There were two fathers who lived next door to each other, and they each had a teenaged son.  Each father wanted to spend the day with his son in the garden; so they both told their sons that they’d be spending the Saturday working in the garden with Dad.

Both sons were also invited to the movies with their friends.

The first son told his friends:  “I can’t go to the movies, my dad is making me work with him in the garden.”

The second son told his friends:  “I don’t want to go to the movies, I get to work together with my dad in the garden today.”

Those of you who are fathers (and even those of you who aren’t), you know which response you’d prefer from your own son, right?

Our Father in heaven is no different.  He doesn’t just want obedience; he wants obedience from the heart.  Our Father in heaven wants us to obey Him because we find pleasure in being with him and accomplishing his will.

Some people might think that Jonah chapter 4 is totally unnecessary.  Jonah chapter 4 is unnecessary if God only cares about our obedience to him.  But he doesn’t.  God cares about our hearts.  God wants us to obey Him because it is our pleasure.

And we can see clearly why.  Consider: which son glorifies his Father?  Which son shows his father to be great?  The one who spends the day with his father because he has to?  Or the one who spends the day with his father because he wants to?

In chapter 3, God won Jonah’s obedience.  But that wasn’t enough for God.  God wants to be glorified.  He is most glorified when his people find pleasure in his will – in his glory.

He is glorified when his glory is our one pleasure.

Many people today see God as this authoritative father in heaven who demands complete obedience or else.  If this is who God is, then God got what he wanted and the book of Jonah should end with chapter 3.

But it doesn’t.

In chapter 1, we see Jonah on the run from God.

In chapter 2, we see Jonah repenting.

In chapter 3, we see Jonah obeying.

But the book of Jonah does not end with chapter 3.  The book of Jonah does not end with God being happy that he got heartless obedience from Jonah.  The book of Jonah ends with God working on Jonah’s heart, working to get Jonah to have one pleasure – working to get Jonah to find pleasure in the glory of the Father.

And we need to recognize:

God doesn’t demand obedience from Jonah because God needs Jonah to obey.  God demands obedience from Jonah because Jonah needs Jonah to obey.

Grab this:

God doesn’t demand obedience from you because God needs you to obey.  God demands obedience from you because you need you to obey.

Newsflash:  God doesn’t need you!

On the contrary, you need God.

That’s it.  That’s the essence of the message of Jonah chapter 4. 

We need God.  And the more we need him, the more he is glorified.

If our one pleasure is seeing Him glorified, then we are most satisfied when God is glorified.

I love this quote from Soren Kierkegaard:  “Purity of heart is to will one thing.”

And didn’t Jesus himself say, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” ?

If you have a pure heart – if all you really want is God to be glorified, you will see God!  What a promise!

Do you want a pure heart?  Do you want to will one thing?

Think of 100% pure orange juice.  What makes orange juice pure?  It is pure because there is nothing else in there.  100% pure orange juice is just that – orange juice.  No apple juice mixed in.  No corn syrup.  No additives.  No preservatives.  Nothing but orange juice.

Is your heart pure?  Is your heart’s desire to see God glorified?

Or is there some 20% “I want a comfortable life” and 10% “I want to be rich” and some 15% “I want people to like me” ?

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

God wants us to have a pure heart because God wants what is best for us – for us to see Him!

In Jonah 4, we see God loving Jonah.  We see God working on Jonah’s heart for Jonah’s good – that Jonah would be pure in heart and see God.

Would you welcome God to come in and work on your heart?

Do you want to glorify God?  Do you want to join God in working for your own pleasure and for his glory?  Do you want to have the one pleasure?

In Jonah 4, we see three things that God is doing in Jonah – and that He is working to accomplish in us as well.  So what can we do to join him?

First we can: Own TheMission

We read in Jonah 4:1-3:  But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.  And he prayed to the LORD and said, "O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.  Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live."

Do you see what is happening in these verses?  Jonah wanted God to destroy Nineveh, but the people repented, and now Jonah is praying to God to die!  “Take my life, LORD, I’d rather die than share your heart of compassion for the people of Nineveh.”

Can you believe this?  Jonah just preached at one of the most effective evangelism crusades in history.  Jonah’s preaching brought an evil and violent city of 120,000 to its knees before God.  And now he’s asking God to kill him? 

“C’mon God, let me die.  I didn’t want my preaching to be effective!  I didn’t want them to respond!”

Does Jonah own the mission?  God’s mission is to bring people into intimacy with himself.  God’s mission is to be compassionate and merciful.  God’s mission is to glorify his own name.

And Jonah doesn’t own the mission.  He doesn’t share God’s heart.  Jonah doesn’t find pleasure in God’s will – in God’s glory.

God is working for your good as well.  God has a priority; he wants you to be with him in finding pleasure in His glory.

Own the mission.  Desire his glory above all else!

Ask God to give you his heart.  Tell God that you want to feel as he feels and will as he wills.

Tell him now.

And what else can we do to join God in working for our own pleasure and for his glory?  We can: Need Him

We read in Jonah 4:4-5:  And the LORD said, "Do you do well to be angry?"  Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city.

Notice the LORD’s question:  “Do you do well to be angry?”

God is concerned for Jonah’s wellness.  If God only cared about obedience, He would have been pleased with Jonah.  But God doesn’t just want obedience; he wants Jonah’s heart.  God wants Jonah to need him.  Does God need Jonah to need Him?  No, God is not co-dependent!  God is concerned about Jonah.  God wants Jonah to need God for Jonah’s sake.

Do you recognize your need for Him?

Does Jonah do well to be angry?  Does Jonah do well ignoring God?  What do you think, is Jonah in a good place?  Is he emotionally, physically and spiritually healthy?  Of course not!  Look at him!  He is sitting out in the scorching wind and burning hot sun sulking over a city because it still exists!  If Jonah were alive today, he’d be stuck in an insane asylum!  Jonah is in desperate need of having God’s heart!

Here we see God desiring to work for Jonah’s good.  God wants Jonah to find pleasure in what God finds pleasure in.  Since Jonah’s heart is on the wrong track, God initiates a conversation with Jonah: “Do you do well to be angry?”

Hey, Jonah – is it good for you to be angry?

We see Jonah’s response in verse 5:  Jonah went out of the city and sat down to watch.   Jonah is essentially saying:  “God, I don’t want what you want.  I want the city to burn.  And I am just going to go watch the city and see if you do what I want.  I don’t want to talk about it with you.  I’m just going to withdraw from you and sulk and see if I get my way.”

Sounds like us sometimes?

Things don’t go our way, so close our ears to God.

What does Jonah need most right now?  He needs God!  He needs to open up his heart to God.  He needs to talk to God.

God asks Jonah a question, and Jonah gives God the silent treatment.

When your life is not going the way you want it to, what do you do?  Do you respond to God’s questions of you?  Do you converse with God?  Do you seek him in prayer?

Or do you refuse to talk it out with God.

God loves us!  God wants to talk it out with us.  He wants us to realize that:

What we need most is… HIM.

And now let’s move on to the third things that we can do to work for our own good and for His glory; we can: Employ “Circumstances”  Employ circumstances to bring you closer to God.

We read in Jonah 4:6-11:  Now the LORD God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant.  But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered.  When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, "It is better for me to die than to live."  But God said to Jonah, "Do you do well to be angry for the plant?" And he said, "Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die."  And the LORD said, "You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night.  And should not I pity Nineveh , that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?"

Question: why is God only making Jonah more miserable?  Why does God appoint a plant to come up over Jonah for shade… only to take it away?  Doesn’t that sound cruel?

Why does God appoint a scorching east wind?  Isn’t that cruel?  Why does God bring Jonah once again to the point of saying, “It is better for me to die than to live?”

Have you ever been there?  Have you ever said that to God?  Have circumstances in life every gotten so lousy that you said to God, “I just want to die!”

There is something we need to realize from Jonah’s experience: these are not just ‘circumstances!’  This misery is not by chance!  God loves Jonah!  And God wants Jonah to find the ultimate pleasure of living for His glory.

That is what Jonah really needs.  That’s what I need.  That’s what you need.

And God will allow (and even bring about) lousy ‘circumstances’ to come into our lives so that we’ll turn to him and share his pleasure in his own glory.

If all you care about is God’s glory, then when bad things happen to you, you will still find pleasure in God (not in the circumstances, but in God).  You will be able to look past the circumstances and want one thing – God to be glorified.  If all you care about is God’s glory, then circumstances cannot ruin you!

God may permit the devil himself to inflict your life with the worst of the worst (you might think of Job as an example); but if you employ circumstances on your behalf – if you use circumstances to help you grow closer to God, then the Devil will not (and cannot) win!

In verses 10-11 we read:  And the LORD said, "You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night.  And should not I pity Nineveh , that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?"

And the book of Jonah ends with this question.  We can’t help but wonder what happens to Jonah.  Did he get it?  Did he finally agree with God?  Did he in the end have a changed heart that found pleasure in God’s mercy and grace to the Ninevites?  Did he in the end care about God’s glory and find pleasure in God’s glory alone?

Or did Jonah die an angry man - upset with God for not working things out according to Jonah’s will?

We’ll never know.

But maybe that isn’t the important question, either.  Maybe the most important question pertains to me… and to you.

Will we get it?  Will we get the big picture?  Will we understand and live out the truth that it is all about God’s glory?  Will we join God in having one pleasure?

Will we take the example of Jonah and not make the mistake of rejecting God?

Don’t make God turn your life into an example of what not to do!

Check out this encouraging poster:

(SLIDE) 

Don’t let your life be one big mistake. 

Will you give your heart to God and seek your pleasure in His glory and not in your own idea of “how life should be?”

And when you find pleasure in his glory, then He will be more glorified.

And when you see him glorified, you will then find more pleasure.

Your one pleasure.  His glory.

What a way to live!

Let’s pray.