4. Thrones and Ashes - Amazing Jonah - Tim Mackie (The Bible Project)

John chapter 3 then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time go to great city of Nineveh and proclaim - at the message I give you Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh now Nineveh was a very important city visit required three days on the first day Jonah started into the city keeper claimed forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned the Ninevites believed God they declared a fact and all of them from the greatest to the least put on sackcloth when the news reached the king of Nineveh he rose from his throne took off his royal robe covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh by the decree of the king and his Nobles do not let any man or beast herd or flock taste anything do not let them eat or drink but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth let everyone call urgently on God let them give up their evil ways and their violence who knows God may yet relent and would compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish then God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways he had compassion and did not turn and bring upon them the destruction he had threatened right we are cruising Long's week week 4 of our rescue effort - The Book of Jonah yeah so we remember we're rescuing this really profound sophisticated story of the Bible from the children's version of it that many of you were subjected to and that totally like is like vaccinated you from F this book ever having any power in your life as a word from God and scriptures and so this is part of our rescue effort week 4 we followed this Jonah son of AMA time remember his name means does son of faithfulness of course he's the most faceless person in the entire stories and you're supposed to laugh at and that's the entry point into the strange nature of the story is that it has this comic satire crazy extreme feel to it and so you have this religious prophet man of God but he's an utter hypocrite and he actually hates his God as we're going to see next week you just choose him out big time for being too nice and he so he runs from him God invites him into life and grace he runs from his own God and it leads him to become spiritually sleepy and literally sleepy right and he traced this it became a wrecking ball on the lives of other people and the situation and all his decisions caught up with him and brought him to the bottom and so last week we we explored how God leading Jonah to the bottom and actually having a brush with death and encounter with the sea monster is actually God's severe mercy because this is the way that God brings Jonah to the end of himself and wakes him up to the truth of who he is and who God is and so this word we're picking up the story here is that God commanded the fish to vomit Jonah onto dry land remember the Hebrew word for vomit ha ha all right you're supposed to laugh it's cut right society maybe you don't make that sound when you vomit I don't know I don't know how the one in oh it sounds you makes but sit but anyway scos comes like ah I said the fish vomits enough after this beautiful poem that he writes and then here we are so just one thing I want to share with you among the stack of books that I've accumulated on Jonah and different things I found interesting actually isn't the most interesting one and I think one of the authors who who get what's going on in the Book of Jonah most is not a scholar or a commentator he's a poet his name is Thomas Carlyle and this is in the lay set it's like 7 1978 so you know it's awesome he wrote this little book a collection of poetry that's a commentary on each chapter of Jonah there's a section of collection of poems on each chapter of the book so I want to share some with you if you're kind of new to the new door of hope if you haven't been here for the rest of series this might not make as much sense to you but for the rest of you get a kick out of this so this is one of his poems about Jonah chapter 1 and running away it's called let's cool down let's cool down I know a better way to circumvent your silly streak of mixing love with righteous judgment who's talking right now is Jonah is talking again all I need to do is take the next flight west beyond your jurisdiction this will give you time for sober second thoughts to swear off this kick of simple-minded kindness hmm just get inside the monster this is going I'm sorry you guys you can't see it in the front row I'm really you could just hear me hear me then hear me inside the monster I was as low as I could get when I remembered God odd that my distress impressed me with his apparent absent when his premise daily presence hadn't meant a blessed thing finding myself in that hole with my soul fainting and rolling with the swell of my swollen ego was good enough to kill me good instead I saw stars in the dark and started home on a welcome waterspout let it braise welcomed the whale to welcome or the fish he's not a whale you know it's never called a whale just called the great stitch it's the sea monster okay this is so these okay these next two are about chapters three and four yeah counselor to the Almighty this is Jonah speaking him think twice before you pardon men repent even in ashes but repent again of their repentance right that's a good one hence again of their repentance take the wiser bias of my advise confine your charity to such good neighbors as your humble servants is the last one addiction consistently Jonah's chided his stupid and incredible creator for his addiction to Mercy as though it were some miracle drug a deity ought to be dependably capricious keeps the natives in mine decimating that over populated slum would wipe out delinquency in hurry naturally Nineveh would make a perfect target that is once he was safely outside hmm Thomas Carlyle the the book is so rad 1978 you guys and he got his friend I forget he says his name to make all of these original woodcut drawings of different scenes in the book of johna this book of art and poetry it's not rad it's great anyway he gets he gets it this is not a children's story is it no children can grasp it but to really grasp what's happening here you very much have to have to guess what's going on and so we are going to pick up with Jonah again as he is cod out of the fish he's vomited out and we're going to pick up our hypocritical profit in Chapter three let's dive in so we hear this that the word of the Lord remember Lord and all caps means Yahweh in Hebrew so the word of Yahweh came to Jonah a second time go to that great city of Nineveh and proclaim to as a message that I give you there's almost a sense in which we're kind of like oh yeah that story like I forgot about that whole thing so because this whole thing was framed as a story you read the first lines that this is a story about God and Nineveh but then it became a story about God in his own because on profit rebels and runs away so I know God has to follow that whole thing through and now we're back to the big story line again which is about God in Nineveh now look at what the wording here is really interesting says go to the great city of Nineveh proclaimed to it the message I give you what message is that going to be like what what is this message about and so on flip the page or look over a page to chapter 1 and remember what is this whole how did the story begin the word of Yahweh came to Jonah son of amitai go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because it's wickedness has come up before me and so all of this is framed as as a story that begins with God looking over his world and he sees this great cause of injustice and oppression and wickedness and so on the Ninevites and so he's dispatching his messenger that's what prophets are the messengers to go confront the wickedness of Nineveh and preach preach against it now I'm guessing that some of the language in this passage in so on preach against the wickedness of the city you know and this whole thing about God you know his fierce anger you know that we might perish and so on I'm guessing all of us are just feeling totally comfortable and our hearts are warmed by this language so we've kind of struggled with these parts of the Bible that depicts God is seriously kicked off of what humans are doing and bringing judgment and so part of it is that you know we don't we don't get where Jonah and his people would be at in relationship to the minified so let's start there let's start there so the Ninevites Nineveh is a capital city we've done this a couple times let me show you the map here remember of what Empire big bad ancient empire so Assyria yeah so in Assyria there had been empires were kind of petty state empires before this Assyria was the biggest baddest empire that the ancient world had known up to that point and for a number of different reasons even still today people study the military tactics of Assyrian generals and so on because they were they were brilliant they were utterly brilliant at looking at territories that did belong to them what are the strategic cities and roads they would just decimate like those cities and then just they were like the Borg of the ancient world this absorbing and so they grew and grew and grew just she by sheer military expansion and conquering and so on and so that it we're not only brilliant however militarily they were also notoriously brutal and this is just a fact of ancient history they were the most brutal empire that the world had had yet seen and so they've done lots of archaeological digs and so on in what is now known as in the city of Nineveh in the region of Mosul in Iraq and they've dug at dug up for 150 years now they've been digging there but they found but the walls of the city which was a big seven mile around oval which was gigantic for that so cities were defined as a settlement with walls around it but they found the Royal the royal buildings the Royal complex and so on like the king's palace this huge complex of buildings and when you go into it they discovered lining the walls of the Kings complex were all of these pictures that the kings of Assyria had hired sculptors and artisans and so on to draw stories this was like you'd go into the halls of the Royal Palace and it would just be like movies playing in front of you so to speak and just all of these stories and the stories are all about the military exploits of the king of the kings of this area so the whole point is that if you're not an Assyrian you're in that palace you're probably in trouble and you're going to be quite quaking in your boots because I think as you go down these hallways and so this is most of them are preserved still today in the British Museum in London so in this particular hallway here it's a story told of one of a battle but one of the kings of Assyria thought which is the Israelites this story tells of how one of the Assyrian King conquered the Israelite city of la keish and that stories also told in the Bible it says in 2nd Kings chapter 18 and it's one of the most detailed depictions of an ancient city being sieged and what the Assyrians would do over the course of the months that the siege the siege went on and so you can see kind of here in the lower left except for you folks in the front row I'm so sorry whatever I don't know how to move move with that half as you can come over here or you can watch online anyway just these the pictures are cool but so on the lower left there's a picture of an ancient like seed rant tower so they had like just forefront of technology of making these huge defended shielded wheeled structures that would be the same height as the city walls they build a huge seed ramp and then roll it up to it and then these other pictures are depicting what the Assyrian soldiers would do to captured Israelites who had like fallen off the walls or they had like broken into parts of the city and so what is happening in the upper left here this is Assyrian soldiers stripping naked and grabbing the legs of these Syrians and if you look close you can see they have knives they're about to skin these people alive that's in the sights of the city walls and what they would also do is any captured soldiers or whatever they would cut down trees from the region around and would sharpen the tips into you know big Spears and then they would just impale people on on the big Spears and then set them at the hills around the city so when Israelite soldiers still in the city would look out they would just see their dead colleagues you know hanging on the hills and so on and so this is this is how they roll this is what they Syrians do they're brilliant and brutal and so that you need to just understand the deep emotion that would come into an Israelites mind when they heard about the Ninevites when they heard about the Assyrians and the idea of God sending his prophet to confront the injustice and the oppression of Nineveh you know in Israelite readers would just be like yes yes finally you know I go get him Jonah go let him fry you know that's the idea here God's not being a jerk he's confronting one of the most exceptional instances of human injustice that the world had seen up to that point and so he he goes on his mission that's the the background the backstory here so let's see how Jonah responds look at verse three we hear that Jonah he obeyed the word of Yahweh clearly a new concept for him did I get or some of you have he went according to the word of the Lord the point is he's now going not on his own terms but on Yahweh's terms to call him and so he went to Nineveh now Nineveh was a very large city and some of your translations might have very important city the word is just huge but it can mean hugely significant or huge in size it's probably both both are true because it was a huge significant city because it took three days to go through it it would actually so big seven miles around and I think this is one of the more comic elements of the book because if you you're just walking ten to twelve miles a day it's depicting the city as if it's more like way bigger than it actually was but the point is this significant was gigantic in the ancient world and so it took three days to go through it and Jonah began by doing one day's journey into the city proclaiming and here's this message both oughta be myung-hoon in vennett pocket so the five words in Hebrew this is a five word sermon which I am incapable of giving okay so a five word sermon and how many in English kind of like that's eight that's eight so and I'm incapable of doing that - I'm already many hundreds of words that's right so so you have a five word message now I hope that strikes you is strange because first of all what does he say he gives the time forty days and then an event Nineveh will be overthrown now just by reading like what God said he was supposed to go do go to a great city of Nineveh preach against it because of his wickedness you already have an idea well he's probably going to say something about God and their wickedness and they should stop and how it's wrong and so on but do we get any of that in Jonah's five word servant hmm Jonah's five word sermon is one of the most intriguing parts of the whole book I think so he what kind of things are missing here all kinds of things are missing right so 40 more days and then it will be overthrown by whom okay so is this a Sodom and Gomorrah story you know about the fire and brimstone is this they'll be overthrown by another nation something as they were they were overthrown by Babylon eventually so but not nothing about who we do know when forty days do we know why why why will min up a be overthrown and you can imagine people not have your vetti in Nineveh big city life served in the army so you have like a blacksmith or a goat herder and I don't know first I have heard over the road no I don't what for I don't know why I how song I just I just work in here every day yeah so what was like what why what would be the reasons that they are going to face this destruction what can they do anything about it can they do anything to avert it the prophets always included some chance to turn back see Yahweh or something repent and so on but nothing of this from Jonah we don't know if it's possible to avoid this disaster and the most learning absent absence is Jonah is there to represent what God he's a messenger on behalf of Yahweh and whom does he not mention what so this is very strange this this should make you go like what something's fishy here pun intended pun intended right something very strange here so did I that was an insult to you to your intelligence that I would use a pun like that I'm sorry so but this is really strange it's really strange so there's two there's two uh you know you read stack of books and throughout history there's been two ways people have understood the strangeness of Jonah's five word five word sermon one could be this is another kind of extreme crazy comic element in the story and so you in in Jonah no one behaves according to their stereotype this is this is Sin City so to speak this is you know I guess or something like that and and and you have the people of Vegas and and the the ruler of Vegas I think ruler the mayor something I don't know let me is about that analogy but you know you have the most notoriously brutal violent people that the world knows and and they're going to repent and turn back to God they're going to stumble over themselves to repent after one day's bad preaching on Jonah's part essentially and this is another one of these was crazy you know like what it takes to get Jonah to repent God had to you had to go through hell and high water to get Jonah to soften his heart but the worst people on earth they're just so ready just like the sailors to to repent and turn to God that he just gets five words out of his mouth and he's just there so there could be another one of the crazy turn of events comic elements in the story that's just well it could be something totally different though it could be that Jonah is engaging in a bit of prophetic sabotage it's called so does Jonah want the Ninevites to find the repentance that leads to life does he want this to happen why did he run from God in the first place remember it not because he's afraid of going into the king's palace it's because he hates minified and he thinks that the world is much better off with without them existing at all and so could it be that this is Jonah yes he's physically obeying by going to Nineveh but verbally he's giving us little information as possible to ensure that they won't be able to repent and find forgiveness and graces would this be consistent with Jonah's character absolutely yeah absolutely so could it be that he's no we'll talk more about this this week because there's all these layers of iron and so on and his sermon but we don't have time to go into it now we will next week since I personally think the second option is more likely but the author doesn't make it clear this is another one of these things about Jonah's character he just does he mean this or doesn't mean that I don't I don't know and you're drawn into the story and into contemplating his motives and someone regardless of sabotage not then it works despite himself look at Versailles what's the device response says the Ninevites believed mmm this is good the Ninevites believes him now that's weird because Jonah didn't say anything about God did to it you would think they would say then in device believed Jonah 40 days and then but no they believed in God their hearts are so attuned to what's going on here they're filling in all of the gaps just themselves they're so they're so ready and so the Ninevites believe God and a fast was proclaimed in all of them greatest of the least the whole whole city they put on sackcloth so fasting probably familiar to you it's a way of engaging in it's like symbolic body language you you abstain from food or even some kinds of liquid and that cloth is just straight-up heard it putting like burlap on like it's made out of goat hair it's itchy uncomfortable and so the point is is you're ridding your life of all distractions and you're showing God that you mean business that you're serious so fasting and prayer and putting on sackcloth I mean this is this is crazy it's insane this is Sin City for goodness sakes perfect and they're doing and they're doing this now just a quick observation about what's happening here in verse five look at the language this use so we hear this they have this fast and they put on sackcloth and so on they're super earnest before God and the first words of verse 5 are just a commentary on what's happening here what's happening is they do this well this is an expression of belief they believe God and how do you know how did they express that belief they went you know they did these actions use active active response this may seem to you kind of kind of simple but I actually think it's pretty profound it's important for us to hear as Westerners because especially in English when we hear the word belief or faith we primarily think of like a mental something happens in your brain I believe that I believe the sky's blue I believe the Beatles or the best thing ever something like that and so even you believe it's a mental activity yep believe that yep believe it done okay cool moving on you know and that's and so we take that mental idea of that's the belief is and then we impose that onto the Bible when the scriptures are trying to tell us to kind of redefine this whole concept for us and so how do you know that the Ninevites what do they believe God about so again in theory they're filling in gaps that Jonah perhaps intentionally left out they believe all of a sudden God's rendering a judgment on them they think they're just fine they think it's just fine to be a part of an empire and to support and be a part of this thing that's growing through brilliance and brutality and now all of a sudden they're confronted with this judgment that what they thought was good and fine is actually wrong and and so then you're put in a situation of trust we can believe our own definition of good and evil that this is all just fine what we're doing or we can accept this new judgment on good and evil and what we're doing and that we have made something that is evil into good and so they believe and when they believe it's joined and expressed solely by this life response of like oh my gosh what we need to change course we need to and so in the in the Bible belief is is the other side of the coin of this active response of your life that shows what you believe and I think this is important just for us to hear as Westerners because we because we often we've created as culture in which do you believe in Jesus sure totally yeah Billy died rose for me yep check said that magic prayer double check you know I did a few times actually you know so you do that thing and then you're good I believe in Jesus sure yeah totally and but then like it creates this situation where if you just have that like box that you've checked but there's I mean there may not be a shred of evidence in your life at all that you like care about Jesus or that you really think things through you think your decisions through in light of the fact that he died for you that you're like you're recognizing like whoa there's these areas of my lives that I used to thought totally okay I used to think this was okay but now I realized whoa that's not cool I need to work on this there's all kinds of people who believe that they're Christians because they've had some mental assent do they have some connection culturally to church or Christianity or something but there's not a shred of evidence in their life and so the Scriptures just come alongside us and sometimes gently sometimes not so gently say if there's not a shred of any of that going on inside of you you don't believe and it's not a slam it's actually I think pretty helpful for us no one's doing anybody any favors by letting you think you're a Christian if you're actually not you know Ivy let's just be honest here and and so if you're not that's great welcome to door folk we're stoked there you're here but we don't want to lead you along Belize is this much more holistic life response they believe and they express that belief through through action showing that there's something going on inside of their heart so this is very profound and we'll come back to this again as we as we continue on with the Ninevites response so that's the people of the cities response what is the Kings the Kings response the mayor of Las Vegas can't believe I said those ridiculous so here's here's the King it says verse 6 when Jonah's warning reached to the king of Nineveh now just look at that Jonah didn't reach the king of Nineveh he made it one day and five words one day into the city or five words so Jonah didn't go into the Royal Palace but somehow his message went viral without YouTube and I made it there made it to the king Jonah's warning reached the king of Nineveh he rose from his throne if you just stopped there you'd think like oh this is not good this is not good this is the most powerful man on the planet the most powerful Empire on the planet known for violence and brutality this is not going to end well for Jonah but it doesn't stop there he rose from his throne he took off his royal robes he covered himself with sackcloth he identifies himself with the sin and injustice of his people and he went one more stuff than anybody else he sits down in the dust the symbolic the symbolic image of regret and remorse and repentance like lowering yourself to the lowest place you can go this is the proclamation that he then issued in Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles don't let people or animals or herds or flocks taste anything don't let them eat or drink let people and animals be covered with sackcloth now there is a laugh-track cubed right here you're supposed to laugh at em right so that's crazy that's this is totally crazy this is not only like the leader of the Assyrian Empire who is he forcing into repentance as well along with all the humans the animals he's making the animals repent for goodness sakes you know and so you're just kind of led to wonder like what on earth for you know like what kids at the cat I guess the cows like made the milk that nurtured the soldiers or something like that I've no idea of it but it's this comic element of the story he's this is so an intense change of heart that they want to cover all their bases let's make even Old Betsy repent too in case she ever did something wrong or something I mean is crazy you're supposed to laugh just like you did supposed to laugh at this crazy and now that all the animals and people are in sackcloth and ashes let everyone call urgently on God let them give up their evil ways and their violence who knows who knows maybe God will relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we won't perish so you have this crazy change of heart here and actually the words that he uses to describe what he's calling everyone to do is a key concept linked with belief and faith in the Bible look at verse 8 and you'll see it up here on the screen to the New International Version NIV translates to as let everyone give up their evil ways some of your other translations like English standard version have let them turn from their evil ways and the Hebrew word that's used here super common in the prophets especially is the sea brew word shoe you guys say it with me choose if you see it spelled it looks like shows like junior highers shoving something so but it's actually pronounced shoes so shoe shoe it's literally it's just the image from walking and so you're going a certain way and someone a judgment is rendered that you are going the wrong way and so that reaches you and you're like oh serious Wow you know or maybe you knew that it was the wrong way and you'd want to want to go that way anyway whatever one way or another it pointed out for you like dude that's the wrong way and so shooting is just doing this and then you go this way let's shoes and so it's just the image from like walking day to day life the profits picked up this word and turned it into this powerful metaphor for how we relate to God and so it's developed out this metaphor that we're all on a journey life is like a journey and so we go down certain roads in life and the profit job is to speak God's Word to people and to say dude that's the wrong way that way doesn't lead to life that way leads to ruin for yourself or for others you need to shoes and the right response to that judgment rendered on your decision is like oh okay yes there we go shoes and u-turn and so that's what he's calling the people to do it's again one of these things that they believe God check how do you know they believe God because he's calling on them to not just believe something about God but to actually change and go a different a different direction okay that's a language that's used here now here's here's what I'm guessing is that there are other issues going on inside of us when we read a passage like this now granted these are the most violent people that the world had known up to that point but I'm guessing verse 9 is not going to make it like as a magnet on your fridge or something like that so God may relent and with his compassion he may turn from his fierce anger so that we don't perish oh that's a great idea about God that I'd like to think about he's fiercely angry at me and I might perish you know and and so I think in our culture especially this we so with this language about God his wrath his anger his judgment and we we struggle with it deeply and we don't know you know we're like oh I don't know about that verse I need to go read something in the New Testament now okay and we've that's how that's how we respond here and so I want to camp out on this because that's what this passage is about this passage is about God's judgment on human behavior declaring that it's wrong and the people need to shoes and to turn around and so I think most of us certainly this is not a popular idea like you want to make no friends at a party like you know grab your drink go stand in the middle of the living room area and start talking about divine judgment and repentance no one's going to want to talk to you right so just in our culture at large these are not popular ideas but I even think even for Christians ourselves many of us struggle with this because what do you know what do you mean the Gaza a judge that he's fierce anger right people are going to perish this is crazy so I say I think of it this way and this has been a way that's helpful for me to put this together what we're struggling with is how to to balance or connect different attributes of God different parts of God's character and so there's lots of passages like this especially in the Prophet the declare that God is a God who renders judgment on our behavior no II did you know that noe in judgment don't let that one get you so so God he's a God of judgment he sent his prophets with his word through the scriptures or whatever and there are things that we all think are just fine and they are good and there all of a sudden we hear this word of judgment that says actually this wrong and you need to turn and so we we struggle with language like this about God because we hold this other conviction namely from Jesus and a lot of really powerful passages in the New Testament that speak of a God of love like it says in first John God is love God loves the world and so we struggle with how to put this together and to be honest I think what happens to most of us is we just kind of pick one and screen out the other one I think most of in our culture at least people my age being raised in this culture we really like this one makes us feel good about ourselves and so we just kind of don't read these parts of the Bible where we bring our hands when we do and for those of us who have tried to maybe hold these together in some way usually one trumps the other and so you know that if God is a God of judgment well but eventually his level went out in the end we don't we don't know how to talk about this or put this together and I think the biggest trap that we fall into is thinking that these are opposites of each other that if God I love it it's not a loving thing to judge or to condemn someone's behavior loving God wouldn't do that you wouldn't render judgment like that and so we somehow think that these are opposites and so I'm just gonna I'm going to camp out here and let this passage guide our thinking because we really have to think this through and this will seriously this is your view of who God is and who God is to you and a lot of it a lot of this I really just think is is sloppy thinking that I've had exposed in my own heart and mind and I personally have had to figure out and wrestle without it how to work all of this out and so just think this through with me what am I really saying when I say that a loving God wouldn't judge and condemn human behavior or condemned people who think that through for a second what what's underneath that is the assumption that go if God looks out on our world and our world you don't have to have a religious bone in your body to recognize that the world is seriously seriously messed up amen amen if you don't have a religious bone in your body you wouldn't say Amen so you would just say I believe that's true I think that's correct right but the worlds and why is it why is the world seriously messed up it doesn't just happen to be that way it's messed up because we are messed up right and it's because of the seven nearly 7 billion human beings on the planet making 7 billion small and large decisions that are completely self self oriented makes the world what it is and so if God exists and he looks out on our world and all of the horrible large and small things that we do and think about each other and if his response is oh those humans you know God love them you know my misguided bunch you know them and you know I just but you know but I sure love him so I'll overlook this I'll overlook it you know is that the loving thing to do is that a loving God who simply overlook the mess that we've made of his world and the way that we vandalized people made in His image by how we treat each other is that a loving thing to do and I would argue that it is not only not love it the opposite of judgment is not love the opposite of judgment is apathy and not caring how people behave or treat each other and just walking by so think of it this way so you're you're walking down maybe you live near a school or something and you're walking by a playground and you see the scene you see a bunch of sixth graders sixth grade boys surrounding a little second grader and you know he's got his lunch pail Muppet Babies or something like that you know what you've got is remember this month would be Muppet and Suzi lunch pail and you know and so they're totally they're pushing them around there maybe slapping them around and calling and names are going to take all this stuff right and you're the adult and you walk by you're walking by on the sidewalk if you say to yourself ah kids will be kids you know this you know you know guy they'll misguided but you know what they'll work it out they're kids you know and you keep on going is that the loving or caring thing to do absolutely not definitely not it's the apathetic thing to do what is the loving thing to do it's to render a judgment on that behavior those kids think that that's a good thing to do that's a wrong thing to do and they it needs to be stopped they need to be held accountable however you're going to do that sixth graders you know they're not weakling you know so grab them by their collars or something like that it's a school security comes for something and right and so you and and so they're held accountable that's the loving thing to do just to make a judgement judgement is not the opposite of love it's an expression of love you're loving the victim the second grader you're loving your neighborhood right by not allowing this to set a precedent that this kind of thing can happen around here you're loving the sixth-graders themselves by making a statement to them that this is not okay behavior you're going to ruin your lives if you keep doing stuff like this to people judgment is the loving thing to do or you guys with me and we just somehow in our minds weave and so flopping and thinking about this and actually just in a second I think actually just really two-faced and duplicitous about how screwed up we are though somehow we made these into opposites of each other you guys the world's not okay you don't have to be religious to think that we can all agree on that the world's not okay and it's not okay because we're not okay and what we're doing to each other is not okay that is a judgment and for God to out of the love the people made in His image to protect the goodness and the beauty of his world if he does not render a judgment I would argue he's not caring and he's not loving he's a cathodic and I God is not worthy of worship in my opinion and so 11 judgment aren't opposites of each other there they there are two sides of the same coin they're in harmony with with one another now here's here's what it skips us I may have convinced some of you but and this is where this is where this play today is that you and I actually if we really think about we want a world where there is justice and we want there to be a God who will hold human beings accountable for our decisions if there is not a God of judgment who's higher than any human to define what we do is good or evil or good and not good if there's not a God of judgment I would argue there's no hope for our world because if that God doesn't exist or if it's some other God who doesn't care how we treat each other whatever there's no hope for our world that doesn't matter how you behave there's nobody you're accountable to right except yourself and your culture but here's the thing is like do you really want to make yourself and your culture the one who defines good and evil yeah how is that gone for most of human history you end up with things like the Assyrian Empire that's what you end up with with might makes right and so if you if we don't believe in a God of judgment there's no hope for the for our world for sit wrongs being made right if you if you cherish the hope of the story of the scriptures of a world made ride of a restored creation where all wrongs are made right you cherish the hope of a judgment of all that's been done wrong being named dealt with and made right and evaluate and judged if there is no God of judgment there's no hope for the world but flip it over is this big dilemma because if there is a God of judgment there may be hope for the world but there is no hope for me or for you because you and I are notoriously two-faced and duplicitous when it comes to justice right so someone cuts you off you're driving down i-80 for MLK or something someone just blatantly just cuts you right off intentionally or whatever all of a sudden you're real passionate about justice you know what I mean you're like wow like you did anyone see look at look at this me right and so there are certain things that happen in the world especially when they impinge on our own personal security or comfort and we're like what this is what injustice is wrong you know who's going to make this right you know we think about this does everyone see this how wrong this is right but but all of a sudden when the spotlight of justice with which of God's judgment which is impartial then shines that spotlight on me then I get ticked off and I'm like it's not loving to judge like what do you mean I didn't mean anything you know by just not I didn't do it all the time you know what I mean we get all that sets defensive about it okay case in point and you guys we're all one silly example and then a serious example back to Jonah so did you mean driving I have so many driving metaphors but partially because driving just reveals our true character you know what I'm saying so so here's the thing about driving in these Portland's a lot of these real narrow arteries and it seems like the size of the streets and the timing of the streetlights with like meant to match the population of the city two decades ago you want to say and so you get these real narrow arteries through East Portland here they have these left turns knows that lasts like three seconds is you guys know what I'm talking about here these ridiculously short left turn signals and so 10 cars will pile up and how many cars get through a three-second left turn signal you know I mean it's like three three cars or something and so it's developed this practice in these Portland's and you probably know about it if you've given in East Portland which is the orange light okay and so because if you're turning left you know there's the three cars that make it through on the green and what you do is use if you're the last car and the car ahead you is making on the green you ride the bumper of the next one so that by the time it turns from yellow to red orange right that zone it turns red and but you're out in the middle of the intersection you're like look everybody what am I supposed to do yeah you know clearly I've just got to go through you know alright so you've got you know what I'm talking about you've been that person before okay now here is the next category the next category is a person who rides the bumper of that person right and so what they've done is they have just have their nose of their car like three feet over the crosswalk line I mean you guys know what I'm talking about here so then it's straight up turns red but they're like look everybody my nose is I'd have to reverse I can't that person's behind me and so they go through - you're not I mean and so what happens is that the people the light fully turns green and here's this guy like he's just fully turning in when it turns green and so maybe you've been the person of the green life on facing traffic and what do you do or what have you seen done because you're not going to admit where you see none right so you rev up you maybe make a little four foot advance to make the statement to everybody look at this guy right here oh you don't I've done this to people and I know that you have - so here we go this is the this is the odd thing okay so - two weeks ago I'm driving down 20th here right here and it gets to the short left turn signal off 20th on to burn fire and it lasts like four seconds and it was it was traffic time and I had somewhere very important to go my wife and I two tiny kids don't get on dates too often right now in this season of life so we had a happy hour to make and so we were busy it's kind of going home traffic and so on and so you know I'm real mindful this is the three cars that gets through in those four seconds there's the guy gets around the orange and I'm there with him and so here we go I'm just I'm going through on the Red Bull red and there's a guy in a white 80s Econoline van just it's clearly like a hot day the windows are down and so he just revs and just is right there in Jessica's face you know basically you know his grills right there as we're turning by and he's just passing us up and down what do you think you're doing okay no that's good it's not quite what he said but yes so here here's the whole point here's the whole point you guys guess what's going on inside of me yes that's happening what's going on inside of me is not he's right you know what I mean like he's right I look at this you know I don't like other people to do it but I am totally doing that right now and I'm totally breaking the line I know it in here that's not what what happens in me this self defensive posture of like no boy who's this guy's the key is you know what do you mean I have somewhere to go I don't get to go on dates very often it's a few we are going to make the flight or whatever and this and I'm sure all I'm sure this guy's never done it before you know and all of these things are going on in your head and so here you go that's exactly it this is exactly it we're really passionate about justice when it impinges on my inconvenience my convenience or something and my comfort but the moment that the spotlight is turned on me and that I don't any longer get to define good and not good in ways that conveniently excuse my misbehavior then I'm ticked off and then I must Lewis what do you subscribe to judge me you know yes there's the thing I actually think for many of us that many of us thumb we have this kind of theological issue with God's character that we have to work at and I think that's true for some of us I don't think that's the core issue at least I know it's not for me the core issue is this is if there is a God of judgment I'm not I'm not it I'm not it if there is a God who defines good and evil then it means that I don't get to do that in ways that excuse my misbehavior and you know that that's the core issue when you like you say you believe all that I believe it's good to forgive people I believe it's good to be generous meanwhile I spend all my money on myself and I have three like relational bridges burned some that I will not forgive and you're just like really and when that gets exposed you're like why don't judge me that's not loving to judge me there's like which way do you want it you know you know we're so two-faced about this and so I think really the issue really is just that we're not God and that when God renders the judgment on our behavior it exposes stuff inside of us and we don't like that it challenges us things that we thought were totally fine and that we're good all of a sudden declared not good and it ticks us off and we don't like we don't like that and you guys I am a child of this culture as much as much as you are what's what's happening within in of Isis is so significant because human cultures we were so bad at defining good and evil the over time we can begin to slowly thing you know human behaviors things that are not good things that don't lead us to life but a whole culture can come to believe like that's totally it's good go for it and so God's judgment comes as very unwelcome to us and I'll be perfectly honest with you there are areas about Christianity that are difficult for me to accept God's judgment that's why it's an act of belief or face when I'm choosing to believe that God's judgment of what is good and not good is superior to my own and so even though like it doesn't resonate with me to say that that's not good but that's wrong I face trust someone above myself because what am i I'm a two-faced driver that's what I am hit us I'm gonna trust myself and so that I think that's what this what this comes down to and essentially then it's it's asking well what does God do with his judgment it's an expression of his love but what's it for what's the goal of judgment is it to smash us to just show us make us miserable to wallow in the ashes and be like I don't know if God's going to forgive us what horrible people we are look at the goal of God's judgment look at verse 10 this is the last verse in the chapter he says when God saw what they did and how they turned this proved from their evil ways he relented he did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened and so right here when God's judgment is an expression of his love for the Israelites for the Ninevites themselves and so on he renders the judgment on their behavior it's not good they shoes and when they shoe what did they find I mean there's a great we have a wonderful word to describe what's happening in verse 10 and it's the word grace it's the word grace this is the goal of God's judgment out of his love he renders the judgment on our behavior so that will be like did that's not the right way oh my gosh shoe and the moment that I shoe what do I find is fine grace I find grace so God's not out to destroy us he's out to show us that we're going the wrong way so that we can turn and find grace and new life God's judgment is a good thing it's an expression of his love it's aimed at restoring people to relationship with himself and so you end up with this reading a story like Jonah 3 and you're like this repentance is a beautiful word it's how human beings get reborn and restored and renewed when we realize that we're not God and so what this King what this King does is he is he gets off his throne look back at verse 6 with me let's let's camp out on this and and kind of conclude verse 6 becomes this beautiful image then of the goal an illustration of what God's judgment is aimed at doing you have this man verse 6 this King the warning of God's judgment it reaches him where he rose from his throne and we're thinking oh no like that his problem he's exalted himself into God's place to define as good all of these things that are actually bad but instead what does he do he takes off these symbols of his autonomy and his power his royal robes and he puts them aside he intentionally puts aside the very things that give him the authority to define knieval for himself and then he then he lowers he lowers himself he shoes not by going turning around he shoes by instead of going up by lowering himself in and by going down now if Jonah was just a three chapter story which according to one of the children's books on my shelves it is they have a children's book that just leaves out chapter four altogether right which is very strange because it becomes a different story altogether if the story ended right here happy ending that's a great ending right so Jonah's repentant and he went you know and did this thing and the Ninevites repenting you're like yeah everyone's happy I was happy except to think this through is there any guarantee that this king is going to stay off of his throne for very long is there any guarantee that the next king of Nineveh will also hear the story about God's judgment and turn and discover God's grace is there any guarantee that the next king there's no guarantee that he will stay off his throne just like there's no I mean what's your personal record for staying off the throne you know that so here we are we want to define good and evil in ways that are most convenient for us and a judgment is rendered on that you're wrong that's not right and so here we have we have a chance to respond and achieve and to turn to God's grace but here's the thing and this is the way Thomas Carlyle put it in that poem at the beginning men repent in dust and ashes but they repent again of their repentance and there you go we're so screwed up we can't even repent right okay we can't even shoot right because you know like a week goes by there's like some area of our lives that we define we're on the throne to find it as good we hear the judgment is not good so we so we shoot we get off week one doing doing good week two we're like well God is a God of love and grace right and so we end up separating these from his judgment and would be like you know probably forgive me and so you know let's just I'll just get back on the phone for 30 minutes or star so again and then by week three like we're back on and some of you are thinking three weeks holding you know one week you know whatever we just keep crawling back up this it's this addiction to our ego to our desire for autonomy to define good and evil for ourselves and so this is dilemma then look what is there good news for people who can't even repent right is there good news for people who can't even repent right dude yeah right okay yes yes so more than one of you should respond after 10 seconds you know and say I'm completely serious you should respond immediately yes there is good news absolutely the knuth we're a community of Jesus we're going to fake what is the good news the good news is all wrapped up right at the heart of this right so the good news is this the story about a king who's who oversees his good world and he sees that the people in this world are ruining each other they're ruining themselves and out of his love he renders the judgment there's not right this has to be dealt with but the good news is that this King renders and brings about his judgment in a way that no one else expected because he also gets up off of his throne he also takes off his robes and he comes and he humbled in the language of flip into he humbled himself becoming human taking on the status of a slave of a servant he he wallowed in that ashes of human existence and on the cross he absorbs his own judgment into himself on our behalf he absorbs our selfishness our self-deception our pain our the tragedy of who we are takes into himself that kills him but because his love is stronger than death it's stronger than our sin and selfishness in Jesus's resurrection from the grave it makes possible this new way for those who will grab onto him in belief and accept his judgment on us Gru's up and there's no hope for us beyond his commitment to us and when we turn to Jesus the risen Lord we find grace and so really I mean the cross as a Christian the cross is where all of these attributes of God come together in perfect harmony the cross is a statement of God's love and his judgment and it creates an opportunity for grace and and it's precisely because of what Jesus did in fact is if you and I are going to be crawling on and off of those Thrones probably for the rest of our lives Lord willing we make progress and any progress that we do make is purely by His grace it's changing us changing our hearts but day one of becoming Christian is hearing of God's judgment on me turning and responding to His grace that's made possible through his love shown on the cross day two is exactly the same process day three and you can pay for her and you get and you get the point and as we continue to humble ourselves like this King you began to find all of a sudden that you resonate more with that judgment and you began to see like that was so screwed up the way I used to think the way I used to treat people the way I used to spend all my money on myself the way that you all of a sudden slowly begin to realize that his judgment is actually trying to give you lives and so this is the power of this picture of repentance in Jonah 3 it's beautiful it's aimed at restoring us not smashing us into pieces and so as always big room lots of different stories I have no idea what what the Thrones plural in your life are and I maybe have an inkling of what they are in mind there's probably all kinds of other ones that I'm not even ready for yet but hopefully by the time I'm 50 or something I will be right but there you go I don't know what your Tsar you know the ways that you crawl back on the throne you redefine good and evil in ways that excuse things that that you know Jesus in the scriptures they are not the way to life and what are you going to do with that what are you going to do with that judgment God inviting you to turn to himself and so in the time that remains you know some of us we might be doing this in a new way for the first time that we're actually accepting this judgment and turning to find grace for for many of us it's coming for the 78th time off that throughout and doing it again and that's the whole point that's the whole point and so we're going to as always transition into a time for reflection for for music for prayer and I just encourage you man don't miss the moment if you sent the Lord's doing something inside of you and you're you're on a struggle to believe and accept God's judgment like pay attention to that don't let that go in inside of you so let me close the nest in a word of Prayer

Channel: Tim Mackie Archives

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Length: 60min 47sec (3647 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 16 2017