The Heart Issue

Eric Barton

Jonah • Sermon • Submitted 3 years ago

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Intro

Recap Jonah

Hears from God and Runs, Strom stops him, thrown over eaten by fish.

Inside the fish, turns to God. Fish throws him up after 3 days.

He finally goes and does what God asks, an entire city turns to God!

Today we finish with Chapter 4.

Honestly, I wish it ended at 3. Would have been a much better conclusion.

What is something you hate that most people love?

Tacos, Cowboys, Chic fil a, dogs, star wars

Most people respond in a one way that is expected, but you break the mold. You think everyone else is wrong! (haha)

Here we find Jonah.

God just used him, as a prophet, to see an entire city turn to God.

If that’s your career I’d say its a pretty good day.

Most people would probably say yay!!

Not this guy.

Jonah 4:1 (NIV)

But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry.

Jonah hated the Ninevites more than he loved God.

God turns from Anger, Jonah gets angry.

He didn’t agree with God and got mad when things didn’t go like he wanted.

HOW DO WE RESPOND WHEN THINGS GO DIFFERENTLY THAN WE THOUGHT THEY SHOULD.

(I’ll answer at the end)

We approach life with a hope an an expectation that we know doesn’t always equal reality.

You hoped for X and Y happened.

You prayed for God to do this, but it didn’t turn out that way.

So I can start to feel Jonahs angst.

I’be been frustrated and angry and confused and disappointed.

Sometimes God’s plan and path doesn’t match ours.

What do we do with that tension?

Jonah missed out on the joy in what God was doing because it wasn’t what Jonah wanted him to do.

Jonah 4:2–3 (NIV)

He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

He quotes a scripture from Exodus…

He knew some things about God.

God was gracious and compassionate and abounding in love, slow to anger!

But this knowledge never moved from his HEAD to his HEART.

Jonah’s prayer reveals a deep issue in his heart.

He had lost his desire to go on living because he had lost what he had leaned on to give him hope, meaning, joy and purpose.

His response revealed that his basis for meaning wasn’t simply God, but what God would do for him.

If we say I will serve you God unless you something different than I do. Unless you do X.

then X is your highest love.

X is your real god and basis for meaning.

THIS REVEALS A HEART ISSUE

Jonah's relationship to God was selfish.

His prayer mentions the word I 4 x and me 2x.

Jonah even found a problem with God’s goodness...

What if God doesn’t do X, is he still good?

Is he still who we serve?

Has who God is really when from our heads to our hearts?

Are we seeking God’s heart of just his hands?

Jonah 4:4 (NIV)

But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

In a tender, simple response by God he asks Jonah to examine his heart.

Jonah look deep and ask if this is the right response to a loving God has has shown all of this same grace and mercy to you.

when life hits, and it looks differently than I thought, what does my response reveal?

Self awareness and self refection is harder and rarer than we think.

To really wrestle with where is my heart really rooted.

Jonah doesn’t have an answer...

Jonah 4:5 (NIV)

Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city.

He set up a small camp to watch the Nineveh in hopes that the city would still be destroyed.

Instead of examining himself, he examines the city.

don’t we all do this?

I’m the least likely to have a problem right?

It’s easier to look at everything and everyone else than to do a deep dive into my own heart.

Jesus had something to say about this.

Luke 18:9–14 (NIV)

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Which is Jonah?

Deep question, which is us?

Where is my heart. What has my heart?

Our responses often reveals more than we want to admit.

God now takes an opportunity to show Jonah a lesson.

Jonah 4:6–9 (NIV)

Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered. When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.”

But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”

“It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”

The plant made him so happy!

It was so hot, shaded him.

God Provided the Leaf, but also the worm and the wind.

Could uncomfortable seasons be teachable moments if you don’t miss it.

It was an object lesson.

Jonah, your mad about a plant, because it made you a little uncomfortable, but your ok with an entire city perishing.

A good heart check for us is this.

What makes me happy?

What makes me angry?

What makes me want to give up?

It’s so easy to care more about the menial than the meaningful.

I’ll drive right past a person who has nothing to eat, and get mad and in a rage when I drop my fries in the floorboard...

We all need a heartcheck.

Life is only truly meaningful, when its more than just about me.

David said it like this

Psalm 139:23–24 (NIV)

Search me, God, and know my heart;

test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting.

Jonah would rather die than change.

there is a better way to live!

Jonah 4:10–11 (NIV)

But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”

And here it all ends.

Not a great end of a story.

There was a kid who helped his grandfathers on his apple tree orchard.

He was out, standing on a ladder picking apples, got all he could reach, except for you.

This one was just beyond his reach, but he though I can get it.

He leans out far, reaches for the apple, as he grabs it he feels his balance failing.

he wobbles back and forth, he looks down at how far the ground and just as he plucks the apple.....

Every story needs..... Resolution.

It ends here with God asking Jonah this question.

Aren’t these people more important than a plant.

We don’t know what Jonah did...

But the real issue isn’t how did Jonah answer God’s question, but how will we?

what do we do when God’s plan isn’t ours?

We check our hearts, and align it with his.

God sees more than us

God knows more than us

He cares more than we can imagine

Isaiah 55:8–9 (NIV)

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways,”

declares the Lord.

“As the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

God what matters to you?

Does what really matters to you matter to me?

Rarely what matters most is the most comfortable.

What is God’s heart?

People.

you. others.

It’s easy to make life about so many things and miss what really matters.

Today, Don’t miss the joy of what God is wanting to do in and through you because it may look different that you thought it would.

Ask for his heart not just his hand.

You’ll begin to find a real joy and meaning in life like you’ve never known.

God let my heart beat for what your heart beats for, not just for what feels right to me.

God is a compassionate, gracious God. Who is slow to anger and abounding in love.