Grace Church - Sept. 21, 2008

God isn't angry at you

Jonah 3:10-4:11
Have you ever gotten it completely wrong? Have you ever flown off the handle, and let someone really have it, only to discover that what you thought had happened hadn't really happened? Worse yet, maybe you discovered that you were the one in the wrong. It's the stuff that life's most embarrassing moments are made of. It's also makes great scripts for comedy writers.

This morning we hear a bit of the story of Jonah, the reluctant prophet who got it completely wrong.

God called Jonah to go and preach to the people of Nineveh that they were going to be destroyed. Assyrians were a cruel and heartless people who tortured their enemies. Jonah didn't like them and he wanted the Lord to destroy them in anger Instead of taking the next camel train to Nineveh, he jumped on a ship and went the other way to Tarshish.

A huge storm came up that threatened to break up the ship. The sailors figured out that Jonah was the problem and they finally threw him into the raging sea. As soon as they did, the storm stopped immediately.

It looked like God must have been REALLY angry with Jonah, right? But God didn't let him drown. He sent a great fish to come and swallow him. Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of the fish praying. Part of his prayer is this "Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs." Remember this verse from Jonah 2:8.

The fish spit him up on to dry land. Then God tells Jonah, "You have to go to Nineveh." God doesn't say, "I'm glad you repented, but since you weren't happy, I will send someone else." God gave Jonah a second chance to be obedient and blessed.

It would have taken about three days to cover the entire city of Nineveh. On the first day Jonah began prophesying God's message, all we're told he said was, "Forty days more and Nineveh will be overthrown." Jonah may have shouted as he walked, or he may have said it to individuals as he passed them, he may have mumbled it under his breath for all we know. What we do know is that he is only one day into his three-day preaching stint and the people repent.

When the king heard the news of their impending doom, he fell down and lay down his crown. He got off his throne, removed his royal robes, put on sackcloth, and sat down in the dust. In all humility, he repented. He set a royal decree that told the "Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from His fierce anger so that we will not perish."

And guess what? A few verses later we read, "When God saw what the people of Nineveh did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it."

What an amazing thing! These people were so evil that God saw the need to wipe them from the face of the earth! But they repent - show true remorse, stop their evil ways and begin to live right. Some may say, "Too bad. You still did all that evil. It doesn't matter that you turned it around, you're still toast." But that's not how God operates - He has mercy and changes His mind. That's cool if you're a repentant Ninevite.

But Jonah is furious. He is so mad that he tells God he wants to die.
In anger he blurts out, "O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing."

Those words were not praising God. They were spoken in anger. Forgiving is what God does best. Jonah knows it, and he hates it.
Jonah is grumbling as if he is someone who is swimming in holiness when his disobedience had recently led him to tread water in whale guts.

"Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs." Jonah was losing out on the miracle of God's grace because he was stuck on His idol of how God should act.

The truth is that Jonah was extremely fortunate that God is "a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love" or else he would have just been another case of shark bait.

In his anger, Jonah left the Nineveh and set up camp hoping that God would repent! Maybe God will smarten up anyway and destroy the city in His anger. So Jonah built himself a little shelter against the sun and the hot wind. He set up camp to watch the execution of 120,000 people.
But it got hot while he was waiting for the wrath of God to fall from heaven. So the LORD brought out His holy miracle grow and grew a bush to give him shade. Jonah is pretty happy. He has a comfortable front row seat to watch the fireworks! God must be on his side now. I mean, why would God provide shade unless there was going to be a show?

Then God sent a worm eat that ate shade cover. To make matters worse, a hot wind came up. Jonah got so sunburned that he wanted to die again. Can you hear him asking, "Why Lord?! What in the world are you doing?"

Jonah is ready to die because he is so angry over the destruction of a plant in the desert, but he feels nothing for a whole city of people made in God's image. "Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs." Jonah was losing his portion of God's blessing again because the Lord wasn't acting as Jonah expected. God lets him know that he missed the point totally. God answers, " I AM not like you."

And that brings us back to what Jonah got wrong. He couldn't receive the gift of God's grace because his hands were clenched around his false assumptions about God's behavior.

Time to get set, are you ready? God wants to strengthen our core with some heavy weight.

I heard an interesting talk this week. The speaker said that when we think of God, we usually assume that God is like us, only bigger. We think that I we take my friends and me, and then multiply by a million, we will get what God is like. Then the speaker said this, "God is not like us."

I did a quick search and found 19 times in the NRSV where we are instructed to walk in His ways, to keep His ways, and to teach His ways.
Then the words from the book of Isaiah jumped off the page. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord." (Isaiah 55:8) Then the next verse hits the exclamation point. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." Let's get this clear right now. God is not a bigger version of us. He isn't just bigger. He is different.

Here is the dilemma. Many of us understand that usually when we obey God, the storms stop. That's good. We're comfortable because we are on the right side when the Lord acts predictably. Many of our teachings are like "1,2,3, Jesus bless me." All you have to do is apply the 4 steps and your life will be all rosy. But what happens if you are doing everything right, and the storms come? And what happens when we are obedient and the storms don't stop? Then we feel guilty.

It must be unconfessed sin. For some of us that is true. Our unconfessed sin is an idol that blocks us from God's grace. But I have witnessed people get hammered by Christians who are sure that there is a hidden unconfessed sin blocking their blessings when they have been living obediently.

Or it must be that I am unworthy. God really likes Keoki and Lani. He gives them talent and money. They must be better than me. I am just Lynette Laulau, a simple girl who God bypasses so that He can give grace to the popular and pretty ones.

Or God must be angry with me. He is giving me troubles because I didn't do the things that make Him happy. So He is out to punish me until I get it right or until He finds someone else to pick on.

That brings us to God's wrath. Here is Jonah and what most of us secretly believe. If we are good, we are spared God's wrath. Those who are bad deserve it. If they want to be spared, all they need to do is be like us. When we have worms that eat our shade, God must be angry with us.

Those are idols.

And here is what Jonah 2 sounds like in the NLT "Those who worship false gods turn their backs on all God's mercies."

What if we have it wrong? What if our way of seeing God limits us so that we turn our backs on His mercies? What if our worthiness is not by our own righteousness but because of His magnificent love? What if our circumstances today, even the heartbreaking ones, are somehow being used by God for good?

Listen to this verse from Romans 8:18, " I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us." What if by clinging to our idols of how the Lord should bless us actually prevents us from receiving His glory that He has stored for us?

Stay with me. What are two of God's most talked about characteristics? His holiness and His love. Because of His holiness He cannot tolerate sin. And because of His love He gave His only Son to help us recover from the devastation that sin has brought to each of us.

So why did God send Jesus? Because of His wrath? No. It was because of His great love for us. Jesus was sacrificed so we could be restored to a right relationship with our Father.

No one, up until the time Jesus came down to earth, ever considered God as their Father. Not David, not Abraham, not even Moses. They knew God was powerful. They knew He was awesome. And they knew He was mad. They all assumed God the Father was just like us, only really big, and really angry with us.

But Jesus said that God was His Father and our Father too. He taught that if we want to know the Father, we have to look at Him, through Jesus. God the Father has ALWAYS been compassionate and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in kindness. Really? Then what's all this judgment and killing and blood? If you read the Old Testament carefully you will see that God is constantly inviting people to walk with Him. But something gets in the way and hurts that relationship. It is sin.

Sin is the complete opposite of what God wants and Who God is. The entire creation was made to be in tune with God. Sin has left us like a 6 year old playing an out of tune, broken violin with only 3 strings. If we occasionally hit the right note, it's just pure luck. We are not in tune and the entire creation groans because of its separation from the rhythm and love of God.

Sin has touched every area of our lives and those around us. God hates sin. It keeps us from being in tune with Him. That is what He is angry about. That is what He wants to wipe off the face of the earth, so we will turn from our wicked ways and be in relationship with Him. And that's where we get into the idol thing. We mistake God's anger and wrath at sin with His anger and wrath at us. At you. At me.

An author once wrote about a time he accidentally disturbed a hornets' nest, and how they relentlessly attacked him. All he could think of was finding safety, running to his mother. He ran towards her as fast as his legs would carry him, screaming her name. Then he saw her running to him. He said, "Had I not known her, I would have mistaken the look on her face for hatred for me." Her face was contorted with ferocity. That anger momentarily scared him. Then he realized she wasn't angry with him. She was angry at what was hurting him. And he realized that she would attack it with everything she had until her child was safe in her arms.

Sound like someone we know? God, our Father is like that mom. His look of ferocity is at the things that hurt us. He gave everything He had to bring us to safety in His arms. Sometimes those things that hurt us are of our own doing. Our refusal to walk with Him or our rejection of His ways cause us hurt, harm, and disharmony. And at times, while we're on the corner minding our own business, others driving by splash us with sin's muddy waters.

God is angry. But let's not confuse His hatred of sin for His hatred for us. He truly is a loving and merciful God, always patient, always kind, and always ready to change His mind and not punish.

Do we have time for a story? Al and Andy were closer than brothers. So when Andy got very sick and lay dying, Al rushed to the bedside. But on the way, something terrible happened. Al got sick, so sick that surgery was indicated. Never had Al felt such pain. It was un-imaginable. But the pain of not being able to make it to help Andy was worse. What was God doing? Why was the Lord blocking Al from going? Was Al being punished? Was Andy being punished?

Well Al got better in a few weeks and immediately headed to where Andy lay close to death and couldn't speak. Al sat by the bedside and listened to Andy's regular and calm breathing. Then Al heard a noise that no one else seemed to notice. It was a change in Andy's breathing. Al recognized the noises because those were the sounds Al had recently made when the pain got bad. It was a noise that Al made when the pain was intolerable. Andy was suffering and couldn't tell anyone how badly it hurt. So Al made sure that pain medicine was given. Andy's breathing relaxed. He wasn't suffering. After a few hours, it happened again. No one seemed to notice when Andy's breathing changed because of pain. Again Al was able to intervene and relieve Andy's suffering. Not long after this, Andy died. But Al had been there to help Andy through the worst of times only because Al knew what real hurt felt like.

What if Al was so focused on why God was angry that Andy's pain was missed? In a way that only God could allow, Al's pain was used to relieve Andy's suffering. But only after Al could release the grip on God's punishment and grab on to God's grace.

Many of us have been involved in trials in the past months. We have had nests that have emptied, and chicks that have come home. We have had loved ones die, friends sick, our jobs and homes threatened by the economy. We have had family fights, false accusations, but have also been responsible for some very bad attitudes and actions ourselves. We have done thing that deserve God's holy anger. But He has done something marvelous. He has given us His holy love and mercy. He is not angry at you. He is not picking on you. Today I urge you to let go of your grip about God's wrath against you, let go of your pain, release your worries, and grab on to our Father's promise of love for you. Maybe the shade will cover you. Maybe the worm will still eat the shade tree. Maybe nothing will change. … except you as you discover how deeply your Father in heaven loves you. Amen

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