The Christians Hour

Bob Russell: It's time now for the Christian's Hour. Thank you for joining us today. It's a joy to have you with us. The Christian's Hour is a ministry of Gospel Broadcasting Mission, where we use radio and media to share the good news of Jesus Christ around the world until all have heard.

Can I ask you, have you ever had a loved one ask you to do something you simply didn't want to do? I remember as a kid, my mother would come and ask me to mow the lawn when my father had had a long week at work. He'd worked a busy schedule and simply just hadn't had the opportunity to get it done. And I know he cared deeply about our property and liked to have it well-maintained, but I just didn't always see it that way.

To me, mowing the lawn wasn't a priority. It felt more like a burden. I'd much rather spend my time doing well, anything else. Now, that's a lighthearted example, but in some ways, it reminds me of Jonah. God had asked Jonah to do something that mattered deeply to Him, but Jonah didn't share God's priorities. Instead of caring about what was important to God, Jonah was focused on what he wanted.

In today's message, Rick Atchley, lead pastor of the Hills Church in Fort Worth, Texas, shares how Jonah's greatest struggle wasn't the storm, it wasn't the fish, or even the city of Nineveh. It was a heart that wasn't fully aligned with God's. While God was concerned about the eternal destiny of an entire city, Jonah was concerned about himself and his own desires. Listen in as Rick shares more.

Rick Atchley: And I want to begin this way. Have you known people who just refuse to be happy? You know those people, right? No matter the circumstance, they find a reason not to be happy. And let me suggest you can tell a lot about a man by learning what makes him angry. You can learn a lot about Jesus. Read the gospels. Jesus would get angry.

Ask yourself this question: do I get angry about the things Jesus got angry about? And ask yourself this question: would Jesus get angry about the things that make me so angry? You can learn a lot about a man by what makes him angry, and you can learn a lot about God by how He responds to our anger. Because we're going to see today, the book of Jonah closes with God having a conversation with a man who just does not want to be happy.

And I'm talking about Jonah. We've seen so far that when God said, "Jonah, go preach to the city of Nineveh," he went the other way. He ran from God. God's storms are always faster than our ships. He spent three days in a fish thinking about it and said, "Maybe I should obey God." So he goes to Nineveh and he preaches, and the city repents. And God decides not to destroy Nineveh.

Now, Nineveh was the capital city of the Assyrian Empire that was a great threat to Israel. And Jonah thought this was a huge mistake that God had made. Let's pick up chapter four. To Jonah, this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, "Isn't this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that You're a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live."

But the Lord replied, "Is it right for you to be angry?" Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade, and waited to see what would happen to the city. And then the Lord God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give him shade for his head, to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. But at dawn the next day, God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered.

When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die and said, "It would be better for me to die than to live." But God said to Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?" "It is," he said. "And I'm so angry I wish I were dead." But the Lord said, "You've been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow.

It sprang up overnight and died overnight. And should I not have concern for 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, and also many animals?" Your Bible might say cattle. The word means livestock. God's not just concerned about the people, but about the animals they need to survive. Now here's Jonah, and he has witnessed the greatest revival in history.

And his response is to go outside the city and have a pout-fest. Now, when preachers go off on preaching tours and we come back, we like to tell people about all the folks who got saved. But if Jonah came back, you know what he would like to say? He would like to say nobody got saved, and I'm thrilled about it. Now, Elijah tried to spark a revival in Israel. He had a duel on Mount Carmel with prophets of Baal, called down fire.

But Jezebel said later, "I am going to kill you." He ran away into the desert and he asked God to let him die because he thought he'd failed. Jonah asks God to let him die because he knows he succeeded and Nineveh is not going to be destroyed. And he did not want to live in a world where God was so indiscriminate with His grace. He said, "That's why I ran away. I know what kind of God You are. You are gracious. You are compassionate. And it makes me so mad."

And Jonah challenges God for being who He is. He complained to God for God being Himself. "I don't like who You are. I am angry that You are so slow to be angry." You see, Jonah thought Nineveh was an evil city, and he was right. And so Jonah thought that it was evil to be burdened for evil people, and he was wrong. God's grace is as undeserved as Jonah's anger was.

And so God questions Jonah's anger by asking him some questions. He keeps saying, "Is it right for you to be angry?" See, you need to know something about God. He doesn't settle for relationships that allow for irreconcilable differences. Now, we do that all the time. We say, "Well, we're just going to have to agree to disagree, because maybe we're both right or maybe we're both wrong." Listen, God doesn't do "agree to disagree."

If you disagree with God, He's right and you're wrong. And so God exposes Jonah's inconsistency by providing Jonah a plant for shade, and finally, our boy gets happy. Now, he is very happy that he is comfortable. And so when God arranges that Jonah should lose his shade, Jonah again declares he's ready to lose his life. And again, God comes back and asks, "Is it right for you to be angry about that plant?"

What's God doing? God is challenging Jonah for being who he is. Jonah's a man who's more concerned about his concerns than he is about the things that concern God. So the only time Jonah loves grace is when he gets it. And Jonah is totally happy living with this kind of inconsistency, but God isn't. And God is confronting Jonah's anger, not to save Nineveh, but to save Jonah.

God says, "Jonah, you think that My undeserved grace should only go to people that you think deserve it. Jonah, you know who I am. You know My character. So why can't you be happy about the things that you know make Me happy?" Because here's the thing. Our attitudes are never going to change God's character. The question God is asking is, "Is My character ever going to change your attitudes?"

The book ends with a question that never gets answered, because the author wants you and me, the reader, to face a choice. Do I want to be like Jonah or do I want to be like God? Do we like who God is like so much that we're willing to lay down the concerns that bother us and pick up the concerns that burden God? Or to put it another way, is my life going to be about finding shade or helping people find God?

The Lord has given me three big takeaways from this series, and here's the first. That we need to have a burden for the heart of God as much as the will of God. Because I want you to think about this. Did you know that you can run from God in obedience as much as in disobedience? In Jonah chapter one, Jonah ran from God in disobedience and said, "I'm not going to go to Nineveh and do what You said."

In Jonah chapter three, he goes to Nineveh and does what God says, but he's still running from God. Because sometimes obedience is just compliance. Now, a perfect example of this is in Jesus' best story, the Prodigal Son. And the boy comes home from the far country, and the father sees him and runs to him and hugs him and puts clothes on him and kills a fattened calf and they have a big party.

And everybody in the story is happy, except one person. The older brother, who's been on the farm the whole time, always doing what daddy said. He is obeying the father's will, but he does not have the father's heart. There's a way to do the right thing that's wrong. And listen to me, when you submit to God's will but you don't commit to God's heart, you become like Jonah: religious and joyless.

Jonah went to the greatest revival in history, but the revival never came to him. There's a kind of obedience that cares more about dying plants than dying souls, and you can count on God to question it. See, this story is not just asking us to obey God's will. It is asking us to own God's burden that is behind His will. It's asking us to move beyond this kind of faith that's all about, "Hey, bless me and help me," to a place where we start to see the world the way that God sees it.

So over 20 years ago, my wife and I, along with another couple from our church, went to Brazil to see some missionaries we supported in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It was the World Club Championship, and two teams from Brazil made the finals, and that whole city was abuzz. And the missionary said, "Would you like to go?" and we said, "Yes." "Can we bring our wives?" They said, "Not a good idea."

And when we got there, I understood why. I've never seen a crowd like this. I mean, passion is one thing, but these fans were angry. They were profane. Many were drunk. They literally put up fences to separate the fans so there wouldn't be fights. And even before the game was over, the missionary said, "We need to leave now to get out of here before it gets violent." And I found myself having a contempt for these people welling up in me, that people could be so ugly about a game.

And then the only way I can explain it is I heard the voice of God in my spirit, and the voice said, "Do you see these people the way I do?" And I began to look out at that stadium, 150,000 people in need of Jesus. And I felt like for a moment my heart began to break like God's. And I remember praying, "Lord, I want to see the day when this whole stadium is filled with people who've come to hear about Jesus."

I even said, "Lord, I will come back and preach." For 20 years now on different occasions, I will just stop what I'm doing and I'll pray that prayer again. "Lord, could I see the day when Maracanã Stadium is filled with people who want to hear the gospel?" Because in that moment, God helped me to see a city the way He does. Do you remember how that story of the Prodigal Son ends?

The father goes out to that older boy, and here's what he says: "We had to celebrate and be happy because your brother was dead, but now he's alive. He was lost, and now he's found." So I've made up a beatitude. It's not in the Bible, but I think it's biblical. Ready? Happy is the person who rejoices at what makes God happy. I hope we'll have that burden for the heart of God as much as the will of God.

And next, that we have a burden for all creation as much as our nation. Now, if you told Jonah let's sing joy to Israel, he'd have been happy. But tell Jonah we're going to sing joy to the world, he would not have been as thrilled. Because Jonah was a committed nationalist. In Jonah's mind, Israel first over everything, including God. Now understand, I'm not saying it's wrong to be a patriot.

I'm a patriot. I love my country. I cheer for the USA at the Olympics. If I hear The Star-Spangled Banner, I put my hand over my heart. But there's a kind of way of thinking that says, "I care about my country so much I'm going to ignore what God said about how I should care about the world." And God's global will will always meet with resistance to that kind of nationalism.

The book of Jonah does not teach that God cares for the world. The book exposes the reality that some of God's people know He cares for the world, and they still don't care. But God will love the world with or without your consent. Here's what scripture says: this is how God showed His love to us. He sent His one and only Son into the world that we could have life through Him.

See, God is not asking your permission to reach the nations. He's asking for your participation with Him in reaching the nations. I mentioned a couple of years ago I got to go to Israel for about two weeks. Every single day was a highlight, but my favorite memory... We're in Jerusalem. We had visited the spot that we think is very near where Jesus had been crucified. We visited the spot traditionally where we say He was buried and raised again.

And then we went to the Garden of Gethsemane, and we know that's where He prayed the night before He died. And it was packed with people. Now, I naively had thought that when I went to Israel, all the tourists would basically look like and sound like me. I was so wrong. That day, I heard Jesus praised in nations from around the world. From Central and South America, from North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, from Asia, from East and West Europe.

Every tribe and every color, all coming together to worship Jesus the Messiah. And I thought to myself, you can't go to Mecca and see that kind of crowd. You can't go to the birthplace of Buddhism or Hinduism and see that kind of crowd. But go to Jerusalem, and you will see every tribe and tongue together to worship Messiah Jesus. Do you understand God's intention for the world is so much more cosmic than we often think it is?

Because God's agenda is huge. God, when He looks at the world, doesn't divide it into friends and enemies, but into lost and found. And that leads to maybe our most important takeaway from this series: that we'll have a burden for God's mission as much as God's mercy. You see, everybody loves it when mercy makes a personal visit, right? It could have been a job that you needed or a pregnancy that you wanted.

Maybe you got your health back. Maybe you got a child back. Maybe it was a financial blessing or the opportunity to do something you've wanted to do all your life, but we all have had times in our lives where God gave us a plant and it made us happy. The problem, if we're not careful, is that we can drift into a kind of faith that confuses what's best with what's best for me.

And so maybe the hardest question I'm going to ask in this whole series is this one. Is the goal of your faith to see how much of your life you can spend in the shade? You think about your prayers and the things that you want the most and what makes you happy. Are you primarily a follower of Jesus so you can spend most of your life in the shade? Another moment that profoundly changed my life was in Zambia.

My first time to go to Africa. I'm preaching out in the bush. There's the AIDS crisis that's going on, there is a famine, and I literally am preaching to hundreds of people who are on the verge of death. I saw in real time what people desperate for good news looks like. And I remember preaching that day, being so convicted. Do I spend most of my time preaching a gospel or talking about how to help people grow plants?

Because when I get on that plane in a few days and I go back to America, most of the angry conversations I'll have, upset emails I'll get will not be about how can we reach lost people. It will be about plants. And I'm talking to myself. I get so much more burdened often about things that would make my life more comfortable than I do about things that would make God more happy.

I care about a plant, and God cares about a planet. And here's what I've learned. When in my heart God's mission gets bigger, the list of things that get me angry gets a lot smaller. See, I don't want to just be an object of mercy. I want to be an agent of mercy. I want to make God happy because I like who He is like. What is God like?

God saw an evil world, a rebellious world, a world that deserved judgment. How did God respond? He did not respond to evil by getting cross, but by getting on one. Jesus didn't run from His enemies, He ran to them. Jesus didn't want judgment for them, He took judgment for them. Jesus didn't go outside the city and pout. He went outside the city and got sacrificed while we were still sinners.

Christ died for us. Because God has a bigger mission for your life and my life than to see how much shade we can find. One greater than Jonah is here. And nothing would make heaven happier than if the whole world knew His name.

Acapella Ministries: Lord, Your mercy reigns forever.

Lord, Your mercy reigns forever.

Lord, Your mercy reigns forever.

Lord, Your mercy reigns forever.

Lord, Your mercy reigns forever.

Lord, You are good and Your mercy endureth forever.

Lord, You are good and Your mercy endureth forever.

Lord, You are good and Your mercy endureth forever.

People from every nation and tongue, from generation to generation, we worship You.

Hallelujah, hallelujah, we worship You for who You are.

We worship You for who You are.

We worship You for who You are.

Hallelujah, hallelujah, we worship You for who You are.

We worship You for who You are.

For You are good.

Bob Russell: How about you? Do you need to take an honest look at your heart and examine your desires? Do your priorities reflect the heart of the Father? Perhaps it's time to evaluate the purpose of your faith and ask whether your life is aligned with who God has called you to be. Has comfort, convenience, or self-interest began to pull you away from God's plans?

Listen, don't miss the opportunities God has placed before you. He has invited you to participate in His work, to make an eternal impact, and to join Him in His mission of reaching people with His love and truth. But that requires a willingness to align your heart to His. Don't let comfort dictate your obedience. Well, our thanks to Rick Atchley for that powerful teaching today, and our thanks as well to Acapella Ministries for their music of worship.

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