Introduction: In 1945, Cliff Barrows made a proposal of marriage to his girlfriend Billie. Together they scraped together enough funds for a simple wedding and two tickets to a city with a resort hotel. On arrival, however, they found the hotel shut down. Stranded in an unfamiliar city with little money, they thumbed a ride. A sympathetic driver took them to a grocery store owned by a woman he knew. There the newlyweds spent their first night in a small lightly furnished room above the store. What a disappointing start to their marriage that night must have been! Certainly they had greater expectations than sleeping in a musty bed above a grocery store. I wonder if Cliff and Billie questioned God’s providential leading as they considered their situation. Who could blame them really? I’m sure that many of us have felt the same way at various times in our lives when God did the unexpected.
It seems to me that you can tell a lot about a person by how he or she responds to adversity. As a matter of fact, I would say that trials are really an accurate tool to assess the quality of one’s faith. Everyone faces trials at one time or another. The Bible tells us that the rain falls on the just and the unjust (See Matthew 5:45) and that we should consider it all joy when we encounter various trials (See James 1:2). If you are not currently undergoing a trial, don’t worry, you will be soon. In the passage that we’re looking at this morning, Jonah is forced to endure a painful outcome of his preaching to the Ninevites: They repented and now God as relented sending calamity to them! His response to their good fortune reveals a lot about his own heart...it was filled with sinful, self-centered pursuits, an obvious sign that he was walking in the flesh (See Galatians 5:20). What can we learn from Jonah’s experience? Let me share with you three observations about self-centered people.
I. Self-Centered People are Self-Deceived People. "No one deserves grace and mercy as much as me." Few would ever admit this, but most of us, at one time or another, have lived by this belief. It is human nature to underestimate the impact of our own sin, while overestimating the impact of others. Chapter four begins with Jonah expressing his great displeasure at the sudden turn of events at the end of chapter three. According to one commentator, this verse could have been translated, "To Jonah it was a disaster, a great disaster!" The Ninevites turned from their evil ways and God, instead of destroying them, had compassion on the 120,000 people who lived there. While I would not feel comfortable trying to argue that the sin of the Assyrians could possibly be understated (Their wickedness was so great that God would not tolerate it any longer.) I will, however, try to persuade you that Jonah was downplaying the wickedness of his own heart. Remember that in the first chapter Jonah was on his way to Tarshish because he was unwilling to take the Word of God to the people living in Nineveh. He was eager to see 120,000 people perish under the judgment of God. Listen to the note of disappointment in his words: "O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee 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." There was no room for grace and mercy in the heart of Jonah when it came to his enemies though these attributes completely encompassed the heart of God. They deserved what they were getting. They were evil. But was Jonah any better? When given the task of preaching to the Assyrians, he ran from his responsibility. He simply didn’t care that an entire city full of people would die (Contrast this with Abraham who bargained with God for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah -- See Genesis 18:20- 33). Yet God was gracious and merciful to Jonah. He did not perish when the sailors threw him overboard, but he survived in the belly of a great fish. Alas he was given a second chance, the same outcome that he was doing his best to prevent from happening for the people living in Nineveh. They were not worthy of mercy and grace. Application: Have you ever made the same assumption as Jonah: That you deserve God’s favor, while others do not? Christians must be careful to guard against a feeling of spiritual superiority as God’s children. What makes grace so wonderful is that it is unmerited and available to all. We would do well to remember that if faith is the means of salvation, grace is the motive for which God offers it (See Ephesians 2:8-9). No one deserves it, but it is in the nature of God to act graciously toward those He loves. Warning: It is another spirit that derives great pleasure over the suffering of others (See Luke 9:51-56).
II. Self-Centered People are Self-Righteous People. "No one has the right to be angry more than me." Jonah was angry because God did not do what, to Jonah, He obviously should have done. The word for "angry" means "to burn as with flame." The prophet was hot under the collar and the focus of His anger was none other than Yahweh Himself. (Given the choice, Jonah would have preferred to die rather than to witness the deliverance of the Ninevites.) But was he justified in his anger? The answer is "no." When God asked the question, "Have you any right to be angry?" He was not expecting the prophet to carefully lay out his case. He was making the point that Jonah’s anger was completely unjustified though I’m sure it did not feel that way to him. Application: But that’s the funny thing about anger. The person overcome by it rarely sees his anger as inappropriate. The rationalization for unjustified anger goes something like this: "I would not be angry if you hadn’t provoked me. So any blame for my current disposition must not fall on me but on you, for you are the source of it. Therefore, I am justified in my anger." You can bet that Jonah, though He did not answer God, felt that His anger was born of a righteous indignation over what had taken place with the people of Nineveh. Of course his sense of righteousness stood in stark contrast to God’s compassion. To those of us who sometimes feel the same way, the words of James are a very strong caution: "Let everyone be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God (See James 1:19-20). It is safe to say that most of our anger is displeasing to God because it is sinful and unjustified. We must let go of the notion that we have the "right" to be angry and leave vengeance to our Lord, the righteous Judge. Illustration: I’m reminded of a man who was extremely angry with his wife and could not get along with his mother-in-law. In frustration one day he finally took a long walk and considered what to do. As he was returning home, he rounded a street corner and noticed a hearse pulled up to a stop sign. It had a big, ferocious dog in it. Behind that was another hearse, and behind that one about fifty men were walking. The man was seized with curiosity, walked up the first hearse and knocked on the glass.A guy inside rolled down his window. "Yes," he asked? The man inquired, "What’s going on?" "Well in this casket is my wife. In the other casket in the second hearse is my mother-in law. This big, ferocious dog killed both of them." The husband thought for a moment and asked, "Hmmm. Can I borrow that dog?" The driver inside said, "Sure! Get in line." Have you ever been that angry? That’s kind of how Jonah felt about the Ninevites. Warning: Be very careful. You may think that your justified in your anger, but its likely that you’re not. The anger of man rarely accomplishes the righteousness of God!
III. Self-Centered People are Self Absorbed People. "No suffering is more significant than that which is happening to me." God wanted to teach Jonah a lesson and it required that the prophet suffer a bit for the message to really take hold. So as Jonah sat down at a place east of Nineveh and waited to see what would happen, God provided a fast growing vine to shade him from the hot sun. We’re told that Jonah was very happy about it. Finally something was going his way! But on the morning of the very next day, God provided a worm that chewed the vine and destroyed it. As the sun rose overhead a scorching east wind blazed down on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. For a second time he wanted to die. God said, "Do you have the right to be angry about the vine?" "I do," said Jonah. "I am angry enough to die." The cause of his anger this time wasn’t the fact that God had relented from bringing calamity to the Assyrians. It was due to the fact that something that had brought him comfort had been taken away. As a result, the prophet suffered from the intense heat. Now, of course, the Lord was using this circumstance to instruct Jonah. "You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left (Perhaps meaning that they couldn’t discern between wisdom and folly -- See Ecclesiastes 10:2) and many cattle as well." God was reminding Jonah that his suffering due to the destruction of a vine was inconsequential in comparison to the suffering of the 120,000 people of Nineveh had He destroyed the city. Shouldn’t their potential devastation have broken the heart of the prophet much more so than the death of vine that was here one day and gone tomorrow? Application: Is there anyone here who is truly surprised by how consumed we can be with our own suffering? To place the needs of others before our own we must march in tune with the heart of God...a heart that is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Warning: I am convinced that all we have to do to live self-centered lives is absolutely nothing! We are by nature self-centered. That’s why we must be admonished to do nothing from selfishness (See Philippians 2:3) and to remember that love doesn’t seek its own.
Conclusion: We must learn to resist the urge to look at life through a self-centered lens, and try to see things from the divine perspective if we are to accurately display God’s heart to the world. That’s precisely what Cliff and Billie Barrows did. Though they were forced to spend the first night of their marriage sleeping in a small room above a grocery store they made the best of it. The next day the owner of the store overheard Cliff playing Christian songs on his trombone. She arranged for them to spend the rest of their honeymoon at a friend’s house. Several days later the host invited them to attend a youth rally where a young evangelist was speaking. The song leader that night was sick, and Cliff was asked to take charge of the music for the service. The young evangelist, of course, was Billy Graham. The two have been partners ever since. When things don’t go the way you plan, don’t get frustrated and angry. Rest in the fact that God has plans of His own
