The First Gospel: The Gospel According to Jonah | Josh Harrison
The Gospel According to Jonah: A Surprising Story of Grace
As we continue our journey through the First Gospel series, tracing God’s goodness on every page of the Old Testament, this week landed us squarely in one of the Bible’s shortest and most iconic books: Jonah. If you grew up in church, you probably think you know the story—rebellious prophet, giant fish, reluctant mission. But as Josh walks us through the text, it becomes clear that Jonah is far less about fish and far more about the radical, even offensive scope of God’s grace. In fact, Jonah’s four-chapter saga upends our instincts about justice, love, and what it means to be God’s people in a world of enemies.
Setting the Scene: Jonah’s Flight
Jonah doesn’t run from God out of simple terror or garden-variety reluctance; he bolts for Tarshish, not because he’s intimidated, but because he cannot stomach the idea of mercy for Nineveh—the pagan, oppressive, enemy capital of Assyria. Ash highlights a key distinction: Jonah’s refusal isn’t just fear, but fervent opposition to God’s extravagant forgiveness. When the storm breaks Jonah’s escape, it is not divine punishment but grace—a forceful redirection inviting him (and 120,000 lost Ninevites) into God’s bigger story. Jonah’s ordeal under the waves and inside the fish typifies a truth about God’s interventions: the storms in our lives are sometimes severe mercies, barriers raised not to destroy, but to rescue and reroute.
A Prayer in the Pit: Self-Absorption and Blind Spots
Inside the belly of the fish, Jonah prays—and it initially sounds like worship. But Josh draws our attention to something deeper: Jonah’s words are shot through with self-congratulation rather than true repentance. He sings of his righteousness and contrasts himself with those “clinging to worthless idols”—never realizing that his own moral vanity and self-righteousness are idols every bit as false. His hope is to get out and return to Jerusalem, perform his religious duties, and restore his spiritual comfort zone. But God has a different idea: the fish’s destination is Nineveh, and the real sacrifice God requires of Jonah is his obedience and willingness to bless his enemies.
Mercy in Nineveh: Offensive Grace
When Jonah finally, grudgingly obeys, the result is spectacular. The entire city, infamous for its violence and idolatry, repents in sackcloth and ashes—down to the livestock. God relents, forgiving the city with a sweeping mercy that, to Jonah’s mind, is profoundly unjust. Jonah responds not with joy, but rage: “I knew you would do this,” he complains, “…gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love.” This is the scandal at the heart of Jonah’s story (and of the gospel itself): God’s grace toward our adversaries, our personal antagonists, those who have caused pain and wreaked havoc, is just as real—and just as readily available—as his grace toward us.
A Lesson in Compassion: The Heart of God
The sermon ends outside Nineveh, in the blistering sun. God uses a leafy plant and a worm as an object lesson: Jonah grieves the loss of the plant, not out of compassion, but out of self-interest. By contrast, God is moved by compassion for 120,000 Assyrians—“who cannot tell their right hand from their left”—because they are his beloved, lost children. Josh invites us to confront the difference between human love (rooted in self-interest and tribalism) and divine compassion (rooted in sacrificial, universal mercy). The point is not just how much God loves, but who he loves. In the end, Jonah is a microcosm of all religious people who have forgotten that God’s forgiveness isn’t about us being right, but about God being good.
Key Lessons from This Sermon
God’s storms are rarely simply punishment—often they are gifts of severe mercy, redirecting us toward his purposes when we would otherwise destroy ourselves and others.
The greatest idols are not always physical or obvious: self-righteousness, spiritual pride, and moral exceptionalism can blind us to our need for grace just as surely as golden calves and pagan altars.
Radical forgiveness is the heart of God’s mission; his compassion for the unlovable, the enemy, the outsider, is the measure by which we know him—and are called to imitate him.
Our calling as followers of Jesus is not to curse our adversaries or merely rejoice in our chosen-ness, but to be agents of blessing—even (and especially) toward those who oppose us.
The story of Jonah refuses to let us dodge the messy reality of grace. It confronts our biases, our comforts, and our reluctance, and insists that the gospel is always bigger than our boundaries. To be children of God is, in the end, to love in the way he loves—even if it means forgiving our Nineveh.
