here's what happens when we're self righteous. It makes you see other people's sin clearly, but it makes you blind to your own sin. And there's different ways to rationalize this, like biblically, like, here's some theology on sin.

The Bible talks about sin as enslavement and rebellion, which means that we are both victims of our sin. It's enslaving us and we are rebels with our sin, like we are willfully disobeying God. And if we are self righteous, here's what we tend to do. We tend to attribute the cause of our own sin to enslavement, while we attribute the cause of other people's sin to rebellion. So here's what.

When I sin, I'm a victim. But when they sin, they're bad people. And guys, to be honest with you, this is why some Christians have such a hard time forgiving others. I talk to a lot of people that are just like harboring this bitterness, either towards their spouse that wronged them, or towards maybe their father who created some family wounds or whatever it is. And I'm talking about genuinely hard situations.

And they see the ways that they have been wronged. And instead of having compassion on this person who is enslaved to their sin, they have anger towards this person who has wrong them. And here's the deal, they're both theologically true. But here's what I've noticed. If you have a right view of yourself as a sinner saved by grace, it allows you to have compassion on those who hurt you.

It actually opens the doors. It opens the door for forgiveness and honestly, just for freedom from you living a life of bitterness. But when you're self righteous, it always, always, always leads to anger. And that's what's happening with Jonah here, right? He's looking at the Ninevites and he's like judging this situation by his own standard that he's creating in his mind.

And he determines they're bad people and I'm a victim. And so here's what he's thinking. He's thinking, hey, there are wicked and evil pagans and I just made a few mistakes. You know, they commit big atrocious sins. And you know, my sins, they're kind of understandable or they are enemies of God and God's people.

But I just kind of accidentally ended up on this boat that was going in the wrong direction and running away from God, right? That's how Jonah is viewing this. And so of course he comes to this conclusion. I am better than them, right? I deserve grace and they deserve justice.

That's how self righteousness works. And this is why, guys, this is why, honestly, every self righteous person, you know they're the worst. Everyone knows they're the worst. They think so highly of themselves and so lowly of others. Because here's the deal when you forget grace and convince yourself you've earned it, it just creates pride, right?

It makes you think, I am better than them. And this is the problem with religion, right? If your acceptance before God is based on something you can earn, then the more you earn, the more prideful you become. And it always leads to you building this self righteous resume which makes you really proud. And here's the deal, it always becomes all about you.

And so you start obeying God, not because you actually love God, but because you love you. And this is why the gospel is so different. It's because it's not about what you earn, but it is about the gift of God's grace. And so instead of leading you into pride, into thinking I'm better than everyone else, it actually leads you into humility of knowing, man, I am just a sinner desperately in need of God's grace. I could never live up to all that God has given me.

And here's what it does, here's what it creates in you. It creates a real love for God and a real compassion towards others. Like that's what Jonah was lacking. And so he's thinking, I am better than them. And that always leads to kind of the second lie self righteousness tells, which is this.

God owes me. And so here's the deal. When you're looking at the world horizontally and you're looking over and you're thinking, well, I'm better than them and at least I'm not that bad. And this guy, he's the worst. I'm way better than him.

And here's what you do. You take this assessment of your relative moral goodness and you bring it to God and you tell God, God, here's what you owe me based on the assessment I just did. And so your life becomes this moral version of Keeping up with the Joneses. And we look at others to decide what we think God owes us. And so we go to God with expectations about what we deserve from him.

And even more than that, we look around to others to make sure God is fairly compensating us for our obedience. Like if we're obeying better than them, God, like, we deserve more. Guys, I remember a time in my life a few years back. I remember so clearly me and my wife were trying to get pregnant with our first child. It took us about a year and a half.

We were struggling with infertility and man, we just, it ended up being really hard for us. Like we, there were seasons where we were just like, hey, is this ever going to happen for us. Are we ever going to have kids? And it was something we really wrestled with for a long time. And I remember, just like when we were in the third thick of it, like we were in the absolute darkest time, we were wrestling with God.

And I remember seeing online another couple that had just gotten pregnant. And this is the thought that entered into my heart in that moment. I was thinking this. I was thinking, what in the world? Like, God, why are you giving them a baby?

Like, don't you, God, don't you know we would be better parents than them? Like, what are you doing? And here's the deal. I caught myself. Cause obviously that's terrible.

And here's what I thought I was like, man, what in the world is in my heart that made me think those thoughts? But it's this. God owes me. I thought God owes me. And it's important that we understand God doesn't owe you anything because he's not looking at the world horizontally like he sees it vertically.

So it's not us. It's not us and them, it's God and in all of us. And here's what you realize pretty quickly when you see it that way. No matter how much better or worse you are than the next guy, it's pretty irrelevant when it comes to your standing before God. Because we all fall helplessly short.

Like, none of us are good enough. Like, you might be a little better than me at basketball, but if we're both about to strap up against LeBron James, it doesn't matter because we're not scoring any points. And it's the same thing when we stand as sinners before a holy God. Like, listen, the difference between you and the worst person, you know, morally on a scale of God's holiness is from here to here, like, it's nothing. But the difference between you and God is infinite.

God doesn't owe us anything. And he can give grace to anyone. That's the whole point of God rescuing Nineveh. It's to show that he can extend grace to whoever he wants. Guys, Nineveh was wicked and violent as a city.

It's why Jonah was so mad in this passage. But what God is trying to show us is there is no one too far for his grace. Here's a question I have, like, are you buying into the lies, that self righteousness? Like, do you think you're better than others? Do you think God owes you something?

A pastor named R.W. glenn, he writes on this passage. I just think it's a helpful diagnosis for how we can apply this currently. Like how we can think about this currently to see, hey, what's actually in our hearts if we're in Jonah's situation. Here's what he says.

He says, can you imagine God pardoning a clan member? How about a skinhead, A pedophile? A sexual predator, A drug dealer? How about God pardoning a corporate fat cat who stole from the board to make himself more rich? Can you imagine God pardoning a radical militant Islamic terrorist, A cannibalistic serial killer, a genocidal dictator?

Can you imagine people like that not being punished for their sin, but instead receiving God's mercy?

And you might think, man, this quote takes it a little too far. Like, we're talking about pedophiles. Like, I'm a good person. And here's what I'll say. Obviously, like, the effects of the pedophile sin are awful.

And there's a sense in which it's not the same level. But here's what you need to understand. Your standing before a holy God is the same. It's guilty and good people go to hell just like everyone else on this list if they don't have the grace of God. And so if the idea of God's grace going to any of these people bothers you, then you need to repent of your morality.

And I don't mean stop living a moral life, but I'm saying stop using your morality as a tool to feel better than other people or as a tool to feel like God owes me something. You don't deserve anything before God. Like, the only hope that any of us have before God is that he would freely pour out his grace on us. And when we realize that, and as long as we remember it, it's impossible to operate from self righteousness because the core declaration of your entire life is, I am a sinner saved by grace. It's nothing I have done on my own.

It's all him.

But Jonah, in his self righteousness is mad at God. And God asks this question. He says, jonah, do you do well to be angry? Like, in other words, Jonah, how's this whole self righteousness thing working out for you and Jonah? We see his Response in verse 5.

Here's what it says. 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. So Jonah walks outside the city to a hill that's overlooking the city. He kind of sets up camp there and he's Watching the city, hoping that God would realize that he's been right all along.

He's hoping the Ninevites repentance wears off and he is about to get the firework show of a century. Like that's what Jonah wants. And this passage continues. It says now the Lord God appointed a plant and made it cover 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 the 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 perish in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, the 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. So here's the second symptom of forgetting God's grace.

It's this. It's selfishness.

When we forget God's grace, it always leads to selfishness. So let's talk about this plant. God is doing an object lesson with Jonah. He's making a point through the plant. And so he makes a plant grow.

It gives shade to Jonah, it gives him comfort. And it says that Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. All right, you may have remember this. If not, I'm just gonna tell you. Verse 1 in chapter 4, it said Jonah was exceedingly displeased.

He was angry and now he's exceedingly glad. Right? So very mad about Nineveh, very happy about this plant. That's where Jonah's at. Then God appoints a worm to kill the plant.

Alright, honestly, same word appoints as it was talking about the great fish. It's interesting. We always talk about the miraculous fish. We never talk about the miraculous worm. Different conversation for a different time.

Then the sun rose and it essentially got too hot. It's burning Jonah's head. And so Jonah is so mad about it that he prays the God asking to die. And we read this and you might be thinking like, hey, Jonah, like this all seems a little dramatic, bro. Really?

All this cause the plant died and you're getting a little bit of sun. And here's the deal. I thought so, too. But then I had a conversation with Pastor Justin, which I think we have a picture of him, right? And he assured me that I have full head of hair privilege, and I could never understand the problems of a beautiful bald man.

That's what he said. And so I'm guessing Jonah was just bald. But once again, Jonah is angry, right? And God asks him this same question. He says, do you do well to be angry about the plant?

And Jonah basically says, yes. And then God brings the punchline of the whole illustration. You pity the plants. Shouldn't I pity the 120,000 people in Nineveh, like Jonah? Why do you care more about your comfort than about these people?

Don't you know these people are lost and broken? Don't you know they don't know their left hand from the right? And he literally ends. God ends by saying, and Jonah, like, what about the cattle? It's a little weird.

It's a little weird. But there's a lot of theories as to this. But I think the clearest reason is to show Jonah how ridiculous he's being, because even the cattle are more valuable than this plant. And the contrast here is between God's heart and Jonah's heart. Like, God loves people, but Jonah loves Jonah.

Like God has every person in Nineveh 120,000 counted, and he loves them enough to send someone to rescue them from their sin and wickedness. But Jonah, he was consumed with his own temporary comfort. He cares more about the sunburn on his head than he does the souls of these people. So if you forget the grace of God, it will lead to selfishness. Think about it.

If I don't remember how broken and lost I was before the grace of God met me, then I will care little for those who are broken and lost, right? If I feel pretty good, if I feel like I've earned it before God, then I will look to others, assuming they just need to pull themselves up by their spiritual bootstraps and do better. If I feel like I'm earning the blessing of God, then I will be consumed with entitlement. Notice that's what God says about the plant. He says, jonah, you didn't labor for this plant.

You didn't make it grow. It just came to you at one night and was gone the next night. Why are you complaining as if you deserve it? And this selfishness causes us to prioritize plants over people. We become like Jonah, where we are more concerned with temporary things that bring us a little bit more comfortable than people experiencing the grace of God.

Guys, let me be honest with you. This is why churches die. It's because they forget about the grace of God. And so it essentially just dissolves into this social club where everyone is grasping for comfort, trying to get their own preferences met. And instead of trying to figure out how to get the grace of God to their city, they're arguing over the colors of.

Of the carpets. And listen, if we are not arguing over the colors of our carpets, then no one should be. I mean, okay. And this is such a big deal in some churches because people will be like, hey, stop trying to change my church. And God would say, your church?

I didn't realize this thing belonged to you. Like, did you earn salvation for this church? Like, did you build this church by the power of your spirit? But it's this kind of selfish entitlement that leads to churches dying. It's prioritizing plants over people.

Like, let it never be said of King's Church that we prioritize our own comfort over the people in our city. Like, guys, the whole reason we came here is because we are burdened for the 480,000 people in this city, many of whom don't know their right hand from their left, because God knows them by name and God loves them. And so let me just be really clear. Our goal here is not to have a slightly better Sunday service than other churches. Our goal is not to have slightly better programs.

Our goal is to be a beacon of light in our city for the people who are broken and lost and hurting and needing the hope of the gospel. And that's us as a church. What about you? Like, what do you really care about plants or people? Like, do you care more about temporary things or eternal souls?

Because here's what we see in Jonah, chapter four. It is a significant spiritual issue when we have so much passion for things that don't matter all that much and so little passion for things that will matter forever. Like, so many of us care about the stuff that won't even matter in 20 years from now, while we completely ignore the stuff that will still matter in 10,000 years. And so what's your plan? Like, what's the temporary, selfish thing in your life that's competing for what matters most?

Like, two really easy ways to identify this. These two questions. Where do you spend your time? And where do you spend your money? Those are the two resources God gives you and you're allocating them to show, hey, this is what I care about.

And so where are you investing your time? Because guys, here's the deal. When we're unintentional with our time, we end up just living a reactive life and becoming a person that we don't want to to be. Right? This happens with people's work all the time, where it's like, I'm working so much, I'm actually neglecting things I would say matter more.

But I feel like I need to work another late night so I can be marginally more successful in my career. Or maybe it's even more trivial than that. Maybe it's just like screen time. Like, guys, I read a study this week and it blew my mind. It said that the average American spends six hours a day on non work screen time.

Like that's a season of Netflix every single night. And here's what we need to realize. There are people with eternal souls that God has put in our paths. Like, it might be the kids God has given you, it might be the barista that's bringing you coffee. But here's my question for you.

Do you have time for them? Like, what does your time tell you? You care about plants or people?

What about your money? Jesus says, where your money is, there your heart will be. Also. And here's the reality. No culture has ever had more stuff than ours.

We love stuff. And especially guys, we're entering in the Christmas season and the entire narrative is, hey, if you want to have time, true Christmas joy, then you need to get better stuff. Like, you need to get nicer clothes, you need to get the newest iPhone, you need to get a new car, whatever it is for you. And guys, our whole picture of the so called good life in our culture is that I would be able to retire early, buy a beach on Wrightsville and just ride my days out. And listen, guys, there's nothing wrong with nice things, okay?

Like if you have a beach house on Wrightsville, you should invite me over. I'd love to come. Okay, genuinely. But our money, what does it show about? What our hearts care about most?

People or plants? Like, what does your budget say you care about most? Like, guys, this is why we, as a church, we're doing the hold the Rope offering this December. It's a missions offering. 100% of what comes in.

We're not taking, we're just gonna give it away to our missions partners. And here's the question you should be asking. Why would a 12 week old church do that? It seems Silly. But here's the deal.

It's because we as a church want to be a people that values the eternal souls of others over anything else. It's why we're just where we're giving it to our partners. We're saying no. It's all about getting God's grace to people. They need to hear it.

People over plants. It's what happens when we remember grace.

If you go back to this passage to see how Jonah responds to God's question, here's what you'll notice, he doesn't. There's no next verse. That's it. That's the end. It ends with a cliffhanger.

It ends with a question. Here's the deal. The book of Jonah is meant to be a question for religious people. And it's asking this question, are you forgetting God's grace in your life? As we walk through the symptoms of forgetting grace, like, where are you?

Like Jonah, is it self righteousness where I think I'm better than others or I think that God owes me something? Is it selfishness? Or I've just been prioritizing plants over people and my time or my money? Because here's what the entire book of Jonah has been about. You need to remember that you need the same grace that God has called you to take to the world.

And so that's the remedy, right? It's to remember God's grace for you. And guys, we've been talking in this series about how Jesus is the better Jonah. And we see it again in this passage. Guys, Jonah walked out of the city.

He went on a hill and he overlooked the city from a booth and cried out to God for judgment on the people. But Jesus walked out of the city, went on a hill, overlooked the city from a cross, and cried out to God for forgiveness, for the people to forgive you. You were far from God, you were deserving of judgment. You were on the edge of destruction. And on cross, God's grace met you.

And the blood of Jesus destroys every ounce of self righteousness and selfishness in us. Because the cross, it shows us two things. The first one is this. It shows us what we deserve if we were to try and earn it before God. Like Jesus dying on the cross was paying the punishment for for our sin.

And God is saying, hey, this is what your sin has earned you. So how could we be self righteous if that's what we deserve before God? Second thing the cross shows us is that we don't have to earn it because Jesus died to earn it for us. So how could we be selfish if we've encountered the selflessness of our Savior like that? Guys, when we experience this grace, it transforms everything about us.

Like, it becomes the anthem of our life as we, as we look to the cross and remember, this is what Jesus did for me. Like, this is the lengths that God went to. To rescue me, to bring me home, to call me child. But it changes you.

It changes you from the inside out. And it becomes this thing. Hey, my life, my whole heart's cry is, look at my Savior. Grace spilled out for me.

Let me pray for us.

Father, I thank you that you are the God who cures the Jonah in all of us. God, that you have sent a savior to lavish grace upon grace upon grace on us.

God, I pray for us as a people, us as a church, that we would be a church that cannot help but to speak of what Jesus has done for us. God, that everything in our lives would be a response to the goodness and grace of what you have poured out for us.

God help us to live that out. By the power of your Holy Spirit, we love you. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. We're going to have our prayer teams down here.

If the Lord's doing anything in your heart, just come forward. We would love to have an opportunity to pray for you if you would stand as we worship.