Jonah, Who Loved God and Was Loved by Him

This passage deals with the story of the prophet Jonah, who refused God's command and ran away. Jonah rejected God's call to announce judgment to the people of Nineveh, his enemies, and fled far away by ship. In doing so, even though Jonah already knew God's intention to judge, he did not want Nineveh to repent and be saved.

To help us understand Jonah's heart, the sermon presents the parable of the prodigal son. It explains that the hurt of the older son, who is asked to love his younger brother who squandered their father's property, resembles Jonah's aversion. God wanted the older son to become a large vessel able to embrace even an enemy, and this was ultimately for the older son's own growth. Jonah, too, could grow into a large vessel able to understand God's love fully only by embracing Nineveh.

Through Jonah feeling greater sorrow over the withering of the vine, the sermon also points to selfish human nature. Jonah cared about the vine that served his own comfort, yet turned away from the lives of the people of Nineveh, who numbered one hundred twenty thousand. God points out this heart of Jonah's and asks how important it is to save lives, and how important God's compassion is. The sermon emphasizes that believers must live lives of realizing God's love and obeying, rather than insisting on their own righteousness. The sermon asks whether believers can become people who do not, like Jonah, judge in advance and put themselves at the center, but who look to God's will and devote themselves.