The Compassionate God

The Compassionate God

There's poison in his heart. Jonah doesn't want the Ninevites to become brothers and sisters inside of the family of God because they do not deserve God's mercy. God is trying to expose to Jonah the difference between the compassion in Jonah's heart and the compassion of the God that Jonah says he serves.

God's Heart for the World and His People

We're coming to the close of our study in the book of Jonah, and this wonderful story shows us two big issues. First, it reveals God's heart for the culture around us—God wants to save even nasty, vile societies. He sends his people into the culture with truth. The Ninevites heard truth and responded to it. They turned, they believed, and they repented. Chapter 3 is one of the most beautiful chapters in the Bible, showing what God wants to do with any nation, even today.

But the book of Jonah is also about maturing Christians in here. God wants to sanctify his people, making them more like Christ. This story is about you, me, and us—it's deeply relevant to our lives, not just what God wants to do out there.

The Abrupt Shift: From Revival to Resentment

Chapter 3 would beautifully end the book. Jonah could have written a bestseller: "How to Turn Pagans into Christians in Just Five Words." But Jonah doesn't want that—not because he's humble, but because his life is full of hatred. There's poison in his heart. He doesn't want the Ninevites to become God's people because they do not deserve God's great God.

When you move from chapter 3 into chapter 4, there's an abrupt shift. You get literary whiplash. How does a revivalist preacher holding a city revival not want anyone saved? Jonah is angry at God's will. He's upset with how God manages and stewards the salvation that he has every right to offer.

Point One: The Compassionate God Is Tender and Tough with His Children

This compassionate God is tender and tough with Jonah—gentle but firm, like a loving parent who is not a pushover. Early in chapter 4, verse 2, Jonah lists God's attributes, including that God is compassionate. Then, glancing down at verses 10 and 11, we zoom in on this one attribute: compassion.

Look at verse 10: "You had compassion on the plant." And verse 11: "Should I not have compassion on Nineveh?" This chapter is all about the compassion of God versus the compassion of Jonah.

What is compassion? Compassion means one is deeply moved inside oneself—emotionally stirred at the distress of others—and that stirring flows out in action to alleviate their suffering. It's not just a feeling; it's heart stirred, with flowing eyes and helping hands.

Jonah personally has experienced God's compassion. He has studied it academically—he went to Bible College and studied Exodus 34:6-7. He knows God is compassionate. Yet God doesn't rebuke him in anger. Instead, God gently asks questions and gives him an object lesson with the plant and the worm, so that Jonah can see the hypocrisy in his own heart.

The irony is this: Jonah is angry at God for not being angry at the Ninevites.

God treats Jonah with a heart that's stirred to flowing eyes and helping hands. Your God is compassionate toward his own. He's been gentle yet firm in my own life. But God is not just tender and tough with his children; he's tender and tough with all.

Point Two: The Compassionate God Is Tender and Tough with All

God's first approach to any person and any nation is usually with compassion. He was willing to pardon even Sodom and Gomorrah. He gave the Canaanites centuries to turn. He granted the Ninevites 40 days to turn. God is slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness.

That little sermon Jonah preached—"40 days and Nineveh will be destroyed"—is actually a compassionate sermon. Built into it is an opportunity for them not to be destroyed, for them to turn. It's like Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"—the title reads tough, but it's actually a tender sermon inviting people into a walk with God.

Three Prodding Questions

Three questions run through this final scene, gently yet firmly exposing the hypocrisy in Jonah's heart:

Question One (verse 4): "Are you right to be angry?" This deals with Jonah's skewed passion against people. Jonah is passionate, but his passion is against people being saved. He doesn't answer this question.

Question Two (verse 9): The same question again, but now it's about his heart toward a plant. It exposes not just his skewed passion against people, but his skewed priorities toward a plant idol. Jonah does answer this one: "Oh, I'm angry enough unto death." He's saying, "Give me back my precious little plant, and you can have your Ninevites, God."

Question Three (verse 11, the climax): "Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 people who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?" This question is intentionally left unanswered. You answer it.

God is asking: Should I not be concerned for a people that's lost? Whose only ability to understand truth is mediated through Israelites like you, Jonah, who've been called to tell the world about their great God? Should I not be concerned for them and for all the creatures I've created?

Of course God should. That's in keeping with why he made the world and why he created beings in his image and likeness.

Summary: Character Cutout Number Two

The compassionate God is tender and tough, wanting his people to copy his compassion too. God is not just telling Jonah what Jonah already knows academically, biblically, and experientially. He's teaching Jonah—and through Jonah, us—that he wants us to share in and show his compassion and priorities. He wants us to copy his compassion too.

Application: Cultivate God-Like Compassion

God has told us he's compassionate because he wants us to share in his compassion and channel his compassion, to replicate his compassion as his image-bearers in the world. Compassion is a shareable attribute of God.

Write this down: Cultivate God-like compassion in your life. Please develop a stirred heart with flowing eyes and helping hands toward those people around you, whatever their distress may be. Don't just well-wish people away and move on.

Yes, be tough on sin. I hate sin for its affront on God. I hate what sin has done to human beings. I'm tough on sin, but when I'm tough on sin, I must not forget to be tender toward those who are caught in the web of sin.

This takes work. This is obedience that comes from faith. Paul says in Colossians 3:12: "Clothe yourselves with compassion." In the morning, wash your face and beautify yourself. And please, put on some clothes. But if you're a Christian, here's another garment: compassion. Wear compassion, Christians. It's part of your attire.

How to Cultivate Compassion

First, feast on God's word. What your heart is exposed to, your heart ends up eating, and your heart ends up liking, and ultimately loving. Spend time with God in his word. In books like Jonah. Meditate on it. Chew on it. Absorb it. Be like a tree planted by streams of water. Because when you do, you will bear fruit.

Ask yourself regularly: Am I a walking contradiction like Jonah, God? Are my passions and my priorities skewed selfishly?

Second, study the life of Jesus Christ. When you study the Gospels, you will see that yes, Jesus does beautiful miraculous deeds, but usually a few words precede it: "moved by compassion" or "moved with compassion." It pops up all the time. Stirred in light of what he saw—people in distress—to the point where his eyes flow and his hands help. Compassion toward the leper, the blind, the lame, the crowds like sheep without a shepherd, the hungry.

The parable of the Good Samaritan—I like to call it the parable of the Good Ninevite this morning. A Samaritan came upon a man beaten and left for dead. Luke 10:33-34 says: "He felt compassion. And he came to him and bandaged up his wounds and poured oil and wine on them and put him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him."

You spend time with Jesus, and compassion develops. There's no doubt about it.

Third, get involved in the lives of other people. The people around you are hurting. They need help. They need believers whose hearts are stirred, whose eyes flow, and whose hands help. Position your life alongside other people regularly, and you will begin to cultivate and develop compassion. When your heart is exposed to that, it eats it up. You begin to hear their story, their hurts, their prayer requests. You walk in their shoes, and you develop compassion.

The Final Word

Remember: God's goal for Jonah is God's goal for you. He who began a good work in you wants to complete it until the day of Christ. Clothe yourself with compassion this week. We cannot be reluctant in what God is so passionate about. Begin to cultivate a stirred heart with flowing eyes and helping hands toward whoever God happens to put near you this week. That's God's will for your life. That's easy to do if you're fixated on the Lord Jesus Christ regularly.