WEBVTT 00:00.700 --> 00:04.700 In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 00:05.100 --> 00:05.700 Amen. 00:06.700 --> 00:13.400 Well if only our pouty Prophet had been a graduate of this august 00:13.400 --> 00:19.300 institution, he would have learned long before graduating and being 00:19.300 --> 00:26.700 sent out that God's opus alienum is ever and always in the 00:26.700 --> 00:29.600 surface service of Gods 00:30.000 --> 00:35.400 opus proprium. He would probably have had to write a paper on the fact, 00:35.400 --> 00:40.000 and he certainly would have sung with Habakkuk that in wrath, he 00:40.000 --> 00:41.800 remembers mercy. 00:43.300 --> 00:45.300 God's heart 00:46.100 --> 00:53.700 it's never in the wrath though, it is still very real and terrifying. 00:54.500 --> 00:57.900 His employment of wrath 00:58.300 --> 00:59.800 so long as the day 01:00.300 --> 01:07.800 of Grace lasts is to move to penitence. So that he may come to his 01:07.800 --> 01:14.800 proper work, what really floats his boat which is to show mercy to 01:14.800 --> 01:20.300 have pity to bestow steadfast love and eternal life. 01:21.800 --> 01:25.800 But before you go feeling all superior to Jonah. 01:27.200 --> 01:33.200 If you stop and consider the words, you heard this morning, you might 01:33.200 --> 01:34.500 realize with a shot. 01:35.600 --> 01:40.800 That the pouty profit knew all about the opus proprium. 01:41.900 --> 01:43.700 and the opus alienum. 01:43.700 --> 01:47.600 Think of what he said. 01:49.200 --> 01:52.200 I knew that you were a gracious 01:52.200 --> 01:59.400 God merciful slow to anger abounding in steadfast love and relenting 01:59.400 --> 01:59.700 of 02:00.000 --> 02:00.900 disaster. 02:01.000 --> 02:06.200 And that was the problem in the prophets eyes. 02:07.400 --> 02:13.500 Jonah, did not want God to be gracious, and merciful at least not to 02:13.500 --> 02:16.100 those nasty Assyrians. 02:16.600 --> 02:17.200 By the way, 02:18.400 --> 02:24.300 The Ramsey's of House Bolton had absolutely nothing on the Assyrians. 02:24.900 --> 02:29.800 If your city didn't capitulate when they came knocking at the door, 02:30.000 --> 02:34.700 there standard operating procedure was once they took the city to 02:34.700 --> 02:39.400 take, its leaders flay them alive and hang their skins on the outside 02:39.400 --> 02:41.900 of the city, as a warning to the other cities. 02:42.000 --> 02:46.200 That when we come knocking you guys better be opening up. 02:47.000 --> 02:53.800 They were awful, evil, wicked people and Jonah wanted them to get their 02:53.800 --> 02:54.900 comeuppance. 02:54.900 --> 02:59.800 He was no doubt thinking it's a bloody well about time God. 03:00.900 --> 03:06.700 So he didn't want to go on this mission because he was afraid that 03:06.700 --> 03:11.600 Yahweh would fall back into his old habit of relenting. 03:12.300 --> 03:18.300 If people repented and then showing mercy and kindness and God 03:18.300 --> 03:19.700 forbid, that should happen 03:19.700 --> 03:25.200 to those people, Jonah was thinking. And of course, it's exactly what 03:25.200 --> 03:25.900 happened. 03:26.200 --> 03:29.500 Jonah goes back and proclaims the word and the word of God is a 03:29.500 --> 03:30.200 hammer. 03:30.300 --> 03:32.400 It can break the hardest heart. 03:32.500 --> 03:36.900 And when the heart of the Ninevites were broken, Jonah was so angry 03:36.900 --> 03:42.100 he could spit nails. And so God does a children's sermon with his 03:42.100 --> 03:47.100 grumpy prophet with a gift and then demise of the gourd. 03:47.700 --> 03:55.900 God asks, do you do well to be angry and Jonah is defiant yes. I do well 03:55.900 --> 03:59.200 to be angry enough to die. 04:00.500 --> 04:03.700 So the Lord takes his pouty prophet in hand. 04:03.700 --> 04:07.800 You pity the plant for which you didn't labor, you didn't make it 04:07.800 --> 04:08.400 grow. 04:08.600 --> 04:12.800 It came into being in a day and it perished now 04:12.800 --> 04:17.200 should I not pity Nineveh that great City in which are more than 04:17.200 --> 04:22.100 120,000 persons, who don't know their right hand from their left and 04:22.100 --> 04:23.100 also much cattle. 04:24.600 --> 04:31.700 Which is to say, God gave him something to have pity on the plant, so 04:31.700 --> 04:36.000 that he could learn a thing or two about what goes on in the heart of 04:36.000 --> 04:44.000 God, for lost mankind. Pity from which Jonah to actually lives, 04:44.000 --> 04:44.200 though 04:44.200 --> 04:49.100 he had all but forgotten that he was a poor sinner to and was actually 04:49.100 --> 04:51.900 no better than the Assyrians at heart. 04:52.500 --> 04:56.300 God's Mercy, is what sent him on this journey. 04:56.900 --> 04:59.800 God's mercy saved him from the great fish 05:01.100 --> 05:06.800 and all of this not just to save the Ninevites that too but most 05:06.800 --> 05:10.500 of all to save him. Because salvation my friends, 05:12.000 --> 05:21.400 salvation is coming to know and believe to live from and to share in 05:22.100 --> 05:27.000 the mercy that goes on in the very heart of God himself. 05:28.800 --> 05:31.100 Now, you're Jesus 05:32.300 --> 05:39.500 He famously lifts up, Jonah, it's the great sign in type of himself. A 05:39.500 --> 05:43.900 friend of mine years ago, floated to me the idea, you know, the whole 05:43.900 --> 05:51.500 story works a lot better if you grant that actually Jonah dies in the 05:51.500 --> 05:53.900 belly of the great fish. 05:54.700 --> 05:59.600 For then Jonah becomes a powerful sign of resurrection. 06:00.300 --> 06:05.400 Which if you think about, it is exactly how Jesus used it. 06:05.400 --> 06:09.200 Raised from the dead, sent out with an embassy of repentance and the 06:09.200 --> 06:13.000 gift of forgiveness, even to the heathen, even to the worst of us 06:13.000 --> 06:14.600 heathen, glorious. 06:15.300 --> 06:19.900 But, of course, Jesus is the eternal Son of the Father 06:20.500 --> 06:24.600 He is born of the Father's heart. 06:24.700 --> 06:31.100 Ere the world's began to be. He doesn't have a go get them, God, 06:31.100 --> 06:33.100 disposition inside. 06:33.700 --> 06:39.800 What's inside of Jesus is the opus proprium. Mercy, 06:40.500 --> 06:43.400 that's what his heart beats with too. Do 06:43.400 --> 06:46.400 you remember James and John Sons of Thunder? 06:46.700 --> 06:50.600 They were ticked at the Samaritans, for not welcoming Jesus on his 06:50.600 --> 06:55.100 journey to Jerusalem, Jonah like they say, Lord, if you want, we've 06:55.100 --> 06:57.400 call Heaven, fire down from heaven, right 06:57.600 --> 06:59.600 right now and burn those suckers up. 07:00.500 --> 07:04.300 You remember how Jesus turned and said to them, you to not know what 07:04.300 --> 07:05.300 manner of spirit 07:05.300 --> 07:10.800 you are of. The son of man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to 07:10.800 --> 07:17.600 save them. Jonah's three-day, stay in the great fish's belly, was like 07:17.600 --> 07:20.000 to Jesus sojourn in the heart of the Earth. 07:21.000 --> 07:25.500 But the heart of Jesus, it's not like the heart of Jonah. 07:26.400 --> 07:29.600 Because Jesus shares his Father's heart. 07:30.900 --> 07:34.100 Truly my thoughts are not your thoughts. 07:34.900 --> 07:38.500 Neither are my ways, your ways declares the Lord. 07:39.000 --> 07:42.600 For his way is let the wicked forsake his way. 07:43.200 --> 07:47.100 And the unrighteous man, his thoughts, let him return to the Lord that 07:47.100 --> 07:53.100 he may have compassion on him and to our God for he will abundantly 07:53.400 --> 07:54.000 pardon. 07:56.100 --> 07:59.800 To Lavish on mankind, such abundant pardon 08:00.200 --> 08:08.400 Jesus follows the path of Jonah but with the heart of God. But did I 08:08.400 --> 08:10.400 really say too lavish on mankind? 08:11.300 --> 08:16.600 So what does one do with the almost Hindu ending? 08:17.600 --> 08:21.200 And also much cattle? 08:23.300 --> 08:30.400 His Mercy on mankind, spills out to embrace the critters, which 08:30.400 --> 08:34.400 mankind at the beginning put under man's dominion. 08:34.799 --> 08:40.299 So, even on the fasting cows of Nineveh mercy pours down from the 08:40.299 --> 08:42.600 heart of a super abundantly gracious 08:42.600 --> 08:48.400 God. Truly did Paul write in hope that the creation itself will be set 08:48.400 --> 08:52.900 free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the 08:52.900 --> 08:54.900 glory of the children of God. 08:55.800 --> 08:59.400 Look guys, we dragged down 09:00.000 --> 09:02.000 creation down in the fall. 09:03.100 --> 09:06.900 But Christ, he will restore all that 09:06.900 --> 09:09.200 we have ruined. Behold 09:09.800 --> 09:17.000 I make all things new because out of his heart flows, pure mercy. 09:17.600 --> 09:18.100 Mercy 09:18.100 --> 09:23.800 even for man's animal companions and so much more for the sinful, man, 09:23.800 --> 09:28.600 who will hear the threat of wrath, turn from sin and repentance and 09:28.600 --> 09:30.800 turn back to him in faith. 09:32.200 --> 09:34.000 As we commemorate Jonah, people 09:34.000 --> 09:40.000 loved by God, we are rejoicing in a God, whose overflowing compassion 09:40.300 --> 09:47.400 saves nasty Ninevites, cattle and even his own reluctant prophet. We 09:47.400 --> 09:52.300 glory and how Jesus death and resurrection reveals to us 09:52.300 --> 09:59.000 the staggering extent of mercy pouring out toward the most unexpected 09:59.000 --> 09:59.800 and unlikely 10:00.000 --> 10:01.900 objects in the whole of creation. 10:03.100 --> 10:07.600 From the people of Nineveh and it's animals even to me, 10:08.900 --> 10:16.200 even to you. Mercy indeed people loved by God is God's very 10:16.900 --> 10:17.700 heartbeat. 10:18.900 --> 10:23.000 And for that all glory honor and praise to the Father to the Son and 10:23.000 --> 10:27.500 to the Holy Spirit now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.