But God, They're a Bunch of Sinners!

I love Jonah. I've blogged about it before, but I'm going to do it again because it's great. You should read the whole book (all 4 chapters, I know it's so hard), but here's the gist:

Jonah was a pretty righteous man and the Bible even says that he feared God. So God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh and tell all of the people there how great and awesome He is.

Pause.

Now, one evidence of faith is the desire to point away from ourselves and to the Lord. Paul does it. Timothy, Mary, Titus, Peter, John, Rahab, Esther, David...they all do it. Not to mention that little thing called the great commission in which Jesus tells His disciples to go tell everyone about Him.

So if Jonah feared God as much as he said he did, of course he was like, "Yup. You got, it God"

But that's not how the story goes.

Jonah says, "No way! I'm not doing that! Those are bad people!" So he goes and he hides from God. Except you can't really do that. Because God knew Jonah was on a boat running away. So he sent a crazy storm and Jonah realized that it was God and told the rest of the crew to throw him off the boat. Jonah could have died. But because God is rich in mercy, He sent a whale (big fish, whatever)  to swallow Jonah. Jonah spends time in the whale's belly and then the whale pukes him up.

Now, when God asks Jonah to go to Nineveh, he says, "Alright, I'll go"

And you know what happens?

Ninneveh meets the Lord! They turn to Him and the believe that Jonah is telling the truth and God is who He says He is.

But Jonah STILL isn't happy. He's super pouty about it. Jonah complains because God saved the wicked sinners, forgetting that he himself is no different. He says that he'd rather die than live because God is the God who saves sinners. How proud and arrogant and self-righteous could a person get?!

So God uses a tree to teach Jonah about grace:

 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. ⁶ Now the LordGod appointed a plant and made it come 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. ⁷ But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. ⁸ When the sun rose, God appointed a 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.” ⁹ 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.” ¹⁰ 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 perished in a night. ¹¹ And should not I pity Nineveh, that 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?” Jonah 4:5-11

Do you see that?! God tells Jonah that he did NOTHING to deserve what he has and yet he has it anyone. So God can be kind to Nineveh AND He can be kind to Jonah because neither of them are good but HE is.

And how Ephesians 2/Titus 3 can you get?

And you were DEAD in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked...BUT GOD, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us...made us ALIVE together in Christ Jesus 

For we were once ourselves foolish, disobedient, led astray...BUT when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, HE SAVED US, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy 

Jonah forgot that his life is all of grace. God chose him, not because of what he did, but because of what He wanted to accomplish in him.

I forget that. I forget that I was DEAD and was made ALIVE by Christ and Christ alone and that everything I have, everything I am, is grace, all grace.

I think sometimes as Christians, or even as a culture, we compartmentalize the Old Testament and the New Testament. We say, OT is about judgment and law; NT is about Jesus and grace. But God reveals His whole self throughout the whole word. If we forget that, we miss so much of who He is. And look at the grace He revealed to Jonah and to the entire city of Nineveh. It is the same, unchangeable God.