Mercy is a powerful thing. When you think deeply about it, it becomes a little overwhelming and shocking at times. You need mercy every single day of your life and there are people in your life who need mercy every day. God’s Word tells us God’s “mercy is new every morning” (Lam. 3:22-23, NASB). Listen closely, God will never ask you to forgive someone else more than He has already forgiven you. He will never ask you to be more merciful toward someone more than He has shown mercy to you.

What God gives to us, He expects to go through us

What we must understand about God is what He gives to us, He expects to go through us. When God shows us mercy, He expects that mercy to go through us to others. To us and through us. God loves us so we can love others. To us and through us. God forgives us so we can forgive others. To us and through us. God is kind to us so we can be kind to others. To us and through us.

  • Lamentations 3:22 says, “It is because of the Lord’s [mercy] that we are not consumed” (AMP). If it wasn’t for God’s mercy, your sin would consume you. But it is God’s mercy that keeps you from being completely devoured by your own selfishness.
  • If you ever need a good dose of God’s mercy, then read Psalm 136. In it, 26 times, it says God’s mercy endures forever. God’s mercy endures forever. God’s mercy endures forever. Read it out loud and it will start to sink in.
  • 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (NASB). God is the Father of mercy. He is the one who created mercy. There would be no mercy if it were not for God. Notice the mercy comes in the form of comfort and once you are comforted with God’s mercy you are to comfort others who need mercy as well. What God gives you should flow through you. To you and through you.
  • Psalm 145:8 says, The Lord is gracious and compassionate; slow to anger and great in mercy (NASB). God is abundant in mercy. His mercy is boundless.

The book of Jonah is about the mercy of God. What is God’s mercy? God’s mercy is His love, kindness, and compassion toward people. I want to show you four things about God’s mercy from the book of Jonah.

God’s mercy is undeserved

Number one, God’s mercy is undeserved. Even though Jonah disobeys God initially, we see God’s mercy extended toward the Ninevites in the way God calls Jonah to go and preach to them in hopes that they might turn and repent from their sins and turn to God.  

Jonah 1:1-2 says, The word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and cry out against it, because their wickedness has come up before Me” (NASB). Who were the Ninevites?

  • The Ninevites were Assyrians. They were called Ninevites because they lived in the city of Nineveh. Nineveh was the capital city of the Assyrian empire.
  • The Assyrians were a ruthless and godless people. They were notorious for their savage brutality regarding wartime practices. When they would conquer a city they would impale people on stakes, they would rape the women, burn the children, chop off hands, cut off heads, rip out tongues, skin people alive, mutilate the dead, pillage and burn the cities.
  • The prisoners of war they would take they would string them together like fish with hooks through their jaws or noses and march them off to Assyria and take them as prisoners of war.

They were wicked, evil, and brutal. Yet, God says to Jonah, “Their wickedness has come up to me. I have noticed their cruelty and their sins. I want you to go preach to them in hopes they might turn from their evil ways and turn to me.” God is saying to Jonah that these people are worth saving. This is God’s way.

In Ezekiel 33:11 God says, “I take no pleasure at all in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live” (NASB). God longs to be merciful to everyone on the planet. We want to see the wicked die, God wants to see the wicked repent and turn to Him and live. God’s mercy is undeserved.

God’s mercy is unexpected

But there is something else you need to see about God’s mercy. Number two, God’s mercy is unexpected. Sometimes the way God expresses His mercy is not what we expected, nor what we wanted. We definitely see this with Jonah.

In Jonah 1:2 God says to Jonah, “Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and cry out against it, because their wickedness has come up before Me.” Instead of going to Nineveh, Jonah goes to Tarshish the opposite direction. Tarshish was 2000 miles away. He gets on a ship headed to Tarshish.

Then in verse 4, we are told, “However, the Lord hurled a great wind on the sea and there was a great storm on the sea, so that the ship was about to break up. Then the sailors became afraid and every man cried out to his god, and they hurled the cargo which was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them.” So, they woke Jonah up and asked him to pray to his god with the hopes his god may do something. According to verse 10, Jonah tells them he is fleeing from his God. He basically tells them, “I am the cause of the storm. This storm, your loses that you threw overboard, and any damage to your ship is because of me, because I’m out of God’s will and I’m running from Him.” Jonah knows the storm is raging around him because God is trying to get his attention. Jonah also realizes that these men are going to get caught up in the storm because of his own sin. Get rid of me, throw me overboard and it will go well with you. If I go away, the storm will go away for you.

Instead of throwing Jonah overboard like he recommended, these men with good intentions began to row desperately to land, but the storm just kept getting worse. The harder they tried to get to land the more the storm raged. Out of desperation we read in verse 15, “So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea stopped its raging” (NASB). But then we read in verse 17, “And the Lord designated a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish for three days and three nights” (NASB).

Now remember, our point is God’s mercy is unexpected. For Jonah that means God’s mercy was in the storm to get his attention and God’s mercy was in the great fish that swallowed him. As difficult and painful as those things are, God is using the storm and the fish to get Jonah where he needs to be. At the time, that did not look like or feel like God’s mercy and love and kindness and compassion, but it was.

God’s mercy comes in different forms. Sometimes it comes in the form of a storm or a great fish that swallows you up. God’s mercy is unexpected. Sometimes we can’t see the mercy of God because it comes in forms that we weren’t expecting or struggle to recognize. So we dismiss it, we don’t really see it as the mercy of God. We don’t recognize it as the mercy of God. Sometimes its unpleasant. At the moment it is uncomfortable. Sometimes at the moment its inconvenient. But perhaps God has brought it along in order to reorder our steps if it was just for the day or for the rest of your life. God’s mercy shows up in big ways or small ways.

I think God’s mercy shows up in many ways.

  • You get behind the slowest driver in the world, maybe God’s mercy is protecting you from something worse down the road.
  • Your flight is delayed, maybe that is God’s mercy.
  • That relationship you were so excited about has ended. God’s mercy may have been protecting you.
  • The loss of a job, that leads you to another job in another city. Maybe that God’s compassion and kindness protecting you.

At first, I don’t think Jonah recognized the great fish as an act of God’s mercy, but eventually he does.

At some point Jonah does recognize being in the belly of the great fish is God’s mercy because he says in chapter 2:7, “As my life was slipping away, I remembered the Lord. And my earnest prayer went out to you in your holy Temple. Those who worship false gods turn their backs on all God’s mercies. But I will offer sacrifices to you with songs of praise, and I will fulfill all my vows. For my salvation comes from the Lord alone.” God wants to be merciful to us. Jonah was given mercy he didn’t deserve, but Jonah admits that if we cling to worthless things that take the place of God, we could end up forsaking that mercy.

So it’s in the belly of the great fish that Jonah sees the mercy of God upon his life. Do find yourself in the middle of a storm and you fill like your life has been swallowed up? Is it possible that God’s mercy is at work behind the storm in order to get your attention and reorder your steps and to get you where you need to go, back in the middle of God’s will?

Once Jonah cried out to God and recognized God’s mercy, he says something at the end of chapter 2 in verse 10, “Then the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land” (NASB). Now he is back where he started, but this time he is  headed to Nineveh.

God’s mercy is unbiased

God’s mercy is undeserved. God’s mercy is unexpected. Number three, God’s mercy is unbiased. God doesn’t discriminate with his mercy. He loves all. Jesus died for all. And He extends mercy to all.

Jonah 3 begins by saying, Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you.” So Jonah got up and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days walk. Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, “Forty more days, and Nineveh will be overthrown.” Then the people of Nineveh believed in God…. By the time you get to the end of chapter 3 in verse 10 we read this incredible statement, When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their evil way, then God relented of the disaster which He had declared He would bring on them. So He did not do it (NASB). They believed in God and repented, and God showed them mercy by relenting of the disaster which He had declared He would bring on them. God’s mercy, compassion, love, and kindness are on full display with the Ninevites.

There are actually two demonstrations of God’s mercy here.

  • First, with Jonah. Verse 1 says, “Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time….” That’s God’s mercy. How many of you are thankful for a second chance to be used by God, to hear from God, and to do it right when you blew and ignore God the first time? Can anyone testify to the point that you feel like with where your life is right now, that God has given you a second chance at life?
  • Second, with the Ninevites. God’s mercy is in full display by withholding the disaster that was headed toward the Ninevites for their sin. Let me stop right here and say, if you are actively involved in a sin and disobeying God is it possible that a disaster is headed your way because of that sin? Is it possible that disaster can be avoided if you turn to Jesus and repent of that sin? Yes. God’s mercy is unbiased, undeserved. You may not have done what the Ninevites did, but we are still all sinners in need of God’s mercy.

You would think that is the end of the story. Jonah finally delivers God’s message to the people, they believe God, they repent of their wickedness and evil ways, and the greatest revival in history occurs. The end. But no. God says to Jonah, I need you to write one more chapter about all this and it’s about you. This brings us to number four.

God’s mercy is unlimited

God’s mercy is undeserved, unexpected, and unbiased. Number four, God’s mercy is unlimited. Look at the beginning of chapter 4 in verse 1, But it greatly displeased Jonah, and he became angry. Then he prayed to the Lord and said, “Please Lord, was this not what I said when I was still in my own country? Therefore in anticipation of this I fled to Tarshish, since I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in mercy, and One who relents of disaster. So now, Lord, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life.” But the Lord said, “Do you have a good reason to be angry?” (NASB).

Then Jonah left the city and sat down east of it. There he made a shelter for himself and sat under it in the shade, until he could see what would happen in the city. 6 So the Lord God designated a plant, and it grew up over Jonah to be a shade over his head, to relieve him of his discomfort. And Jonah was overjoyed about the plant. 7 But God designated a worm when dawn came the next day, and it attacked the plant and it withered. 8 And when the sun came up God designated a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he became faint, and he begged with all his soul to die, saying, “Death is better to me than life!” 9 But God said to Jonah, “Do you have a good reason to be angry about the plant?” And he said, “I have good reason to be angry, even to the point of death!” 10 Then the Lord said, “You had compassion on the plant, for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. 11 Should I not also 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 hand and their left, as well as many animals?” (NASB)

Jonah did not want to see the Ninevites lives turn to God and get better and be blessed by God. He wanted to see them die. He hated them that much! Is there someone who has hurt you so much and caused so much pain in your life that you would want them to die? Should God not also have compassion on them? God’s mercy is unlimited. God gave mercy to Jonah. God gave mercy to the Ninevites. God gave mercy to you, and He wants to give mercy to one who has hurt you the most.

Conclusion

Let God’s mercy that has flowed to you, flow through you. Receive God’s mercy and give God’s mercy.