Mad At Mercy | Adam French | Jonah 4

watching online or if you're watching from a jail cell or a prison cell we want to say welcome and thank you for tuning in with us and I will also say thank you to Pastor Robbie for giving me the opportunity to preach this morning. I want to go back to something that she said that Delaney mentioned this is your first time. This is your first time in this room or in Gallatin or online or your first time that you picked up a tablet and you're watching us. I just want you to know that God loves you, God's grace and mercy is there for you and we don't want anything from you but we want a lot of things for you and the most important thing that we want for you is freedom. That's why I'm here, right? Is that why you're here? Freedom. I mean 17 years ago I came here on a bus, they drove me in from a treatment center and I was carrying a whole bunch of things in my heart but when I got here I got to experience and taste a little bit of freedom and I wanted more of that. In order to get freedom to experience freedom we experienced that through God's love, God's mercy, God's truth and God's grace. I don't think there's anybody in the room this morning that would say you know I got a problem with God's love. I got a problem with God's mercy. Does anybody say I have a problem with God's grace? There's not a lot of people that would say that, right, but let me ask you this question. What if God asks you to be the one who is to administer grace to your enemy? Let me ask you this way, have you ever been angry or upset because someone else received a blessing? Maybe you thought you should have got. If you're following along with us in the reading we're going to look at the book of Jonah so you can go ahead and turn there if you would like on your tablet or if you have your Bible with you it's going to be on the screen, but I have a question for your heart this morning.

When we read God's Word it should leave us with questions that point to our heart, not to somebody else's heart, but to our heart and God's been, I tell you, I started reading this in May and I'm glad to get past this, right? God's been pointing a lot of things out in my heart and this morning if you will please, I want you to take a journey with me to allow the Lord to point some things out in your heart because we're going to see a prophet, a man of God who was running from freedom. Not just the freedom that God wanted him to share with others, he was running from his own freedom and so that's another question, are you running from freedom? I want you to say that, answer to that at the end. Jonah chapter 1 will start in verse 1, the Bible says this, "The Word of the Lord came to Jonah, Son of Amity," now it's not where he lived, Jonah didn't live there in Amity that actually translates into my son of faithfulness and Jonah means dove. So think about this, this passage starts out, the whole book starts out saying, it says, the dove, son of my faithfulness, can one of you all introduce me that way, Delaney continued, next service, no, but he's pointing to something, we can't just skim over that, that's what Jonah was perceived as, that's what he looked like on the outside, there's a very well known prophet, the Word of the Lord had come to him many times, he's kind of a big deal, this is what God said to him, he says, get up, go to the great city of Nineveh and priests against it because their evil has come up before me, now when I read this I'm like God would you please speak to me this way, I mean he tells him when, where, what, like he's so specific, I would love to have specifics like that, now Jonah's response makes me think he could be a teenager, because what does Jonah do, Jonah gets up and he He goes the exact opposite place that he tells him to go. Not that teenagers do that, I have to clean the rooms, the hard one in my house, right? Room cleaning, it's difficult for my wife. And I have to be the bad guy, pick up your stuff, right? So this is Jonah's response. Jonah got up to flee to Tarsus from the Lord's presence. He went down to Jopa, he found a ship going to Tarsus

and he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarsus from the Lord's presence. Let me pray, Father, I want to pause here because we're all here because of you, not because of me, it's because the freedom that we've experienced in you and God ask you to hide me behind your word, ask that people would struggle to remember my name, but they would never forget your name, the name of Jesus. And I asked Lord that you would remove any distractions that all of our campuses is in here and online and you would speak to the hearts of your people through your word. Help us to be vulnerable before you. Help us to be honest, Father. It's in Jesus' name that I pray. Now listen, there is probably 10 sermons in the book of Jonah and I have 30 minutes to tear with you the one that God gave me. So I'm gonna move through this one kind of quickly, just an overview of the book. If you didn't read it this week. God comes to Jonah, my dove, the son of faithfulness, gives him a specific plan, a specific purpose. Jonah does the exact opposite and when you disobey, it just starts going downhill, right? When we see that in the text, Jonah goes down to tarsis. Eventually he gets on a boat, he's asleep down in the bottom. Eventually all the waves come and starts,

the ship is vision to sink and they figure out it's Jonah, so they throw him down in the water and he goes down to the mountain. Many people believe that he could have perished with another perspective there. And then he goes down into the belly of the whale. And finally, I know you've never been there, I've never been there. Finally, after all of that, he says, okay God, I'll do what you asked me to do. I don't wanna get eaten by a whale again, right? And he goes to the end of it and he shares a word and the people are saved. And then God asks him some questions at the end. And so when I read this text, I think there's just two questions that just jump out at all of us. And the two questions are this. And they're very elementary, it's not anything profound, it's why did Jonah run? I mean, he's the man of God. He's my dove, the son of faithfulness. He knew that you can't outrun God. Why did he run? The second thing is, why was he mad? God gave him a word. I gave him a specific word. All the time, I think we all pray. I want you to answer this. I would love for God to tell me everything specifically

that I prayed for in response. The good thing is, God doesn't ask us to guess the answer to this. One verse shares that clearly, in Jonah chapter four, he answers both of these questions in verses one through three. He says this. Jonah was greatly displeased and became furious. Underline or circle that word, furious, please. Because in a few moments, we're gonna take that word and we're gonna just pull a string that stretches all the way from Genesis to Luke. He prayed to the Lord, please, Lord. Isn't this what I said while it was still in my own country? I don't know what Jonah was saying, but he was saying a lot about how he did want to obey God. That's why I fled from Tarsus in the first place. So he tells us, here it is. I knew that you are gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding and faithful love, and one who relents from sending disaster, and now, Lord, take my life for me for it is better for me to die than to live. So the answer to the first question, why did Jonah run? 'Cause Jonah had a distorted view of love. Now, on the surface, most believe, and it is partially, it is true, most believe the reason why Jonah ran

was because Nineveh was so evil. That's true, yes. And Nineveh was evil. It was a vile, wicked place, and they had extremely cruel war tactics, and they bragged about it. They're still carning today of them bragging about how cruel they were. So not only were they evil from the outside world, So God said, I gotta send someone there to share the truth with them, to set them free from this. But the reason why he sent Jonah, he could have sent anybody. We know, we just read through this, as the sons of prophets, Joe was around, he could have used anybody. But the reason why he used Jonah, because there was something in Jonah's heart that he wanted to expose. God's been exposing some things in my heart this week, over these past few weeks. And I think he wants to expose some things in all of our hearts. Isn't the easy answer ever with God? The deeper truth in this passage is this, God didn't send Jonah to Nineveh because of the hate in Nineveh. He set him because of the hate in Jonah. God didn't just want to set Nineveh free from the consequence of their sin.

He wanted to set Jonah free from the bitterness in his heart. Can you see it? When you think back over, Jonah chapter three, Jonah might be the first professional actor. Here's Jonah walking around Nineveh for three days. Repeat, turn from your evil ways, God will save you. And on the inside, his bitterness and hatred towards them. It's like if you ever see someone, takes just someone throwing out a life wrap, just with this scowl on their face, I can't believe I have to save these people. Why would God show us that? As our pastor always says, the Bible is a reflection of our heart and it shows us our soul. Jesus makes me think about what he said in Matthew 22 when he says we are called what? To love our neighbors as ourselves. That wasn't the ending place though. He said, I just want you to, can you just start, let's start here. Let's start here. 'Cause I know there's one person you love, I make sure I'm fed. I make sure I got what I need, anybody else? I always say, I may not be much, but I'm all I think about. I have to work at not thinking about myself, right? Any witnesses here?

God says, listen. Let's just start here. This is the second greatest commandment. Listen, can you just try to love the people that are in proximity, that's what neighbor, the people that have place around you? And listen, you don't even have to love them more than yourself, just love them as much as you love yourself. Can you start there? And then I know it doesn't end there because six chapters later, what happens? Matthew 28, God says what? Jesus says, I want you to go therefore into what? All the nations. God is saying, listen, I'm calling this church for the next 50 years. You can start by loving the person right next to you. Then I want you to love all of Hendersonville. I want you to love, Middle Tennessee. I want you to love the same Tennessee. I'm calling you across the globe. He said, but before you can do that, before you're able to love the way I'm calling you to love, to see an even greater experience than what you have the first 50 years. He said, I gotta work some things out of your heart. I gotta get some stuff out of your heart. If we love ourselves more than a lost world, we'd miss the point of freedom in Christ. We are set free indeed.

Not for ourselves, not just for ourselves. What are you running from? I had to answer this question. I was running from this. This stage, I didn't feel like I could, I should be teaching and preaching. I had a lot of fear in that insecurity. I felt like I wasn't good enough. You know, I'm just done with that. I want to run where God tells me to run. Not where my fear, my pride, my ego, my excuses take me. Who is missing out on the grace of God because you won't obey? Because you want to hold on to it. Because you are mad at the mercy God wants to give someone else. If we're going to prepare for a revival, if we're going to do even greater things, we've got to change the way we love. You know, self-love, the thing about it is it's not enough. If it wasn't, we wouldn't need God. I could love myself enough. I wouldn't need anyone. God's the only thing that can satisfy my soul. I remember what it was like. Have you forgotten? Have you forgotten what it's like to live without the satisfying grace and mercy of God? The misery that that feels like, the hopelessness that that feels like? I remember being hopeless. I remember what that felt like. I want to share that gift with the world. Jonah was, he was running because he had a distorted view of love. He was mad.

Question two. Why is he mad? Why is Jonah mad? Jonah had a distorted view of grace. We like to twist the truths of God to fit into our world. They're not from here, from God's world. Christ's heaven on earth, the kingdom of heaven is now. That's why so counter to everything that's in us. That's why we need a dependency on God to use us to do even greater things. Jonah tells us right there in chapter 4 and verse 1 and 1 and 4, he says, " Jonah was greatly displeased and became furious." I told you I was going to come back to that word. It literally means to burn. I don't know if it hears them, never gotten so mad that they felt like they were on fire. Speaking of fires, I'm not very good at building them. I said with the Lord in the morning, but we're all going through Robbie's book and learning about weight here and all that, so I said to me, "I'm going to set my phone, I'm going to start sitting with the Lord at night, I'm going to build a fire." Now I grew up in the country for like half my life, so I'm like half country boy, like half city boy, so sometimes I sound country, sometimes a little city, a little hood, all that's all mixed in the wind with the Bible, so don't judge me, this is who I am, right? It's who God made me to be. So I had this idea, I'm going to have a fire and I'm going to sit with the Lord, and so I don't know how to do that little spark thing, all that, I had a giant thing, a lighter fluid, I'm just, thank goodness Stella was there. She was like, "What is that?" I was like, "Oh yeah, that's probably enough." I was like, "Dang, I just got out of control there, man moment there." I was like, "I'll come back in 20 minutes and let it soak in and then I'll light it." That did.

Hey, listen, it worked. I mean, that's not the bad part. I mean, that thing was blazing, blazing. The problem was it's like one of the, I didn't, I need a mall, I need a chops of stuff. I blamed Daniel Plur because he let me borrow, he cut a bunch of my limbs and there were too long, they wouldn't fit right. So one of them was too long, and so I guess it was blazing so much, it burned like halfway through. I mean, it's supposed to fall in there, that's what they created for, but it just fell out. So right when I set the thing on fire, my phone rings. It's my prayer partner. I'm like, "This is God." I'm going to walk and pray. So I start walking around, I'm praying, I forgot completely about the fire. So while that happened, I know it was right, yep, I know Nate. I come back, it's rolled out, there's a... Here's the thing about learn about fire. Is fire's okay if it's contained? And I can control it if it's contained. But when fire gets out of control, it starts to contain meat. And that's the same thing with sinful anger. Sinful anger, restrains your ability to control it and expands its ability to control you. Now here's the thing about this. This must be important to humanity. Because we're gonna go, you can turn there already in Genesis chapter four. The same word furious is in Genesis chapter four. The first human born from a woman,

so you have Adam and Eve created God created Adam and Eve and then we have Cain and Abel. The first one Cain has a problem with anger and then we go to first Samuel, it says that he was, he heard the song singing David has killed, his tens of thousands saw has killed his thousands and the Bible says he became furious. And then we have Jonah who was furious at God's grace. And then in Luke 15, we have the older brother who was angry the same when you translate, there's a couple of different translations, but me and the translations translate the Greek to Hebrew, that same word for anger is furious. So there's a string that God says I wanna pull, I wanna show you a picture of what the human heart can be slanted to. We'll read there now in Genesis chapter four, verse three. In the course of time, Cain presented some of the land's produce as an offering to the Lord. He says, they just brought what they were working on, they brought what the gifts that God had given them and they used them and they brought to show this to the Lord. And Abel also presented an offering, some of the firstborns of his flock and their fat portions. The Lord had regard, he had favor, right? For Abel and his offering, but he did not have regard for Cain and his offering. Cain was furious. There's a saying that he didn't accept them, he accepted both of their offerings,

but one he showed a little extra favor, a little extra grace, a little extra blessing. And I wonder how that hits home with you. When someone else gets the position that you thought you should get, when God's calling you to sacrifice more than the other person, God's calling you. But you don't get what they got. Then the Lord said to him, this is what got me when we get to verse six. This is what hurt, this is just grieved my heart about my own heart. Then the Lord said to Cain, why are you furious? This is the one time I'm like, that's not a good question, God, that's actually kind of silly. And then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I always thought I was able in this story. I'm Cain. And dear friend, maybe some of you are Cain this morning. Like, what do you mean while you're furious? You showed him a blessing. You showed him favor. What about me? What do I get? How can we transform the world around us? When we're worried about what we get from God, the greatest work he'll ever do in your life and my life through us is the work that he does in our own heart. Why are we running from the freedom that God has for us? He wants to set you free, but in order to do that, he has to confront what's in your heart.

Why do you look despondent? If you do what is right, won't you be accepted? He's not accepted, I accept you, I love you. But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. And I thought, wait a second, I thought when he was angry, when he was furious, he was living and said, no, no, no. There's a righteous anger. the very next line says that his heart was greed. He saw their sin. He saw what they were doing and how they were shaking their fist at God, how they were disobeying God. And he had a righteous anger, but it moved him to a brokenness for the state and the position of their heart. And God is calling us to do the same. It's a word picture there. Sin crouches before it pounces. It's so elementary, it really is because I have a beautiful dog. We call her Cookie Phelps because she's a swimmer, she could swim. She's a burner doodle. She's a fluffy little thing. I mean, listen, I love my wife, I love my kids, but I got to say this, listen. When I get out the truck and I walk up to the house, I can hear, it's my dog hitting the, she's so happy to see me, right? You know, she's all fluffy and everything, but listen, I'll be, she'll follow me around everywhere. I'll walk, I'll walk, but listen, all I have to do is just do this, what? If I just, if I just start walking, like start creeping, her whole posture changes. She's like, she knows something's up. That's what happens. We have to be very, very careful with anger. We have to be very, very careful with what we allow our hearts to get angry about because sin is crouching at the door ready to devour us, ready to move our anger away from a grieving heart that God can use to a heart of pride and ego and bitterness. The thing about anger is it's a secondary emotion. It's like an iceberg. Like you see, you see the top of the iceberg, you're like, oh, that's a little piece of ice. That's a little, it's not too big. I thought they're supposed to be bigger,

right? That's what I would say. And then there's, there's miles and miles of stuff underneath there. That's what's happening with Cain. That's what's happening with Saul. That's what's happening with Jonah. That's what's happening with Luke. That's what's happening often in our own hearts. Is there something deeper? And that's why you have to spend time with God, asking God, I was on my face this week saying, God, will you show me, show me the root of my anger. Show me the root of my pride. And there's a word in here. There's something that, that I want to pull out here. I believe that the sin that was crouching at the door, and I believe the sin that took, took Cain over the edge was the sin of envy. We don't talk about that much in this Christian church. We don't talk about that as disciples, as followers of Christ. But I believe it's plaguing the church. It's plaguing the body of Christ. Because envy is being angry at God for being generous to someone else. What if God called you to lavishly love the people that you hate, the sin that you despise? What if God chooses to bless someone else more than you when they did the same work and same effort that you put in? He's God. He's sovereign. Can we accept that? Deep down is it always, I got to have more. I want more even when I was a kid with Christmas time with my brother. It was never about what we got. It was whoever got more. We'd be counting, how about, he got three, mom, you forgot one for me. Five a piece. Longer you have the equal amount, no problems. What a picture of the Christian heart. That's a picture of us. I sacrificed more than them. Listen, if God is going to do a work in this place, if he's going to transform the prisons and the jails and all those around us, if we're going to go all over the globe, to drewd out the bitterness and the pride and the envy from your heart. Because this is a distorted view of love and a distorted view of grace moves to anger, to pride, to envy in malice, and then to murder. That's the progression. You see, Jonah wanted grace for himself and he wanted justice for everybody else. He's literally mad at mercy. And you say, "Oh, wait, that's a good sermon for somebody else, Adam, it's not for me." Well, I'll tell you, it was for me and it is still for me and it should always be for me. And you say, "Oh, well, this is heavy.

This is -- what do I go from here? This is heavy stuff." Well, here's what I want to go for. I want to give you three ways. I'm starting to land the plane, three ways that you can guard your heart from anger, from sinful anger that leads to pride and envy and bitterness and malice. I want to guard your heart from being upset at the grace and mercy that God may administer through you to other people because God has so much for you. Freedom is Christ is so satisfying. Everything can satisfy your soul. If you're in here and you're saying, "I'm heavy today, I don't know what I'm going to do with my life. Oh, there's freedom in Christ." There's freedom in Christ. The first one we got to guard our heart against is this desire for applause. That was Saul, right? He hears the song and he hears -- he didn't hear, "Oh, look at what David has done. Look at what my understudy has done." What he heard was, "Wait a second, they're not affirming me. Be careful with unhealthy affirmations." You say, "Why?" Because affirmation leaks. It's never enough. You can never get enough applause. You can never get enough out of voice and you don't even know that you have a problem with it until you don't get it. Paul says, "Where someone gets the position, the trophy, the house," that you said, "Wait a second. I deserve that." God wants to pull that out.

I don't know about you. I'm not okay with just a little bit surrendered. I'm not okay with just halfway in. For the next 50 years, we can lay the foundation of complete surrender to God. Say, "How do we do that?" It starts in your heart. It's funny. In John chapter 3, it's such a picture of what we do in the Western church. John's disciples are upset because some of the followers of John are leaving and they're being baptized by Jesus. They're mad. I love John's response in John 3, 27. He says, "No one can receive anything unless it has been given to him from heaven." Don't constantly desire more, more, more. It's a curse. Learn to celebrate the blessings of others and be grateful and accept the blessings that you have. Guard your heart against desiring the applause of man and guard your heart against a focus on your appearance. What I mean by that is I feel like in a lot of ways we become professional pretenders. Christians are the best pretenders on planet earth, and I'm guilty. You say, "Not mean." Here's the problem with duplicity, is that you can't fix inside spiritual issues. You can't fix inside problems with outside things. You say, "No, no." You got the wrong guy. You're preaching the wrong message for the wrong church. Let me ask you a question. Which do you fear more? Are you broken over your sin?

This is a prayer that I pray because I know my pride for hearts that God please help me to be broken over the sin in my life, help me to be broken over what breaks your heart. I want to grieve like you grieve. I want to love like you love. I want to amish a grace like you do. If someone were to say they would come to you and confront you over your sin, will that grieve your heart? Are you more afraid? Do you have a reverence for that? Or are you more concerned if someone were to come? See you, a human were to see you. I'm done with that, right? I want my heart to be right with God. I want to use by Him. I want to see even greater things, but I'm not confused about how we get there. We have to protect our heart from the applause and the appearance. The last one here is comparison. That's the older brother, Luke 15, 29. Look, this is his response to the party that they were listening from his brother who was lost in fact. Look, I've been slaving many years for you. And I have never disobeyed your orders. You say, haven't you seen me? Didn't you see what I do, what I've done? You never gave me a go. You never threw me a party so that I could celebrate with my friends. Maybe the favor on your life, the blessing that God has given you and me maybe is because he wanted to use you to reach someone else.

God sees Joni and says, I want to set the name of a free. Who? Who can I use? Oh, I'm going to use the one who's running from his own freedom because he has bitterness in his heart. Do you see that? Do you see that? We are Jonah. I am Jonah. You are Jonah. And we have a lost, evil world. It's Nineveh. And they're dying and they're going to spend eternity in hell. God is calling us to love them lavishly, to speak the truth without bitterness in our heart. Because you know why the way this book ends? It ends with an unanswered question. Jonah 4, 9-11. Jonah has just finished preaching. 120,000 people are saved. If you think Jonah, my son, right? My dove. The dove. My son of faithfulness is overjoyed. That a whole nation has been saved. He goes and sits on a mountain and he's sweating in the sun. God gives him a shade and then God destroys the shade. And then God asks Jonah, is it right for you to be angry about the plant? The one that I sent to give you shade?

This is right again. I'm Madeline here. Maybe we'll ask Robbie here or somebody else. This is where I really think Jonah's a teenager. I'm just saying. Sorry. This is Jonah's response. Yes, it's right. You never heard that, right? I'm just kidding. That's me. I'm Madeline here. This part hurts my heart. I'm angry enough to die. And the Lord says this. You cared about the plant. You cared about your car, your house, how people see you. You cared about applause, your appearance. You cared about comparison. Then your love for a lost world, from those who are captive and prison and jail, they need to hear the gospel. He says, I see your heart and I get emotional because I see my heart that way. He says you didn't even labor over it. You didn't even grow it. I gave you everything that you have. Every good gift comes from me. It appeared in the night in Paris in the night. which has more than 120,000 people who cannot distinguish between the right and the left as well as many animals. Luke 15 ends with the same question.

We don't know Jonah's response. He never answers that and either there's the older brother. You know the reason why God didn't answer that question. Because that question is still open and God is waiting for you to answer it. I'm gonna do something a little unorthodox here. I'm gonna have everyone stand up please. I'm basically done. I want you to do something for me. I want you to hold out your hands like this as far as you can. Don't chicken wing it. Don't cheat on me now on the bench press. Hold it out as far as you can. And I want you to pretend like you're carrying the heaviest box you've ever carried. I did this this week on my face as I realized I was carrying around fear, pride, envy, arrogance, things in my heart. I was carrying it out. I could feel the weight. You feel the weight in your elbows. I could feel it. Or the count of three, I just second them, I have us all just drop them as fast as they can. 'Cause I want you to feel this physically what God wants to do in your heart spiritually. We're gonna drop them down together. One, two, three. You feel that?

Imagine what it's gonna be like when you come before God. In just a second I'll give you an opportunity and lay down the hate, the bitterness, the pride, the arrogance, the selfishness in your heart. You say, God, I'm through running from the freedom that you have for me. You say, I wanna be set free from that. And I wanna do what you are calling me to do. Now I'm gonna pray and the music will be played and anytime you can come forward and lay down what's in your heart. And you can let go right here at this altar, the next steps area. If you say, man, I'm just here checking out the claims of Christ. I wanna know about this faith. I wanna know about this God. We can walk you through what it means to have a relationship with Jesus and experience the freedom that I've been talking about. Let's pray. Father in heaven, you are so good. And your mercies are new each morning. And God, I pray in this room and anybody watching in Gallatin or online, anywhere God, I pray Father that we would just fall to our knees or fall in our chair, in our heart. And we would just let go of any pride, any bitterness, any envy, we just let go of whatever's weighing us down and keeping us from loving lavishly,

keeping us with the experience, the freedom that we have in you, Jesus. It's the Holy Spirit, move, and I love you, Lord. It's in Jesus name, I pray, amen.