Rejoice When God Shows Mercy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-Onx4mUd6w

"Do not be angry when God shows mercy to sinners"

The book of Jonah reaches its final great scene in Jonah 4:1-11. Everything seemed to have ended well: the prophet proclaimed God's word, Nineveh responded in repentance, and God was moved to mercy. You would expect to see Jonah smiling, walking back to Israel with a heart full of gratitude. But no. Jonah was angry. Very angry. And this last chapter reveals the book's great lesson: how the human heart reacts when God has mercy on those we consider unworthy.

In the movie Taken, a father with lethal skills chases his daughter's kidnappers through the streets of Paris, fulfilling his promise to give them what they deserve. As viewers, we celebrate every blow because those criminals deserve it. But what would happen if, upon reaching them, they repented and the father forgave them? Where would justice be? That discomfort is exactly what Jonah felt when God withheld his judgment on the great, wicked city of Nineveh.

God Has Had Mercy on You (Jonah 4:1-4)

When God showed mercy to the Ninevites, the good news that God saves sinners became bad news for Jonah. The prophet who had experienced God's grace when rescued from the bottom of the sea — who had composed a psalm of thanksgiving declaring "Salvation belongs to the Lord" (Jonah 2:9) — now raises a very different prayer. He no longer seeks salvation; now he complains: "O Lord! Is this not what I said when I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish beforehand."

Jonah confesses that he fled because he already knew God's character. He quotes Exodus 34:6, a central passage in Scripture where God reveals himself to Moses as "compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth" (Exodus 34:6). However, Jonah falls short: he omits verse 7, which declares that God "will by no means leave the guilty unpunished." It seems that Jonah understood God as merciful, but not as just. And that is understandable: Jonah lived before the cross, where God's mercy and justice were fully displayed. On the cross, God took the innocent one — his Son Jesus — as guilty, so that the guilty might be counted as innocent. God is just and merciful solely because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

But Jonah did not want God's mercy for Nineveh. He wanted its destruction. Deep down, Jonah wanted God not to be God: not to be sovereign, not to show mercy to whomever he pleased. He becomes upset when God does what God wants and desires to do. His anger was so deep that he wished to die. The prophet lost his will to live because something he valued more than God had been taken from him.

Tim Keller describes it this way in The Prodigal Prophet: "Jonah has lost something that had replaced God as the main joy, reason, and love of his life. He had a relationship with God, but there was something he valued more. When you say, 'I won't serve you, God, unless you give me X,' then X is your real goal, your greatest love, your true God."

A piercing question arises from this text: what would need to be taken from you for you to lose hope and the will to live? The answer reveals the idols of the heart. Your marriage, your children, your job, your social status, your bank account, your ministry, your recognition. Or perhaps it is something you do not yet have, but if you knew you would never have it, you would fall apart. "I serve the Lord so he will give me X, but if he doesn't give me that, I will look for another lord who will." The source of life's hope must be Christ and Christ alone. Because if you have him, you can never lose him. If he is your foundation, he will be so for eternity.

God responds to Jonah with a question: "Do you have good reason to be angry?" A question the author of the book wants not only Jonah to answer, but every reader as well.

Before judging Jonah, an honest reflection is worthwhile. Is our heart not just like his? Would you rejoice if the person who deeply hurt you were saved? Do you pray for those who have betrayed you? Do you desire God's favor for the one who defrauded you? If there is hatred in your heart toward someone, the invitation is to bring that feeling in repentance before God and lift your eyes to Jesus — the only perfect one who, at his crucifixion, extended these words to his executioners: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34).

God has had mercy on every believer. For that reason, it is possible to pray even for those who seem undeserving of his mercy. "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways!" (Romans 11:33). God is sovereign, no one is wiser than he, and his will is good for his people.

People Are More Valuable Than Things (Jonah 4:5-11)

Jonah leaves the city and sits to the east, as if in the front row, waiting to see if perhaps God would change his mind and destroy Nineveh. Then God deploys a strategy involving four elements of his creation: a plant, a worm, a wind, and the sun. The same God who appointed a great fish now appoints a tiny worm. Nothing is too small or too great for God.

First, God causes a plant to grow that provides shade for Jonah and relieves his discomfort. The prophet goes from being extremely angry to being extremely glad — his observation spot had become a VIP box. But God had a plan for that plant. The next day, he appointed a worm that withered it. Then came a scorching east wind and a blazing sun. And Jonah, predictably, becomes angry again and wishes to die.

God asks him the same question a second time: "Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?" And Jonah responds stubbornly: "I have good reason to be angry, even to death."

The incongruity is evident. Jonah is distraught over a plant — something he did not plant, did not grow, that appeared in one night and perished in one night — while God has been concerned for 120,000 people. Jonah desires pity for something temporary and insignificant, while rejecting God's pity for human beings made in his image.

Matthew Henry puts it clearly: "Inordinate affection for things lays the foundation for inordinate grief. When we have them, we tend to grieve too much when we lose them." Inordinate grief reveals inordinate affection. When our affections are set on things — on "plants" — our gaze turns away from those upon whom God desires to pour out his compassion. We stop valuing what God values: people.

God closes the book with an open-ended question: "Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, and also many animals?" The text ends there, with no answer from Jonah, because the author wants every reader to answer in their own heart.

Conclusion

If Jonah was angry because God showed mercy to sinners, there is one greater than Jonah. Jesus also went outside the city, but not to watch the destruction of Nineveh — rather, to suffer in his own flesh the destruction that sinners deserved. According to Hebrews 12:2, Jesus found joy in following the Father's will and going to the cross to save sinners.

Some years ago, in Monterrey, a mother constantly visited the prison and publicly forgave her daughter's murderer. That kind of forgiveness does not come from human strength, but from having understood that God's mercy first reached the one who forgives. That should not surprise us. Nor should it surprise us when a believer loses material things and does not lose composure, because they know there are more important things: the extension of God's kingdom and the proclamation of the gospel so that sinners may receive his mercy.

How do we react when the criminals in the movie are forgiven instead of punished? How do we react when sinners respond to the work of Jesus in faith and repentance? The invitation at the end of Jonah is not simply "don't be angry," but something better: rejoice when God shows mercy to sinners. Rejoice because God has had mercy on you. Rejoice because people made in the image of God are immeasurably more valuable than any thing.