Redeemer Community Church

Joel Brooks: 00:00

If you would open your bibles to Jonah chapter 4. Jonah chapter 4. The whole Brooks family has been sick for a while. Caroline, my 6 year old, was sick for a lot of last week and so she got to sit on the couch and watch TV, which is a treat for her. And after watching TV for a while, she came to Lauren and she said, Oh mama, mama, you have got to hear this.

Joel Brooks: 00:30

Come quick, Come quick. And so Lauren went and Caroline showed her on TV this infomercial for the Express O Matic. And she was enthralled with this Express O Matic. She actually took notes. And she said, mama it will change your life.

Joel Brooks: 00:49

And she said, For these reasons. And and she went on and she said, You can actually make stuffed French toast. I don't know what that is but you can make it with the Xpresso Matic. And in just 3 minutes, grilled cheese. It's just perfect.

Joel Brooks: 01:02

And she wrote down all this, even the phone number, and gave it and said, Oh mama, please. We've got to have this. Yeah, there's products like that that really appeal to us. And Caroline was absolutely enthralled. Apparently, they target that for 6 year olds.

Joel Brooks: 01:19

Olds. But she was enthralled and we could get enthralled a lot as Christians with some of the latest spiritual fads that are out there. You know we've got to, to embrace the latest Christian products. We need to be sure we we are up with the latest worship music trends. Maybe read a certain book that's absolutely gonna change your life, you've got to read this book or or perhaps there's a new way to be filled with the spirit of God.

Joel Brooks: 01:50

You know, you just got to do this and you're gonna be filled. Yet here in Jonah, which we are going to read in just a minute. We are reminded of what really makes up the Christian faith. It's faith, repentance, obedience, understanding the gospel. That's it.

Joel Brooks: 02:19

There's nothing new here. There's no new exciting way to relate to God. It's just repenting of your sins. Obeying God's word. Deepening your understanding of the gospel.

Joel Brooks: 02:35

That's it. And Jonah is a terrific reminder of this and we need reminding of this because this is something we never outgrow. We don't move on to the next thing. This will always be part of our Christian life. Always part of our Christian walk.

Joel Brooks: 02:54

And the gospel here, it is so simple it can be understood by a child, yet it's so deep and it's so rich that you're gonna spend the rest of your life trying to comprehend it, trying to get it into your heart. And we see that in Jonah here. He has these terrific moments of insight. We looked at that couple weeks ago in in chapter 2, it's like he really gets it. And then we come to chapter 4 here and everything just kind of falls apart.

Joel Brooks: 03:20

And we realize, well, there's a lot of highs and lows in his life. So read with me chapter 4, it's also in your worship guide, and I actually want to back up one verse, last verse of chapter 3. When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that He had said He would do to them, and He did not do it. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed to the Lord and said, oh Lord, is this not what I said when I was in my country?

Joel Brooks: 03:58

That is why I made haste to flee the Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God, and merciful, and slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Therefore now, oh Lord, please take my life from me for it is better for me to die than to live. And the Lord said, Do you do well to be angry? 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.

Joel Brooks: 04:35

Now the Lord 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. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant so that it withered. 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's better for me to die than to live.

Joel Brooks: 05:11

But God said to Jonah, do you do well to be angry for the plant? He said, Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die. The Lord said, you pity the plant for which you did not labor, nor did he make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than a 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left and also much cattle. Pray with me.

Joel Brooks: 05:51

God, I ask that you would show us these next few moments your heart for the city. Show us your heart for us and how you desire the gospel to so radically change us that this overflows into our households, into our communities, into this city. Lord, teach us in a way that I can never teach us. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord, let your words remain, and may they change us.

Joel Brooks: 06:31

We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. This story gives me a lot of hope, especially as a pastor. It gives me a lot of hope. Because here's a man who's absolutely full of sin, and he's being used by the Lord.

Joel Brooks: 06:48

I mean, he's a disobedient, unloving bigot. It's pretty much the only way to describe him. And yet he goes and he preaches a 5 word sermon. It's only 5 words in Hebrew, 5 word sermon to the New York City or to the Los Angeles of his day. And everybody repents.

Joel Brooks: 07:07

From from the king to the slaves, they're they all repent. And you got around the time of Jonah, you've got all these other faithful prophets that were living about this time. You have Jeremiah, Isaiah, Micah, Amos, Hosea, Ezekiel. You've got all these prophets who are very faithful, who were obedient. God sent them to do some hard things, to preach some hard messages, and they did it and they saw absolutely zero fruit.

Joel Brooks: 07:41

These faithful, obedient prophets go and they preach and they do exactly as they're told and they get zero results. Here comes Jonah, he doesn't even want to do it. He's angry, ticked off, says 5 words, and the entire city repents. The entire city. Even the cows.

Joel Brooks: 08:01

The only other time we see anything close to this in history is in Pentecost. If you remember that, you have Peter, another failure. The one who actually denied even knowing the Lord. It's a little girl. And yet Peter rushes out of the room after that enormous failure and he preaches and 1,000 repent and they come to know the Lord.

Joel Brooks: 08:29

Just like that. And when you, when you see this it should humble you. It should also give you a whole lot of hope. It should humble you and it should give you hope. Like Jeff mentioned last week, we see that God is sovereign.

Joel Brooks: 08:48

He will accomplish His purpose whether we fail, whether we succeed, whether we are half hearted, whether we are hateful, whether we are love loving, he will accomplish his purpose. And actually often it's our failures that qualify us to be used by God. You see that with Peter and you see that with Jonah. Because when, you know, you sink down to the bottom of the ocean, also, you gain a little understanding of grace. Or Peter, when you deny Jesus to a servant girl, you understand grace.

Joel Brooks: 09:26

And so you're equipped to give that message. And when I look at tonight, when I look how grace invades us, God pursues us with his grace as individuals, but it's not to stop there, it's to go to the cities. You know, at the beginning of chapter 4, finally, we get insight as to why Jonah ran away from God. The the author was trying to keep it hidden into the very end so you would keep guessing, but we we've taken some sneak peeks the last few weeks. But he's ticked off at God because God is gracious and merciful.

Joel Brooks: 10:03

I mean, it's really quite hilarious. It says, you're gracious God, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, relenting from disaster, therefore take my life. You're all those good things therefore I want to die. And he's actually quoting from what Jeff read earlier to start the service, Exodus 34. A very familiar passage is when Moses, he prays to God and he says, God show me your glory.

Joel Brooks: 10:35

And God, he actually says, okay. I will. But this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna hide you in the cleft of the rock, and put my hand on you, and and I'll just let you see me as I walk by. And when the Lord walks by, he declares this, Yahweh.

Joel Brooks: 10:52

Yahweh. Moses, you wanna see my glory? Moses, you wanna understand who I am? I am gracious and merciful, and I am slow to anger. That is who I am.

Joel Brooks: 11:19

And so here when you see Jonah getting angry because God is these things, he's getting angry at God himself. He is he is in a sense rejecting God Himself because this is who God is. God says, I'm Yahweh. I'm Yahweh. I am merciful and gracious and slow to anger.

Joel Brooks: 11:37

And Jonah looks at and says, I know you're those things and I just don't want any part of that. And he's just angry. He's so angry he wants to die. Which makes you just gotta ask a question, why is Jonah so angry here at this? I mean, Jonah was just saved from death because God is gracious.

Joel Brooks: 12:06

Seems like he would be very thankful for this, but he's not. He's ticked. You know, we get angry when something we love is threatened. That's what produces anger. When something you love is threatened, you get angry.

Joel Brooks: 12:28

You need to understand that anger itself is not a sin. Actually, Paul says in Ephesians, he says, be angry and don't sin. He actually commands every one of you to be angry at times. It's a God given emotion to get you to do something. The key is not to sin, but you get angry when something you love is threatened.

Joel Brooks: 12:49

You know, if if somebody was trying to steal my wife away and I got angry about that, that's a good God given emotion. I should be angry because marriage is worth protecting. Marriage is something I love and it is threatened. You see, Jesus get angry in the temple. When he looks around there's all these money changers and there's all this these cattle around and and nobody is really even thinking about the Lord.

Joel Brooks: 13:15

And so he overturns the tables. He gets a whip and he drives people out and he gets very angry because something he loves is being threatened. The temple and whom the temple points is being threatened. And so he gets angry. It's a good anger.

Joel Brooks: 13:33

So what is it here that Jonah loves so much that is being threatened? It's obviously not the Ninevites, because he doesn't love the Ninevites. It's not a love for God. The thing that Jonah loves so much here is his own self righteousness. That's it.

Joel Brooks: 14:05

He loves feeling superior to those Ninevites. He loves looking down on those sinners. He loves, you know, watching the TV and when a corrupt politician comes up, or they show that he had an affair saying, I'm not like that. And so by understanding here that God saves by grace, that's the only way that God saves is God is gracious, then he has to understand that he is no different than the Ninevites. He he can in no way claim to be any better than these enemies.

Joel Brooks: 14:43

And when that starts sinking in, when his own self righteousness, his own pride, his own superiority starts crumbling in, is threatened, he lashes out in anger. There's an old saying that says, It's not your sins that keep you out of heaven. It's your damnable good works. It's not your sins that keep you out of heaven. It's your damnable good works.

Joel Brooks: 15:14

It's when you just want to hold to the fact that you're so much better and you're so good. And that's why we sing hymns like No More My God when it says the best obedience of my hands dares not appear before your throne. But faith can answer your demands by pleading what thy son has done. For Jonah, his good works, his standing as a prophet is nothing but a worthless idol, and so he is forsaking the grace that could be his. But remember, this is about the gospel.

Joel Brooks: 15:48

This story is about the gospel. And so God doesn't say, fine. God is slow to anger. And kind of like when Adam sits in the garden, he begins asking Adam questions. He's pursuing them.

Joel Brooks: 16:04

God pursues Jonah here. Jonah goes, you know, and he he sits on top of some hill. He's overlooking Nineveh. You can actually go there today. My brother, one time, he called me up.

Joel Brooks: 16:15

He goes, guess where I'm at? I was like, where? He goes, I'm on the hill overlooking Nineveh. It's like, you can go and you can look. And Nineveh wasn't destroyed here, but Jonah is wanting it so bad.

Joel Brooks: 16:26

He wants, you know, fire, lightning, you know, sulfur, come raining now. Doesn't happen. God appoints this plant, grows up really quick over him, gives him shade, says he's exceedingly happy about the plant. I like that. Then God destroys it with a worm, and he's really mad about that.

Joel Brooks: 16:50

And he wants to die. And look at verse 9. God says to Jonah, Do you do well to be angry for the plant? He said, yes. I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.

Joel Brooks: 17:11

The Lord said, He pitied the plant for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in the night and perished in a night. And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than a 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many cattle. God says, if you truly understand the gospel, you understand grace, you're gonna have a heart for the city. God loves the city. It's all throughout scripture, God's heart for the city.

Joel Brooks: 17:48

We've looked at this as a church. The opening pages in your bible, God places man in a garden, but the closing pages of your Bible, you have us living forever in a glorious city. That's the that's the movement of the Bible. You start with a couple and a garden, but you end in a city. In Revelation 21, it tells us that this city is 1380 miles wide, 1380 miles long.

Joel Brooks: 18:13

It's this huge, glorious city. Jesus lives on Main Street and City Center. But our future is a urban future. We're all going to be city dwellers. The book of Hebrews tells us that Abraham longed to live in this coming city.

Joel Brooks: 18:31

In chapter 11 it says, For he was looking forward to the city that had foundations, whose designer and builder is God. God's a city builder. He's an urban planner. That's what God God is. And not just of the New Jerusalem but of all cities.

Joel Brooks: 18:54

Even the city of Nineveh was a creation of God. Even though this city is so full of evil and violence, God, he says, look at that plant. Did you labor over that plant? I labored over it. Just like I have labored over the city of Nineveh.

Joel Brooks: 19:20

Yes. It's full of evil. Yes, it's full of violence. But I have labored over it. I have worked hard over it.

Joel Brooks: 19:33

God loves it. Christians would do really well to understand the story of Jonah, Especially his calling. Chapter 1 begins. It says, God calls Jonah to go to Nineveh. And it says go to Nineveh, that great city.

Joel Brooks: 19:55

Call out against it for its evil has come up to me. And that that phrase, the evil has come up, means that there is there is evil in the city that keeps getting worse and worse and worse. It's piling on itself. More and more violence. More and more greed.

Joel Brooks: 20:13

This evil is just getting big and big and it's reaching all the way up to God. It says, Therefore since the city is getting more evil, Jonah, you're to go to the city. Which is the exact opposite of what Christians do. When the city gets worse and worse and worse, Christians leave the city. Let it stew in its own juices.

Joel Brooks: 20:38

You know, there's some Christians who actually kind of rejoice in this kind of sick way over the, the demise of the city. But God says, when the evil comes up, you go out. You know, in Birmingham, we've seen a lot of violence over the years. If you go the website for the census or to the FBI, you'll get some statistics. You know, in 1960, there were 340,000 people living in the city of Birmingham.

Joel Brooks: 21:14

And that's just in the city. This is not like Greater Birmingham, you know, or Mountsennbrook or in Hoover. This is just within the city. 340,000 in 1960. In 2000, there was only 240,000.

Joel Brooks: 21:32

So in 40 years, Birmingham lost a 100,000 of its residents. Many, many churches left, or I guess a better word would be fled. Once they saw the demise of the city, they got the heck out of there. Currently, according to the FBI, Birmingham has the 7th highest murder rate, as the 8th is 8th highest in violent crime. Birmingham is.

Joel Brooks: 22:11

And yet as a whole, the churches fled the city. Christians look at the violence, they look at the crime, they look at all those things, and they kind of secretly think, serves them right. Serves them right. Reaping what they sow. And God looks at the city, and he sees the violence rising, and he sees a crime rising, and he says, okay, go into the city.

Joel Brooks: 22:37

Go into the city. Share the gospel. You don't leave the city, you go into the city. Don't abandon it. I have labored over Nineveh.

Joel Brooks: 22:48

I have labored over Birmingham. Won't you labor with me? And what you see here is nothing more than the heart of Jesus. You know, in Luke 13, which we'll get to in a few months, we see Jesus grieving over the city. He says, Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills prophets, stones those who God sends to it.

Joel Brooks: 23:16

How often I would have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you wouldn't have it. And so you see Jesus grieving over the demise of the city. So when the city becomes evil, we need to grieve over it. Because these cities are a gift from God. I find it interesting Same cities are a gift from God.

Joel Brooks: 23:50

You know, Christians believe that marriage is a gift from God. Rightly so. It's it's this beautiful institution. It's something that God has created. But currently, we live in a day where the sanctity of marriage is attacked.

Joel Brooks: 24:06

You know, divorce is rampant. And yet the church fights for marriage. We fight for it, rightly so. Like, yes, we see evil coming into the marriage institution. And and yet we're gonna fight for this.

Joel Brooks: 24:24

And here, you know, in the city, you have this God given institution here. Something he has labored over and we look at it and when we see evil creeping into it we don't fight for it. We leave it. Now I'm not saying that all of you need to move into the city. I'm not saying that at all.

Joel Brooks: 24:46

But in very similar way that if you're single, and God's called you to singleness, and you see the demise of some marriages, you don't rejoice over it because you'd be a fool to do that, knowing that society is built on healthy marriages. No, you will work for those healthy marriages. You will rejoice in healthy marriages in the same way if God has called you to be live in the city. Don't rejoice at its demise. You'd be a fool too.

Joel Brooks: 25:14

Work for its good because it's the engines that drive society. If you were to pick up our about us pamphlets, which we have out there, you'll see our vision statement, which says, we believe that God has called us to part of the spiritual, social and cultural renewal of this city in the world. And when you pick up one of our little cards, out there also says, we believe that Jesus our redeemer has called us to be part of the spiritual, social, and cultural renewal of his people, His cities, and His world. And we don't just say of His people and His world. We actually recognize that God has a special heart for the cities.

Joel Brooks: 26:01

He has a special plan for the cities, and we want to be part of the redemption of that. There is a reason in your Bible, you know, in the New Testament, you're not gonna get Paul writing a letter to, you know, the country little town of Genoa. You know, the epistle to Arbillo. A little town that was around during his time. There aren't any letters to Marum or Athamna to other little towns, but you do find letters to the Romans.

Joel Brooks: 26:37

Letters to Corinth, Ephesus, Thesalonica, Colossae, Galatia, Philippi. The urban centers of his day is where he went. Paul, when he went to go spread the gospel, he skipped over every little country town, and he went straight for the cities. It's not because he didn't care about, you know, those who lived in the suburbs or lived in the country or thought that God didn't care for them. God cares for them.

Joel Brooks: 27:09

God loves them just as much. But he knew that if you win all the countryside, and don't win the city, you've lost. But if you win the city, you'll win the countryside. Because the cities are the engines that drive society. And you see this, I mean, you see this unfold in early Christian history.

Joel Brooks: 27:34

You know, Christian Christianity completely overtook Rome within a few centuries. And the reason it did is because Christians stayed in the cities. I mean, it's pretty amazing. They were the Christian movement was all slaves and the poor, dominantly. Slaves and the poor, and yet it overtook Rome in a few centuries because they refused to leave the cities.

Joel Brooks: 27:57

When violence would come into the cities, they didn't leave. When plagues would go all through the cities, they stayed. Eventually, Rome was changed. The early Christians understood their calling to the city. Now, the reason that God loves this city, the reason that he labors over this, it's because God loves people, and there's a lot of people in a city.

Joel Brooks: 28:30

That's why he loves this city. He's got this special plan for this city. I mean, we yes, the city has fallen but you can still see so many beautiful things in the city. If if you're a homeless person, where are you going to go? Are you are you going to go out into the suburbs?

Joel Brooks: 28:50

Are you going to go out into the country? You go to the city. Soup kitchens are in the city. You'll often find a bed in the city. If you're an immigrant coming in, and you don't speak the language, you don't speak English, where are you gonna go?

Joel Brooks: 29:03

You're gonna go to the city, where you can find, you know, you could be both part of your own culture and start learning the new one. It's a very hospitable place to immigrants when they come in. If you're an artist and you really want to improve, where do you go? The city. Where you can see all new techniques of how to do your art and and it will stimulate your mind and there's even a healthy competition there to strive to be better.

Joel Brooks: 29:33

Even things like, if you're a lawyer in a country, little town. It would be the exception for you to improve in your legal skills. But move to the city where there's thousands of lawyers, thousands of little stimulation there, and you improve. It brings out human potential. We see these things even in a fallen, depraved city.

Joel Brooks: 30:00

God's got a special plan for the city. He loves it because there's so many people in there. And he describes the people as not knowing their right hand from their left. He doesn't know their right hand from their left. And when God describes the Ninevites this way, it's a very interesting phrase.

Joel Brooks: 30:22

What he is saying is that these people are so entrenched in their sin. So entrenched in it, they don't even have a clue as how to get out. They don't even know which way to turn. It's just a part of life for them. They don't even know the direction to go.

Joel Brooks: 30:39

They don't know their right hand from their left hand. The businesses there, they are so run by greed, they don't know how to operate without cheating people or misleading people. You have the the teachers there who have who have grown so apathetic after seeing so little funding and so many overcrowded classrooms, they've forgotten how to care. You see the city just being run down in so many ways that the government offices are so full of corruption. They don't know how to operate without lying.

Joel Brooks: 31:14

There's nobody there to show them their right hand from their left. That's why the church needs to take a stand. Say, listen, we want to be part of the redemption of this. As Christians, as people who have received the spirit of Christ, The gospel must overflow into the city. Hear those first words of Jonah, their evil has risen.

Joel Brooks: 31:47

Therefore, arise and go. The very last verse of this book ends in a question. There's only 2 books in the Bible that end in a question, and this is one of them. The other one is Nahum, which is also about the Ninevites. And it's very intentional by the author because he wants this question to linger.

Joel Brooks: 32:22

He he wants this question just to sit with you, so he's not going to give you the answer. You don't really know what happens to Jonah. You don't know. It's just this question is just going to sit with you, because this question is actually directed to you. He wants you to identify with this.

Joel Brooks: 32:38

I mean, who else are you gonna identify with in this book? God? The Ninevites? You identify with Jonah. The questions to you.

Joel Brooks: 32:53

And I know it's so easy to look down on Jonah. You know, a guy who loves plants more than he loves people. You know, Jonah looks out on Ninevites. We look down on Jonah. We all have our little, you know, superiority complex.

Joel Brooks: 33:08

But before you judge him, at least let me speak to me before I judge him because this has really hit me hard. I've realized I have to repent. I often care more about my lawn than I do my neighbor. That's Jonah, caring more about the plant than the Ninevites. I I spend more time thinking about how to get rid of crabgrass than about getting rid of evil within the city.

Joel Brooks: 33:50

That's Jonah. That is not God's heart, and it's something I have to repent of. Jonah reminds me of my need for the gospel. God has given us grace, he has poured love into us to change us. That that might love might go out to the people in this city.

Joel Brooks: 34:19

I pray you would pray with me. Lord, as your prophet Jeremiah said in chapter 29, may we seek the prosperity of the city for when it prospers, we prosper. May we seek the shalom of the city, the peace of the city, the wholeness of the city. May we seek that. When the evil of the city rises, may we not flee, may we go to the city.

Joel Brooks: 34:54

May we go to the shelters. May we go to the schools. May we do our tutoring. May we give to the charities. May we invest our lives however you lead us.

Joel Brooks: 35:08

For those of us who are not called to live in this city, I pray that you would still show us a way we can serve the city, for when it prospers, we prosper. City is a gift from you. I think this message is so important for us as a church. So important as we start off and we try to understand the gospel and serve this city. Burn it in our hearts.

Joel Brooks: 35:39

And I pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.