The God Who Addresses The Heart

Jonah Series | 4:1-11 | Pastor Duane Smets

This an exegetical sermon of Jonah 4:1-11 looks at the importance of being real with God, how anger, depression and suicide function, how external solutions don’t work, and how God teaches and changes our hearts. This sermon was originally preached on May 15th, 2011 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.

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The Resolved Church
Pastor Duane Smets
May 15th, 2011

The God Who Addresses The Heart (4:1-11)
I. Having It Out With The Holy One
   How We Must Deal With What’s Really Going On In Us
II. Why External Solutions Cannot Fix Things
   How Anger, Depression & Suicide Function In Us
III. Being Taught By The Wonderful Counselor
   How Real Lasting Change Happens In Us

Introduction

Today we embark on a treacherous journey as follow the story of the book of Jonah to the end in it’s great climax and cliffhanger. Throughout the book of Jonah we have experienced an enthralling interplay between these great exciting eventful scenes and these riveting conversations which raise deep complex questions. And this week as we work through the final word of the book is no different as everything culminates together in what is truly a magnificent encounter between God and Jonah.

Have you ever wondered what it’s like beneath the surface of the earth? If you have then you’re not alone. In 1864 a guy named Jules Verne wrote a novel titled, “Journey To The Center of The Earth.” If you’re the type that watches movies instead of reading books then you may know of it’s original movie screenplay in 1959 or the modern remake in 2008 with Brendan Fraser. Neither of the movies are very good, so if you have seen them you’re probably one of those movie buffs who have seen everything and have strong opinions about every movie you’ve seen. I’m sure it didn’t get two thumbs up.

Anyway, the story of the book and the movies is that a professor named Lidenbrock deciphers this ancient rune which talks about this secret passageway at the bottom of a volcano crater in Iceland which takes you to the center of the earth. So obviously they trek up there and go down this hole. On there journey through it they encounter all kinds of phenomena. Strange acoustics where things are heard differently. Strange gases where things smell odd. Strange plant and animal life where things look wildly different. Strange water which flows in an uncommon direction. As they journey deeper they discover there is hot volcanic magma at the earth’s core which causes all kinds of disturbances on the earth’s crust.

Though unscientific, it’s not too unlike what experts tell us is actually beneath the surface of the earth. The center of the earth is about 4000 miles below what we walk on. Apparently by using various forms of seismic technology, because we can’t drill that deep, scientists tell us there are three basic parts to what’s beneath the surface. There is the crust which is about 6 miles deep and is made mostly of rock. After the crust is the mantel which 1800 miles thick, is more fluid and consists of 3-5000 degree hot icelike forms of magnesium and iron. Then there is the core. The core is the hottest and most dense part of the earth running upwards of 11000 degrees fahrenheit and is made up of nickel, iron and some other gases. Pretty intense stuff. Many think all these floods, tornados, tsunamis, and other wield weather stuff is directly related to what’s going on beneath the surface of the earth.

The heart of the earth and the journey to it is not so much unlike the journey to the human heart and what takes place beneath the surface of our lives. In dramatic fashion, this final chapter of Jonah puts God on display as a he draws out and addresses Jonah’s heart. In his heart there are all kinds of things going on beneath the surface, where he hears sees and feels about things differently and he’s hot, mad hot and angry about it. As we’ll see, we too like Jonah, have hearts which have all kinds of rumblings beneath the surface which effect everything for us.

My prayer today is that you would go on a short journey with me today as we attempt to get beneath the surface of our own hearts. My hope is you would allow God to open up your heart and address some things today just as he did with Jonah. So I’ve titled my message accordingly, “The God Who Addresses The Heart.” Let’s read Jonah 4:1-11 and pray over it.

I. Having It Out With The Holy One
   How We Must Deal With What’s Really Going On In Us

Alright, so my first point for today is “Having It Out With The Holy One: How We Must Deal With What’s Really Going On In Us.” Last week we mainly dealt with the character and nature of God and just looked at verses 1-4. This week we’re going to deal mainly with the character and nature of Jonah and how God goes after him.

So the first thing we notice is Jonah is at least finally talking to God. In the very beginning of the book when God told Jonah to go to Nineveh, there’s zero conversation between Jonah and God. Instead, Jonah just ignores God and takes off.

After God sends a storm after him and Jonah gets himself thrown overboard God sends a fish to get him. At that point Jonah responds to God in a Psalm, song or prayer of thanks (whatever you want to call it) for saving him. But still, he doesn’t talk to God in it about what was really bothering him in the first place and why he took off running. Then as we learn in chapter three and as we see here in chapter four, Jonah never really had a change of heart.

Really, here in chapter four we’re right back to square one with Jonah and God. Nothing has changed about Jonah’s heart and attitude toward God and the people God has sent him after. The only thing that is different here is Jonah tells God why he didn’t want to obey God in the first place. Which we dealt with in depth last week as being his issue with God granting grace on the Ninevites and God being gracious in general.

Now, granted, you shouldn’t talk to God like Jonah does here. He’s not only disrespectful and rude but he’s borderline blasphemous. BUT….at least he’s talking to God and telling him what’s really going on beneath the surface. That’s a start!

Look at it, verse 3, “O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish.” And then he tells him why he fled…he finally talks to God.

You see God’s a pretty big God, he’s not petty and reactive requiring us to come to him with just the right words and just the right affections. The important thing is we come. He doesn’t get his feelings hurt easily. He can handle our sinful attitudes and warped ideas if we will simply come to him with them.

Too often we do the opposite thing. We do what Jonah did the first time, we ignore it and we try to run from it hoping the issue will just go away. But they don’t. You ever tried that and experienced it? Usually it’s only a matter of time before the same issues rear their ugly head again and usually it’s much worse and much uglier the second, third and fourth time around.

Or the other thing that often happens with us is instead of running we try and cover up. This is when we know things are not right or good between us and God, so we just try and ignore that fact or cover it up by doing some “good” things like going to church, reading our Bible, or doing some nice things for others. We resort to religion rather than to deal with whatever real doubts, fears, frustrations we have that are brewing beneath the surface and causing distance between us and God. In the meantime more and more detachment and eventually disbelief enters in until any real relationship with God disappears or dissolves.

So my first point really is just noting that at least it’s good Jonah is talking to God here because we’ve got to talk to God. We’ve got to get real with God or any belief or life we have with God isn’t really real. We’ve got to deal with the heart or we end up with either dead intellectual belief in God or a dead spiritual practice for God.

And sometimes, I know, it’s hard to know what’s really going on but you sense the distance and detachment. Sometimes when I begin to sense the uneasiness and tension beneath the surface in my heart and I don’t know what’s going on…I just try to get away and get alone with God. Sometimes I’ll take a day or few days and get up in the mountains or go to the cliffs overlooking the water and I’ll get out my journal and just start writing out all the things bothering me. Then I read back through them and try and figure out how each thing really is a problem with God that I’m having. Ultimately everything one way or another is a sin issue between me and God.

For example, say you’re worried about ____________. That’s really just a way of saying my life isn’t going or may not go the way I know it’s supposed to go, so God either isn’t doing the right thing or may do the wrong thing. Every single issue we have in life, no matter what it is, always boils down to an issue between us and God. We are simply too often too dense, too afraid or too hard hearted to actually sit down and have it out with God.

But we must. There’s too much fake Christianity going around and it’s worthless anyway. We’ve got to learn to be a people who really deal with our hearts and we take what’s going on to God no matter what it is. There are likely several of you here and you know there are things going on beneath the surface between you and God but you haven’t really been dealing with them. I’m begging you today to be honest with yourself and the God who made you.

Well let’s go back to Jonah and look what has happened to his heart from not dealing with what was going on in him up to this point and what he sees as the only option. So “Why Why External Solutions Cannot Fix Things: How Anger, Depression & Suicide Function In Us.”

II. Why External Solutions Cannot Fix Things
   How Anger, Depression & Suicide Function In Us

First thing to recognize, Jonah’s angry. Check it out. The first time we see it is in verse 4 right after Jonah has registered his complaint with God. God picks up on his tone, identifies it and asks “Do you do well to be angry?” The second time is in the second conversation God and Jonah have. It’s in verse 9 and God asks him the same question verbatim “Do you do well to be angry?” This time Jonah responds and acknowledges his anger and replies “Yes, I do well to be angry, (very) angry.”

Anger. To be honest I don’t even know where to begin with anger. It’s deep, it’s complex, there’s a lot of sides to it, the Bible has a ton to say about it, and on top of it it’s something which I have had and continue to have to deal with and it has brought about a lot of sin in my life…so it’s hard for me to talk about. I seriously hate anger. I angry about being angry I’m so messed up when it comes to anger!

I guess defining anger’s a good starting point. The Hebrew word here for anger simply means “to be hot” which is actually pretty descriptive. People’s body temperature when they’re angry can actually rise and you can even sometimes see people get visibly red in the face.

Causes for anger are many including things like seeing or experiencing injustice, threat and personal harm or frustration at not getting what one wants.

Many have noted that when anger occurs we tend to go one of two directions with it. We either express it or repress it. That is, we either become aggressive in some physical display of anger outwardly or we become regressive in some subtle absorption of anger inwardly. It either goes out or goes in and regardless of the direction it often begins to form and shape a person’s character breeding things like bitterness, resentment, dispassion and depression.

In Jonah’s case it looks like he’s mainly been doing the internal thing. That’s often the route religious folk go. They try to suppress it because they know pretty much all outward expressions of anger don’t turn out good and religious people try so hard at being good. So remember Jonah. He’s fled from his hometown to Joppa, then on a boat to Tarshish, then overboard into the water, then into a fish, then into Nineveh…we’re talking weeks and months going by and it isn’t until now that he finally opens up and acknowledges his anger. An angry person usually doesn’t get that way over night.

Jonah’s anger has eaten away at him. Sometimes anger can seem to be like that old Centipede Atari game and it can just eat and eat and eat away at you. It almost can seem to take on a life of it’s own. There’s times when I’ve been so angry I totally feel like I become a different person.

Jonah here is clearly depressed. His anger has torn him apart and his depression has made him suicidal. In verse 3, he requests divine euthanasia. Look at it. He’s so angry he says, “O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” Then look at verse 8, he asks God again. It says, “he asked that he might die and said, ‘It is better for me to die than to live.’” Then in verse 9 he tells God he is angry, “angry enough to die.”

If you remember back to the first chapter, Jonah asked to be thrown overboard into the sea to die as a result of his refusal to go to Nineveh the first time. So really we’ve got four different times where the book of Jonah points out that Jonah is depressed and suicidal. The Bible is no stranger to these things. It is acutely aware. Some of it’s biggest heroes struggled with depression and suicide…men like the great King David and the prophet Jeremiah.

Suicide works the same way in every person who ever contemplates it, attempts it or achieves it. The thought is this…”I will be happier, if it I ended my life. If I am dead and it is all over it will be better for me.”

Anger, either external or internal is what leads to depression and depression is what leads to suicide. This stuff is real. Current statistics say that 10% of Americans, that’s around 25 million people are on anti-depressants. Ironically we’re the wealthiest and most depressed country in the world. That’s one in ten people and of those one in ten only thirty percent of them say the drugs even help a little bit. Many cities are trying to preemptively curb it offering anger management courses. San Diego does. The courts of San Diego often require them as part of their rulings.

Anger, depression and suicide seems to leave no persons untouched. Men, women, children, of all races, all classes and all professions, including pastors have been marred and effected by it. A recent study came out saying seventy percent of pastors constantly fight depression. In our own Acts 29 Network we’ve had two pastors who committed suicide just two years ago.

This stuff, this Jonah stuff here is real. And just like Jonah we often fall into the trap of thinking the solution is something external. For Jonah, he only sees death as the solution and offers God two options. Either kill the Ninevites or kill him.

Right after he first presents these options to God in verses 3-4 it says he goes outside the city and makes a makeshift tent for himself and then look at what it says, end of verse five, “He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city.”

Jonah was hoping God would change his mind and decide to destroy Nineveh after all…he was hoping that maybe he had knocked some sense into God. Most likely he was wishing for God to rain down fire and sulfer on Nineveh like he did on cities of Sodom and Gomorrah back in the book of Genesis. He’s sitting back waiting for a show.

That’s Jonah’s first option, death for the Ninevites. His second option, if God doesn’t want to do that, is death for himself. Jonah sees death as the only option for his anger and depression. His anger is literally killing him and he has become a slave to his own bitterness and he only sees external solutions. But the problem is Jonah’s problem wasn’t an external problem, it was an internal one, a heart problem.

God sees this and knows this and thus he pursues Jonah. He’s been pursing Jonah all through the book. He pursued him physically when he tried to run and now God pursues him spiritually when he wants death. So let’s look at what God does with Jonah here to address his heart in our last main point for today, “Being Taught By The Wonderful Counselor: How Real Lasting Change Happens In Us.”

III. Being Taught By The Wonderful Counselor
   How Real Lasting Change Happens In Us

God here with Jonah is so extremely gracious. Time and time again extending his hand to Jonah and pursuing him no matter what. That in and of itself ought to be a great encouragement to us. It’s a testimony and reminder that our God truly is one who will never leave us nor forsake us. Those he has chosen to set his love on he has chosen to set his love on and he will never stop.

As Tullian Tchividjian remarks here, we may “feel dehumanized, cheapened, discouraged, depressed, or radically disappointed by everyone and everything in this world. But not by God. Nothing and no one will ever be as patient and forgiving toward you as God is.”

The first thing we notice about what God does is this great contrast between God and Jonah. In chapter 3, verse 10, God saw how the Ninevites repented and he relented. In chapter 4, verse 1, Jonah saw how the Ninevites repented and he is displeased and angry. In 4:2 God is declared as being slow to anger. In 4:4 Jonah is immediately angry.

In God’s slowness to anger, he puts to use a full range of the power and wisdom he has at his disposal in order to get at Jonah’s heart. So first he questions him? It’s an honest question he asks Jonah. He beckons Jonah to really think and consider whether he should be angry. Should you be angry?

Counselors, Christian ones and secular ones alike have discovered the power and the art of asking questions to really draw a person out. Sometimes all we need is someone to lovingly challenge us and ask us some hard questions we may not have considered. A lot of times we really need to simply question ourselves…why do I feel this way, why did I do this or that, what am I seeking, am I justified in responding this way, etc. etc.

God here first begins by asking Jonah this probing question and then he goes after him by exercising his divine power in attending to some of Jonah’s physical needs. As a side note this is the same principle throughout the Bible whether it be miracles or good deeds done to others, always their purpose is in order to gain access to someone’s heart and turn it to the worship of God.

So get the picture. It’s hot in the desert. Jonah tries to make some makeshift shade for himself. It’s probably pretty shanty. So God does something nice for Jonah and makes a magic plant. Ever wonder where the whole Jack and the Beanstalk story came from. Right here! God makes this magic plant sprout right up, big and tall enough to provide shade for a full grown man. Many think this was probably a caster oil plant because of the Hebrew word and if so, it’s this bright green plant with big green leaves.

And Jonah is stoked! Verse 6 says he’s “exceedingly glad because of the plant.” Earlier he thinks God is exceedingly evil for saving Nineveh but now he’s exceedingly glad about God. There’s a lot of fancy word play going on here. In verse 5, the Scripture says God made the plant “to save him from his ‘evil.’” Most translations say something like “discomfort” but again, like last week the Hebrew word is “ra” which means “evil.”

It’s like the text whispering here, “Hey, God’s not the one who’s evil, Jonah is and God is going to use this plant to save Jonah’s soul!”

So Jonah is stoked on the plant. You got to love this. Jonah’s stoked on it so the next day God crushes it and he does so by sending this magic worm and magic wind and magic heat to kill it. There’s this not so subtle theme all throughout the book of Jonah that God is sovereign over all. He is the Creator, the LORD and he has all power and he appoints storms, fish, plants, worms, winds and heat. God exercises a great use of his power in going after Jonah.

Now notice this. In verse 9 as we already talked about how Jonah here is angry again. But look at what he’s angry at this time. This time he’s angry not because of the Ninevites. He’s angry because of the plant. You ever notice when one thing makes you angry that everything starts to make you angry? This time Jonah is angry that God took away the plant which was “saving” him.

God had asked Jonah a question before all this…”Do you do well to be angry?” And then he launched into this object lesson for Jonah with the plant. Now it’s over and the plant is gone and God asks Jonah a second time, “Do you do well to be angry?”

The question alone just seems so convicting. To us the hypocrisy just seems so clear doesn’t it? Ed Welch says its the angry person who is usually last to know. He writes, “Those who are angry are confident in their right-ness and over time can become massively, utterly, completely deluded, blind and can feel quite good about themselves after bludgeoning someone close them, as if they have set the world aright.” Some of you have and have become angry people and you don’t even realize it.

God here is trying to draw out Jonah’s heart, trying to help him realize and see his hypocrisy and self-righteous duplicity. But he just doesn’t get it. Sometimes the time for asking questions ends and the time for preaching begins. Sometimes the heart is so hard that nothing less than a hammer will do.

Jeremiah 23:29 says, “Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?” God’s word here comes to Jonah like a hammer. Let me just read it for us one more time to get it fresh in our heads. Verse 10-11, “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. 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?”

So get God’s logic here. It’s a lesser to greater argument, a qal vahomer. God says, look Jonah…you didn’t deserve the plant, I just gave it to you. You had it one day before I took it from you and you want me to save the plant so bad you’re ready to die over it. Think about Nineveh, yes they didn’t deserve to be saved, but they’ve been growing for much more than a day and more than that there’s people in there, 120,000 babies who don’t know their right and left hand, and are not people more important to me than plants?

Ahh, it’s cutting. Like a sharp hot knife. God more than levels the playing field here. And then the book just ends. It’s shocking. No fairy tale ending. It just gets seemingly cut off. We’re sort of left hanging on the edge of our seat wondering what happened? How did Jonah respond? But the book just ends.

So what’s up with that? I mean we’ve seen it over and over again, this book is a literary masterpiece. This couldn’t have just been an accident and there are no varying manuscripts with different endings. This is it. So why does it end like this?

I think this is why… The book of Jonah, the story of his life and all that happens which we’ve read about and studied about…it really hasn’t so much been a story about Jonah but about us. All throughout the book as we’ve looked at the person of Jonah, we catch glimpses of ourselves.

The irony in the book is that God is the only one who really deserves to be angry but instead of dishing out anger he’s dishing out grace. Many have noted that the abrupt end of the book appears to be intentional because it’s meant to put us in the place of Jonah where we are called to respond.

Thus really, the question isn’t so much…what happened? Did Jonah repent? The question is what are you going to do? Will you repent? Will you respond to God or will you stay in a hardened state against him? Will you have a change of heart?

Now here’s the kicker. How does this change happen? Could Jonah have just said to himself, okay self, change. No. It we don’t work like that do we? Your heart has to be pierced.

Really, Jonah was actually on to something when he thought a death had to occur in order for him to be happy. But the death Jonah needed wasn’t a physical death to just put him out of his misery and it wasn’t a death to the Ninevites so that justice would be served. He needed a deathblow to be dealt to his sin. The only way a heart ever changes, the only way lasting change ever happens is when sin is rooted out and put to death.

Here’s the good news, the gospel…just as God stooped down out of heaven to reach out to Jonah and draw out his heart, God has reached down out of heaven in Jesus to reach out to us. Jonah thought he was in the right but he was dead wrong. Jesus was right and died a death for every wrong and sinful thing mankind has ever felt, said and done.

God is ever the wonderful counselor who goes after his children. In the garden of Eden he steps in after sin and calls out, “Where are you?” In the desert of Nineveh he steps in after sin and calls out, “repent.” And on the cross of calvary he dies for sin and cries out, “forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Listen my friends, disdain for others is always a failure to see how God should have disdain for us but instead has had grace toward us in Jesus. Self-righteousness and religion are always great enemies of the gospel. The only way out of anger, bitterness, depression and suicidal tendencies is to see and know the great love of God given to us in Jesus.

Here’s how anger and the gospel work… Anger normally goes in one of two directions, outward or inward. In the gospel what happens is your anger goes a third direction, it goes to the cross and there Jesus absorbs it. He takes it into himself. Result? The anger is removed and Jesus makes us new creations. He changes us.

To the measure you see yourself a sinner in need of change will be the degree you experience the grace of God in your life. No external solutions will work. Only a great massive change of heart. We just need a lot of grace…the same kind of grace God gave Jonah and the good news is he has given even more because he didn’t just stoop down to have a talk with us and make a magic plant…he became a man and died on a cross for us so we might truly know his grace and be changed.

Every single issue, every single problem you will ever deal with is an area you need the salve of the cross to be applied. The gospel is the answer and solution to all of life. I’ve said it before as many others have but we need to hear it again. In the gospel we truly realize we’re far worse off than we ever thought but at the same time we’re far more loved and accepted than we ever thought possible.

Jesus is good news for sinners, we must have him.

Conclusion

My conclusion today is real simple. We’ve got to have God change our hearts. Sometimes I just don’t know where to begin, so I just pray over and over again God change my heart, change my heart. Please change my heart. Please God, take out the heart of stone and give me a heart of flesh.

Here’s the deal. Some of you haven’t talked to God in a really long time and you need to today. Some of you today have anger you need to deal with and repent of. Some of you have some people you need to extend grace towards. Some of you have things about yourself you know needs to change.

Don’t ignore it. Don’t run. Don’t hide. Don’t justify. Just repent. Be soft. Be humble. Be teachable. Don’t leave today without having God do some real work in you.

Receive the grace of God provided for in Christ. His death for our life. We repent of sin and believe and he changes us and makes us new. So let’s bask in the grace of Jesus today as we come to the table.

Let’s pray.