Title: The Broad Shade of God
Contents
Sunday, May 10, 2009 Sermon
Sermon Title: The Broad Shade of God
Word: Jonah 4:1-11
0. Introduction
Today is Father's Day. We sincerely hope that Hanshin Church will become a church that respects and filializes the elderly in this area like their parents. Most of the prophets used before God in the Bible are obedient. However, a prophet appears who disobeyed God's command like a mutant and moved according to his feelings. That person is the prophet Jonah who appears in today's sermon. Because their feelings take precedence over the Word of God, they often pour out grudges and complaints and often disobey. Sometimes they realize God's will, repent and obey, but they get caught up in their emotions and pour out their resentment and complaints. We sincerely hope that it will be a precious time for us to change and mature in our lives as we watch how disobedient Jonah is healed and matured under the shadow of God's broad love.
1. Small complaints are turning into big complaints.
Jonah disobeyed God's command to go to Nineveh and escaped in a boat going to Tarshish, when a storm struck. Eventually, the sailors threw Jonah into the sea to calm the storm. But God prepares a big fish and swallows Jonah. Jonah spends three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, repenting of his disobedience. God vomits Jonah, who repented in the belly of a big fish, to dry land. Jonah, who was resurrected after four lifetimes, now obeys and goes to Nineveh to preach the word of God. When the people of Nineveh heard the word of God proclaimed by Jonah, they all fasted and repented and were saved.
As Jonah says in verse 1 today, Jonah is “very hated and angry” when the nation of the enemy who has been tormenting Israel does not perish through repentance. In addition to his angry complaint before God, he asks him to kill himself (verse 3). Seeing Jonah like this, the first impression God gives me is that small complaints are spreading into big complaints. Jonah begins with an angry complaint about the reality that has been given to him in every case, and then takes the time to ask him to kill him. It is repeated twice in today's text alone. Looking at Jonah makes me think that the mindset is really important. Depending on which direction the mind is directed, the negative mind and complaining mind may be repeated, and the grateful mind may be repeated towards the positive direction.
The second impression is that it shows an extremely selfish and stubborn faith that seeks to fulfill one's needs rather than seek God's will. It is really important that we pray before God. However, while praying, you should always check whether the content of your prayer to the Lord is consistent with God's will. Like Jonah, if what you ask of God does not match the will of the Lord, it can be a stubbornness to satisfy your own desires. What is the difference between vision and ambition? Do you agree with the will of the Lord? don't you? that depends on
The third impression is that if an individual's emotions are excessive, they lose their ability to discern. If a person is immersed in their own emotions, and loses their ability to act, they become arrogant. When Jonah is obsessed with his emotions, he cannot discern God's will and is using force. When you know how to control and control your emotions, you can know God's will and know the heart of the other person.
2. Jonah's feelings through the gourd
Jonah built a tent to the east of the city and looked down on the city of Nineveh to watch the city of Nineveh be destroyed despite hearing the word of God and being saved through repentance (verse 5). Jonah's position is that God has declared judgment on Nineveh, so it must be done. But what was the purpose of God's pronouncement of judgment? It is not meant to lead to salvation through repentance, not destruction itself due to judgment. Jonah is trying to force himself by being bound by the outward letters rather than God's intentions contained in the Word. Those with spiritually open eyes have the maturity to understand and obey the intentions contained within, rather than clinging to external phenomena. Therefore, we must have the wisdom to not only look at the outward phenomena, but to discern the inner meaning.
God prepares a gourd for Jonah, who is trapped in his emotions and complains without understanding God's will at all (verse 6). As Jonah watched the destruction of Nineveh from a hilltop, he rejoiced greatly when the gourd had shaded him (verse 6). The next day, God made the gourd gnaw through the worms (verse 7). When the gourd vines have disappeared and a hot east wind blows from the desert, Jonah is again vying for his own death (verse 8). Jonah has no emotional balance. Emotions fluctuate so much that it's either this or that. There is no middle. They rejoice easily and get frustrated easily and ask to be killed. It is that there is a great sense of damage in the mind of a person with severe emotional ups and downs like Jonah. As a people of Israel, Jonah had a strong sense of damage toward Nineveh, who had tormented his country. A person with a sense of victimization in their heart has an extreme mind of this or that, without any leeway in the mind that this may or may not happen.
3. Shade of God's Broad Love
Through the gourd incident, God is teaching us that Jonah loves the one hundred and twenty thousand people of Nineveh who cannot distinguish right and left as much as he cares for the gourd that has been a shade for him (verses 10-11). How can you change the value of one gourd and one hundred thousand people? However, the fact that one gourd related to himself is more precious than the preciousness of the lives of a hundred thousand people is that it can be not only Jonah's heart but also our hearts living today. How heartbroken and pampered are you, like Jonah, about things that concern us? But how coldly indifferent do you become when you cross a bridge with us? In fact, in our other nation, the northern land, more than a hundred thousand people are dying, but how indifferent are we living?
God shows his love for the many who saved the one hundred and twenty thousand people of Nineveh, but also shows his special love for one soul, Jonah. What kind of love is God's special love for one soul? The first is the love of God that gives us another chance even if we disobey and run away. Therefore, we too must have the faith to start over again in the face of failure and setbacks. The second is God's love that accepts Jonah with patience and heals his emotions, as he becomes angry and goes out to death like Jonah. Therefore, we should always live a life of prayer so that our emotions can be controlled by the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Third, it is love that teaches Jonah to understand God's will through field study, that is, through experiential learning. Just as the shade to enjoy rest in the heat of life is precious, it teaches us to realize through experience that the shadow of God that allows us to enjoy rest is precious to all souls.
A soul that can rejoice greatly in the shadow of God that has come upon them is a soul that has been truly healed and restored even if the shadow of God falls on a soul who treated and tormented them like an enemy.