Blocked Up or Broken Free?

When I was about 40 years old, I had an experience that I guess some in the room have probably had.

It's not a very pleasant experience.

It feels like someone's pressing on your chest.

It's that awful chest pain that makes you think, am I having a heart attack?

And then when I had some pain transferring down my arm, I thought, this is not good.

So I rang up a heart surgeon who was the sister of one of our friends, and I said, Rebecca, this is what's happening to me.

Do you think I need to go to the hospital?

And she does these things for a living, fixing hearts that are in jeopardy of catastrophe.

And she said, I'd go to the hospital immediately.

So I went to the hospital, and fortunately, I didn't have anything going on.

It was probably indigestion, I don't know for sure.

I'm sorry to sort of throw that on you because for some of you, you might have had loved ones who have been through that exact thing, and it's been an awful outcome.

So I'm sorry to just throw that on you, but it's a reality of the world we live in, isn't it?

Atherosclerosis happens in our arteries, which means the blockage, the buildup of plaque, and it can cause people to die.

A blocked artery or multiple blocked arteries to the heart can cause death.

And today, we finish our series in Jonah, and we find that Jonah is in need of heart surgery.

because if you find the blockage in the heart early enough, the wonders of modern-day medicine, you can go in and put a stent in there, you can fix it up, you can open heart surgery.

Well, that's what Jonah needs.

Amen.

He has some heart blockage going on, but it's his spiritual heart.

He has a blockage of resentment.

Jonah has a blockage of discontentment, and Jonah has a blockage of ambivalence.

Chapter 3 of Jonah ended by telling us, chapter 3 verse 10, when God saw what they did, this is the Ninevites, and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.

Of course, this is speaking of this story we've been unpacking the last month, and we've done a lot of retelling of it, the summarising.

Jonah, this reluctant prophet, he's asked to go to Nineveh, which is an easterly direction.

He goes to the Mediterranean, to Joppa, jumps on a ship, and heads 4,000 kilometres in that direction to Tarshish, the exact opposite direction.

He gets thrown off the boat, swallowed by a big fish, and spat back out on the land.

And the part that we haven't talked about much is the distance from Joppa, which is Tel Aviv, to Iraq.

Like, it's a long way.

So he's had a lot to think about on his way back on land after the story of the fish, and then he went to Nineveh, and Ben preached on it last week.

He went half way into the city of Nineveh, a three days journey.

It was a big city.

He preached a message of repentance, and calling on the mercy of God, and lo and behold, they repented, and God relented.

And that's what leads us up to chapter four, verse one.

We just heard part of it read.

Let me read part of it again.

But 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?

Now, this is what Ben was referring to last week, when he said, it will blow your mind when you find out why Jonah didn't want to go to Nineveh.

It wasn't just that they were a scary people.

This is why.

Isn't this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home?

That's what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish.

I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love.

Exodus 34, a God who relents from sinning calamity.

Now, Lord, take away my life, for it's better for me to die than to live.

Wow.

That's a shocking part.

There are other, probably more shocking parts of the Bible found in Judges, at least one of the places, but not too many, would you agree?

That's awful stuff.

I didn't want to go to them to tell them about your mercy because of the fact that you're merciful.

You would probably forgive them if they relented and repented.

He's angry.

Anyone know where anger comes from as an emotion?

Normally a blockage.

You want to get from point A to point B and someone blocks you and you tend to feel anger.

So he's angry, but I think it's not reading into the text too much to suggest that he is struggling with a blockage of resentment.

It's not too much to think he probably knows people who have suffered under the barbaric treatment of the Assyrians of Nineveh.

He's probably connected personally with the horror of these people and the way they infamously treated their prisoners of war.

In essence, Jonah is saying, after all that these people have done, there is no room in my heart for mercy for them.

We talked at the first week that Jonah is a lot like a mirror that you hold up and it shines back on you.

This chapter in particular is when we're ready to jump on our high horse, isn't it?

And sort of go, you, you, you terrible person.

How could you behave in such a way?

But here we're reminded, some of us are struggling with the very same issue.

Are you struggling with resentment towards a person or a people group?

It's graduate Christianity to give it over, but we're called to do so.

Amen.

I was, years ago, I was on a trip to Israel with just the two of us, and with a private guide, and she was a Zionist Jew.

Her name was Dina.

And she asked us once when she took us to the holocaust Museum in Israel, and she said, tell me, she's not a Christian, obviously.

She says, in your understanding of God, would he forgive Hitler?

Could Hitler be forgiven?

And I said, well, I don't know, but it's probably unlikely someone that had become so dehumanised, and so given over to evil as Adolf Hitler.

It's hard to imagine that he would repent, but my understanding, my world view, my biblical world view would say that if he did, he could be forgiven.

She didn't like that.

She had grandparents who had been involved in the holocaust.

You can understand why people hold deep resentment, and some of us hold it here.

And I think probably some of you might be offended that we're even talking about it.

You want to stand up and say, you don't know what they did.

And we would all agree, like, yeah.

But Jonah chapter 4 highlights to us that it is not our place to be the judge and executioner.

It's not our place to take vengeance.

In fact, scripture says, it is mine to avenge, says the Lord.

And somehow we, by God's grace, have to take our hurts, which are completely valid and real, and say, God, it's over to you.

I'm going to leave them at the foot of the cross of Jesus.

Now we can do that post-gospel.

Jesus has watched all of history play out.

He's watched lots of heinous things being done to people.

He's enjoyed from the point of view of the Trinity, what God's perfect view of life is like.

And when God walked amongst us 2,000 years ago in the form of Jesus, he thought it would be wise to tell a story to explain why Jonah got it wrong.

So let me take a couple of minutes to just tell you the story again.

It's from Matthew chapter 18, 21 to 35.

Jesus said there was once a king, I'm going to read it quickly.

I think some of us know the story.

A king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants as he began this settlement.

A man who owed him 10,000 bags of gold.

Now this is an unimaginable amount of money.

This is not something that could ever be repaid.

And Jesus has picked that amount for a reason, hasn't he?

Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children know that he had been, he had to be sold to repay the debt.

At this, the servant fell on his knees before the master.

Be patient with me, he begged, and I will pay back everything.

The servant's master took pity on him, cancelled the debt and let him go.

Remember, this is Jesus, God in human flesh, telling this story.

But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him 100 silver coins.

This is not much in comparison.

He grabbed him and began to choke him.

Jesus knows how to make a story bite, doesn't he?

Pay back what you owe me, he demanded.

His fellow servant similarly fell to his knees and begged him, be patient with me and I will pay it back.

But he refused.

Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt.

When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.

Then the master called that servant in, you wicked servant, he said, I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me.

Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?

In anger, his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all he owed.

This is how my heavenly father would treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.

Pfff, another wow.

It's a really hard-hitting parable, isn't it?

We are not allowed to hold resentment.

We're not allowed to hold bitterness and unforgiveness.

That doesn't mean we don't hold people account, does it?

It doesn't mean we don't acknowledge the validity of the pain that we have been injured by.

It's not that.

It's not to minimise the pain or to say they should be let off.

It's just who gets to do the judging.

Are you with me?

It's what the Bible teaches.

We are not allowed to sit in that place of resentment.

But to do this work as a human being, it's hard and you need the grace of God, but it is available.

In Jesus' name, may you have his power to take your pain to his feet.

Jonah had a blockage of resentment, and he's also struggling with a blockage of discontentment, and probably the two tend to work with each other.

The Lord replied, Jonah, 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.

Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head and 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.

It's a good story, isn't it?

One would think that God was initiating a conversation with Jonah and saying something like, mate, it seems like you're angry.

What's up?

Is it right for you to feel that way?

And Jonah said, talk to the hand, talk to the hand.

God, you asked me, I did what you told me to do, reluctantly as it was, but I've done it.

Now, just let me be, let me build a cabana in the east of the city, and I'm just going to hope that you change your mind and stop being so gracious.

I'm just going to set myself up.

And this is technically what we call a man child.

A man with boy like attitudes.

The text says God provided, God provided, God provided.

Earlier on, God had provided the fish to save him after he had been thrown overboard.

God has always been providing for Jonah.

First came the cool, shady, leafy plant.

Jonah loved that plant.

He loved the shade.

And then it came a worm.

Jonah hated that worm.

Then it came a warm wind.

Jonah hated the wind to get the sun shone.

And he hated the sun.

And then he's basically ready to throw it all in.

And in essence, he says, just kill me now.

And you can't help but be reminded of James 1 verse 7.

Every good and perfect gift comes from above from the Father of the heavenly lights.

And as we hold this book up and the mirror shines back at us and our attitude, we are challenged with this truth and a question of truth.

Who gives us our wealth?

God gives us our wealth.

Who gives us our significant relationships that we appreciate so much?

God provides.

Who gives us our seasons of pruning and growth that challenge us?

There's a good chance God does as well.

Last year, we looked at Philippians and there are some verses in Philippians that speak directly to these ideas.

Where paul writes, I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances, unlike Jonah.

I know what it is to be in need and I know what it is to have plenty.

I have learned the secret, because it is a secret, of being content in every and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in one.

I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

Jonah has a blockage of discontentment.

Nothing's good enough for him.

He's discontent.

Often we want to serve the God of the vine.

Have you ever found that?

The God who gives prosperity, and he does.

The God who makes our kids well when we pray for it, and grants us favour that we could secure that promotion, and we share about it at Life Hub, and say, God is so good.

And he's even the God who gives us the best price at auction.

Who else would it have been if it wasn't God?

And we're so quick to thank the God of the vine, but we can want to abandon the God of the worm.

The God who sometimes, and he does, allows things to happen to us for the sake of making us more and more like Jesus, because in his economy, he uses suffering.

Amen?

He does.

That we might become more and more like Christ, who was not unfamiliar with suffering.

And just before that passage about contentment, paul wrote about the secret.

He says, rejoice in the Lord always.

I say it again.

Let your gentleness be evident to all.

The Lord is near.

Don't be anxious.

But the key in the middle is be thankful in all circumstances.

Let your thanksgiving overflow.

It's a key secret source to not being someone who lives in discontentment.

I'll never forget the story of a guy called Mike Breen who wrote some fantastic content on discipleship.

He was the pastor of Sheffield Baptist Church in England, which interestingly joined up with the Anglican Church in Sheffield, and they joined together somehow, Baptist and Anglican, and it became the biggest church in Europe.

But before that happened, there was really quite a spiritual revival that happened there.

He was in Nigeria, and there were literally a couple of hundred thousand people at a big prayer meeting.

And he was there earlier on in his journey with the Lord.

And people were getting miraculously healed.

There was just this incredible manifestation of the power of God all over the place, that in his opinion seemed to be valid.

He could seem to like it wasn't just a hype.

And he said, I went back to my room on one of these nights, and I just said to the Lord, why doesn't that happen back in England?

Like, this is nuts.

Like, where is your power?

And in his personal view, this is just what he felt.

He felt like God said to him, they're thankful here.

That's not from the Bible.

It's anecdotal evidence, right?

But it's probably true that when there's a people of God who are genuinely, deeply thankful that every good gift comes from God.

The good stuff and the hard stuff.

Do you reckon those people in Nigeria knew about the hard stuff?

Yeah, they did.

And in the midst of that, my guess is they've learned a sense of contentment that's quite profound.

And in that midst of thankfulness, you never know what God might do.

It's easy to start feeling entitled, isn't it?

Especially living in the West, where we live, I deserve the best for the most important person in the world.

Me.

That's what my TV used to tell me, and now it's streamed internet content.

We're not the most important person in the world.

It's God who is.

Amen?

And that's a key in understanding thankfulness and dealing with discontentment.

Do you have a blockage of discontentment?

The problem with discontentment is it leads to envy, doesn't it?

And in a social media world, it's a challenge.

You're sort of seeing how other people best present their life all the time, if you have a wander through some level of social media.

Discontentment will lead to envy.

I want...

I've got, you know, green eyes.

I want...

And then that sense of envy and discontentment just naturally leads to greed.

Is that fair to say?

It sort of topples into stuff and it can actually lead to lust and materialism and pride, murder, theft.

We're getting in a downward spiral here, I know.

But as I reflect on it, I think, yeah, it so often comes from discontentment.

I want what you've got, so I'm going to kill you.

I mean, it's what Cain did to Abel, isn't it?

You've got a great, bitter relationship with the Creator than me because your worship was accepted.

I'm going to kill you.

But it's all coming out of discontentment.

It's certainly what Jonah's struggling with.

It's resentment, discontentment.

Jonah is struggling with a blockage, maybe worst of all, of ambivalence.

God said to Jonah, verse 9, Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?

It is.

And I'm so angry, I wish I were dead.

But the Lord said, Jonah, 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 that great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and also many animals.

It's just an interesting finish, isn't it?

The merciful God who's caring about the nephesh of the animals, the living soul of the animals, let alone those made in His image, who are struggling to comprehend general revelation.

They're just, they've given themselves over to sin, and in that place of a loss of intelligence, God is still seeing the image of Himself there, and He's, I want to reach you.

But Jonah doesn't care.

He has become completely ambivalent about the pain of others.

And let's face it, it put the mirror up.

When you go through pain yourself, it's a challenge to not become like that, isn't it?

You know, my world consumes me.

I'm in pain.

I'm frustrated.

God, why aren't you acting?

But He's ambivalent to the plight of the lost.

He's ambivalent to the plans of God to reach those lost people.

because He's bought into what Hollywood would tell us relentlessly now, life is about us.

But it's not.

Life is primarily about God, His glory and God's love for Nineveh.

That's what we're told in the Bible, life is about.

The glory of God and the glory of God's name being taken to all nations.

Amen.

That's like the purpose of being alive, to enjoy God forever.

And to take that enjoyment of His name's worth to all nations, every people group, which is the promise of Genesis 12, where God said, I'm going to bless you, Abram, that the blessing would flow out to every person that calls us, us and them, them.

Every people group.

And that involved and included the people of Nineveh.

We are a sent people as we come to the end of my mission.

We serve a sent Lord and we are empowered by a sent spirit.

Amen.

We're a sent people.

It's who we are.

God is a sending God.

And he sends people to Nineveh.

Nineveh.

Where's Nineveh anyway?

Where is Nineveh?

Nineveh is across the street or around the world, but it's that place that God is asking us to go to take light and love the love of the gospel.

Hallelujah.

God says, hey, person, person, person, go into all the world, into that workplace, into that aged care facility, into that school, into that hospital.

Wherever you find yourself working, go and as you go, tell people about the grace and the judgment.

Of God.

Nineveh is where we are called to take the gospel.

The blockage of ambivalence is alive and well in our hearts.

Some of us, it comes and goes for me, I think.

And the ambivalence says, don't worry about the lost.

It's too hard.

Don't worry.

Don't worry about your colleagues at work.

They've got their free will.

They've made their choice.

But a sent Christian with a passion to reach the Ninevites moves past that and prays into it and gets a heart for the people God has called us to reach out to.

Amen.

Do you feel the challenge?

Jesus left heaven to come to Nineveh.

The world is like Nineveh, isn't it?

It's awful.

It's awful.

Like Jesus understands in absolute clarity how glorious and holy God is, and in turn how unholy humanity is because of the fall.

And yet he came to that which was full of sin, to become sin for us, to dine across, to pay for our sin that we might be saved.

Jesus came to not only put spiritual stents in blocked arteries, this is the good news, amen.

He doesn't come and put a little sort of, whatever it is, catheter up there and open up a stent in an artery.

He actually takes our stony heart away and puts a brand new healthy, living DNA of the kingdom filled with the oxygen of the Holy Spirit with big open arteries pumping that pump blood and then it comes out of our guts as living water.

That's what he does.

He'll come and he'll change your stony heart and he'll put a heart of flesh.

We're born again.

That's what he does.

He does that for everyone who puts faith in Christ and then Christ lives in us and through us for the glory of the Father.

Scripture says if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

So may we use that freedom to tell other beggars where they can find food, to tell other people caught up in chains of sin where they can find freedom.

And it's all because and through the grace of Jesus.

There is no room for resentment in the Christian walk.

There's no room for discontentment and there's no room for ambivalence.

May we look at this story, which is timeless.

Isn't it timeless?

It's probably from 700 years before Christ.

And there's never been a generation that the story of Jonah hasn't spoken directly into people's hearts.

May we learn from the Book of Jonah, this time through it again.

And may we enjoy being the people of God who are ready to run to Nineveh.

With joy in their hearts.

Amen.

Lord God, here we are in this room and we are available.

As you know, Lord, we're at different levels of availability, but we're available.

Would you use us on the mission of Jesus?

First of all, we confess where we have willfully and disobediently said no.

Would you have mercy on us?

We want to turn from our rebellion.

And in particular, we talk about that as a church, as NorthernLife.

If we have failed to embrace a direction that you're leading us down, Lord, would you point that out to us?

Help us do the things you want us to do in the years to come until you return, Lord Jesus.

Help us be the people you want us to be on your mission with that specificity of call that you give local churches.

Help us carry the load.

Do the tasks that you've distributed to us as a church and us as a people, as individuals.

And Lord Jesus, as we finish now, we sing some more songs of worship to your glory.

It is for your glory that we sing.

It's quite marvellous and extraordinary.

The example you have given us of stepping out courageously on the mission the Father sent you on.

May we do the same by your grace.

Would you like to stand?

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