Jonah & Jesus, Mercy & Grace

This is a mini message I shared on Sunday 7^th of Oct for a young adults run service following a children's holiday program earlier in the week. The program was entitled 'Deep Sea Adventure' & we dived into the story of Jonah. 

"Anonymous" spoke about Jonah from chapter 4 now I’m going to share about the character of God from chapter 4 with a particular focus on God’s grace and mercy. First I’ll share a quote that I like which explains mercy and grace quite nicely:

“The difference between mercy and grace?

God’s mercy gave the Prodigal Son a second chance. God’s grace gave him a feast.”

When I explain grace to children I usually say its God’s undeserved love & forgiveness.

Another way of putting it is:

Mercy withholds the consequence or punishment. Grace takes that one step further and gives us what we do not deserve.

The final chapter of Jonah gives us a unique glimpse into a conversation between God and His prophet, Jonah. Here, we get to see the struggle between this reluctant prophet and our faithful God. I’m almost uncomfortable with Jonah’s level of irreverence, confessing he is angry that God has been merciful. It’s cringe-worthy. There are a few other cases recorded in the Bible where people looked at others whom they thought didn’t deserve God’s mercy and forgiveness: for example, Jesus’ parable of the lost son and loving father: the older brother who had worked for his dad was angry at their dad when his younger brother came home after wasting their dad’s money because he was welcomed back with a hug and a party. Also, Jesus’ friends were surprised that Jesus spoke to a Samaritan woman as it was a cultural no no. In the book of Acts, some Jews criticized the apostle Peter for fellowshipping with non-Jews.

Sometimes we can forget that we were outsiders once and we all don’t deserve God’s grace.

As Paul says in Romans 5:6-11, “For while we were still helpless, at the appointed moment, Christ died for the ungodly” ⁷ Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. ⁸ But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

⁹ Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him (Jesus)! ¹⁰ For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! ¹¹ Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Also, in Ephesians 2:8-9

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.

It is only because of God’s grace through His Son Jesus that we are now in God’s family, born again as children of God. Not because we were good and deserved it. Psalm 103:10 - He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.  Our salvation and what God wants to do in and through us isn’t dependent on us. This is demonstrated with Jonah in that even though he went off course initially God gave him a second chance. This also shows us that we serve a patient God.

Isn’t it interesting that God has the last word in the book of Jonah. We don’t know what Jonah’s response was to God’s question, “Should I not care about the great city of Nineveh in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left?” (Jonah 4:11). It is thought that the people mentioned in this verse, the ones who don’t know their right hand from their left, are children.

We can read of a positive response, in the book of Acts where the apostle Peter is trying to convince fellow Jews that Gentiles/non Jews can indeed follow the way of Christ as mentioned earlier. He tells the group that he saw the Holy Spirit descend on a group of Gentiles, just as it had descended upon them. When Peter’s audience heard this, Scripture says, “they became silent. Then they glorified God, saying, ‘So God has granted repentance resulting in life even to the Gentiles!’” (Acts 11:18). Instead of feeling anger toward God, they glorified Him. The Jews rejoiced that God’s grace reached further than themselves.

Oh that our response would be the same. That we would never underestimate the breadth and depth of God’s grace. That we would rejoice every time His grace is given to someone around us, remembering that it was this same mercy and grace that welcomed us into His family.

God was concerned about what the people of Nineveh were doing and acted on this concern by reaching out to them by sending them a message via Jonah = Jonah 1:1 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before Me.” This shows us that God is a God of justice as He wanted their wickedness & wicked acts to stop.

Upon hearing this the Ninevites repented – turned away from their way of living, to God’s way and God had mercy on them Jonah 3:10  ^“When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.”

Jesus shared the Father’s concern in Matthew 18:14 “In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish”

The message Jonah delivered contrasts with God’s message sent to us via Jesus can be found in John 3:17 ^“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him”.

How do Jonah and Jesus’ responses to God’s call differ? One of the children on the camp would say nahnever for Nineveh.. Jonah was told by God to go to Nineveh. Jonah’s response to God’s call the first time was nahnever – he tried to run away.

Jesus was sent by God the Father to go to the world and His response is found in Philippians 2:8 “And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross!”

How good is our God and how thankful we can now be as we have been able and continue to experience God’s grace, patience, steadfast love, kindness and mercy in our lives.

yesterday: history. tomorrow: mystery. today: present.

4-10-'14

So it seems that I have had this blog site for about a year now. My how time goes by at an alarming speed! We all know how it feels as a youngster when your birthday is whole month away or you can't wait until you get to go on a holiday interstate which is after an entire school term.

Now birthdays fly by and interstate trips are not seen in such a rose-coloured-glasses-way. I keep trying to forget what age I turned about a month ago and in about a month I'll be going to two states with most of my fam to catch up with friends and family. Well, not simply to catch up with them... its one of my grandma's 80th birthdays and my other grandma will be going through chemo by the time we arrive back to the island of my childhood and younger youth.

When I started this blog I was intending on blogging regularly and I achieved this for a very limited amount of time only to become bombarded with uni and namely 2 weeks of prac which did not go how I thought it would/should. Long story.

Update on prac: But basically it put me in a position afterwards where I was praying every morning about a resolution until I was able to complete another prac early the following year.

Update on Interstate visit: for the next year and a half or so dad and mum visited Tassie to look after Grandma. She sadly passed away mid 2016.

My original intent for this post was something along the lines of:

‘Be thankful for yesterday, rejoice in today and entrust tomorrow to God’

as I didn’t know know what the outcomes of these two events were going to be. And boy have I been continuing to learn this! Especially once I finished uni. But that’s another story.

The Atonement Child

First off, I’m not going to spoil the delight of delving into a new story by providing a detailed description of the book’s storyline.

Francine Rivers’ protagonist in The Atonement Child is Dynah, who, for the majority of her life, has lived a seemingly ‘perfect Christian life’ - only child, previously homeschooled, currently studying at a Christian university, engaged to a Christian guy who aims to be a pastor although…

Three words describe this book: Devastating, challenging and encouraging. Initially it is devastating as it deals with a heavy topic. As I continued to read I was challenged – we can ramble on about some issue we are passionate about or a value we hold to but when faced with having to respond or put this belief into action how do we act?  (Habakkuk 3:17-19). I also found the story to be encouraging as it showed "God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them" Romans 8:28.

I find the authors choice in the main character’s name to be interesting because of its meaning. Dynah means vindicated – freed from any question of guilt - “is absolved from all blame”, “was now clear of the charge of fear”, “his official honour is vindicated”. In the story Dynah’s honour or reputation is threatened and people treat her as though she is to blame for wrongdoing done to her which puts her in a place of fear. Dynah had to remove herself from people she knew and loved in order to do what God wanted and not feel pressured by what others thought, said or did. She realised that she had to seek to please the Lord because “fearing people is a dangerous trap, but trusting the Lord means safety” Prov 29:25. When she took this step she was secure in her identity in Christ, God’s love and comfort.

·         Identity in Christ: God sees us as whole, not broken or tainted by anything that has happened to us (Col 1:21-22)

·         God’s love is unchanging regardless of our change in circumstances. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:35-38

·         He is always there, ready to comfort us. “Jesus said: Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28

 

The overarching theme would have to be atonement – at first I wasn’t fully certain as to the book’s title as a character is mentioned to be atonement for someone’s past sin, but we all know Who the true Atonement Child is. (1 John 2:1-2 & Romans 3:25). The dictionary defines atonement as reconciliation.

As you (or if you) read this literary work of fiction there are many themes real to us which are worthy of contemplation.  We can be thankful to God for the identity we have in Christ that Jesus gained for us when He died on the cross.

Love,

Talitha Lydia

P.S. this post was also written for Authentic Woman which  "exists to encourage young - and young-at-heart women! - in embracing themselves for who God created them to be"   You can also keep updated via social media here.