Bible Passage: Jonah 3:4-11
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: September 20, 2026

Bulletin – September 20, 2026

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus,

Before us this morning is this wonderful thing we Christians call grace.  Maybe somewhere along the line you were taught this as a definition of grace: grace is God’s undeserved love for sinners.  Do you ever linger over that thought?  God loves sinners!  Broken, rebellious human beings!  Broken, rebellious human beings…like ME!  There is a hymn that is a favorite for many Christians that sings of grace.  You know the one.  Amazing Grace.  Maybe you even know it by heart:  “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound!  That saved a wretch like me!  I once was lost but now am found.  Was blind, but now I see.”

Before us this morning is a man named Jonah.  You remember Jonah.  Jonah is the one who spends three days in the belly of a fish and then gets puked out.  In our text, Jonah sees God’s grace on full display.  And he doesn’t like it, at all!  In fact, if Jonah were to write a hymn about grace it might go like this:  “Amazing grace!  It makes me mad!  God loves the people there!  They’re dirty, rotten – really bad!  And yet God says, “I care.”  For Jonah, God’s grace was Amazing, Infuriating Grace.  The Lord will help Jonah come to a better understanding of grace.

We mentioned a moment ago that Jonah is probably best remembered for being swallowed by the great fish.  That all ties in with our text.  You see, the Lord had come to Jonah and told him to travel to the Assyrian capital of Nineveh and call them to repentance for their sin.  So the first thing Jonah does after the Lord calls him to do this is get on a ship and sail west on the Mediterranean Sea, the opposite direction of where the Lord told him to go!  Jonah was then thrown overboard from this ship and that is when the Lord sent that fish to swallow him, bring him back to the shore and puke him out.

Why did Jonah do that?  Why did he defy the Lord that way?  Why did he try to run away?  Because the Lord had called him to go and preach grace to the people of Nineveh!  Nineveh was the capital of the nation of Assyria.  Assyria was an enemy of Israel.  History tells us that at this time, Assyria took warfare to new heights.  The Assyrians became masters not only of warfare,  but they became masters of psychological warfare.  The Assyrians would impale captives on poles or flay them alive to terrorize and demoralize their foes.  Now the Lord calls upon Jonah to go to the capital city of this blood-thirsty nation and preach to these people!  We can understand Jonah’s reluctance!  But after the “fish incident,” Jonah goes.

He preaches to the Ninevites.  It was a serious sermon.  Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned. (Jonah 3:4)  What good is preaching the Word going to do in an unholy place like Nineveh?  One might expect that the story of Jonah ends with the Ninevites taking Jonah outside the city and impaling him on a pole.  Done and done!  But that is NOT what happens.  We are told, The Ninevites believed God. (3:5).  They fast.  They put on sackcloth, the garb of sorrow.  The king issues a decree that the entire city is to call urgently upon God.  Our text tells us:  When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened. (3:10)  That is amazing grace!

And it infuriated Jonah!  But to Jonah all this seemed very bad, and he became very angry. (4:1)  He’s got to tell the Lord how upset he is.  He says to the Lord, “I knew this would happen!  I just knew it!  That’s why I tried to run away!  I knew you would be gracious and merciful to these heathens!  Just kill me now!”  Oh my.   The Lord will help Jonah appreciate grace.  Jonah goes and sits on a hill opposite Nineveh to see what will happen.  Maybe the Lord still has a few lightning bolts he will send?  Wouldn’t want to miss that!  The Lord causes a vine to grow up and provide shade for Jonah.  Jonah was very happy about the plant. (v. 6)  Then the Lord sent a worm that killed the vine.  Then the Lord sent a scorching east wind.  Jonah is miserable.  Again Jonah says, “Just kill me now!”  The Lord asks Jonah, “Jonah, really?  It’s a plant.”

Now the Lord will apply the lesson of the vine.  He says to Jonah, “You are so concerned about this vine.  It made you so happy when it sprung up!  It made you so angry when it died you want to die, too.  For a vine!  Jonah, there are over 120,000 people, human beings with souls, in the city of Nineveh!  Shouldn’t I be concerned for them?”  The Lord’s words abruptly end the book of Jonah, and this lesson on grace.

Have we learned the lesson of grace from Jonah’s story?  Does God’s grace ever infuriate you?  “God loves them?”  Who are your “Assyrians”?  Those of a certain race or ethnicity?  Those of a certain culture or lifestyle?  Those who dress a certain way, or put certain yard signs in their lawn?  Like Jonah and his vine, do you get more upset over a Packers’ or Badgers’ loss than you do over the lost souls of men?  We can run away from them.  That doesn’t usually end well – might end up smelling like a fish’s innards.  Or we can embrace the beautiful truth, “Amazing grace!  How sweet the sound!”  And we can humbly, penitently realize it’s for “them” too!  Either grace is grace for everybody, or it is grace for nobody.

Want to know how amazing God’s grace is?  God will use this pouty, mouthy prophet to be a part in the greatest grace-story ever told.  The story of the death and resurrection of Jesus!  Jonah was a type, or a prefigurement, of Christ.  Once when the people demanded that Jesus perform a sign to prove his claims, he said, None will be given…except the sign of Jonah.  For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. (Matthew 12:39-40)  How about that! Wherever the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection is told, mention will be made of a mouthy, pouty prophet who foreshadowed the death and resurrection of God’s Son!  A death and resurrection for the salvation of all people – for pouty, mouthy Jonah, for the wicked, violent Assyrians, for you and me, and every person you will ever meet or see on TV.  That’s grace!  Amazing grace!

Amen.